I don't get it

[Icehawk78]

The game would need to be rebalanced. Ships with very good weapons should be harder to capture intact.

Right. I think this is why it isn't done that way, currently - I think an improved enemy fighting AI would be needed (ah, if only modding could do that, lol) to be harder to capture, and realistically, this would probably make the Mantis B ship even more overpowered than it already is, as basically the only ships able to withstand an instant teleport of 4 fully battle-hardened Mantises would be those specifically designed not to be susceptible (defense drone, high evasion, and 4-person healing center, and a crew of 8 come to mind).

[nfiea2]

We are looking at other games not to determine how to play FTL, but to see how they utilize randomness, without sacrificing the player's sense of achievement.

(Yes, I know, I was being glib with that )

What you are looking for is more play-through time, and the proper way of doing that is introducing more equipment/crew/foes/etc. And not by letting all the knowledge you gained the last time around go to waste.

All of those things that you've mentioned are what I'm getting out of this.

Each time I play, I tend to notice more and more things that I missed the previous time around. And I sure as hell have gained a lot of knowledge from numerous plays which have all cumulatively helped me immensely, to the point where with most ships now, I can almost guarantee that I'll at least be able to survive about halfway through (obviously, sometime the random number gods deem a particular ship unworthy of their attention, and throw the absolute worst enemy for that ship at me in sector one - in which case my ship valiantly goes up in flames with my crew running around headless, lol.)

I'm not a huge fan of merely "adding more stuff" to make my time with a game last longer - that's not replayability, that's implementing the Pokemon strategy, lol. However, there really isn't a "right" and "wrong" way of making a game fun for people - it's fun if people enjoy playing it, it's not fun if they don't. That's all.

just out of curiotsity

when you say you don't know what people are talking about,

[like when I own your ass over and over becaue you spread lies]

are yoy being glibb?


nice to see you admit you like to shit all over people because their complaints don't bother you as you cram the devs as deep into your throat as you can

[jonathino001]

The game would need to be rebalanced. Ships with very good weapons should be harder to capture intact.

Right. I think this is why it isn't done that way, currently - I think an improved enemy fighting AI would be needed (ah, if only modding could do that, lol) to be harder to capture, and realistically, this would probably make the Mantis B ship even more overpowered than it already is, as basically the only ships able to withstand an instant teleport of 4 fully battle-hardened Mantises would be those specifically designed not to be susceptible (defense drone, high evasion, and 4-person healing center, and a crew of 8 come to mind).

I'm sure I don't know what your talking about. If you have a weak crew, buy a door upgrade (its only 20 scrap) and suffocate any boarders. Or make trips to the med bay regularly. Pause a lot so you can manage both ship and crew fights effectively. The only ship that can't suffocate enemies is the second variant of the rock cruiser (no outer doors or door system) but with 4 rock crew members that's no issue.

[Gorlom]

just out of curiotsity

when you say you don't know what people are talking about,

[like when I own your ass over and over becaue you spread lies]

are yoy being glibb?


nice to see you admit you like to shit all over people because their complaints don't bother you as you cram the devs as deep into your throat as you can

You seem to be very angry angry person. Do you even try to be civil?

[jamotide]

TBH, i don't know what people are talking about with the randomness making you lose. I've been playing it almost every night since its release on steam now, and at first the game was extremely harsh and the randomness did seem to be a problem, but since beating the boss for the second time, ive not failed once to reaching him and beating him, with any of the ships ive played with. getting good at the game and not losing to its randomness just comes down to enough experience.

Agreed, the random events can set you back a little, but you dont have to risk it. Bad luck with evasions and such eventually balance out, but one only remembers the bad occasions,thats natural. With the normal ships and proper playing one should win the game every time. I also don't see why everyone compares it to Rogue games, for me its just another strategy game, like Civ,Warcraft or Jagged Alliance, when you play badly or make many mistakes, you eventually lose.
Now I mostly lose because I'm usually too stupid not to let my crew die.

[nfiea2]

TBH, i don't know what people are talking about with the randomness making you lose. I've been playing it almost every night since its release on steam now, and at first the game was extremely harsh and the randomness did seem to be a problem, but since beating the boss for the second time, ive not failed once to reaching him and beating him, with any of the ships ive played with. getting good at the game and not losing to its randomness just comes down to enough experience.

Agreed, the random events can set you back a little, but you dont have to risk it. Bad luck with evasions and such eventually balance out, but one only remembers the bad occasions,thats natural. With the normal ships and proper playing one should win the game every time. I also don't see why everyone compares it to Rogue games, for me its just another strategy game, like Civ,Warcraft or Jagged Alliance, when you play badly or make many mistakes, you eventually lose.
Now I mostly lose because I'm usually too stupid not to let my crew die.

bad luck with evasion doesn't balance out in every case

play the game long enough and you will see battles in which you get 90% of the missed attacks

you can fail to do damage fireing two burst III lasers at lvl 3 shields easy

and as for experience trumping luck?

in what way?

even the events you should do often come with a chance of kill off your best crew member
[never do anything like that with a zoltan[the zoltan always dies]]

What a joke

you know what you learn?

you learn that in the first 3 sectors you have to be willing to give up and start again if you aren't lucky

[nfiea2]

just out of curiotsity

when you say you don't know what people are talking about,

[like when I own your ass over and over becaue you spread lies]

are yoy being glibb?


nice to see you admit you like to shit all over people because their complaints don't bother you as you cram the devs as deep into your throat as you can

You seem to be very angry angry person. Do you even try to be civil?

Why bother

I tired being nice and I was told that 1 I was lying and that 2 he couldn;t understand what I was lying about

these dev suckers need to stfu and I will tell them so

the devs need to be told what is broken so they can fix it

these fanboys need to just stfu and keep sucking and i'll tell them how to fix the game

[Icehawk78]

I'm sure I don't know what your talking about. If you have a weak crew, buy a door upgrade (its only 20 scrap) and suffocate any boarders. Or make trips to the med bay regularly. Pause a lot so you can manage both ship and crew fights effectively. The only ship that can't suffocate enemies is the second variant of the rock cruiser (no outer doors or door system) but with 4 rock crew members that's no issue.

Sorry, I was talking about the game making enemy ships more difficult to board, not the player's ship. If they allowed the enemy AI to open the airlocks to flush player invaders out, then giving upgraded doors to more enemy ships would be one way to make enemy ships with stronger weapons harder to board. However, I still think that would unbalance boarding.

[Icehawk78]

You seem to be very angry angry person. Do you even try to be civil?

No, he's just some angry troll. This link will allow you to add him to your forum ignore list if you're logged in.

[Hissatsu]

This is a roguelike, and it is supposed to be about experience, not about learning to win 100%. It is not supposed to be fair. Actually, in most roguelikes, you "win" like once in a hundred playthroughs. And games are much more severe, punishing, and complex (like, you dont know what items give what effect, you dont know what skill will be useful when, you might never get something useful to your character, etc).

FTL is very forgiving for a roguelike.

About randomness - any game with randomness is about risk management. And this is what is fun about it. If you dont like it play Chess or Go or... whatever non-random game you find. Then it will be about strategy and tactics only. Randomness is about evaluating your chances and risk vs reward and this is great, because it is both always hard (you are mostly always in danger) and always cool (because every now and then you pull off something impossible, like dodging three rockets in a row with 20% evasion). Plus, humans are known to be bad at evaluating probabilities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) and it makes this even more interesting.

I know randomness may get you frustrated and you may think you got screwed by a system - and yes, sometimes game just kills you without any mathematical chance of survival, but this is truly happening very rarely. Generally, very time you die you have that feeling that "it may have gone different if i have did this differently". If you cant stand randomless at all - then roguelikes and games like that are not for you. I, for example, could not stand randomness in Battle for Wesnoth, even though its a great game, playing it w/o save/load is just frustration all around because you lose your experienced warriors because of sheer unluck and it hurts a lot. But FTL, after two times i failed and got frustrated, i got over it.

This game, as any roguelike, is about experience. Its not about winning (winning over and over again becomes boring very fast). Its about being in real environment. Its about the most reallistic experience you are ever going to get in game, even though graphics are outdated (and most roguelikes intentionally use ascii graphics even in modern day). It is most reallistic especially because it is NOT fair!

For example, if you play any modern computer game, you can never hit a dead end. Like, if you're stuck in a lift, you always have some way to jam out. If you crash land on a helicopter, its just a plot device and next level will take you on whatever place you landed into. If you are given a choice with no going back, both choices are valid and neither will be a dead end. Wherever you are, there is always a way forward. If you fail - i.e. die, you just restart from a checkpoint, or even a save you made 1 second before.

In roguelike, its like real life. In real life if you happen to get stuck under a crushed building, you never know wether someone will save you or not. If you happen to crashland, you never know if you'll survive or die of hunger or some creature will kill you. Its life, and its not tailored especially for you to always have your way. That is what's great in roguelikes - they are too like real life, not an artificially crafted experience, they are about real actions and real consequences, not about some plot that you go through. You choices really matter because you may lose your game, permanently, losing all progress, and all you achieved so far. Etc.

PS: If you want to not get frustrated with randomness of the game, learn to play it. Learn how to counter certain random events. Learn not to risk when you cannot afford losing. Do not play heavilly random-dependant ships (like Stealth B). I was frustrated at normal, i switched to easy, completed game several times, now i switched back to normal and i understand that you just need to play differently to have a good chance of survival. You have to be ready for very bad situations, you have to know when to run, you have to always consider getting redundant systems up "just in case", you have to plan for worst... and it pays off when you finally start beating the game on normal!