It's not really a problem with the mechanic itself, as it is with the way the new xcom was build. In the OG you had 12 soldiers from the beginning and were getting more with better aircraft. That means, enemies getting lucky and you getting unlucky could still very well happen. But it wasn't such a big problem, because you only lost 1 guy out of 12. 1 guy out of 4 can easily ruin the entire battle for you, so the RNG is a much bigger problem.SonOfVoorhees said:
Zero Punctuation: FTL: Faster Than Light - Exploding Spaceships
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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Conversations about FTL always intrigue me. It's a fun and difficult game to be sure, but I often hear tales about losing to the flagship a lot and I always wonder how this is. I've never played the game on easy and have beaten it many times. The flagship's super weapons make it tough but I can't see regularly destroying rebel ships in sector 7 and having an insurmountable time beating the boss. It is much harder now with the zoltan shields on the third encounter, but I've still manhandled it a few times. I don't mean all of this as a "lol, n00bs" type post, I'm just curious as to why people find the final boss so damned hard.
Its absolutely brilliant. Its clocking in on 122 hours played on my steam account. When you get into it, a full run of the game takes about an hour. And its so much fun experimenting with the myriad of weapons, tactics and systems that it'll take you a good long while to run dry.Thunderous Cacophony said:
This game was a huge waste! And Yatzhee said the critical line, but like every other indie lover, glanced over it. Its a game meant to be replayed over and over, but two hours is a lot of investment. YES! Why is no one angry about that?! Why is it a free-to-play game that's designed to be slow and painful is considered the lowest of the low in programming, but a indie game designed to be slow and painful is 'all about the journey' and 'you just don't get it'.
Same damn problem I had with Papers Please. I'm tired of people saying 'Its not about the game or having fun, its about the etc...'
Its a game. Its supposed to be fun.
FTL is not fun.
And I just checked my Steam. I've played FTL for 17 hours. And I've beat the game once and I've never unlocked something. Ever.
What a waste of my time.
Same damn problem I had with Papers Please. I'm tired of people saying 'Its not about the game or having fun, its about the etc...'
Its a game. Its supposed to be fun.
FTL is not fun.
And I just checked my Steam. I've played FTL for 17 hours. And I've beat the game once and I've never unlocked something. Ever.
What a waste of my time.
There are people who say it isn't about the fun? FTL is meant to be difficult and replayable with it's myriad of combinations and chance. A free to play title which is designed to make you grind endlessly without offering variation and then offers you a way out of the dulldrum by spending cash is not really comparable. I get that FTL isn't your thing, but saying that it's somehow similar to many of the free to play genre makes no sense to me.Silentpony said:
Having to wait 12 hours to do anything (unless you cough up $1.99) is slow and painful. How is running through a game that you can play at your leisure and only takes about an hour or so similar to that?
FTL is just such a good game.
Far better to board the bridge to negate their evasion, and shoot the medbay as they flee to heal.Mosesj said:
I've only ever beat the flagship on easy, but that's without any mods. It really is OP, and you need to have defenses for absolutely every kind of tactic you can think of in order to completely defeat it.
The game is fun, but it's a specific fun. It's not the kind of game you play to win, it's the kind of game you just waste time in and enjoy those moments of accomplishment when you scrap an enemy ship to pieces. If you can get on the ridiculous discount, then it's worth it all the more. Just don't go into it expecting to power through to the end and win.
The game is fun, but it's a specific fun. It's not the kind of game you play to win, it's the kind of game you just waste time in and enjoy those moments of accomplishment when you scrap an enemy ship to pieces. If you can get on the ridiculous discount, then it's worth it all the more. Just don't go into it expecting to power through to the end and win.
No?Silentpony said:
Each play through takes an hour max. Most last 30 minutes or less before you know you're toast.
There are two types of games - fun games, and satisfying games.
FTL, like Dark Souls, is a satisfying game. When you beat the Rebel Flagship those 4 hours of trying and failing are all worthwhile.
So I guess you just missed the point of the game. You truly "just don't get it."
I disagree with the notion that its impossible to play FTL like a decent person and still win, you have less scrap but you typically get some other things to aid you, the hardest part is deciding if you allow pirates and slavers to surrender so that they can pirate and enslave another day, or blow them up adding another body to the uncomfortably fast growing pile.
Wait, you've beat the game but you don't have any unlocks? you unlock a ship just for reaching the 5th sector.Silentpony said:
Also you can go ahead and explain how a free to play game that deliberately slows down gameplay so that you have to pay to unlock stuff quicker is at all similar to this.
Fun fact, I've recently started playing the game with a program called "Poke" that allows me to get near unlimited scrap.
Yet, The Rebel Flagship can STILL kick my ass on fucking EASY if I don't take out the missiles first q-q
Still, I kinda wish there was an "Endless" mode, I know that there is a mod for it, but it repeats itself so much...
Yet, The Rebel Flagship can STILL kick my ass on fucking EASY if I don't take out the missiles first q-q
Still, I kinda wish there was an "Endless" mode, I know that there is a mod for it, but it repeats itself so much...
the RNG was equally annoying in the original x com, mostly because reaction shots are a terribly designed mechanic.Amaror said:
FTL is a fun little game to play in when you've got a few moments in a day. A couple of jumps will burn off five or ten minutes, depending on the complexity of any fights you might get into, and you even have the option to save and quit out for the next time, which I tend to do often. I will admit that, even when the RNG drops a space cow on me, I accept what it for what is--a cold, uncaring universe with a tendency to drop space cows on people whether they deserve it or not. That and giant alien spiders.
If I have to quibble, I'd say that there are two things which irk me a bit. One is the slight lack of internal rules consistency, AKA The Computer Is A Slightly Cheating Bastard. Most of the time, enemy ships follow the same rules you do, in that the two of you will try to kill each other legitimately (by which I mean the game's combat is, strictly speaking, fair enough that you could control the other ship through the same means as your own if you were them) except for one thing. Enemies getting multi-room targeting with burst weapons while we're stuck with hammering on one room with a multi-shot laser is a bit unfair since it means they could theoretically take out your piloting, oxygen, and medbay simultaneously with a bit of luck.
The other is the space-cow-gods-be-damned final boss. I'm not complaining that it's too hard, but rather that it's too predictable. Having won the game more than a few times by now, it's ever so slightly disappointing that the real meat of the challenge against the Flagship tends to boil down to whether you have a defense drone and some way to bypass shields, such as a crew teleporter or decent missile launcher. If you do, well, you're really only going to be worrying about the triple ion and maybe the triple missile launcher. If you don't, you're much more likely to be boned in this encounter, especially when the second phase comes around and boarding drones want to come and say hi. In a game where all other enemies are effectively randomized in loadout, it's rather disappointing for the boss to be so easy to gauge in terms of difficulty. A bit of variety in the boss would be nice.
But I suppose that's what mods are for.
If I have to quibble, I'd say that there are two things which irk me a bit. One is the slight lack of internal rules consistency, AKA The Computer Is A Slightly Cheating Bastard. Most of the time, enemy ships follow the same rules you do, in that the two of you will try to kill each other legitimately (by which I mean the game's combat is, strictly speaking, fair enough that you could control the other ship through the same means as your own if you were them) except for one thing. Enemies getting multi-room targeting with burst weapons while we're stuck with hammering on one room with a multi-shot laser is a bit unfair since it means they could theoretically take out your piloting, oxygen, and medbay simultaneously with a bit of luck.
The other is the space-cow-gods-be-damned final boss. I'm not complaining that it's too hard, but rather that it's too predictable. Having won the game more than a few times by now, it's ever so slightly disappointing that the real meat of the challenge against the Flagship tends to boil down to whether you have a defense drone and some way to bypass shields, such as a crew teleporter or decent missile launcher. If you do, well, you're really only going to be worrying about the triple ion and maybe the triple missile launcher. If you don't, you're much more likely to be boned in this encounter, especially when the second phase comes around and boarding drones want to come and say hi. In a game where all other enemies are effectively randomized in loadout, it's rather disappointing for the boss to be so easy to gauge in terms of difficulty. A bit of variety in the boss would be nice.
But I suppose that's what mods are for.
I dunno about this. You can exploit beam weapons that cross rooms a WHOLE lot better than the AI can. Every full beam weapon you can target 5 rooms OR MORE in a single shot - the AI never does that. Plus you can choose which systems you want to take out - the AI as far as I can tell just fires randomly which gives you a huge advantage. If the AI focused on your shields and then your weapons the game would be nearly impossible.Saika Renegade said:
The AI slightly cheats at times, but is intentionally dumb to compensate.
Oh, I don't doubt it. I'm well aware that humans can handle beam weapons more accurately, among other factors, such as focusing fire. The AI is admittedly much like the rest of the game, rather randomized, but at the same time, I like a game that's internally consistent on its own rules and setting. I don't begrudge the developers having to fudge it a bit for a relatively simple AI in a randomized system, due to inherent nature of its limitations. I will admit I still prefer the sort of games where the field is openly level for all parties involved as far as the rules of play are concerned, even if that means a five-shot burst laser ends up reducing my backup battery to a fine metallic paste.Thanatos2k said:
I'm not angry because I can't imagine anyone actually taking two hours just to finish a single play through. I only have 15 hours clocked on Steam, but I've played at least 30 times, won 5 or 6 times, and unlocked maybe half the ships and layouts (almost all that before the patch). It's not designed to be slow and boring, it's designed to be the game they wanted to make. If you happen to play it slowly and don't enjoy it, that's absolutely fine, but there's no point expecting all the people who do enjoy it to start raging just because you have different taste.Silentpony said:
That's why I don't play many roguelikes. But personaly I'd consider £7 for 25-50 hours entertainment to be pretty good value for money, so even if I do get bored after that it's still money well spent.gamegod25 said: