I don't get it

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misterfanwank
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby misterfanwank » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:38 pm

DasRav wrote:*sigh*

http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/

Here, have a real roguelike. It even has (basic) graphics. I would like everyone who thinks FTL is too hard to play a few games of stone soup and see real difficulty. I recommend to play a kobold, then you don't have to worry about food.

I would also like to recommend classic X-Com or X-Com Terror from the Deep if you think FTL is hard and unforgiving. Those are on steam.

All three of these games (and I could find other examples if I wanted to) rely on procedual generation and random events for their gameplay and all of them are a LOT harder then FTL. And yes I have beaten all of these. For Stone Soup it took me 3 years of trying and it was only a "basic" win with one of the easy race/class combos.


My point is: FTL is hard but not to a fault. Yes you can die in the early game if you are unlucky. It is also unforgiving for inexperienced players and the big focus on micromanagement means you can screw up in many many ways. But if you analyze your mistakes, often times you will find what you could have done better. And it might well be that you die in sector 6 because you bought a done bay in sector 2 but never found good drones for it and are behind in scrap to buy other upgrades.

many people like the difficulty. If you do not like it, I am sorry. This debate is so heated because you cannot make the game easy without making it suck for the people who like difficult games.


I know some people complain about the difficulty. I complain about the unfairness. I also complain about the slow pace of the game. Seriously, there are times when I'm just waiting for 10~15 seconds and doing nothing. I wouldn't mind the unfairness if the game were exciting. I wouldn't mind the slow pace of the game if I didn't feel like I was wasting an obscene amount of time on an unwinnable playthrough.

I like hard games. I've blazed through the Megaman, Megaman X and Megaman Zero games and I LIKED the endless repetitive deaths because the games were exciting.

I'll accept an unfair game or a slow game. I will not accept both.

Gorlom wrote:Question! Does poker take skill to play or is that just random?


Poker is a boring game if you're not betting money. Poker only works when you have something at stake, which makes it exciting. The game also has a reasonable pace.

FTL has no real reward for playing except the experience. When the experience is slow and aggravating it's a chore to play.
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: I don't get it

Postby Gorlom » Thu Sep 27, 2012 1:56 pm

misterfanwank wrote:
Gorlom wrote:Question! Does poker take skill to play or is that just random?


Poker is a boring game if you're not betting money. Poker only works when you have something at stake, which makes it exciting. The game also has a reasonable pace.

FTL has no real reward for playing except the experience. When the experience is slow and aggravating it's a chore to play.

I note that you did not answer my question. :( Instead you went on on some rant about your opinion about how poker should be played? really? :|

what about other card games? there are several versions of solitaire for example. Are they all skill or are there any randomness involved in them?

IS it possible that other people might enjoy the game because of random elements even if you don't?
misterfanwank
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby misterfanwank » Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:16 pm

I should elaborate. I meant Poker's randomness isn't the same as FTL's randomness because the games use them to engage the players in drastically different ways. They're apples and oranges. I was taking issue with the implied comparison. I was not intending to answer your question.

Solitaire is a much better comparison because Solitaire and FTL use the randomness similarly. In fact from a macro point of view they're very close siblings.

Solitaire and FTL both require skill but luck is the most important factor, which I personally find irksome, although I am not saying all luck based games are without merit.
Icehawk78
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby Icehawk78 » Thu Sep 27, 2012 2:48 pm

Gorlom wrote:I note that you did not answer my question. :( Instead you went on on some rant about your opinion about how poker should be played? really? :|

what about other card games? there are several versions of solitaire for example. Are they all skill or are there any randomness involved in them?

IS it possible that other people might enjoy the game because of random elements even if you don't?

I have to say, as someone who disagrees with the whole "this game is unfair and unwinnable and too random and stupid and anyone who disagrees with me is a censor, etc" line of arguments, I don't get at all what you're saying. Card games aren't even remotely similar or applicable to FTL, in any manner. Poker? That's barely even about the cards (at decent skill levels, at least), it's the penultimate "multiplayer" game.

Ultimately it sounds like you're agreeing with the others that FTL is, at its core, a dice roll. Something barely or not at all under your control. I don't think that's what you actually think, having read your previous comments, but attempting to defend your position with card games just seems bizarre.
misterfanwank
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:23 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby misterfanwank » Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:00 pm

I'll make my own FTL...


With Blackjack, hookers, ship building, free exploration, organic galaxy spanning wars and politics!
Icehawk78
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby Icehawk78 » Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:13 pm

misterfanwank wrote:Solitaire is a much better comparison because Solitaire and FTL use the randomness similarly. In fact from a macro point of view they're very close siblings.

Solitaire and FTL both require skill but luck is the most important factor, which I personally find irksome, although I am not saying all luck based games are without merit.

Solitaire requires skill? This is an honest question - I thought you more or less randomly picked from the available moves, and hoped it all worked out. I wasn't aware there was any form of "strategy" that could be employed to improve your odds of winning in any manner.

The above is more how I see the randomness in FTL - it can be essentially utilised as a sort of wildcard factor, initially defining the baseline of the game (ie the system layouts and the ships contained within), and the randomised events providing (essentially) optional lotteries, to allow the player to either attempt to improve hir position (with the associated chance of opportunity cost imposed by all lotteries, in this case in the form of potential ship damage, loss of crewmembers, etc), or, importantly, to not participate in the lottery whatsoever.

From a low level, I can understand things like frustration with that fact that it may be possible (with very bad luck) to map out a path through a system that explores as much as possible, but still doesn't come across, say, any stores (though since they auto-identify, this would have to be very bad luck), or that every store you do come across happens to only have items which are entirely worthless to you (though since nearly every item seems to have some use, this too be quite bad luck). And since you don't, by default, have a high amount of information on the surrounding areas, you can't make an overly informed decision on where to go (though, you still can - travel as laterally along the advancing Rebel line as you can, aim for nodes in the center of a cluster to reveal as many possible adjacent nodes as you can, don't leave a system until you have to, etc).

However - the key element here, to me (and I imagine many others who also don't view the game as inherently "unfair") - your own personal skill at the game can affect that pseudo-random baseline. To a very high degree. I've occasionally trekked all the way to the opposite corner of the sector's exit because I was looking for a store, with 3-4 fleet-controlled nodes between my end point and the sector exit. I can do this, and the game allows me to, because with a higher level of skill, you can still easily defeat the fleet ships. With a higher level of skill, you can unlock access to more drones, more weapons, and more scrap, by doing things like effectively utilising boarding parties, or selectively shooting at what would otherwise seem like suboptimal rooms, in order to kill the enemy crew before blowing up the ship. You can access more scrap by taking less damage and using less items if you know how and choose to do so.

These are the reasons why the game is, to me, far more than just a dice roll. Playing with dice can be fun, sure. (I like Yahtzee, lol.) But FTL is more fun, because that's not what it is.
Misty
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:51 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby Misty » Thu Sep 27, 2012 4:27 pm

Raikao wrote:But that game isn't random you goddamn retard. Seriously, I already said I'm not gonna bother anymore but holy shit some people are so dense it's scary. The bullets follow the same pattern every time, so all it takes is memorization and skill to beat the game. FTL however is sometimes too random, and shoving around crew members from room to room is not skill but badly designed mechanics that you can exploit if you know how to. Jeez, this isn't rocket science you know.


Can you please quote where did I say that game is random? For someone who like to call other retards your reading comprehension is pretty shabby, not to mention your terrible lack of self control. I am almost tempted to troll you. Almost.

Back on topic: I never said Futari was random, you not very smart person. I said your actions were akin to entering a forum dedicated to Futari as-is and telling everyone the game was wrong because they did not like how it did play, which is wildly different. What did you expect to find? Many, if not most, of the players enjoy the randomness, enjoy the needless deaths, and enjoy trying to build a strategy that accounts, as much as possible, for the randomness. And the game was designed to be such a game.

Will the RNG be unfair many times? Sure it will. That's the point of having a game built mostly around randomness, and if you can't cope with the unfairness and the randomness then go play something else.

Also, if I may remind you, you said boarding was useless outside of the boss. Those were your words, not mine, and we explained you were wrong in quite the detail. I don't particularly care what you think of the boarding mechanics, and while it is your prerogative to dislike the boarding mechanics and you are free to decide not to use them that doesn't change the fact that your statement about boarding being useless outside the boss is wrong. It is quite useful, as a matter of fact.

I gave you several bits of information about boarding. Have you decided exploiting defenseless AIs is not your cup of tea? Alright, then use the kind of tactics used for ships with blastdoors on every ship you board. Set key rooms on fire, disable them with bombs, send boarding drones to split your enemies, cycle your boarding party with a fully upgraded teleporter until the enemies are weakened and you can make an all out assault. Done.

Edit: Or do what both others and I already told several times to do, which was to wait for the enemy to send the wounded back to the medbay and then bomb it or missile it before they get a chance to heal, as you will both disable the medbay and kill the weakened crew members. Or ionize it with either bombs or ion weapons and then send another team to clean up. The game is suposed to be based around improvisation, not around having perfect and absolute control of all variables.

If you can neither think of those things by yourself nor understand them when you are told about them you should be learning to play instead of QQing and telling us how the game's unfair. And if you consider that's much trouble for twice the scrap and a chance of getting free crew and weapons that you can either use or sell for even more scrap, then you are free not to do so. However, it is your fault then if you can't beat the boss, or even get to it consistently, even on easy: If you were getting double scrap and bonus weapons you would have a much better chance for it. You would reduce, in fact, the very randomness that hurts your fragile feelings so badly.

And as a passing comment if you can't deal with randomness, unfairness, and things outside your control I believe your life will be a funny one to watch. Delicious rage all around.

Raikao wrote:It's like in Civ V where you always know what the AI thinks of you based on how much they offer in trade, that would probably be "skill" in your world too lmao.

Here's how to improve the game immediately by a factor of 20 : Let me choose which crew member to send on away/shuttle missions. Because without that fix EVERY single event where you can loose crew is absolutely useless and could be taken out of the game. Because even if you have a full crew, doing on of these events usually just kills your weapons/shield/pilot guy, instead of one of the useless guys. So why would you ever do these events. It's bad design. There's no evaluation here, you don't do the events if you have enough crew and don't do them if you have minimal crew...you NEVER do them period. Being able to select which crewmen to potentially sacrifice would make these events at least worthwhile if you have spare crewmen. You could even have a new crew-stat that goes up with successful away missions and increases the chance of survival.

Bam, great patch idea right there and guess what, the devs can take it or leave it. It's that simple. Fighting any kind of possible changes or criticism with tooth and nails, that's what the church is for, stop doing it in forums. Present your opinion, counter argument whatever. But apparently that's impossible without calling me bad, casual and what not. Stop stroking you ego-dick ffs. Noone cares, you think the game has no problems, fine. Say so and move on. But reducing every single bit of criticism down to "it's a player issue" must really get your pants wet or something. Holy shit.


And where did I said anything about that particular topic? Can you provide a quote, please? It is you who believe I believe the game's perfect. Why should I care about your delusions? If you want to have a discussion with whatever your sick mind makes up I am sure there's a mirror somewhere near you, so save us the idiocy. I couldn't care less about your mental problems.



Edits: So many typos, so little time. D:
Last edited by Misty on Thu Sep 27, 2012 6:29 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Real
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:58 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby Real » Thu Sep 27, 2012 4:32 pm

If something proves to be too difficult for someone in 2012, you can bet someone somewhere on the internet is hearing about it.
nfiea2
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 4:23 pm

Re: I don't get it

Postby nfiea2 » Thu Sep 27, 2012 5:00 pm

HEY RETARD
EVERYONE HAS THE SAME CHANCES IN POKER UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING AT A CASINO THAT GIVES THE HOUSE AN EDGE

YOU FUCKING GODDAMNED RETARD

IT IS ALL ABOUT SKILL, IF YOU GET A BAD HAND YOU FOLD AND BASICALLY LOSE NOTHING


JUST STFU! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CARD GAMES; YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN PLAY VIDEO GAMES.
Gorlom
Posts: 519
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:06 am

Re: I don't get it

Postby Gorlom » Thu Sep 27, 2012 6:15 pm

nfiea2 wrote:HEY RETARD
EVERYONE HAS THE SAME CHANCES IN POKER UNLESS YOU ARE PLAYING AT A CASINO THAT GIVES THE HOUSE AN EDGE

YOU FUCKING GODDAMNED RETARD

IT IS ALL ABOUT SKILL, IF YOU GET A BAD HAND YOU FOLD AND BASICALLY LOSE NOTHING


JUST STFU! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CARD GAMES; YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN PLAY VIDEO GAMES.

aaaaww I missed you you little angry flamer! :D

btw you accidentally pressed your caps lock button before typing that post.