Matthew/Justin are evil

[xdiesp]

Just got the flag ship down to its third encounter on normal, farthest I've ever made it, but it wasn't enough. We came apart at the seams and that damn ship that is missing half it's bloody hull somehow lives on.

Keep learning the encounter at Easy, and it will be easier than the last two sectors once you hit Normal full force. My recipe for success is 2 boarding parties, the rest is welcome but unnecessary (a bomb makes things easier, as do drones, and big weapons save time but that's it).

[SushaBrancaleone]

Any particular reason you're going after a newbie, Agent_L? Bad day at work? Something you'd like to talk about? As far as I can tell, Azuredreams has said nothing to you, yet all of your posts I've seen directed at him imply something cruel. Chill out, seriously. Also, this game requires no skill at the moment - it is entirely luck based. It's a fun game with great music, but if you get good weapons, especially crew-killers, you cruise to the end boss. And if you found good hull-lasers or beam weapons, the end boss is simply a matter of cloak, blast, cloak, blast, win.

Part of this is that FTL isn't really a roguelike or even a turn-based strategy. There's no exploration - you're permanently on the run. I'd call it an adventure... Space... Rpg... Thing. And it's fine being like that. Folks like me will probably try to modify it and make it more turn-based and more strategy-oriented, with more choice and exploration. Some people might choose to emphasize random death events and then claim they have skill when they've rerolled to the end. Some others may walk a different path still, or combine elements of everyone mentioned. And ya know? Let them. It's a game.

did you have a bad day?
have you ever played poker? are u familiar with the concept of "maximizing odds".
do you know that this could be aplied to politics and military strategy and life in general. the future is not predetermined, we cannot predict it, but as aristoteles said we can collect as much data as possible to get as close as possible to the correct answer (which does not exist btw).

this game is about making sensible choices and maximizing your chances, there are different strategies to do that, and that is about the fun.

ill tell you what luck is. luck is finding an object that has a 0.000001% drop rate.
WoW was plenty based on how pretty your ass was.
this game isnt.

get over it

edit: translation; pretty ass = lucky

[jamotide]

When you forget your boarding crew on a captured ship and want to jump away, there is a little popup reminding you of your crew and asking you to reconsider! This proves they are not evil.

[Kencyr]

Ahh... but that popup was patched in because a lot of people were kicking themselves for leaving people behind... including me.

[UltraMantis]

No, it's been there since release. I've not updated my game, since there was no need.

[Agent_L]

I can go on rambling about games "this days", starting with Spielberg-produced Medal Of Honor, and how most modern games indeed became interactive movies, which are impossible to not to finish. There is no victory in that.

For the record, while I definitely agree that there's a distinction between FTL and games-as-story-first, I certainly wouldn't want to propagate the idea that those are bad things, either.

Well, I didn't mean to call all those things bad per se. I have thoroughly enjoyed games explicitly advertised as "interactive movies" (like "Bioforge". Ironically, it was more difficult and less movielike than MoH). But when you put a game like tennis on one end of a scale, and movie (or book) on the other - story-first games are way closer to a movie than to a "game".

[UltraMantis]

Who the hell labeled Bioforge as an interactive movie?? It's maybe 10% interactive movie and very linear, but it's far from such a thing. Was there ever an interactive movie type game that didn't suck? They were all cheap an gimmicky and the less said about actuall 'movies' the better.

I think 'cinematic feel' and interactive movie were the terms confused.

[Fangz]

Also, this game requires no skill at the moment.

I don't think this is true, Old Uncle. The ability to manage the ship by defining priorities in times of peril (boarding + damaged systems + fire + Ion harassment + power relocation) and, at the same time, plan your attack/counter-attack according to what you have and what the enemy has to offer is absolutely crucial to a successful run.

The second form of the flagship serves as a good test. I bet lots of people died to it even with a very good weapon setup due to lack of decent management.

I do agree that FTL has a strong element of luck in it. But management skills and resourcefulness are also required.

Skill: Noun
1. Ability to produce solutions in some problem domain

[Agent_L]

Who the hell labeled Bioforge as an interactive movie??

AFAIR Origin did. It was even codenamed "Interactive Movie 1" during production. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioforge

I don't think there are any defined terms when it comes to marketing fads such as "interactive movie".
Most linear games are not even "interactive", you just go and go and go and when you're dying you duck for a second, and then keep going more and then there is the end.

In Bioforge you could at least explore Mondite dogmas and Phyxx history.