[Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump trave

General discussion about the game.
MrJLK
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:32 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby MrJLK » Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:02 pm

CaptainQuirk wrote:
If anything I'd like to see crew stuff fleshed out and improved even more. More crew content and more stuff for your crew to do between jumps.


Maybe have a rec room where you can send your crew so they can relax and paint while the rebels advance? Maybe your crew need to go to the loo at some point :lol:

Anyway back to the point at hand. If you really want the crew to be automatically sent to repair rooms and heal themselves (Even in a non-combat period of the game) you're probably playing the wrong game here.

It's my understanding that FTL is a spaceship crew simulator of sorts, putting you in command of a crew of a spaceship and control all their actions. Regardless of how mundane they are, for example watching them repair for the 73rd time.
NomadWanderer
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:55 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby NomadWanderer » Tue Jul 17, 2012 9:28 pm

CaptainQuirk wrote:
We are talking about trying to eliminate 'dead time', time where you are sitting there waiting for a timer to decrease, with no real decisions/actions for you to do.. Or at most the only action is to move person A from room 1, (repair), to room 2, (repair), and then room 3 (repair).

I've got 70hrs logged on FTL, and (slightly) disappointingly, some of that time is sitting there staring at a timer with no choices/nothing to do.


I still disagree with your points. I've got tonnes of hours racked up on World of Warcraft, a helluva lot of which is travel time (where you basically can't do anything) but I don't want them to remove the travel system.


Interestingly enough, there is quite a bit you can do while traveling in World of warcraft... It's not comparable to healing/de-stunning/repairing.

How about a minigame or at least something.. you click onthe moving dot, and you get an extra skillpoint in repair? even let us open some clams, look at the map and plan our next jump, look at ship inventory.. any of those things would give you options.. You can't do any of those things now...
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby Gorlom » Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:58 am

NomadWanderer wrote:
CaptainQuirk wrote:
We are talking about trying to eliminate 'dead time', time where you are sitting there waiting for a timer to decrease, with no real decisions/actions for you to do.. Or at most the only action is to move person A from room 1, (repair), to room 2, (repair), and then room 3 (repair).

I've got 70hrs logged on FTL, and (slightly) disappointingly, some of that time is sitting there staring at a timer with no choices/nothing to do.


I still disagree with your points. I've got tonnes of hours racked up on World of Warcraft, a helluva lot of which is travel time (where you basically can't do anything) but I don't want them to remove the travel system.


Interestingly enough, there is quite a bit you can do while traveling in World of warcraft... It's not comparable to healing/de-stunning/repairing.

How about a minigame or at least something.. you click onthe moving dot, and you get an extra skillpoint in repair? even let us open some clams, look at the map and plan our next jump, look at ship inventory.. any of those things would give you options.. You can't do any of those things now...

Would you mind reminding me what it is you can do while taking a flightpath from any flight master? What it is you can do on the deeprun tram, the zeppelin to northrend, the boat between ratchet and booty bay, the boats from darkshore to exodaar/teldrasil/stormwind?
NomadWanderer
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:55 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby NomadWanderer » Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:51 pm

I'm not sure it's super relevant what you can do in a billion dollar game vs something smaller, but whatever...

while on a guided personal transport (flightpath)
you can open and loot simple containers (clams, etc).
you can look at the map, and plan where you want to go next.
you can look at your inventory, and see what objects you should try to get.
you can look at your skills, and see where you are strong/weak.

you can do even more on public transportation (boat/blimp/tram)
you can use some skills (prospect/disenchant)
you can duel another player
you can disembark early
(plus all of the things you can do on guided personal transport).

Again, what you can do in wow during these dull points is not relevant.

All I would like is more possible activity/decisions during the post battle/post event phase. When your ship is out of danger, it would be nice if I didn't have to stare at my rockman healing, and then crawling to each broken component. I'd love to be able to fast forward that dull part, or at a minimum, be able to open the map and inventory screens, and plan ahead, having repair continue to occur in the background.
ThePsuedoMonkey
Posts: 53
Joined: Thu May 31, 2012 3:41 am

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby ThePsuedoMonkey » Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:40 pm

I really don't want any elements from WOW coming into this game, tbh.
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby Gorlom » Wed Jul 18, 2012 10:55 pm

NomadWanderer wrote: be able to open the map and inventory screens, and plan ahead, having repair continue to occur in the background.

Tbh I thought you could do that. But after trying i realized that is not the case. I see no reason object to repairs and heals going on in the background of theese screens. Why opening the map or "ship options"/inventory wouldn't autopause the game and allow for unpausing it again while still keeping those screens up.
angelocire
Posts: 47
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:09 am

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby angelocire » Mon Jul 23, 2012 6:21 pm

Let me throw this out there-

Say you have a crewmwmber that is badly hurt, far from the medbay, there's no oxygen in-between, and he's most likely going to die before he gets there.

When you hit "Jump", does the computer decide that he dies?
Does it instantly heal him?

The problem is these edge-cases. If you make it kill him, people will be angry and say, "he shouldn't have died- he should have made it to the medbay!" If you make it heal him, well, what if he wouldn't have made it?
NomadWanderer
Posts: 34
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 6:55 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby NomadWanderer » Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:45 pm

angelocire wrote:Let me throw this out there-

Say you have a crewmwmber that is badly hurt, far from the medbay, there's no oxygen in-between, and he's most likely going to die before he gets there.

When you hit "Jump", does the computer decide that he dies?
Does it instantly heal him?

The problem is these edge-cases. If you make it kill him, people will be angry and say, "he shouldn't have died- he should have made it to the medbay!" If you make it heal him, well, what if he wouldn't have made it?


There isn't an edge case here. I've said MANY times that any sort of automation occurs when the ship is out of danger. When there isn't any sort of tension/time limit. To be VERY clear, there is NO chance that your SHIP or CREW could be hurt/die/be destroyed.

If you are running out of oxygen, I would classify that as a danger, and hence you are manually going to move those guys.

My issue is that for some ships, there is a lot of moving, waiting, moving, waiting, moving, when there is absolutely ZERO danger.. You could take 2 days to move your men around the ship healing/repairing, or take 2 minutes to do it, because either way it doesn't matter... So why can't it take 2 seconds?

Because people don't seem to get the fact there isn't really any decisions/gameplay in post battle/no danger repairing/healing/deStunning, I've pretty much given up. Now I'm just asking for the ability to look at my inventory/starmap while those boring/repetitive activities continue in the background.
Darthcaboose
Posts: 109
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:14 pm

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby Darthcaboose » Tue Jul 24, 2012 9:49 pm

Even when we are out of danger, I'd like to be able to assign repairs to crew members who I want to get better at repairing. Gaining repair XP requires you to... well... repair!

That said though, you bring up an interesting point about task automation and roguelikes. Roguelike video games are pretty notorious for having players jump through a similar-set of hoops each time they want to do something. For me, part of the charm with FTL is the tedium of keeping your rusty bucket-o'-bolts afloat and I do actually enjoy this tedium a little bit.

Based on what you are telling me with healing everyone up at the end of a battle and fixing everything up, it sounds like you are playing optimally and planning ahead for the randomness FTL can throw at you. I do this too! But not EVERYONE does this, perhaps because they don't value playing as optimally as possible, or their focus on the fun is less with Min/Max-ing everything and more with just doing what they want to do. We should ask ourselves now if we want to impose the optimization we enjoy doing on other people... That would drastically change the way some folk play and may even obfuscate some of the finer details of this game.

To discuss another video game (which this thread already has plenty of examples, so I'll keep this short) Diablo 3 is currently going through a Magic Find discussion where people who like to play optimally are "feeling bad" that they have to spend so much effort swapping out gear to best take advantage of that statistic. It is not fun to have to do this, but at the same time, not being as optimal as your gear allows you also causes Min/Max players to be frustrated.

I'd like to see this folded into game mechanics rather than a quick fix. How about an addition to the repair arm augmentation that allows your ship to repair one bar of system damage to all systems each time you jump? How about, as part of the Crew screen, an ability to select a chief engineer who, when jumping while the ship is safe, will instantly repair a bar of damage to all systems? The system repair drone could play a role here too!

EDIT: LOL, just read Page 3. Ah well, I thought I had some nifty ideas.
angelocire
Posts: 47
Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:09 am

Re: [Suggestion] Finish non combat wait states during Jump t

Postby angelocire » Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:11 pm

There isn't an edge case here. I've said MANY times that any sort of automation occurs when the ship is out of danger. When there isn't any sort of tension/time limit. To be VERY clear, there is NO chance that your SHIP or CREW could be hurt/die/be destroyed.

If you are running out of oxygen, I would classify that as a danger, and hence you are manually going to move those guys.

My issue is that for some ships, there is a lot of moving, waiting, moving, waiting, moving, when there is absolutely ZERO danger.. You could take 2 days to move your men around the ship healing/repairing, or take 2 minutes to do it, because either way it doesn't matter... So why can't it take 2 seconds?

Because people don't seem to get the fact there isn't really any decisions/gameplay in post battle/no danger repairing/healing/deStunning, I've pretty much given up. Now I'm just asking for the ability to look at my inventory/starmap while those boring/repetitive activities continue in the background.


There is an edge case there, because your definition of "no chance they could be hurt" relies on the assumption the player won't make a mistake, or have a lapse in judgement, which is the same false assumption an AI could make. Panic and frustration and even adrenaline can cause a player to want to speed things up... if, like in my example, they were to make an error in judgement and in their haste move a man through a low-oxygen area, then they would have to reap the consequences of those actions, as where an insta-heal AI would likely see the man no longer taking damage, in a fully-oxygenated room, and call it as safe.

Also, it is not a "fact" that there are no decisions post-battle. Any action is a decision, so of course what you really mean is "there are no meaningful decisions", which is still subjective.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be an OPTION, but what people have been railing against is that you've been extremely dismissive of their prefferred style of gameplay, essentially telling them that they're too dumb to realize it's not actually gameplay at all.