Whining

General discussion about the game.
Cpt Earb
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:47 am

Re: Whining

Postby Cpt Earb » Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:16 pm

Whale Cancer wrote:Kobayashi Maru guys.

How you face defeat is at least as important as how you achieve victory.




haha THIS :lol:
Fredchuckdave
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Whining

Postby Fredchuckdave » Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:21 pm

Gorlom wrote:
Fredchuckdave wrote:Aah, so that's the problem. you aren't even looking for more depth. You have decided that you know everything there is to do in this game and when you lose it is solely because RNG. :|

If that is the way you want to play then fine, I wont argue anymore with you.


I read the advanced tips, was already doing all of those. I've lost maybe 1 crew member in invasions or fire situations; ever (that's where the game has the most depth). Very occasionally the engines are the best target instead of shields if you have limited firepower (usually just go for both naturally), but the only way you could possibly know that is to have sensors 3 which is most certainly a waste of scrap; if you want to call that "depth." Please take your head out of your own ass, maybe you personally don't have the capability to reach said low skill ceiling (ad hominem works wonders!), but "theorycrafting" isn't going to make you better than personally experiencing and improving upon your own methodologies. Argue? You've written 3 sentences, none of them having a thesis of any kind nor any supporting information; at best you posted a link dump without actually posting links, well done champ.
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Whining

Postby Gorlom » Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:55 pm

Fredchuckdave wrote:
Gorlom wrote:
Fredchuckdave wrote:Aah, so that's the problem. you aren't even looking for more depth. You have decided that you know everything there is to do in this game and when you lose it is solely because RNG. :|

If that is the way you want to play then fine, I wont argue anymore with you.


I read the advanced tips, was already doing all of those. I've lost maybe 1 crew member in invasions or fire situations; ever (that's where the game has the most depth). Very occasionally the engines are the best target instead of shields if you have limited firepower (usually just go for both naturally), but the only way you could possibly know that is to have sensors 3 which is most certainly a waste of scrap; if you want to call that "depth." Please take your head out of your own ass, maybe you personally don't have the capability to reach said low skill ceiling (ad hominem works wonders!), but "theorycrafting" isn't going to make you better than personally experiencing and improving upon your own methodologies. Argue? You've written 3 sentences, none of them having a thesis of any kind nor any supporting information; at best you posted a link dump without actually posting links, well done champ.

AH I see how my post came off as rude as it did. I apologize, not really my intention. But I think I do that a lot unintentionally.

Play the game however you want. But I still have to wonder how you can lose so much as you claim if you have reached the skill ceiling.
Fredchuckdave
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Whining

Postby Fredchuckdave » Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:00 pm

jamotide wrote:
On the contrary, it is extremely difficult to master and do everything right, at almost every minute of the game there are many little things where you can do stuff wrong, what to target,when to target, where to board,what to upgrade,what to buy and so on, it is not very obvious, but when you lose, you can (at least with the easy ships) always figure out what you did wrong.
The game is not "hard" like some action platformer, it is complex and difficult with many layers from bad to good decisions.

Look if you want "hard" in terms of strategy games this is not where you go, you go for Warcraft 3 on hard, you go for Heroes of Might and Magic V on heroic (fucking brutal), if you want random, short, satisfying, and varied experiences this is where you go; which is fine. Okay lets see here (ordinarily I don't post things that I consider to be inherently obvious but if you insist):

What to target: Prioritize: Shields/Engines (or pilot) if you built your ship to be invincible in that sector, Shields/Weapons/Engines in most other situations, cloak and drone control occasionally getting a promotion here.

When to target: Fire weapons procedurally by strength from least to most, it is almost always better to wait for the whole battery to charge unless you have weapons that fire twice as fast or faster than your heavy hitters. So, if I'm firing Burst Laser 1, Heavy Laser 1, Hull Laser 1, and a beam, I fire the burst laser and pause immediately, I then fire the heavy laser in the hopes that it can get past the shields (varying a fair amount) and pause immediately. If shields are down and the enemy can be destroyed before they fire another shot (or if they can't damage you in the first place, again intelligently building your ship with some fortune) then you can use hull lasers on hulls. Don't fire the beam until shields are as far down as you can get them; that's pretty much it. Missiles and Bombs are even more simple than this, as you never have to worry about shields and only have to worry about target prioritization.

Where to Board: If you have Crystal guys, which is the main reason you should be boarding aside from the last boss, always ALWAYS weapons, never not weapons, always weapons. Got it? Board, lockdown, take out weapons, lockdown again as necessary to either kill enemies or take out even more weapons. If you're boarding without Crystal guys then good luck, first of all, and second with a 2 porter go for the pilot most of the time since he's isolated and you'll probably get in a few double hits before some other poor bastard shows up.

Upgrade: Upgrade evasion until you hit the Diminishing Returns/price wall (45% evade with master crewmen), 3 shields is almost always good enough with a master shields guy; don't really need 4 for anything (or more importantly even with maxed out power you can't have both running in tandem alongside drones/cloak/teleporter/heavy weapons or a combination of all 4). Upgrade Doors before about sector 3, it's cheap and extremely efficient.

Buy: It's random, you could get boned on what's in the shops, you could not get boned, I'm not going to list off the best stuff in the game by prioritization; but generally always buy Ion Bombs even if you have to sell a whole bunch of stuff to get them, because they are completely and utterly broken. Try to get drone control + Defense I before sector 5 on normal so you don't get boned by multiple consecutive breaches, but no guarantee you'll get both of those. You can beat the last boss without cloak, but obviously that's not the ideal. Hull Repair cures all ailments assuming you have a handful of drone parts, and can trivialize almost any encounter; though I most often save it for after fights except the last boss.

In terms of Augmentations: The best is Stealth Weapons, then the Pre Igniter, right so I've never found the Pre-Igniter once, never been in a position to buy it really, you don't need it but I guess it would be nice if not entirely broken. Ignoring the Pre-Igniter, Weapons and Shield charge boosters are your best bet, but again quite random if you actually find them. Scrap arm breaks even before like sector 6 I think (assuming you can kill more than a few things in sector 7, you could just flee from everything and still have a really solid chance at beating the boss most of the time), but is useless for the actual last encounters; if you get one early great, if not oh well; you certainly don't need the extra scrap as much as you need for a good weapon to drop randomly.

Anecdotally I almost always wind up with a full or nearly full crew, but the RNG could murder you here as well; so you're best off starting with a ship with 4 guys; with upgraded doors. Assuming you have an upgraded crew, it is never ever worth taking an event that could potentially kill a crew member, so don't do it (though sector one events and restarts are fine most of the time).

The last boss is the most random fight of all, but not all that challenging in an ideal situation. In non ideal situations pray for the RNG Gods to help you out and you'll come out on top! He's been discussed at length, missile launcher BAD! Teleporter GOOD! AMG TOO EZ! AMG TOO HARD! etc.

I haven't played the game enough to nail down the raw percentages in a normalized distribution; but rest assured almost every choice is a binary one. Bombs > Lasers > Missiles > Beams, but finding a weapon is the best strategy; finding an augmentation; finding crew members (absolutely); finding the Crystal ship; finding 2 anti ship drones, a defense I drone, and/or a hull repair drone; finding yourself; finding The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly references.

There's nothing wrong with the game not being as hard as people claim it is and it's still fun and satisfying, particularly if you watch someone incompetent on the side to laugh at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxNjHqqh53I&feature=plcp I may be grossly overestimating the general skill of the playerbase, but suffice to say if you pause frequently every decision becomes largely automatic, though whatever routine you use to pray to the RNG Gods is up to you.
Last edited by Fredchuckdave on Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fredchuckdave
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 6:13 pm

Re: Whining

Postby Fredchuckdave » Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:05 pm

Gorlom wrote:
Play the game however you want. But I still have to wonder how you can lose so much as you claim if you have reached the skill ceiling.


I've never said anything about how much I lose or win, this is just you having issues with not posting ad hominem, though again a 2 sentence post, I'll just ignore your inane quips from now on. If I wanted to win as much as possible I'd play Red-Tail and Crystal B over and over, if I wanted to lose as much as possible I'd play the Stealth ships and the Slug Cruiser over and over; but only very rarely would I make a "wrong" decision in that process (though one could argue simply playing the Stealth ships is the wrong decision from the getgo). I am a "0.01%er" by any skill definition in any genre, I can most likely assure you that you are not.
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Whining

Postby Gorlom » Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:13 pm

Oh goddamnit. I was sure that you had complained about losing a lot because the skill ceiling was so low, but reading back you only say that it is "out of your hands". (must have confused you with someone else)

My bad.


btw what do you mean by "0.01%er" ? That you are in the top 0.01%? Never claimed that I was one.
Maze1125
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 12:09 pm

Re: Whining

Postby Maze1125 » Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:46 pm

Fredchuckdave wrote:The skill ceiling in this game is very very low, so the random element is really everything. It's possible to be incompetent at the game, but I don't really think it's possible to be "good." Once you've played half a dozen games or so you've seen 90% of the events and can figure out which ones aren't worth taking, whether you win or lose is largely out of your hands after that.


I've asked this question before, but it's relevant again, so I'll ask it again:

If this game is based so much on randomness, and so little on skill, then how come there are people who consistently win on normal, and others who have never succeeded on easy?
Doc
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:18 pm

Re: Whining

Postby Doc » Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:55 pm

Maze1125 wrote:
Fredchuckdave wrote:The skill ceiling in this game is very very low, so the random element is really everything. It's possible to be incompetent at the game, but I don't really think it's possible to be "good." Once you've played half a dozen games or so you've seen 90% of the events and can figure out which ones aren't worth taking, whether you win or lose is largely out of your hands after that.


I've asked this question before, but it's relevant again, so I'll ask it again:

If this game is based so much on randomness, and so little on skill, then how come there are people who consistently win on normal, and others who have never succeeded on easy?

Maybe they have bad karma.