Encounter density
 

One of the reviews of ELEX praised the game for its "density" in the sense that there's something to do that's interesting around every corner.

However, I would rather see these interesting things spread out over a larger geographic area. Let's say, 5 interesting things per square mile instead of 50. (Without lowering the total number of interesting things, of course.)

This is one of my criticisms of D:OS and to a lesser degree F:NV. You were literally tripping over encounter after encounter because there were so many of them in close proximity. I never felt this way about the original Fallouts or other isometric RPGs from that era, though I guess they all "faked" the true size of the world by using a dedicated world map in combination with a more abstract method of travel.

What are your thoughts on encounter "density"?

Yeah, I hear ya. Back in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, it got a painful. Skyrim was a bit better but it still seemed like there a dastardly cave in every mole hill and a terrible wrong that needed righting after every bend in the road. Even when you're just talking about monster encounters, they're really way too dense. I remember our party setting off powers that would light up the night sky and make a racket that could be easily heard 5 blocks away in City of Heroes but the spawn just 50ft away wouldn't ever even notice.

But I really don't know a solution for it that would work for the masses - or even for just me in the long term. You can keep folks like me entertained with gorgeous, detailed graphics for quite a while but eventually even we'll want to just PLAY THE GAME without having to walk a quarter mile to find it. Speaking (well, writing) of which - you better put some beacons on those quests because otherwise they'll be ridiculously hard to find.

I read that Zelda: Breath of the Wild of all games is pretty good in this regard, though I don't have a Switch to play it with.

I prefer dense. The larger the game world the more likely I am to miss things unless there is a fog of war. DA:I was just too big and full of emptiness and I thought it would of been better if it was half as big but with the same core quests and the removal of the filler quests.

My vote is no on that.
I don't care about the size, gimme content variety.

No, I'm not talking about sex preferences. Or perhaps I am. Let's leave it at that. :p
Dunno what you've read but the new Zelda is copypasted Ubisoft towers game. Means, count me not interested.

Hmm, I think the broader problem here is that for most RPG developers "something to do that's interesting" inevitably means (mandatory) combat. At least some of the classics very often (if not always) gave you the option, with the right approach, to potentially avoid combat if you so choose. In modern RPGs, with a few exceptions, that is less likely to be an option. Even if your game's combat system is phenomenal, you can only fight the same types of enemies so many times before it becomes dull.

Even Fallout 1 / 2 and Baldur's Gate have issues with tedious random encounters, but at least there were a lot of interesting encounters that didn't have to be combat. Perhaps it's because I don't have as much free time as I used to, but I just don't want to spend hours and hours just fighting any more. I like a nice mix of interesting dialogue, puzzles / side quests, and some challenging combat.

I mean, it's not like I want RPGs to be "walking simulators" that simply have fewer enemies. I just want more CRPGs to give you multiple approaches; stealth, parley / deception , or fighting, rather than just fight after fight. Thus, I don't necessarily think there's so much a problem with "density", as much as lack of variety.

I agree combats are the favorite fillers for RPG. But I don't think that most dev believe it's the most interesting filling.

The source of the problem is that in real time most players don't realize it's the same repeated at nauseam with only some minor variations sometimes. Have the action stress keeping them busy and generating some adrenalin is enough. So that's an efficient and easy filling once you have a combat system, then "design" a combat is just throw a pack of enemies so you can design plenty and even it's easy pretend they are random. It's much more difficult to design some puzzling, tricks, complex dialog relationship, secrets, stuff to find, more.

So most RPG that fill mainly with repetitive combats, use mostly only combats with no design but the pack of enemies thrown somewhere. There are exceptions like some Rip Bioware games where most combats have a specific tuned design. But usually combat fillers mean repetition and if you aren't sensible to the illusion of real time stress, it becomes very tedious very fast. A curse one me that grown with age.

For TB RPG the abuse is seen more easily more quickly, still a game like DOS1 classic has at least 50% of combats that are just repetitive fillers, so TB RPG doesn't avoid the problem, but to really work, TB combats need more design effort in each combat.

Again I agree, for me it changes all, I would add, secrets, stuff to find, hints/information to decipher and link to the context, details to notice (from item to grab to mid hidden path you could not notice), some interesting and diversified combats (challenging is a too restrictive aspect), alternate activities can be quite cool too, like a hunt, fishing pearls (Morrowind), or just fishing, figure the path to reach a destination, more.

I don't even need that those activities are complex, it's cool when some are complex, but it's more important to have many different things to do.

I'll pick a recent example, Battle Chasers Nightwar have all areas designed as dungeons and with a high level filling, many secrets, many stuff to find, many little hidden thing, many cool lore real stories (not some boredom history school book), many traps to be aware of and manage including many type of traps, enemies you could lure or sneak a bit and manage when and how you fight them, even a few sneaking possibilities (but as a tool for secondary purpose, not or not much for managing something with stealth). And so on.

Alas the excellent diversity is also because areas don't need be the terrain combat, so they can be a lot more dense with many obstacles and details. That aspect plus the excellent effort on filling and filling diversity is making one of the best filling I ever played, but the challenge level is low. I don't care about this last point, but i know some players will hate it.

For filling and choices on how achieve an objective, I don't think there's a relation. Filling is about walking without to do anything. Filling is about having activities and have them diversified. Choice is only one type of activity, and a player tool to increase diversity himself. But it's not choices that will make a good filling. You could choose a combat or a stealth to solve a problem, but have a poor filling once you have decided.

About excessive filling, I can understand a few games games are going very far, with a filling some players can feel excessive. But that's extreme rarity, poor filling is a lot more frequent.

Also in reality filling can't be excessive if it wasn't players with some light mental troubles :-) which is named obsession of completion.

Completion is an illusion if there's any choices. You choose combat instead of stealth and you failed your completion goal, you wont know what was stealth in that part of the game.

Moreover completion is a bad management of psychology. Let non achieved stuff, unexplored areas, is to let open wide worlds and wide amount of possibilities, it keeps mystery to the RPG world, it keeps your imagination alive. At reverse exhaust all borders destroy this feeling and makes the world limited and mechanical.

Even more, I know many players don't have time to play, and consider replay as a waste. But with RPG and party building, and even more with choices, they choose a wrong genre. RPG are bound to be replayed. In that perspective let many activities for next plays is a smart move. So nope there's never excessive filling, and the bad DOS2 reviews I saw about that are non sense from someone not realizing he should consult to solve his minor mental trouble.

Now to be honest, completionist is certainly also an acquired taste, that learned lazy design to players. The lazy design is typically that the most important tool is hidden in the area and you get no clue on it, just chance or completion will allow find it. Such lazy design encouraged RPG players to learn to be completionists.