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Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:29 pm
by DarkenDragon
1. there is a quick save, just not during battle.
2. the reason there is no actual save is because it would defeat the whole rogue-like experience.
3. with saves you can abuse the hell out of it by saving, then restarting from that save point every time something goes wrong that you dont like, that just isnt a rouge like at all.

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:39 pm
by Peo01
TrashMan wrote:The problem isn't with the hand-holding. Heck , I don't want hand-holding.

The problem is that the player has too little impact in those randoms. ZERO imput. When I send my crew to fight spiders, there is nothnig I can do to increase the chances of sucess.


Well isn't that one of the other selling points?
I actually like that since it's quite realistic.

See it like this:
You're the captain of the ship, you send an away team down to the planet's surface, but you yourself stay on board.
Since the captain isn't supposed to leave the ship unless it's really important.
(I know a certain Star Trek captain tends to forget this)

Whatever happens is up to the crewman that went to planet.
Yet for important matters they'll contact you, like with the "four-legged horse-like creatures".
"Captain, this is away team one, we found some weird four-legged horse-like creatures.
Ensign X wants to try and talk to them.
Ensign Y suggests taking them on board in order to sell them for scrap
Awaiting your decision, sir."

Giving ensign X the chance to talk to them, might work, yet it might not.
You're not ensign X so you can't decide what he does in order to intervene with the creatures.

Allowing ensign Y's hunt may result in someone getting killed, because he wasn't fast enough, or chose the wrong
way to run away.
You can't decide where the crewman tries to run away to or how fast he/she is.

You just sit on the bridge and wait for the outcome.
Maybe we'll get something like this in the future:

Away team:"Captain, this is away team one. The creatures are attacking us!"
Captain:"Charge burst laser, target the biggest group of creatures... fire on my mark... ... mark!"

Result A: One of your crewman stood next to the explosion, he's dead Jim.

Result B: You killed most of the creatures, your crewman return safely.

Result C: You missed and killed one of your crewman instead.

Result D: Somehow the shot vanished on it's way to the surface... Wait what's that?! Rebel scout ship decloaking, dead ahead!

There still are things you can't decide, because that's how life is.
Sometimes bad things happen, or your crewman do stupid stuff and you'll have to deal
with it.

I once lost all 4 security team members I had 2 systems before leaving the sector to engage the enemy flagship.
I was in total shock, now I would need to use my operators to beam over, but luckily I found 2 replacements in those 2 last systems and got a shop in the "last stand" from which I could hire 2 more crewman.

Really I was ready to give up, without being able to destroy the missile launcher the game was pretty much lost.
Yet fortune favours the bold ;)

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 1:13 pm
by BananaDealer
About sending your crew off to fight the infamous "Space-Spiders of the Cobweb Nebulae" (and the like encounters)...
I'd really like an option to choose which crew members go before they get sent...
And have a special blue option when the Teleport is installed to try and beam them back up (instead of leaving them there to die, which has happened)... Not all would get saved, but say- there would be a 2-in-3 chance that some would return and a 1-3 chance that all would...

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:46 pm
by Guswut
Autoclave wrote:Guys.. knock it off, this is not solitaire, nobody asked for FTL to be high failure low success gameplay. If I wanted something like this i would go and play Diablo 3 hardcore. If you think that this game can feel rewarding only when the victory is so difficult to achieve, you are wrong.

There is nothing fun in having to start all over again after dying to to a new phase of the flagship you had no idea before. There is nothing fun in going unknowingly to a beacon that has no path to the exit and ultimately traps you in rebel ship area.

I was expecting this game to be reasonably difficult, but with saves so I could learn from my mistakes and start from the point i failed. Instead i am just horribly punished. You emphasize the final objective too much instead of realizing that the real fun could be experiencing different tactics, ships and abilities to bring down enemy ships: the gameplay itself, the road, not the damn final objective.

If somebody wants to play with no saves, give them the options.. let them get achievements or whatever, but don't punish people for playing the way they would to.

I am not buying any DLC if it will not have normal save.


Taken From FTL FAQ:
How is that a roguelike?

We use the term loosely, mostly just as a representation for some of the main thematic elements of the genre. This includes permadeath, randomly generated game worlds, relatively short play sessions (5-90 minutes), and a single-player focus.


Taken From RogueBasin:
Definition

Permadeath (short for permanent death) is one of the main features of roguelikes. It consists in the fact that once your character dies in the game, you can't restore him to a previous status via save-files or save-states. This means that once your character dies, he is dead for good.

Although the feature is commonly referred to as "Permadeath", it applies not only to death: whatever bad (or good) thing happens to your character, you cannot go back in time. (One exception: roguelikes should allow the player to restore character if the game crashes due to a bug or external reason.)

The idea may scare people from other RPG genres, such as console and common "plot" RPGs, as it is common custom to reload the game after something bad happens to the main character or his party; however, this feature makes roguelikes unique, demanding all your attention and thinking your best moves because the life of your character must be kept.


I believe you'll find that you are in error about the majority of your post if you better review the concepts behind roguelike games. Remember: Losing is fun if you aren't focusing specifically on winning!

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:47 pm
by jeme223
If the game lost its randomness and had saves then you would complain about how easy and short the game is. Let's face it, being able to restart from before you died would ruin the game.

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:51 pm
by liamdawe
I would really like to be able to have multiple saves, but for say 1 slot per ship maybe.

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 2:55 pm
by Guswut
jeme223 wrote:If the game lost its randomness and had saves then you would complain about how easy and short the game is. Let's face it, being able to restart from before you died would ruin the game.


This can also be scientifically tested by "save scumming". Start a new game, and save after each major event. After the game has fully shut down, make a copy of your saved game. When you die, reload the previous saved game.

I bet that you are correct jeme223, in that the game will be far easier and shorter compared to having to restart a few dozen times.

~~~


liamdawe wrote:I would really like to be able to have multiple saves, but for say 1 slot per ship maybe.


That I agree with, indeed. In fact, I'd say unlimited saves, which you can do manually if you really want to do as much. It'd be nice to be able to put a good run on the side when I was actually trying to unlock a ship with that run, so I can go back to unlocking ships and then come back to my good run later.

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:10 pm
by cletusvandamme
I'm against saves in the main game.

However, one thing they could do would be a kind of "exploration" mode. Using any of your unlocked ships you can go out and play a game with save functionality. But your score defaults to zero (or is unscored) and you can't unlock new ships or any achievements including ship ones. But you can zip around the galaxy and reload constantly in order to find the most efficient route possible through each sector, if that's really what you want to do.

Would something like that sate the people asking for saves or do you guys genuinely want to be able to reload over and over through the entire game? Personally I think that would utterly destroy a lot of the fun for a lot of people

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 3:40 pm
by Plazek
Losing is fun.

Reading this thread is funner.

Re: No saves is not fun.

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 5:03 pm
by licker
Plazek wrote:Losing is fun.

Reading this thread is funner.


Aye...

People new to roguelikes always have this problem though. Eventually they embrace it or they don't, it's more of a lifestyle choice honestly ;)

That said, I'm totally fine with people playing a game however they want to play it, it is SP, so on skin off my teeth if someone wants to run some kind of cheat or whatever. That topic always gets contentious, so I just leave it to the devs to make the game the way want to make it.