Why do people enjoy this game?

General discussion about the game.
shadowcrust
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby shadowcrust » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:38 am

Twinge wrote:I came back to it, got better, and proved that luck is not required to win in front of hundreds of people.


Aha! I forgot who it was, but I remembered someone stating that luck is not required. I maintain that you're misrepresenting the results of your experiment. You showed that a winning streak of 18 is possible using all ship types, but you have not shown at all that no luck is required to win.
Braydon
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby Braydon » Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:59 am

If you have trouble with borders it may also be a good idea to try and get two of the kestrel achievements as that will unlock layout B which has a stronger crew. In general I find red tail better as it has better crew and the layout makes it easier to drain oxygen and kill boarders.
stvip
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby stvip » Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:04 am

Some of the disagreement probably stems from different contextual meaning of the word 'luck'. The game isn't luck-based in the sense that skill is unimportant, nor that the degree of effect skill has isn't significant, nor that the win chances of even a moderately experienced player are low (let's say below 80-90%). However, that doesn't mean the converse is true - that chance (or "luck") plays no significant part. Obviously it does, both in the general sense that it affects gameplay on the micro scale (eg: whether a specific shot will hit), the macro scale (in general how difficult the run was), and also in the sense that some rare freak occurences can trump even "perfect play" (a problematic term in itself, both because determining what is truly the perfect move requires some considerable analysis, and because humans are not capable of maintaining such play consistently) and lead to defeat. Personally, I'm skeptical of Twinge's cited number of expecting a 99.8% win rate, but do expect good players to win the vast majority of times (on vanilla FTL, Normal).

And why do people enjoy this game? Because skill-based games with a degree of chance are something that is almost universally liked by humans. Engis might disagree. (Mantises are too busy eating my family right now to contribute)
Last edited by stvip on Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby 5thHorseman » Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:07 am

Luck is a result, not a cause. And you do not "need" it by my definition.

Luck is when something bad should happen but it doesn't. It's actually shorthand for "good luck."

To win every game of FTL, you do need a little bit of "not bad luck" which is different from "good luck."

Bad luck is cloaking the DA-SR 12 and then getting hit by a missile in the cloak, disabling it and starting a fire, and then getting beamed from weapons to pilot room right before the next missile is fired which hits your engines. And when you finally get the engines and pilot room up long enough to charge the FTL and jump your flaming 4-hp hulk of a ship away, you get boarded by 5 mantises.

The lack of that happening in the game though is NOT good luck. That's normal play.

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shadowcrust
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby shadowcrust » Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:22 am

In my exegesis, saying "it requires no luck" is the same as saying "winnable by a flawless player under any circumstances" (in the context of FTL). This is an extreme statement and as such it is relatively easily proved wrong. Consequently, that bold statement has been contradicted (or let's say taken back) in the other thread, because it so obviously is incorrect. Now the correct exegesis of Twinge's "it requires no luck" is "I've been super lucky so far, therefore I feel no luck is required to win", see here

;)
catsclaw
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby catsclaw » Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:22 pm

5thHorseman wrote:You vented ALL the air in the ship? Don't do that.

Vent ALL the air in the ship EXCEPT the medbay and cockpit. Boarders won't stay in an air-free room if there is a room with air available to go to, even if they can't get to that room they'll try to go to it..


I didn't vent the air in the medbay or cockpit. I vented everything except that, and then when my O2 system got destroyed by the enemy ship, the medbay and cockpit ran out of oxygen as well.
VanguardOfValor
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby VanguardOfValor » Mon Mar 31, 2014 6:59 am

As has already been said several times, all you really need to learn how to overcome the "luck" factor is more experience with overcoming different circumstances. Even things like events which can instantly murder your crew often have other options you can take which don't carry that risk.

As to the titular question, though, I enjoy this game because overcoming what this game can throw at you is exceptionally satisfying. Possibly my favorite run of this game to date happened when I was playing with a few mods (Captain's Edition and the Derelict cruiser) and spent the entire game on the verge of death. That kind of thing just doesn't happen in many of the other games I play.
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Twinge
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby Twinge » Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:52 am

catsclaw wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:I didn't vent the air in the medbay or cockpit. I vented everything except that, and then when my O2 system got destroyed by the enemy ship, the medbay and cockpit ran out of oxygen as well.


Personally, I tend to avoid this strategy. It works most of the time and it's easier to explain and understand, but it can cause problems. Generally I only vent where the boarders are specifically and gradually vent more as appropriate. This means there's still air in half my ship, and it's easy to recover if things go a little south.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby 5thHorseman » Tue Apr 01, 2014 11:12 am

Twinge wrote:
catsclaw wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:I didn't vent the air in the medbay or cockpit. I vented everything except that, and then when my O2 system got destroyed by the enemy ship, the medbay and cockpit ran out of oxygen as well.


Personally, I tend to avoid this strategy. It works most of the time and it's easier to explain and understand, but it can cause problems. Generally I only vent where the boarders are specifically and gradually vent more as appropriate. This means there's still air in half my ship, and it's easy to recover if things go a little south.


Just for clarity, what you have quoted as being said by me, was actually said by catsclaw.
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DiscordDraconequus
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Re: Why do people enjoy this game?

Postby DiscordDraconequus » Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:57 pm

catsclaw, you seem to be having issues with boarding in general.

Venting is the best way to kill boarders. But boarders will also try to escape any room without oxygen in it. That means intelligent venting will drive enemies out of rooms before they can do any system damage.

You don't have to vent your entire ship as some other posters have suggested. That would mean that they'd have nowhere safe to escape to, and will just stay in their current room and break stuff. It also means you've opened all your doors, which lets them run around to wherever they want until the oxygen is all gone. And it also forces you to put all your crew in the medbay or whatnot.

You just need to vent where the enemies are. And if you can pre-vent other rooms that they're trying to break into before they get there, that helps too. Also, turning off your oxygen system while you are venting makes it drain significantly faster, as does opening more doors.