How often are games lost to terrible luck?

General discussion about the game.
Morthis
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2012 10:02 am

How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby Morthis » Mon Dec 24, 2012 11:00 am

I'm trying to figure out if I'm just not playing very well, or if it's pretty normal that a lot of games are basically ruined by terrible luck. I felt like I got the hang of the game pretty well on easy, but now playing on normal it just seems like it's impossible. Every time it seems like I'm actually getting somewhere some scenario will come up that feels unwinnable, or at the very least extremely costly when compared to every other fight.

To give some examples.

I was playing with Zoltan B and very early on I ran into a ship that seemed to dodge at least half my attacks and had a beam drone, which completely destroys the Zoltan B until you can afford the 100 scrap for shield. Due to the misses I wasn't able to disable his drone until it had already wrecked my ship pretty good.

An early fight in which my opponent has 2 rockets + beam. Of course his rockets hit my shields and weapons so I can't shut down his weapons quickly while his beam has a field day while my shields are being repaired.

A fight next to a sun where 4-5 fires are started by a single solar flare, 3 of which are in important rooms (engines, weapons, oxygen). I didn't open doors to kill these fires out of fear my crew would die since my oxygen was knocked out. Meanwhile I'm sitting on lower engines, with my only weapon disabled (early game as federation A) and fire quickly spreading.

Or my game just now, nebula with ion storm, opponent with an attack drone and ion gun. He keeps my shield disabled while I get demolished by the drone.

I just feel like the last 6-8 games now I've lost by basically just getting completely screwed over. I've lost plenty of games because I played poorly or took a risk and lost, but on normal it seems like every game I play I'm doomed to lose (or be at an extreme disadvantage) before I even clear sector 2. Is this basically how normal can go, or am I just playing poorly?
BKT
Posts: 211
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:17 am

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby BKT » Mon Dec 24, 2012 11:55 am

Lost to terrible luck? ... Countless with Stealth_B! :lol:

For other ships, however, while most of the time it seem like it was due to bad luck at first, but in retrospect, it was almost always due to some bad decisions or mistakes on my part; I always get that "I should have done X!" feelings shortly after I lost... :x
ExtraCheesyPie
Posts: 145
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:37 pm

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby ExtraCheesyPie » Mon Dec 24, 2012 12:53 pm

The rebels also have a lot of bad luck. Gotta love the Beam Drone + Minibeam Rebel Rigger when you're the kestrel.
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UltraMantis
Posts: 2141
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:17 pm

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby UltraMantis » Mon Dec 24, 2012 2:19 pm

Luck in FTL is sometimes a matter of you being in a situation where out of all possible outcomes, there are 1-2 you could manage easily, about a dozen that could very likely make the game considerably harder, and 1-2 you absolutely do not want to see because they will end you.

You are disadvantaged right at the start (especially in ships like Noether, Vortex, Basilisk and DA-SR12) and it's anyone's guess how difficult it will be to upgrade the ship. Most will agree that 2 shield bubbles asap is the most reliable way to reduce overall repair costs, but beyond that a lot depends on weapons and equipment and store locations. Finding a store that sells Auto-Reloader and LR Sensors early still doesn't guarantee that you will have enough to actually buy it, so balancing your current needs (survival) vs. future needs (good offense and defense) is allways a major part of gameplay. Yes, terrible luck ends games, but the decisions you make when hopping from beacon to beacon (esp. if you have LR Sensors) will determine how much bad luck it really takes to kill you.

At no point are you superior to all combinations of randomly generated enemies, but even though that sometimes ends even good runs, it makes me want to try again because the next time my path will be different. It's certainly more interesting to play a game and try to win when only about 1 in 10 attempts ends with a win, then it would be if it were just: Pick any ship, then go and kick ass until you beat the boss. And it helps tremendously that there are many starting ships to choose from. If the game had only the Kestrel it would get boring eventually.
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Moosicorn
Posts: 107
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 9:13 pm

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby Moosicorn » Tue Dec 25, 2012 1:50 am

With the mantis B the first sector is all luck. With other ships the RNG doesn't really bug me like so many people complain
DCChuckles
Posts: 92
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:28 pm

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby DCChuckles » Tue Dec 25, 2012 9:49 pm

I had great luck once. I was using Crystal 1, got a human early so my Crystal pilot could join the boarding crew, then got a rock to join them, and then found a heal bomb!
BKT
Posts: 211
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:17 am

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby BKT » Sat Dec 29, 2012 3:57 pm

Just had another further-than-sector-4 Stealth_B run ... and them asteroid are on both of the only 2 available beacons I could jump to; managed to hang on and jumped away.

... just to ran into another battle + 4 mantis onboard and Artemis in the shield room twice, follows by the raining hail of death from a Heavy laser mk2... :cry:

At least I got 2 BL2 in slug run I did after that... Not to mentioned 2 free Glaive some run earlier! :mrgreen:
zarakon
Posts: 78
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:41 pm

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby zarakon » Sat Dec 29, 2012 4:38 pm

I had a game on Easy once where I was convinced that I had accidentally chosen Normal. I was playing Stealth B, and my first encounter was a ship with a beam drone and beam weapon.

Actually ended up winning that one, but I was on the ropes the whole first half of the game
UglyBastard
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:59 am

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby UglyBastard » Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:45 pm

If you are taking a ship with a decent earlygame, almost no games are lost to terrible luck. You will most likely end up in sector 8 and kill the boss if played right.

The more random ships like Mantis B require good rolls on early sectors, and if you get them the rest of the game is usually a piece of cake. If you don't get them, it is going to be hell.

From time to time you can run into a really lame enemy that owns you pretty bad, but that doesn't happen too often if you prepare yourself.
BKT
Posts: 211
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:17 am

Re: How often are games lost to terrible luck?

Postby BKT » Sat Dec 29, 2012 8:42 pm

What's so random about Mantis_B anyway? ... It has solid defense, so if you ran into something that you can't attack like zoltan, you can jump away painlessly most of the time. The only thing I can think of that can be very dangerous is the automate assault ship + sun, which is still not that dangerous.

In fact, I never really has much problem with it at all... Just keep abusing the Boarding drone and jump away from unwinnable fight until you got what the you need, which you will eventually get sooner or later since all of them is easy to find...

In comparison, until you get a cloak level.3 for Stealth_B, all ship with minibeam can kill you with a single hit on the weapon room and there's nothing you can do to stop it, and this is just a tip of the iceburg... Even a ship like the Vortex require much less luck to be able to survive compared to Stealth_B.