Unlocking new ships is way too difficult

[swixel]

Like I said, I love this game, but I know I'm missing out on a lot of the content.

Yes and no. The new ships aren't (for the most part) anything to write home about. What you get is a different start (okay, so aside from slow moving blue critters, the crystal ship is a straight upgrade; but the same could be said about the rock ship's movement and I don't feel it's an upgrade).

There are guides as to how to get them, but the random ones are just replay after replay after replay of hoping. Still, if you're not into roguelikes, then I can see why it'd be annoying.

[ice]

It's not that I'm not into roguelikes, I'm just not used to them. I've played for nearly 40 hours and I have unlocked just about half the ships:

Kestrel A and B
Engi A and B
Fed cruiser A and B
Rock ship A
Zoltan A and B

Now, I have read guides on how to get the rest, and I always try to do the quests whenever I recognize them appearing, but it still feels that it is wayy too hard to get them, and even if you're trying to get them, it's just about that extreme amount of luck.

[nfiea]

I love that the response is to just cheat to unlock them

game is to hard, just cheat

I've unlocked several ships without cheating. The response is actually "if you don't have the time to unlock them, make the unlocked ships easier to get for yourself." Which is far better than "if you don't have the time to unlock them, make the unlocked ships easier to get and ruin the fun of those who do."

i fixed your post

[Nutsnmango]

I said in my original post that i wouldn't mind unlocking the ships if it was solely about skill, but its actually mostly about sheer dumb random luck. you could beat the game a hundred times and theoretically not unlock all the ships. I do play and like rougelikes, this is definitely not my first one and I find this game far more casual than my favorite rougelike (dungeon crawl stone soup) rougelikes do have a fair amount of luck when it comes to whether you live or die, but this kind of luck related to unlocks is totally different. I dont usually have to unlock other classes in other rougelikes. I appreciate a challenge but getting these special quests is out of my control, it has nothing to do with my skill level, so please chill those hostile replies that imply I'm not hardcore enough for FTL of whatever.

[swixel]

I appreciate a challenge but getting these special quests is out of my control, it has nothing to do with my skill level, so please chill those hostile replies that imply I'm not hardcore enough for FTL of whatever.

There are also the parallel unlocks (i.e. B types) and a few of them (though only Engi comes to mind) *are* skill based.

I'm not saying you're not hardcore or anything like that, I'm saying if you're not used to the "universe is governed by dice, not playing to the user's whims" it's annoying. I'll grant you, it irritated me how long it took me to get the crystal ship. Others, still, were irritating for other reasons (e.g. for some reason I got the ship and it didn't unlock on the Slug ship?; repeated process, got it the second time, yay.).

[PirateCat]

I love that the response is to just cheat to unlock them

game is to hard, just cheat

I've unlocked several ships without cheating. The response is actually "if you think everything should be handed to you on a silver platter within a few hours of getting a game, make the unlocked ships easier to get for yourself." Which is far better than "if you think everything should be handed to you on a silver platter within a few hours of getting a game, make the unlocked ships easier to get and ruin the fun of those who think that even a $10 investment should give you things to unlock on subsequent playthroughs."

i fixed your post

Fixed your fix.

[Kenthen]

Posturing aside, it's a valid concern that the rate of unlocking ships might be off, the question is whether it's a big enough deal to do anything about it if that's the case.
Ships and layouts open up the game a bit and add more replayability but having to play to get them is also a means of adding replayability.
Frankly I personally think it would hurt the game more than it would help if ships unlocked at a faster rate, despite the fact that the biggest hurdle to get over to get new ships is to overcome your bad luck.

I think having things unlock at this kind of a rate will hold more people than it scares off, which means more people talking about the game, which is in turn better for it in the long run.
I mean, I pull that right out of my arse but the way I see it, if the game holds my interest and I still have things to do until they either expand on the game or tap into the buzz for a new project altogether then they did it right.

[Nutsnmango]

See, I don't feel that way at all. To me, the gameplay is an end unto itself. If the only reason to play the game is to unlock more ships, then then game has failed on some fundamental level in my opinion. If you look at other games(Again, Crawl), the fun is in PLAYING the game, not in grinding stuff out until you get something new and shiny. Why are all of these 'meta-level' mechanics appearing in games these days? Don't track my progress outside of the context of the game, and essentially give me a 'player level,' represent that IN the game.

Not that FTL is a game where the achievements are the only thing worth sticking it out. I think it's fun in and of itself to play, which is why I am quite bewildered by the responses I've gotten. The difficult of the GAME is absolutely perfect in my opinion. You can't ever assume that you're safe(again, due to the GOOD kind of randomness, the kind that happens AFTER you select your ship and loadout), nor is it absolutely unforgiving(because again, you can get lucky!).

Leaving weapons up to luck, or augments, etc, THAT is the kind of thing that can be rewarding. But the game as I see it now is like an RPG where you don't have access to all of the classes at the start. That's a bit silly and it doesn't really add anything imo. Heck, if you want there to be superior loadouts that I have to unlock after a long time, again that's something else altogether. What gets me is that none of the ships are 'upgrades' for the most part, they just represent different playstyles. Why are my strategic options so limited at the start of the game? I'm not asking for things to be handed over to me, I'm asking for me to have the option to play the game in the manner I want. Allow me those options and them make me earn the more powerful stuff within the context of the game, not within the context of a meta-game. Again, why does everyone love this? It's just like Call of Duty's bullshit, adding RPG mechanics not within the context of a match, which works well(CounterStrike), but adding RPG mechanics within the context of the PRODUCT you've purchased, slowly trickling in content instead of letting you have it up front, which does nothing but artificially force playtime out of people imo.

[icepick]

It's called pacing. If you hand someone the entire game up front it's bad pacing.

Finding a pacing that pleases everyone is obviously impossible. I agree with what the devs have done.

[zabbo2]

I would agree that the frequency of the ship unlock events might be increased just a notch.

Here's where I am with the game: 49 hours played (I swear I might have left it on at some point, seems crazy) and have yet to unlock half the ships. I'm sort of played-out of FTL (certainly getting my money worth) as the game now doesn't really challenge me anymore or hold surprises so I'm not too motivated to play it. However I would love to have the Mantis and Slug ships at least, as they look like just the thing for me and my playstyle.

I should also state though that I haven't read any spoilers on how to get the ships, so this certainly would negatively affect things.... though I don't think I've come across the Mantis or Slug events more than once in my entire 50 hours of playing or so.

What if you have a score over 5000 points you can choose a ship to unlock ? Or if over 6000 points you unlock them all? I can see the appeal of having all of the ships unlocked before you getting exhausted from playing but the balance of this issue is pretty tough.