What The Actual F*CK were you thinking?

[spacecadet13]

Boarding drones can be shot down, same as missles. But of course, when you really, really need your defense drone to do its damn job and hit that sucker, it misses, and now you got a drone in your weapons room and your levelled-up Engi is barely scratching it and the room is getting pinker by the moment...

[Mj64]

Honestly, if you expect this game to be a push-over... Nope.

It's NOT a strategy, it's a Roguelike. 'The Binding of Isaac', a Roguelike released a year or two ago, has you continuously throwing your time at the game hoping to win with the right upgrades. FTL is the same. It's MEANT to take you a lot of practicing to win (which is why it's addicting) so yes it has to be hard...

[jamotide]

I don't see what a complex but only moderately difficult strategy game like FTL has to do with a mindnumbing Action-shooter-twitch game like Isaac.

[Swizz]

I'm sure that with a few tweaks that 'cons' you listed would surely turn into 'pros'... The game looks great, as far as I can see.

[master_bungle]

I don't see what a complex but only moderately difficult strategy game like FTL has to do with a mindnumbing Action-shooter-twitch game like Isaac.

Both a rogue-like games which generate random rooms (sectors) and random upgrades.
Success can depend heavily on luck in both games. They are indeed very similar.
And I don't really see where the "mind-numbing" comes into it but each to their own. I find both Binding of Isaac and FTL addictive for the same reasons. You have to do the best with what you get in both games, and every time you die you (should)learn something and improve on your next run.

EDIT: I guess the point being if you are unlucky in either of these games with the random generation it can be literally impossible to beat. Luck can be a major factor in both.

[jamotide]

Most strategy games have random worlds and luck, when you lose your last city defender in Civilization despite a 95% win chance, thats bad luck, but it doesnt make it a roguelike, neither do the random worlds Civ creates. And reloading will only help temporarily, you will still lose eventually when your strategy and planning is bad,just like in FTL.
This is just what the creators advertised, a simulation/strategy game with some elements from rogue, thats why they call it roguelike-like, not roguelike.
Isaac is just an action-shooter, I find those mindnumbing.

[master_bungle]

Most strategy games have random worlds and luck, when you lose your last city defender in Civilization despite a 95% win chance, thats bad luck, but it doesnt make it a roguelike, neither do the random worlds Civ creates. And reloading will only help temporarily, you will still lose eventually when your strategy and planning is bad,just like in FTL.
This is just what the creators advertised, a simulation/strategy game with some elements from rogue, thats why they call it roguelike-like, not roguelike.
Isaac is just an action-shooter, I find those mindnumbing.

No it's not. I think you need to re-check what roguelike means.
Also the Civ games, as far as I'm aware, can't put you in a situation where you CAN'T win due to luck, assuming you weren't doing stupid things up until that point.

EDIT: Binding of Isaac and FTL aren't turn-based, sure, but everything else about them falls right into the rogue-like genre (if it is a genre lol...).
Not that it really matters!

[coldsalmon]

The boss is indeed very difficult if you don't know what's coming. Once you learn the stages of the battle, however, it becomes very easy. The problem is that it takes a huge amount of time to learn the stages of the boss battle in-game, since you have to play through the entire game to get to the boss battle. I was incredibly frustrated the first time I played the boss, because I used everything I had on the first stage, only to find out that there were more stages to the fight (how many I didn't know). Needless to say, I lost on the second stage. I looked it up online after that, because I didn't want to waste a dozen playthroughs trying to learn about the boss's surprises. Since then, I have beaten the boss about a dozen times and lost in the boss fight approximately once.

To my mind, that's the flaw in the boss fight: it's impossible if you don't know the tricks, but once you learn them it's very easy because it's the same every time. If you were familiar with the boss, you would have known that you had no chance of beating its second stage with just blast lazer 2, a hull lazer, and a hermes missile, so you would have equipped your ship differently. Lately I've started handicapping myself to make the boss fight more fun and challenging. For example, I beat it without using a teleporter or cloaking. It was still pretty easy, but it was more fun than using the same tricks all over again.

I do agree that this is a flaw in the game, since the fun of the game is figuring out the best strategy for each random encounter, combined with your own randomized loadout. But the boss is always the same, so eventually the game turns into a boring grind to get the same equipment for the same fight every time. I don't know how they would have fixed this while retaining randomness in the bossfight -- that throws up a whole host of other design issues. Basically, the "fix" for you is to study up on the boss and get the right equipment and strategy. It's not as much fun as the rest of the game, but there it is. Here's a good guide: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2024

[jamotide]

No it's not. I think you need to re-check what roguelike means.
Also the Civ games, as far as I'm aware, can't put you in a situation where you CAN'T win due to luck, assuming you weren't doing stupid things up until that point.

Yes roguelike means what it means, that why FTL is called roguelike-LIKE, meaning it has only some elements of it. Thats my whole point.
And yes, provided you play well, you cannot get into a situation where you can lose due to luck in Civ, but it is the same in FTL, if you play properly with the normal ships, you can't lose. At least after the first 10 minutes.

[VanguardOfValor]

If you play properly with the normal ships, you can't lose. At least after the first 10 minutes.

Not necessarily true. The Rock Cruiser (Type A), for example, can easily doom you by just not providing you with enough missiles or replacement weapons to continue, although you can often last for a long time before you finally run dry.