List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

General discussion about the game.
velz
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 5:25 pm

List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby velz » Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:13 pm

Theres a thread on FTL here on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... _thoughts/

I wanted to paste over here parts of some of the most upvoted posts detailing what seems to be the top things people don't like about the game. I'm doing this because I want to do as much as I can to bring attention to these comments in hopes that the devs of FTL can take things into consideration and make the game better in future patches.

Someone in the thread mentioned how one of the devs doesn't seem to really care much about what people say should be changed in the game, and seems to be giving off the "Hey it's a roguelike, your opinions dont matter much because it doesnt fit with our vision of the game".

If that's really the case, i want to say something to the dev in question. There's a phrase in the world of writing that goes something like "Don't be afraid to kill your babies". In other words, you may think your script is the best thing since sliced bread, and negative feedback from people reading it means they're stupid and can't see your genius. Not the case. You need to take your audience into account. If the majority of your audience is saying something should be changed, whether you believe it doesn't fit your holy vision is moot; you need to change it to please your market. You don't tell them to deal with it, that's not how you find success. If I wrote a script for a war movie set int he Civil War, and I pitched it to my agent who passed it to some producers who then thought the screenplay would work better as a sci-fi/drama, guess what i'm spending the better part of the next month doing? Rewriting my script as a sci-fi/drama. I'm not telling them to keep their millions they want to send me to purchase the script because I refuse to turn it into anything other than a war movie.

Anyway, here goes:

"My biggest complaint is just how luck based it is, enemies scale too quickly compared to your own ship, so you generally need a really lucky game to make it anywhere."

"The game is too short for its roguelike focus.
Real roguelikes let you play a single character for hours and hours and explicitly reward very conservative play. FTL's theme of course discourages this, but I'm not sure it's to the benefit of the game itself.
Having an infinite Universe to explore with goals added in and maybe an ultimate game ending goal (such as Nethack's ascension) would make the game a lot more worth putting time into.
As it is, it feels like you can play for 30 minutes and maybe have a lucky streak in terms of which systems you jump into, but then end up fucked because all the dice roll go against you and there is no way to draw back ever.
Don't get me wrong, I like it a whole bunch, I'm still gonna play it, but I feel like it's slightly off and that prevents it from being a classic."


"There was so much potential in the game. It comes so close to being space Binding of Isaac. But it falls short for a few simple reasons.
There is no sure way to actually find necessary upgrades of any kind. In one game I went from sector 1 to sector 6 checking every shop available for a weapon upgrade because the zoltan ship's default weapon hits a brick wall sector 5/6. Every shop. Not a single one had weapons of any description and none were found in events. I constantly had 120+ to buy any possible weapon. But the run was ended then and there. This applies to every aspect of customization too. From crew or modules to drones or the criteria for unlocking other ships.
The final boss is nothing more than a frustrating "gear check". In Binding of Isaac you can kill mom with no items, extremely difficult, but possible. In most games a player who knows what to do can overcome challenges vastly undergeared or even naked. This is... very unlikely to ever happen for this game. You purchased from shops or found in events the pieces of a ship that can win the game, or you die. This style of boss greatly exacerbates the first point.
No useful keybinds. 1-4 for weapons works great, but is nothing else bound? You could trivially use rows on the keyboard for crew, system power and activating the ships abilities.
The events where it is possible to lose a crew member. All of them are FAR too risky to use lategame when you could lose the pilot or even worse your weapons officer. Early game you can give them a shot for the rewards but if they fail you have just screwed yourself and are better off restarting unless you have a surplus of crew already."


"they may need to cut down the randomness of weapon sales. I made it all the way to the boss on easy with my starting weapons, because I never had a chance to get any new ones. The only weapon I found through all the sectors was a Heal Bomb, which doesn't do damage.
As for 2, the boss is obviously impossible to beat with the starting weapons, so since I never had the chance to get any better weapons, I had a 0% chance of winning.
Otherwise, I find the game really fun. Found more weapons on my next playthrough but lost to mass fires in sector 3."


"I have 37 hours in the game, and people have already pointed out most of its flaws. But here are the main ones, in my opinion:
The time limit. This adds a bit of strategy to the game, because you have to constantly planning what route to take as well as trying to get information about the map. It also means that you can't really play it at your own pace or explore, which makes sense when you consider..
.. that the game isn't that deep. Roguelikes generally tell their stories by being random and having the sheer amount of content to make them feel like they aren't. There's usually new stuff to find even for veteran players, and everything in the world interacts based on the same defined rules. FTL, when compared to other roguelikes, doesn't.
But on its own, and at the $10 price point, it definitely has as much as you'd expect it to.
My ship is more or less always more powerful than the enemy's, so all these interesting ways that you can take out a ship really only applies to you. You'll never be killing an enemy ship by cutting off their air supplies or by making them burn to death unless you go out of your way to do so. It's mostly about targeting their shields with missiles and then shooting their weapon systems with your lasers, or just teleporting onto their ship and taking out their crew.
Not even the final boss is much of a exception to this, because when you take out their crew the game just throws some excuse about an AI running the ship, so it continues to function just fine."


"I like the game but I feel it suffers from the same thing Dead Rising suffered from. Why is there a time limit when all I want to do is play at my own pace? They should offer a separate game mode with no time limit."


"It has interesting ideas and its fun for a little bit. However, it has some deep flaws which kill its longevity. I don't think most people with get $10 worth of gaming out of it.
The randomness works against it instead of working for it. The game is very luck based, you need to get a few good events to stand a chance and the bad events are utterly devastating. The very tight fuel constraints and the unforgiving timer don't give you enough time to explore. As a result you don't have enough rolls of the dice to get the few good things you need to stand a chance in many games.
Good roguelikes tends to give you a fair chance and use the randomness to create a unique game experience each time. This game uses the randomness as the gameplay while the experience is mostly the same each time.
I don't see this game lasting most people more than a week. It just lacks depth, the game is all about the random luck and that becomes uninteresting quickly."

"Feels like the demo to a great game.
Lots of interesting mechanics and cool ideas, some fun weapons, and really interesting resource balancing. Multiple ways to play and win and it really captured the feel of something like Battlestar Gallactica. Being able to defend your weapons by pointless upgrading them is a pretty funny mechanic.
But way too short, enemies aren't really diverse, even on hard modes the AI seems kind of random (it seems to rarely link fire and will often fire things like missles at empty rooms). Constant time makes end games in fights completely boring. Autofire but no ability to link fire between weapons is frustrating. (and makes the autofire option basically useless past sector 1). The game could use more story types/options and controls.
Random chance seems way more important than skill. The chase mechanic moves way too fast and reeks of poor game design. (Inserting a frustrating mechanic to force balance is always a bad idea). The difficulty of the final fight is very item based.
Basically, it's an okay game. I played it for a while and I'll probably pick it up once in a while. I think it could be a much better game and I hope dev updates+mods make it into the amazing game it could be."


"It could be a great game with some changes.
The randomness is way too brutal, far beyond a normal roguelike
Boarding parties are so powerful you must build your whole defense around them, while no other weapon or event in the game has this much power on your choices.
The time limit on each zone is a little too short.
Finding weapons can be totally random causing you to get to very late zones with the same crud weapons you started with.
If modders pick this game up it could become a real gem."
Techercizer
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:02 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby Techercizer » Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:15 pm

Might as well make a list of everything in the game. Everyone dislikes different things, and there's enough people for everything in the universe to be hated.
velz
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 5:25 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby velz » Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:20 pm

Techercizer wrote:Might as well make a list of everything in the game. Everyone dislikes different things, and there's enough people for everything in the universe to be hated.


Eh, not at all. If you actually read the comments, the randomness, relatively short play through time compared to most roguelikes, and the need to zip through the game and not have time to explore are really the majority of complaints.

No one is complaining about the color of the ships, or the size of the pixels of the crew, or "everything" like you like to think they are. There's obvious specific issues that keep coming up.
Techercizer
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 6:02 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby Techercizer » Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:23 pm

velz wrote:
Techercizer wrote:Might as well make a list of everything in the game. Everyone dislikes different things, and there's enough people for everything in the universe to be hated.


Eh, not at all. If you actually read the comments, the randomness, relatively short play through time compared to most roguelikes, and the need to zip through the game and not have time to explore are really the majority of complaints.

No one is complaining about the color of the ships, or the size of the pixels of the crew, or "everything" like you like to think they are. There's obvious specific issues that keep coming up.

Just because you don't hear anyone complaining about them doesn't mean some people don't hate them. It just means you've found a vocal minority.
zob230
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2012 10:10 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby zob230 » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:07 pm

Techercizer wrote:Just because you don't hear anyone complaining about them doesn't mean some people don't hate them. It just means you've found a vocal minority.

I have played around 25 times since it was released, and I did not finish the game yet (and I can testify that the “Astronomically low odds” achievement is easy to get). I do feel that the balance between luck and tactics is around 50/50, which might not be enough for lots of people, but I love it as it is anyway (although it could maybe be better if tactics & micro-gestion were more present).

(and as a side note, it is not pleasant to be in this situation, so maybe some tweaks with map generation could go over that)
velz
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2012 5:25 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby velz » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:09 pm

Techercizer wrote:
velz wrote:
Techercizer wrote:Might as well make a list of everything in the game. Everyone dislikes different things, and there's enough people for everything in the universe to be hated.


Eh, not at all. If you actually read the comments, the randomness, relatively short play through time compared to most roguelikes, and the need to zip through the game and not have time to explore are really the majority of complaints.

No one is complaining about the color of the ships, or the size of the pixels of the crew, or "everything" like you like to think they are. There's obvious specific issues that keep coming up.

Just because you don't hear anyone complaining about them doesn't mean some people don't hate them. It just means you've found a vocal minority.


So in other words youre saying that despite there being an abundance of complaints on a niche group of game aspects, you believe the devs shouldnt really care about taking them into consideration because there simply has to be an even number of players that dislike every single aspect of the game, even though those people for whatever reason aren't speaking up, they are indeed out there? And therefore it's pointless to bother fixing ANYTHING because you can't fix EVERYTHING?

Really? You have some kind of crazy sense of logic there.
LostInTheWired
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:38 am

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby LostInTheWired » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:16 pm

I have to say, I pretty much agree with all the major points. I've a veteran of roguelikes; Nethack, Prospector, UnrealWorld, whatever else catches my eye. I love the genre, and I have to say I agree with all these points. To me, a Roguelike is about exploring and discovery. I want to get attached to a character I've played for days, feel something when I've failed them and doomed them. You just...you really can't do that with this one. You do very little discovery per run. It's like each playthrough, you're sending in a nameless probe. No attachment can grow with the crew, since you never have much time with them.
GoldenShadowGS
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 6:38 am

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby GoldenShadowGS » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:22 pm

To the developers. Don't take criticisms personally. Some people are just passionate about innovative games like FTL.
Shatteredstar
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:17 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby Shatteredstar » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:27 pm

That is more or less my issue with the game is the length and sheer raw amazingly generous or painful randomness.

Been playing non-stop since the release on steam and it just makes me either super happy, or filled with a fiery hatred. I don't seem to get a game that isn't one extreme or the other.

I'd love an 'endless' mode. Could easily be done by having partial sectors controlled by the rebel fleet for example too instead of it chasing you. For difficulty just have the game detect based off upgrades/items/crew.

As for the randomness, it just I dunno, feels weird. So many aspects seem completely out of your hands even if you're playing carefully, planning out everything you do, micromanaging every aspect you can. But that doesn't matter when you don't find the stores or fuel, or the stores never have weapons and you never find any etc etc.

Some randomness adds spice but when your entire ability to win or have even a slight chance is based off pure luck it is another matter.

I shouldn't get the achievement for no missile launchers or technophobia by sheer dumb luck, I should make the conscious choice of if I wanted to try to get those.

I want to feel like I invested in that ship, the crew, worked hard to make them the best I could and that my effort made the difference. I want to feel that tense when I fight a hard battle that I might lose a crew member I worked hard to train up in various stations, that rush when I win a hard battle, and the pain if I DO lose.

Right now the only attachment I get to the ship is the anger I feel when I get to start again because I don't have the weapons or equipment to hope to win.
NoHeDoesnt
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:20 pm

Re: List of things people don't like [From Reddit thread]

Postby NoHeDoesnt » Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:36 pm

If the majority of your audience is saying something should be changed, whether you believe it doesn't fit your holy vision is moot; you need to change it to please your market.


Velz,
The developer does not have to or need to do anything to please the market. The developer (at a guess) has spent year/s on the game, he can release whatever he wants, whenever he wants, in whatever way he pleases. The game is likely as good as it is because it has such a singular vision, un-muddied by 1000's of generic 'cool ideaz'.

Yes I just signed up just to write this. So sick of people thinking they have some sort of ownership over the developer and somehow have more insight into game design, and can thus tell them what to do. It's his game, his holy vision, you play it, give your opinion and be off with you. You have no right to demand anything.