Hotline Miami Is Nuts, FTL Is Gambling

[King of Asgaard]

The randomness of FTL never really annoyed me much because I feel that part of the skill involved in playing is the ability to take your luck, bad or no, and turn it to your advantage.
You find tons of drone schematics but no weapons? Buy a drone bay and put them to good use.
Alternatively, sell that shit and buy up every little weapon you can to maximise your fire power quickly, and at the same time, since your offence is lacking, buff defence. Max your shields, and get cloaking. If you have a lot of crew doing bugger all, get a teleporter and go space pirate on their asses.
On the flip side, you find or buy a really good laser weapon early on (Burst Laser Mk. III, for example). Build your strategy around it, because it's your best source of damage output.

Personally, the strategy that works for me (on the Kestrel, both types, and Osprey Type A, other ships yet untested) is to get as many laser weapons as possible as early as possible. Nothing wrecks the flagship's shit more than 9+ lasers all directed at a single target, with a teleporter for taking out its triple-missile launcher. It has yet to fail me, so I must be doing something right, aside from the occasional spat of luck.

 

[UNHchabo]

Now I want him to do The Binding of Isaac. It combines the randomness of FTL with the insanity of Hotline Miami and throws in child abuse and religion for good measure.

Two of his colums covered BoI:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9226-Battlefield-3-Is-Scary.2
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9669-Why-Randomly-Generated-Content-Sucks

 

[DataSnake]

snip

You have some decent points there, but keep in mind that the definition of "insanity" varies from person to person. The most popular definition to quote (used by 12-steppers) doesn't fit either your use of it OR Yahtzee's. The broadest, most agreeable definition of insanity would be mentally unstable or not "right" in the head.

Spoiler: One other definition...

Seriously, though, the original quote [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html] is what I think when I hear the phrase "definition of insanity."

 

[Darth_Payn]

Incidentally it is nice to see a sci-fi story where our sympathies don't automatically lie with the rebels.

You mean like Star Trek and Warhammer 40K? And Gundam SEED and Skyrim?

I got that same impression from the GekkoState crew on Eureka 7. Even though Renton's a whiney little pud who's in love with a possibly alien (I think; they didn't do a properly establish the setting, like what year it is or what planet theyre on) girl who gets sick for long periods of time, he's well within his rights to turn on the gang of misanthropes with dubious agendas who yell at him all the time and treat him like crap. Really, the government they're rebelling against doesn't seem so bad, and what are the Gekkos going to replace it with?

 

[Howling Din]

I'd denounce luck altogether if it weren't for Fire Emblem using it so well.

 

[OniaPL]

He's dead-on, FTL is gambling. I must be some kind of moron, because I've been playing for 3 weeks straight and can't get past Sector 5, no matter how awesome my ship and crew are. Yet I can't stop playing, thinking "this will be the day". I've been referring to it as FML to my girlfriend.

Well, once you realize that you got to stay in every system as long as possible to "grind" for scrap, weapons etc. the game's difficulty level drops slightly. Although some ships are better than other, at that point you should be able to clear it at any level. The one thing I dislike about the game is the existence of an "optimal build path". You want to:

1. rush shields +enough power to get 3 shield bars to minimize hull damage and maximize net gain of scrap
2. Upgrade doors to 2
3. get weapons + power (ion bomb overpowered, burst lasers good)
4. get cloaking by sector 6-7 and max it
4.5(optional) get crew teleporter if you lucked out and got enough crew. If you did, upgrade sensors to 2
5. dump points into engine and power

Oxygen, medbay, auto pilot are all waste.

Of course this is slightly different depending on ships, which is a good positive since they really do make you tackle the game in a new way.

 

[joshuaayt]

I still don't agree that FTL games are mostly, or even largely, dictated by chance. Chance is a factor, yes, but every scenario, every shitty situation, has an out, or a counter- you just have to make decisions based on the ship you have.

I wouldn't say that playing FTL is a gamble- I'd say using any of the special ships, such as those that don't start off with any direct weapons, is a gamble the game lets you make. As long as you visit every shop, and you've stuck around in each sector long enough to make decent scrap, you'll find something useful- maybe not weapons, this run, but ooh! A teleporter!

When I first started playing, I barely was able to make it out of sector 2- now I never fail to make it to the last sector. This isn't me being some sort of gaming legend, it's just a lot of practice. FTL is a game that you can practice at, and get much better at, and so I disagree that it is mostly about chance.

 

[Oskuro]

Well, unless you enjoy getting torn apart by beam weapons, drones and asteroids, Shields are rather useful even on a ship with a maxed cloak.

Pshah, Shields are for sisses! Real space captains go at it bare!



... not really, but trying to do a playthrough without shields is an interesting challenge, which, once you can reliably smack the boss around, is another motivation to replay the thing.


I agree and disagree with Yathzee, though. I agree that randomness-based games are essentially gambling and you skills as a player have little bearing on the result; I disagree in FTL being so random. The events themselves are mostly random chance, but it's the triggering of these effects by exploring the galaxy what the player has control over. You take a risk with every move, specially when moving into troubling sectors (nebulae for example), so there is a lot of control there.

I think a lot of people haven't figured out the game yet, it's real core is not the combat, but rather the exploration. Good management of the exploration to maximize the risk/reward ratio is what allows you to bitchslap the mothership in the end.

 

[Dryk]

Weeeeell FTL isn't ALWAYS about gambling. You can ignore a lot of events that can royally screw you over, such as the Alien Spider event or the Planet Drifting through Nebula event. Blue event options for example, almost always remove the 'gamble' element from quite a lot of events.

First thing people should learn about FTL, giant alien spiders are no joke and will kill your guys the first chance they get. Conversely the crazy old hermit CAN kill people but in my experience never does.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[Oskuro]

I find that (on Easy) the Mothership is not that big of a problem if you have the following:

• 
  [li]Maxed Out Shields, with a level 2 operator: High shield regeneration that will negate most volleys.[/li]
  [li]High (or maxed out) Engines, and a level 2 operator: Increases dodge chance, and I tell you it is noticeable.[/li]
  [li]Level 2 Pilot: Even more dodge chance![/li]
  [li]4+ Weapon Array: Any Weapon combination able to bring down level 4 shields and deal damage[/li]
  [li]Missiles/Bombs: Starter missile launcher ok, or breach drones, meant to quickly do Step 1 below.[/li]

Step 1: Kill the mothership's multi-missile launcher and operator (it is repaired and re-crewed for each phase)
Step 2: Do your thing.

 

[Nigholith]

We can all agree FTL has a large random element to its design, but the one thing we're assuming incorrectly is that it's somehow a bad thing. Strip chance out of FTL entirely ? it becomes a linear management game where all objectives and encounters are set by the developer on launch and stay there, no matter how many times you play through the game. FTL then takes on the shades of a puzzle game, where there's a handful of functional ways to progress, a fixed path to completion, and little-to-no replay value. Would this improve the game? I doubt it.

The thing is about games that randomly generate content: It's not about the game randomly screwing you over, it's about how well (or poorly) you respond to those situations, it's about how well you can adapt. A ship twice your power attacks you and you have no chance to win? Then you died because you didn't jump the frack out of there; your bad decision killed you, not the game.

The same can be said for games with an even greater degree of randomness, like Ancient Domains of Mystery for instance. The game will occasionally throw you in situations you can't possibly deal with at your skill, but almost always you have some way out of there had you taken the right decisions. And yes, as with AdoM, sometimes you can get into an impossible situation where a bad dice roll decided your entire game ? I'd rather have that than a run-of-the-mill linear scripted game.

 

[bificommander]

I've played through 2 runs on XCOM, both normal, one ironman (I'll get to classic later) and I must say I haven't had as much problem with the randomness. The only bastard-thing I remember is that I had to shoot down a special UFO for the mission. It appeared all right, but I hadn't researched, much less built, the Firestorm interceptor yet, because the first time I played it I didn't know my old interceptors would suddenly become useless. So for a month or so I had to research and build, while that UFO kept flying over all my nations, and the council was bitching about all the dozens of UFO's I failed to intercept, even though it was the same UFO the entire time.

 

[snave]

You need to play it more, and less with the starting ship. This is precisely how I felt about the game until I had a couple of wins under my belt.

Most encounters have three options. The first is somewhat of a roulette wheel. The second is the trusty fight option that engages combat. The third is the blue option which is almost universally a good outcome but has a prerequisite. Basically things only turn to luck when you encounter a choice without a "blue option item" (BOI) onboard and unprepared to take the fight option. That blue option "item" can be anything from a Level 2 Medbay (a very cheap one to get that almost guarentees a free crewmember in the first sector or two) to a Rock man on board; not necessarily an actual item.

For most ships, this makes it a bit of a breadcrumb trail. You take the fight option where you can until you stumble upon a blue option provided by your ship's starting BOI. Then, as a reward you get another BOI or enough scrap to buy another BOI. And the cycle continues, with your frugality and combat efficiency determining whether you get enough BOI related scrap by the final sector to actually take down the boss.

The key problem with FTL is that this gameflow is apparent in every last ship except the bloody one you start with. The Kestral is very random-luck heavy, this is a solid fact, as you start without a single BOI and are basically forced into taking the non-fight random luck option in each encounter in hopes of a BOI, or otherwise dying. In other words, you're pushed to start scum. The other ships simply don't feel this way. You initial combat items, and BOIs will suffice through to at least the beginning of sector three, and your primary goal is just to pass sectors one and two whilst
a) visiting as many nodes as you possibly can without hitting the pursuing fleet and
b) not buggering everything up.

The thing with the Kestral however, that you'll truly appreciate after playing with the other ships, is that it starts with decent combat efficiency. Its one of the few ships where a crew teleporter typically doesn't become a prerequisite to winning in combat later on. Upgrade your shields one level and you're pretty sweet. Its a suprisingly easy ship, but unlike the other ships, it forces the player into adapting. The gameflow basically involves always taking the combat option until you stumble upon some sweet loot or a BOI. Then, you pretty much have to build a strategy around that first groundbreaking item you require. Other ships will see you begin with a strategy and sell lots of pickups for scrap to support said strategy. If combat in the Kestral is too difficult for you, then you're going to have to pause and micromanage more. That includes everything from juggling teleported enemies around the ship to strategically cutting the oxygen to charge high power consumption weapons (and flicking it back on for a sec at the start of cooldowns to preserve your crew). A high combat efficiency lets you run a leaner ship, which in turn lets you focus your hard earned scrap on BOIs rather than combat-related items and upgrades, which in turn increases your scrap production from non-combat encounters.

I'd also seriously jump up to Normal difficulty. Playing Normal mode forces you to think outside the box in combat and build reliable strategies or you'll be beaten to the ground in the first sector or two whereas Easy does not due to the higher scrap letting you bulk up your ship and get away with a less frantic playstyle. The catch is that the final boss has a frantic pace irrespective of which mode you chose. If you've played on Easy, I could imagine this being quite jarring. On Normal, its not. In fact, if you've managed to even make it to the final sector (whilst still visiting as many nodes as possible per sector) you'll probably find it a cakewalk.

Strategy, strategy, strategy. And pausing. Lots of pausing.

The fact that it can take 5-10 hours to start unlocking other ships and seeing how the game works is however, a very valid criticism. If it weren't such a damn engaging game (and hilarious, watching your crew suffocate to death due to a meteor slipping through a momentary gap in your shields is just plain hilarious) it'd have failed to hold my attention before it finally took its kit off and blew my mind.

 

[DataSnake]

Really? I felt that the insanity element was never really explored. The Lewis Caroll quote's seem random, in the sense you could place any of them anywhere and they would mean pretty much the same thing, and I don't know if Buck's random appearances are really indicative of Jason's mental health or just his "badassness." I think the plot is a pretty straight forward B-movie that THINKS it's deep.

I agree, the quotes are a bit much. What I meant was the characters act like something out of Lewis Carroll, especially Willis and Earnhardt. There's just something...off about them, like they're not playing with a full deck. And the thing where you're not sure if Buck's random appearances are real or not was exactly my point, that the game leaves you asking for yourself "was that a hallucination?". Personally I'd lean toward "not real" because if Buck could have figured out where each piece was before Jason did, he could have just retrieved the knife himself.

 

[INF1NIT3 D00M]

I'm totally with him on XCOM's investment clashing with the random element. I get extremely anxious at every stage of gameplay. I dread the next UFO because it could come at any time, I worry about every interception because I have no idea if my fighters are going to make it back, and every single mission has me biting my nails as I send my soldiers into the next eldritch nightmare. By this point in the game, I've learned the name of almost every one of my soldiers, color-coded their armor according to nationality, and I've gotten at least 80% of them leveled up to the first level or two of their class. All the random elements in the game that threaten my characters also present the danger that I might become jaded and burnt out, refusing to invest in future recruits and just giving up entirely. I'm a pretty terrible commander, in that respect.

 

[Calcium]

My general strategy for FTL is to get a crew teleporter and advanced sensors. You tend to get better loot from leaving a ship intact. One particular playthrough had me face the last boss with most systems maxed, with a Burst Laser III, a Burst Laser II, a Dual Laser, a Fire Bomb, a Breach Bomb II, and a Glaive Beam... and I didn't even use the Glaive beam. On Normal mode too. I don't think I even repaired in the last section.

Not saying I used all those weapons at once, just that I had them. Firing volleys of 10 lasers at once though felt rather OP.

Of course I have been bitten by the randomness of it all as well. The worst part of it striking is when you get to the last sector and realise all the repair stations have been scattered such that it makes it impossible to repair between fighting the different stages of the boss.

 

[Starker]

Now I want him to do The Binding of Isaac. It combines the randomness of FTL with the insanity of Hotline Miami and throws in child abuse and religion for good measure.

Two of his colums covered BoI:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9226-Battlefield-3-Is-Scary.2
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9669-Why-Randomly-Generated-Content-Sucks

"Covered" is perhaps a tad generous. "Mentioned" would be more accurate.