Zero Punctuation: FTL: Faster Than Light - Exploding Spaceships
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
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:
I had to stop playing this game as my fragile ego can't take playing a game that utterly crushes you 19 out of 20 times you play. If you want to play a game where you at least have an even change to win this is not the game for you. If on the other hand your a masochist and like being randomly stomped into paste after several hours of play then your really going to have fun with this.
The game play is quite fun and engaging, well until the game suddenly spits up an enemy who is 50 times stronger than you and you have to start from the beginning. Yeah that got old very quickly.
The game play is quite fun and engaging, well until the game suddenly spits up an enemy who is 50 times stronger than you and you have to start from the beginning. Yeah that got old very quickly.
I've been playing FTL quite a bit since the new content was added. It managed to make an already great game even better.
For those who've beaten the game fair and square, I highly recommend checking out the mod that removes the fleet creep. It's a whole different game when that mod is added. It is obviously easier to beat the end, but the new challenge becomes fuel and ammo management as well as exploration. Plus it's just plain fun to explore every sector thoroughly rather than the quick few jumps to the end you get during the game proper.
It can be found on the FTL website in their MODS forum if anyone is interested.
For those who've beaten the game fair and square, I highly recommend checking out the mod that removes the fleet creep. It's a whole different game when that mod is added. It is obviously easier to beat the end, but the new challenge becomes fuel and ammo management as well as exploration. Plus it's just plain fun to explore every sector thoroughly rather than the quick few jumps to the end you get during the game proper.
It can be found on the FTL website in their MODS forum if anyone is interested.
I like the game. It works well as a casual "oh, I have 45 minutes on the train for my commute, might as well blow up some space pirates"
Oh and do not forget that you can basically quit the game, mid-game, and then come back on and continue... so that 2 hour play-through can be split up into many bits
That said, I've played the game so much on my laptop that i've unlocked everything - and its so much fun with the various playstyles you can do.
Do you invest in a good ol' straight up shields and guns ship? How about instead of guns, you go all in for drones? Or hacking, mind-control and teleporting over boarding parties?
Oh, and if you have a cloning bay instead of a med bay you can just sacrifice your boarding parties like an unlimited supply of redshirts to throw at your enemy. Choke their engines with their corpses!
Oh and do not forget that you can basically quit the game, mid-game, and then come back on and continue... so that 2 hour play-through can be split up into many bits
That said, I've played the game so much on my laptop that i've unlocked everything - and its so much fun with the various playstyles you can do.
Do you invest in a good ol' straight up shields and guns ship? How about instead of guns, you go all in for drones? Or hacking, mind-control and teleporting over boarding parties?
Oh, and if you have a cloning bay instead of a med bay you can just sacrifice your boarding parties like an unlimited supply of redshirts to throw at your enemy. Choke their engines with their corpses!
Why are people who enjoy games like FTL and Dark Souls always called "masochists"? That implies they ENJOY the suffering.RickF7666 said:
That's not the case at all. What we enjoy is overcoming challenge. We don't like the 19 times when we lose, but we play for that 20th time when we succeed.
Again, a difference between fun and satisfaction. FTL does not have much fun in it, but it has a ton of satisfaction.
man, I LOST it at that Colbert picture! That and using big rigs for enemy flagships. I've been on the fence about getting FTL, as I fear I'd go through the same song-and-dance I did with Evil Genius: build a base/spaceship how I want (if I can afford it) and hope against hope I won't be OP'd by whatever the computer throws at me to fuck my shit right up.
Except some of us (I'd say a lot more than your type really) don't like the concept of losing more than we do winning, at least not to an even extent, I don't mind if I tie or win quite a bit, if I lose 19-20 times however I'm most likely not having fun if at all, that one singular mere small win doesn't do anything to my brain, it doesn't invoke that Stockholm syndrome like feeling that I'd truly just saved the world from the tyranny of some great evil and that I should feel overwhelmingly accomplished at having that one tiny win over the 19 other losses, no I feel that I had truly wasted my time.Thanatos2k said:
That isn't a hard concept to understand, the reason why we say BDSM/masochist is because there are indeed people out there who love to "lose" and be "dominated", whether it be via a person or some other means, that can also apple to those that love that tiny little ounce of victory, evolution doesn't like losing, it likes to win as often as it can, so does mankind which explains why most people who like to win far outweigh those that like to lose often and like to treat that tiny victory as if all those losses meant nothing/ never existed in the first place.
I like to play games for fun,story,scenery and sometimes if I really want to, a possible challenge which is rare at times because I don't see gaming first most as a challenging medium, I see it as entertainment, not a gladiators challenge arena, those that think so can do as they please, but don't try to say that's what all gaming is/ should be because that heavily implies that all gaming is never about fun/entertainment but about some weird hardcore challenge we must all go through like some "coming of age" ritual.
Also satisfaction comes in all sorts of different forms and to some people different levels of it, to say that the game objectively offers mostly good satisfaction is false, to say that over rules everyone else's personal form is also false, that's just not how it works.
Also there can be both fun and satisfying games, not satisfying because of only a challenge, there are other forms of that do exist out there.
That last bit about light (in the end comment of the vid).
Yahtzee. Mate. Light is actually fairly slow, compared to the vast size of the universe. For example, it takes a bit more than 4 years for light to travel from our sun to Alpha Centauri.
So your ship is definitely travelling Faster Than Light.
Yahtzee. Mate. Light is actually fairly slow, compared to the vast size of the universe. For example, it takes a bit more than 4 years for light to travel from our sun to Alpha Centauri.
So your ship is definitely travelling Faster Than Light.
All video games are a waste of time though. Only playing games where you make savable "progress" would exclude many wonderful games. Especially multiplayer games.Shadow-Phoenix said:
This really isn't the appeal of these games at all. These games are not for people who WANT to lose. They are for people who ACCEPT they will lose on the way to victory. It is not a tiny victory when you finally break through and win. Especially in FTL it's a monumental occasion. I always take a screenshot when it happens. I've beaten FTL 5 times in who knows how many tries and I remember each one.
You allude to evolution, and these games are indeed Survival of the Fittest. The weak are weeded out, and the fittest persevere and succeed.
So you don't like challenge. Got it. But people who do are not masochists - they don't like the failure, they enjoy the successes that are not handed to them - the successes that are earned. The successes that not everyone will attain.
Many people don't last 5 minutes in "I Wanna Be The Guy." They immediately conclude "This is stupid" and write the game off. The people who don't immediately see a puzzle worth solving. They are different people than you.
Lol, and damn it looks good.Earthfield said:
I love FTL and I love any game that lets me rename characters after my friends. I've sent a few text messages to people letting them know they were eatin by giant spiders or apologizing for giving them a space plague and having to quarantine them on an alien planet.
FTL is like most roguelikes, if you're a hipster wank 'rogue-lites,' is that after the learning curve has been taken in, the real joy of the game is making due with what you're given and the RNG matters far less. I've beaten FTL multiple times, with almost every ship type, and can say that the number of times I've been screwed over by early RNG shenanigans I can count on one hand. Much the same way as Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, or Desktop Dungeons, the game is actively trying to give you stuff, but sometimes it's intent isn't clear. Those are the cases where you feel you got screwed by RNG.
Or you just screwed up hardcore and won't admit it. That's definitely an issue I see with a lot of FTL complaints.
Or you just screwed up hardcore and won't admit it. That's definitely an issue I see with a lot of FTL complaints.