Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gameplay

General discussion about the game.
Maze1125
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun May 20, 2012 12:09 pm

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby Maze1125 » Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:29 pm

Reaver027 wrote:Then i found the Stasis Pod and was able to open it as well and there were still two more red sectors on my way. Still everything fine cept i only found 1 beam weapon (and some heal bombs) so far.
So at the end neither did i find the rock homeworld nor any more weapons.

I don't mind the ramdomness but stuff like this is so annyoing. If the game had given me either some weapons or the rock homeworld i would have been very happy with this playthrough. Now i am just sitting here frustrated because there was nothing i could do.


Nothing you could do? You've got the crystal crew-member and heal bombs, that's a recipe for an awesome boarding party right there. Nothing would be able to stand up to it bar automated drones. Forget weapon systems, and focus on defence and teleport, and the boss would be a cake-walk.

It's a pity you never found any weapons or the secret sector, but that was an awesome play-through nevertheless.
omegatotal
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:04 am

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby omegatotal » Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:19 am

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 :P )

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
Misery
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:53 am

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby Misery » Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:42 pm

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 :P )

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.
Aerowind
Posts: 80
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:11 pm

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby Aerowind » Wed Oct 03, 2012 4:08 pm

Some people don't like FTL's gameplay...because they don't like FTL's gameplay. It's as simple as that. People have different tastes. I love FTL. I hate the RTS genre as a whole. That doesn't make it bad. It just means I don't like it.

I know it's hard to understand, but different people like and are good at different things. I've been spending all of my time lately playing X3, but you couldn't get a lot of people to play it past thirty minutes without getting completely overwhelmed.
omegatotal
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:04 am

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby omegatotal » Thu Oct 04, 2012 2:51 am

yeah I am not so much an rts guy, I do pretty well in most fps games, but I liked the idea of FTL from the start, just think that with the randomness the way it is, its soo easy to get your self soo retarded with no chance that people (including my self) would get much less frustrated if they could start from a check point instead of from the begining.

I for one do not have great luck in life, and dont give me that bs 'we make our own luck'... I was not gifted with that ability.


all that said, I do still like the game, but it is frustrating at times
Misery
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 7:53 am

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby Misery » Thu Oct 04, 2012 7:18 am

Aerowind wrote:Some people don't like FTL's gameplay...because they don't like FTL's gameplay. It's as simple as that. People have different tastes. I love FTL. I hate the RTS genre as a whole. That doesn't make it bad. It just means I don't like it.

I know it's hard to understand, but different people like and are good at different things. I've been spending all of my time lately playing X3, but you couldn't get a lot of people to play it past thirty minutes without getting completely overwhelmed.



Aye, this.

I dont like RTS games either. FTL though never feels like one to me. There's the crew micro, but it's nice and simple and isnt the entirety of the gameplay. So it works.

I got into this game mostly because I like Roguelikes and similar games, so this one was right up my alley even with the microing aspect.
LeonLeon
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Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby LeonLeon » Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:49 am

When I play the game on easy mode, that means, that I want to relax. FTL completely takes away that option from me since so called "easy mode" only stressed me out and left me frustrated. I uninstalled the game after 3-4 hours of game play, when my ship was almost entirely destroyed on the first turn... on "easy" mode. Is that a point of easy mode, to frustrate the player during the first few minutes of a game play?

Thus, people who like to have an "easy" mode in the game should be informed that FTL is NOT for them. It has nothing to do with the game play design but with the lack of existence of the real easy mode. What's so difficult to understand, OP?

Do you think that limiting the game to only hard difficulty is a plus, and will appeal to a larger audience? Really? It is the developer's fault and not people's who find their so called "easy" mode too hard and frustrating. "Easy" option is for a reason, but this game obviously denies it.

It is a pity, because FTL has a huge potential. But by such a newbie programmer's mistake devs have denied themselves more income and increased the chance of bad publicity.
boa13
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Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:42 pm

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby boa13 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:38 am

LeonLeon wrote:Is that a point of easy mode, to frustrate the player during the first few minutes of a game play?

The point of easy mode is to be much easier than normal mode. It is easier than normal mode. I believe that after gaining some experience with the game, most players are not frustrated during the first few minutes of game play.

LeonLeon wrote:Do you think that limiting the game to only hard difficulty is a plus, and will appeal to a larger audience?

I don't know if the devs what to appeal to such a "larger audience". Surely they enjoy success, but I'm pretty sure they know they cannot please everyone.

LeonLeon wrote:by such a newbie programmer's mistake devs have denied themselves more income and increased the chance of bad publicity.

You sound very arrogant in claiming this is a "mistake", when it is more properly called a design decision.
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LeonLeon
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Joined: Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:24 am

Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby LeonLeon » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:52 am

boa13 wrote:You sound very arrogant in claiming this is a "mistake", when it is more properly called a design decision.

And you sound very ignorant thinking that the lack of a proper "easy" mode is a "design decision". Obviously, it is a mistake, because the buttons "Easy" and "Normal" are both in the game. If there was no "Easy" button then pehaps you could have called it a "design decision". Although, even then you could equally call it "sloppy" or "neglectful" design.
Last edited by LeonLeon on Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
boa13
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Re: Don't understand why some people don't like FTL's gamepl

Postby boa13 » Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:55 am

And they both work as intended. Easy is easier than normal.
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