Am I wrong or is this the WOOOOORST?

I love Dishonored, and the DLC is amazing, but the last level of the last DLC has infinitely respawning enemies everywhere. It's so annoying. First off I like clearing rooms, secondly if I need to backtrack I don't want to kill everyone all over again and lastly it just doesn't make much sense, logically.

The "Shock" games: same thing.

Can respawning enemies every work for you?

Nope. Random battles is the worst!

Agreed, terrible. Random spawns or encounters in an open world (ala Ultima 1-5) is fine, but repeat encounters and worse, repeat encounters in enclosed structures are awful.

Agreed. A friend told me about the last level in the new DLC and now I'm reluctant to even play but then again you can always lower the difficulty to Easy temporarily as long as the 'wave' is active.

As for random battles they can work depending on situation and execution. I always hated random battles in japanese style RPGs such as Pokémon where you entered a certain area just randomly an enemy jumped you. A game where I liked the random battles was Dragon Age Origins but that's a while ago, I'm much less tolerant for anything of this sort nowadays.

No, I don't think it is the worst. As with most game mechanics it has its place. I think it works fine in Oblivion, Little Big Adventure and the Zelda gameboy games for example.

And what would pokemon be without random battles? :P (I admit that they can be a little annoying at times though)

Does Diablo count? When you stop playing and come back the baddies from your previous session have returned. I like that because it makes leveling up easier, every other kind of respawning sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls, IMO. :D

I meant as I wanted to see the pokémons on screen and then they would run towards you or just stay dormant depending if they're hostile in their nature. The whole randomness just felt wrong.

I'm also not a fan of respawning enemies. One of my most hated was the Alone in the Dark remake. Enemies respawned... ammo and supplies did NOT. You were forced to backtrack (often many, many times pending how well you could read the devs minds) and every single time you entered certain rooms new enemies would be there.... every single time.

HATE IT!

Its right up there with escort missions... they are a crux. In some games (emphasis SOME), I understand people like to fight swarms of enemies, play survival modes, etc. but I loathe this mechanic as a way to mix up gameplay in games were it doesn't belong (adventure games, RPG, story based FPS, etc)

I want to take my time, explore, backtrack, etc. respawning enemies serves nothing more than as a frustration, IMHO.

SHIT, I forgot about Metroid. Without respawn you can't really even play it.

I also think the way it works in Diablo is acceptable, even positive to be honest. Yeah, escort missions are horrible, even worse if the AI for the NPC you're escorting or the enemies (if they like to target your escort only) isn't working as intended.

Only Diablo 2 and 3 but it is a feature to ppl farm for items.Diablo 1 if my memory serves right doesnt have that.

As for respawn mobs depends on what type like Castlevania, metroid,etc it feels the game not so empty games like Baldur gate (where you save the game in a cave for example and if you do load almost or even all enemies respawns)
for me it killed the game or even worst System Shock 2 where heard stories about ppl not having ammo for the constant respawn.

Escort missions are really hard to make good. The only ones I can think of that are ok are those in Warcraft 3. Also there is a short segment in Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast where you have to protect a R2 unit so it can open doors for you. That one wasn't too bad either.

I do know that I have played through some very frustrating escort missions though, just can't remember what games they were in.

I guess that is an example of it being done right. Still, it wouldn't have to be every time you leave the area. They could strategically respawn enemies at certain story points, like the Gothic games do.

My first reaction to the thread title was "Far Cry 2"; easily the worst offender.

As much as I do usually hate it (I too like to clear an area), I think it made sense in System Shock 2. It would have killed the atmosphere if you knew you were completely safe at any given moment. That might be the exception where it's tolerable... horror games and the like where it's important that you're always on the edge of your seat.