omegatotal wrote:IMO
The game really needs a checkpoint at the start of each sector, every time you have to revert to a check point you have a stat that ticks one to show you did..
Those of you 'Im a OG bad ass mofo' can choose not to use them if you wish.. ( no offense
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I dont do WoWcrack, I dont feel like spending days at a time in a single sector contemplating the ways of the universe that is totally random before I jump to the next point in that sector.
Speaking of totally random, having to go back to a check point doesn't mean that the player will already know how the first x number of jumps in the sector will turn out, simply because of the randomness in the game.
So in the end, having sector based checkpoints will help the game immensely for those of us that have not thrown 891237401982374 hours of our lives away playing strategy games.
This is just my .02 cents
That's the thing though: You DONT need to put absurd amounts of time into this game in order to master it. The game has alot of random events, sure, but in the end, it's really about skill and knowledge. Which is the same for the vast majority of good Roguelike games; this isnt a pure roguelike, but it uses many of the same concept, and that genre works in a very similar way to how this game is. Roguelikes also typically do the "no checkpoints and permadeath" idea as well, and it's one of the reasons why the genre works. The game FORCES you to learn it, and use actual skill/strategy/planning, as opposed to winning through sheer persistence and repetition, as many games these days do. It's one thing to beat a game, but.... in all honesty, if I beat a game because I reloaded 50 times from a checkpoint in front of a particular boss I had trouble with until things just HAPPENED to go my way with the setup that I'd saved with, well.... then no, I didnt really "beat" the game; it stomped my ass in, and then handed me the ending ANYWAY. I know many players dont see it that way, but to me, there's no satisfaction there.
I've put 24 hours so far into this game, says Steam, but by hour 4 or 5, I was regularly hitting at least sector 7 on Normal. Even with the apparently-terrible Vortex ship (Engi ship B, you start with ONE crew member and no sensors) Im doing pretty good, but that's because I've learned the game well (and it helps that I'm familiar with Roguelikes, so I'm used to dealing with randomness). And that's really all there is to it: Keep playing, keep trying, get better and better as you keep going, and you WILL find yourself doing better.
As for the randomness itself.... again, it's really about skill. Like with the Roguelikes, half of the challenge of the game is handling difficult situations with the hand you are dealt, as opposed to just repeating the exact same scenes over and over and beating them outta sheer memorization. In a well-balanced game of this type, skill can pretty much always trump the RNG. The game has thrown some pretty loopy situations at me, and I get definite satisfaction out of beating them ANYWAY; for example, one recent run I had only 2 Zoltan crew, and one rock guy, and the game just randomly chucks 4 rock dudes into my ship; seemed like a really bad situation at first, but in the end, with thinking/strategy, I ended up killing them with the rock guy taking MAYBE 50 damage total, and the Zoltans taking none. THAT type of thing, when that happens, it's VERY satisfying, and few games these days manage that.
And dont forget, Easy mode is a pretty good way to learn some tactics and unlock some ships.