New player's .. issues, opinions, criticisms and suggestions

[ParanoikCZE]

Hello everyone,

at first please accept my appologies for my english, it's my third language and I can't say I'm good.

Well, about me... I'm 1Fh yo indie developer/manager/tester of games/apps and I love to test "new and fresh" ... and THIS (FTL) is something what really is. I've spent some time with help on development of Unepic and SPAZ games btw, minor help on many other indie (and quite well known) games.

So, now I've found FTL. And ... I love it. It's what I've thinking about for last few years, maybe with little more features (below). I have played it for last three days. So, at first .. bugs:



B1) Zoltan shield still works when sold. Until game is reloaded from save. Also, I got very often message 'intruders got through shield' (don't know how it is exactly) which is not installed quite long.

B2) Zoltans (Zoltanians? O_o) always powers first weapons slot even when it's not used. E.g. when I need to use slot 2 and 3 with 4 energy each, I can't because 1 power is always locked on first weapon.

B3) Augmentation for invisible weapons? If I get it well, it would allow me to shoot when invisible and not cancel my invisibility. But .. that is what can I do without it either?


Tweaks and/or minor issues / suggestions / ideas:

T1) When nebula trader (unknown weapon for 65 scrap) surrenders in fight, he offers everything on board. Where the hell is my 65 scrap pack? He always offers something like 30.

T2) There should be possibility to power off subsystems. E.g. when testing, I've discovered that upgrading doors and/or piloting is like "noob trap" because of forever wasted energy. Also, Zoltans don't power up subsystems.

T3) How invisibility works. At first, there is no need of pilot or engines. Just cloak and evade bonus will solve it all. Don't sum bonuses, multiply them! At second, what the hell is with my weapons when enemy cloaks? Well, ok, they've lost their target, but I can charge without locking on some room. This whole invisiblity concept/design is weird.

T4) Saving?! I know that it should be oldtime hardcore gameplay, but even old games doesn't work with random worlds this way. I can say that this game will cause epic number of ragequits many times more that any other game. And still. I can anytime quit and backup save for later use.

T5) Map with displayed lines between beacons even not discovered. Too often it's pixel war and I've died few times only because thought that range 'will be ok'.

T6) Mouse only controls? Well, you know, for lazy guys playing from bed? I'll love space bar (pause) on middle button or at least in game button for un/pause. Same for menu (esc).

T7) Better stores balancing. It's quite usual that stores have almost same items and it's not about skill to get to later sectors, but more BIG luck. Same with low weapons and/or unavailibility of crew members.

T8) What about price tweaking? If I get well, in some sectors, there are different items (regarded to race). What about changing prices for different technologies for different races? One could have really cheap missiles but expensive lasers, ...

T9) Sandbox? Well, game is quite short for me. I like SPAZ, because I can play one game for 200 hours. It's like being crew member and live on ship. But there, I can barely remember whom I have on board and/or train him to cap. There could be many ways how to achieve this, e.g. changing (offer more) galaxy maps, disabling rebels (supereasy mode?). Then also you can add more levels to crew, special abilities when they hit level cap and much more.

T10) More differencies in ship designs. What about AI ships (at least in sandbox)? Cap on some energy fields (now same for all designs)? Evasion bonus for smaller ship (which will e,g, not allow to install new component rooms)? Rooms with two consoles (two crew bonuses)? Ship with more energy slots? Augmentation for allowing more energy upgrades (or better like 5 bay energy generator)?

T11) XP for playing for which you can buy starting bonuses? Like more starting scrap, more crew members, better weapons, or later custom ship design? What about player experiencing with common attributes like bonuses to dmg/reload of certain weapon types, upgrade prices, ... Right now, it's only about playing, trying and unlocking new ships. Give me some fun, not frustration. I have enough of it thanks to Diablo3.


Well, I think that's all. Maybe I'll remember something later so I'll add more notes then.

Well, I've mention my game design which I was thinking about. Here are some ideas, maybe you can use them (but in most of them, I can't say how)...
- Karma, e.g. for killing without reason (in FTL, it could be like shooting at ship which already surrendered). With bad karma, good traders will not offer goods, good races will not give quests. With bad karma, you'll get access to black market, help pirates attacking space prisons and fill hunter/killer missions.
- Crew members with starting specializations. Well, just give them some skills. Right now, all of them are noobs and you need to train them by yourself.
- Emergency escape engine. It was my idea to give alternate of save/load. Short range jump drive with independent power supply and shielding (undestructible), which allows player to escape from any situation into safety.
- Item combinations. E.g. three (rare) technologies which are totally worthelss until they are combined together. Thanks to randomizer, these should have always different name/skin/behaviour, to be sure that there will not be any guides how to get these ultimates (which are what I hate on most of games).
- Backup power generators. For limited one time (per mission) only. Can be designed as batteries which will be charged on each jump / finished fight.
- More generator types with different fuel types. Goal was to get as much power supply types as possible, because some fuel would not be available in some part of universe. FTL could offer unavailable missiles and drone parts.
- Aliances with races. When finish enough missions, player will get 'accepted' status. Race's ships will help attack, shares maps, offers better prices, free emergency repairs and refuelling.
... (well, many more, but I'm too tired to write about them, maybe later, if there will be someone interested)

[vifon]

B1) Zoltan shield still works when sold. Until game is reloaded from save. Also, I got very often message 'intruders got through shield' (don't know how it is exactly) which is not installed quite long.

Yeah, I've read about it somewhere on this forum.

B2) Zoltans (Zoltanians? O_o) always powers first weapons slot even when it's not used. E.g. when I need to use slot 2 and 3 with 4 energy each, I can't because 1 power is always locked on first weapon.

It is supposed to work this way, read the tooltip.

B3) Augmentation for invisible weapons? If I get it well, it would allow me to shoot when invisible and not cancel my invisibility. But .. that is what can I do without it either?

Without that augmentation the weapons severely shorten the cloak time.

T1) When nebula trader (unknown weapon for 65 scrap) surrenders in fight, he offers everything on board. Where the hell is my 65 scrap pack? He always offers something like 30.

Yeah, I thought about it too. ++

T2) There should be possibility to power off subsystems. E.g. when testing, I've discovered that upgrading doors and/or piloting is like "noob trap" because of forever wasted energy. Also, Zoltans don't power up subsystems.

The subsystems do not use any power.

T3) How invisibility works. At first, there is no need of pilot or engines. Just cloak and evade bonus will solve it all. Don't sum bonuses, multiply them! At second, what the hell is with my weapons when enemy cloaks? Well, ok, they've lost their target, but I can charge without locking on some room. This whole invisiblity concept/design is weird.

Well, the enemy does not know where your ship is so it's only natural that he may miss.

T4) Saving?! I know that it should be oldtime hardcore gameplay, but even old games doesn't work with random worlds this way. I can say that this game will cause epic number of ragequits many times more that any other game. And still. I can anytime quit and backup save for later use.

It's part of the design. Every decision is final. It can be painful, but so would be losing half of the real crew.

T5) Map with displayed lines between beacons even not discovered. Too often it's pixel war and I've died few times only because thought that range 'will be ok'.

++

T6) Mouse only controls? Well, you know, for lazy guys playing from bed? I'll love space bar (pause) on middle button or at least in game button for un/pause. Same for menu (esc).

Actually, I think that the controls should be more keyboard focused. Mouse is too imprecise

T7) Better stores balancing. It's quite usual that stores have almost same items and it's not about skill to get to later sectors, but more BIG luck. Same with low weapons and/or unavailibility of crew members.

Luck is part of the game.

T8) What about price tweaking? If I get well, in some sectors, there are different items (regarded to race). What about changing prices for different technologies for different races? One could have really cheap missiles but expensive lasers, ...

I like the idea but it needs some balancing.

T9) Sandbox? Well, game is quite short for me. I like SPAZ, because I can play one game for 200 hours. It's like being crew member and live on ship. But there, I can barely remember whom I have on board and/or train him to cap. There could be many ways how to achieve this, e.g. changing (offer more) galaxy maps, disabling rebels (supereasy mode?). Then also you can add more levels to crew, special abilities when they hit level cap and much more.

Part of the design. It is not SPAZ. It's FTL.

T10) More differencies in ship designs. What about AI ships (at least in sandbox)? Cap on some energy fields (now same for all designs)? Evasion bonus for smaller ship (which will e,g, not allow to install new component rooms)? Rooms with two consoles (two crew bonuses)? Ship with more energy slots? Augmentation for allowing more energy upgrades (or better like 5 bay energy generator)?

++

T11) XP for playing for which you can buy starting bonuses? Like more starting scrap, more crew members, better weapons, or later custom ship design? What about player experiencing with common attributes like bonuses to dmg/reload of certain weapon types, upgrade prices, ... Right now, it's only about playing, trying and unlocking new ships. Give me some fun, not frustration. I have enough of it thanks to Diablo3.

No. Starting from the very beginning is the reason why FTL is such a great game. You just sit down for half an hour, probably die a painful death and walk away. It would be anticlimatic to be too powerful at the beginning.

- Karma, e.g. for killing without reason (in FTL, it could be like shooting at ship which already surrendered). With bad karma, good traders will not offer goods, good races will not give quests. With bad karma, you'll get access to black market, help pirates attacking space prisons and fill hunter/killer missions.

I like it. Especially the part about attacking a neutral ship.
Nonetheless, karma should not be too important - let's keep the half-an-hour formula.
++

- Crew members with starting specializations. Well, just give them some skills. Right now, all of them are noobs and you need to train them by yourself.

++

- Emergency escape engine. It was my idea to give alternate of save/load. Short range jump drive with independent power supply and shielding (undestructible), which allows player to escape from any situation into safety.

Not gonna happen. Death is part of the game, deal with it.

- Item combinations. E.g. three (rare) technologies which are totally worthelss until they are combined together. Thanks to randomizer, these should have always different name/skin/behaviour, to be sure that there will not be any guides how to get these ultimates (which are what I hate on most of games).

Too complex for such a short game. The Crystal quest is challenging enough.

- Backup power generators. For limited one time (per mission) only. Can be designed as batteries which will be charged on each jump / finished fight.

I'd rather see system overloading (which should partialy disable it afterwards) but it's fine too.

- More generator types with different fuel types. Goal was to get as much power supply types as possible, because some fuel would not be available in some part of universe. FTL could offer unavailable missiles and drone parts.

Too complex.

- Aliances with races. When finish enough missions, player will get 'accepted' status. Race's ships will help attack, shares maps, offers better prices, free emergency repairs and refuelling.

Would need some balancing but seems fine. ++

[ParanoikCZE]

ok, at first some news

T12: "There's no time to salvage the enemy ship... You must jump away before the cruisers get in firing range!" ... bitch please. There is enough time to finish all repairs, lunch, shower and some movie. In opposite, I've salvaged uncrewed ship which was destroyed about half second later due to inner fire.

T13: Teleporter (at least greater levels) should work within your own ship. Well, you can teleport bombs to your own ship but can't teleport crew? Would be great for dealing with intruders/repairs and bypassing fire.

T14: More rooms of same design on one ship? Like flagship's weapon rooms. E.g. Two single teleporters, oxygen generators, healing bays. Or open weapon/drone combination (3x2 space for weapons/drone).

T15: Possibility to sellback unused material. Rarelly I've met some trader who bought some missiles. But it was like 1/10 games.

B2) Zoltans (Zoltanians? O_o) always powers first weapons slot even when it's not used. E.g. when I need to use slot 2 and 3 with 4 energy each, I can't because 1 power is always locked on first weapon.

It is supposed to work this way, read the tooltip.

Oh ... my bad, but still .. rearanging weapons in battle? LOL

B3) Augmentation for invisible weapons? If I get it well, it would allow me to shoot when invisible and not cancel my invisibility. But .. that is what can I do without it either?

Without that augmentation the weapons severely shorten the cloak time.

I'm for all or nothing.

T2) There should be possibility to power off subsystems. E.g. when testing, I've discovered that upgrading doors and/or piloting is like "noob trap" because of forever wasted energy. Also, Zoltans don't power up subsystems.

The subsystems do not use any power.

Makes perfect sense. Now. There are no power lines, Zoltans have no effect here. Why I didn't get that before? Well, still green bars mean 'powered' so .. what about yellow them?

T3) How invisibility works. At first, there is no need of pilot or engines. Just cloak and evade bonus will solve it all. Don't sum bonuses, multiply them! At second, what the hell is with my weapons when enemy cloaks? Well, ok, they've lost their target, but I can charge without locking on some room. This whole invisiblity concept/design is weird.

Well, the enemy does not know where your ship is so it's only natural that he may miss.

Natural, if my engine is not offline. Then I get cloaked, not jumped other place. I would shoot last know position IRL ;P Still, no need to stop charging weapons. Then it would be named 'targetting' and resetted on each cloak.

T4) Saving?! I know that it should be oldtime hardcore gameplay, but even old games doesn't work with random worlds this way. I can say that this game will cause epic number of ragequits many times more that any other game. And still. I can anytime quit and backup save for later use.

It's part of the design. Every decision is final. It can be painful, but so would be losing half of the real crew.

Well, as I mention ... this will be the main cause for people leaving the game. They hate unbeatable games and even more when get lucky every good piece of tech, great amounts of scrap and died somewhere in sector 5 due to unavailibility of trader to make repairs.

T7) Better stores balancing. It's quite usual that stores have almost same items and it's not about skill to get to later sectors, but more BIG luck. Same with low weapons and/or unavailibility of crew members.

Luck is part of the game.

Problem is that it's the main part of game. Your skill is futile. You will be assimilated... eee.

T9) Sandbox? Well, game is quite short for me. I like SPAZ, because I can play one game for 200 hours. It's like being crew member and live on ship. But there, I can barely remember whom I have on board and/or train him to cap. There could be many ways how to achieve this, e.g. changing (offer more) galaxy maps, disabling rebels (supereasy mode?). Then also you can add more levels to crew, special abilities when they hit level cap and much more.

Part of the design. It is not SPAZ. It's FTL.

I know, but still, give it a chance. Like in Harvest, games are endless, but soon or later, you'll die on lack of resources, bad luck or bad decission. It would be great to going through almost unlimited galaxy and exploring it, like in ST:Voyager.

T11) XP for playing for which you can buy starting bonuses? Like more starting scrap, more crew members, better weapons, or later custom ship design? What about player experiencing with common attributes like bonuses to dmg/reload of certain weapon types, upgrade prices, ... Right now, it's only about playing, trying and unlocking new ships. Give me some fun, not frustration. I have enough of it thanks to Diablo3.

No. Starting from the very beginning is the reason why FTL is such a great game. You just sit down for half an hour, probably die a painful death and walk away. It would be anticlimatic to be too powerful at the beginning.

It would be awesome, and gives me a reason, why to try it again ... to get some better starting position and better chance. Well, even with completely upgraded ship, there is still really great chance to die. Tried few times and 1K/2K starting scrap is really OP in about first five sectors, but later, problems are always the same. And still, it could be an option for some sort of players. Give it a 'campaign'.

[Snow_Cat]

B2) Zoltans (Zoltanians? O_o) always powers first weapons slot even when it's not used. E.g. when I need to use slot 2 and 3 with 4 energy each, I can't because 1 power is always locked on first weapon.

It is supposed to work this way, read the tooltip.

I cannot fault making it a strategic choice by the player what device to load into the first slot (drone/weapon bay) however counter intuitively Zoltans WILL deactivate the currently active device if there is not also enough remaining power-capacity for their precious 1 unit of energy.

I would prefer that if there is not enough remaining capacity to partially power the device in the first slot and the currently powered device then the first device should fail to be powered, OR there be an audible/visual que that the Zoltan responding to an emergency, or passing through on the way to an improvised airlock, has inadvertantly shut something off.

(some swearing)

Let's Play FTL - 12 (Facepalming SpaceFace)

@20:12 drone activated
@20:15 suicide by bonus

Possible retort:

Family Guy - Consuela