Some discussion on balance changes

[AkantorJojo]

Didn't know about the oxygen thing, never came across it.
And, yes maybe you are right. They are incredible strong already.... I just wanted to add something to every race .
So what do you think about the other stuff?

The Zoltan ability sounds like a nice idea, but it suffers from a major problem - when do you need one extra power bar for only 15 seconds?

15sec is enough for most weapons cooldowns, and this can be handy in the storm beacons (half reactor power)
also 15sec was just a suggestion

The Engi ability sounds pretty good for when your guns get damaged and you need them fixed instantly, but they already repair fast. They don't really need to be better.

They repair fast, but fast is not instantaneous.

I didn't really understand the Rock ability, care to explain it?

rock ability is dependent on the room the rock is in. If he is in a room that is under ion-influence he negates that ion influence with his ability. If the room he's in has not taken any ion damage he becomes 'a rock' for some seconds. When he is 'a rock' he cant attack (do dmg) or be attacked(take dmg) but he can be healed.
Is this more clear?

The Mantis are still excellent fighters, but more so with their ability. I think it'd just be annoying and hard if enemies could use it, and it'd make dual Mantis AI boarders a complete joke even outside the medbay so long as you had two Mantises if they couldn't.

My other idea was that they can heal themselves or gain life-steal for some seconds

The human ability actually sounds like the most practical of them, as you could use it on your pilot and engine guy as a weak emergency cloak. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Keep in mind this human special power goes along with the other changes I suggested for humans.

The Slug ability depends on how useful the mind control system ends up being. It could be excellent, it could be terrible.

We will have to see how that works out

And about all, my goal is to make the different races feel even more different; this certainly leads to the feeling some abilities might be OP, but in fact they can easily be balanced and imo it adds a lot to the game if there are more decisions you can take. Obviously the AI will have to use the abilities as well in order for the changes not to just make the game easier but more challenging at all.

Thanks for your comment, and hope to hear more

[leopardenthusiast]

zoltan ability

15sec is enough for most weapons cooldowns, and this can be handy in the storm beacons (half reactor power)
also 15sec was just a suggestion

Oh, yes, ion storms. I've mostly been flying the Stealth Cruiser lately, so I just avoid them.

engi ability

They repair fast, but fast is not instantaneous.

True. More than one bar of instant repairs definitely seems too powerful to me, though.

rock ability

rock ability is dependent on the room the rock is in. If he is in a room that is under ion-influence he negates that ion influence with his ability. If the room he's in has not taken any ion damage he becomes 'a rock' for some seconds. When he is 'a rock' he cant attack (do dmg) or be attacked(take dmg) but he can be healed.
Is this more clear?

So the Rock ability would be to either remove ion damage from a room, or provide an indestructible target to draw some enemy attacks at the expense of losing the Rock's attack power. That would make them very good at defending.

mantis ability

My other idea was that they can heal themselves or gain life-steal for some seconds

Instantly healing any useful amount of health would be too good. Over time depends on the exact speed and amount. Getting some health back when they do damage in return for losing their increased attack power (or at least some of it) sounds fair.

human ability

Keep in mind this human special power goes along with the other changes I suggested for humans.

Yes, of course. Like I said, it'd mostly be useful as an emergency cloak-like ability in my opinion.

slug ability

We will have to see how that works out

Indeed.

And about all, my goal is to make the different races feel even more different; this certainly leads to the feeling some abilities might be OP, but in fact they can easily be balanced and imo it adds a lot to the game if there are more decisions you can take. Obviously the AI will have to use the abilities as well in order for the changes not to just make the game easier but more challenging at all.

Thanks for your comment, and hope to hear more

I agree with the goal of adding more variety to the game, however, it needs to be done carefully or you risk rendering content almost entirely pointless due to there almost always being a better choice availible.

[spacecadet13]

Agree that boarding rewards and boarding in general is OP; like the suggestion that boarding a ship gets you more 'rewards', but destroying gets you more scrap. Also agree that the teleporter should miss sometimes - either completely, or landing the boarders in a different room from the one aimed for.

Cloaking is even more OP IMHO; complete invulnerability when you need it? With the exception of the Steath A & B, so when its purchased at store for any other ship, it should work the way it does for the AI - on a timer, on and off automatically with upgrades reducing the time between cloaks and increasing the duration of cloaks. Player has no control of when it's on or off.

Missles; yeah, only way you use them at present is if there is no other option. Too expensive, and D Drones are too effective. Could the D Drones be a target, i'e you could aim at it like you do for a room, take it down with a laser or ion and then fire a missile? Or add a ECM augment to stores, that gives any missile the ship fires Electronic Counter Measures and reduces the odds of a D Drone hitting.

Crew: I think the abilities are OK; just need 'blue' options added for Human and Zoltan, Human especially, as there really is no reason to have one on your crew as it stands. Every other race has good reasons to have them AND most give options at certain encounters, but we just flat out stink.

[AkantorJojo]

I really wonder why no one picked up the improve AI point. IMO that is the biggest one of all and the one that will solve most problems.
Lets be honest: the current AI sometimes acts really 'bad ass' but that's juts luck, most time they just dump as hell. e.g. firing beams when shields are still(or again) up; and not waiting for cool-downs to use weapons effectively!

Apart form that I think we can agree of promoting the following changes:
-Teleporters have a chance to 'fail' teleports according to enemies dodge-rate
--failed teleports mean the teleport does not target the room that was selected by the player
--further it can also happen that the teleported crew takes some damage; only on boarding(not on retreat) and can't drop below 1hp
-Rewards for destroying and successfully boarding should be different:
--boarding: less scrap but more useful things: fuel, missiles, drone-parts, chance of crew-members, chance of weapons, chance of augmentations
--destroying: more scrap but less of the other stuff and maybe no chance of getting crew or weapons or augmentations
-More blue options, especially for humans, and maybe the buff I suggested for humans (they need less EXP to get lvl up for all skills); also a more even spread of blue options across the races.

For the other changes I suggested:
I guess some would really like to see them and they are not changing the game so much, nor are they hard to implement (at least I think so )

engi ability

They repair fast, but fast is not instantaneous.

True. More than one bar of instant repairs definitely seems too powerful to me, though.

True, also my suggestions are not finally balanced!

rock ability

rock ability is dependent on the room the rock is in. If he is in a room that is under ion-influence he negates that ion influence with his ability. If the room he's in has not taken any ion damage he becomes 'a rock' for some seconds. When he is 'a rock' he cant attack (do dmg) or be attacked(take dmg) but he can be healed.
Is this more clear?

So the Rock ability would be to either remove ion damage from a room, or provide an indestructible target to draw some enemy attacks at the expense of losing the Rock's attack power. That would make them very good at defending.

you got the point!

mantis ability

My other idea was that they can heal themselves or gain life-steal for some seconds

Instantly healing any useful amount of health would be too good. Over time depends on the exact speed and amount. Getting some health back when they do damage in return for losing their increased attack power (or at least some of it) sounds fair.

as said above: they are just suggestions and not finally balanced at all. but I feel like every race should have an ability that can be activated.

human ability

Keep in mind this human special power goes along with the other changes I suggested for humans.

Yes, of course. Like I said, it'd mostly be useful as an emergency cloak-like ability in my opinion.

depending on the duration of the boost it can also be handy for weapon cool-downs.

And about all, my goal is to make the different races feel even more different; this certainly leads to the feeling some abilities might be OP, but in fact they can easily be balanced and imo it adds a lot to the game if there are more decisions you can take. Obviously the AI will have to use the abilities as well in order for the changes not to just make the game easier but more challenging at all.

I agree with the goal of adding more variety to the game, however, it needs to be done carefully or you risk rendering content almost entirely pointless due to there almost always being a better choice availible.

Well imo this balance is not there at the moment and I hope to restore this balance in some way
So what I'm talking about is the fact, that boarding atm is so much stronger than destroying, so I find myself boarding all the time as soon as possible. And regards drones: I buy then every time just to get the one defensive drone for the boss and some ships that might have a missile system, even so I could just cloak through it as it will hit me only once before my boarders take down the weapons or the enemies. Regards weapons I'm a fan of lasers but also know the advantages of missiles (mostly for the boss to board his destroyed med-bay) or ion weapons (which I find only useful if you have at least two of them with low cool-down; otherwise you cant get past their shields and that makes ions useless; while if you get past the shields the perfectly support boarding)

So all in all: I agree, changes have to be made carefully. But there is more to be balanced than just boarding and destroying. I also feel drones/ions/missiles are much underestimated by most players, and that's maybe because they are harder to play than lasers, or because they are just not as powerful.

Other ideas I really support, and some of them are coming with the next update in some way:
-More manned systems: this makes it a much harder choice of where du distribute the eight man-forces you got!
-Multiple manned systems: systems that can be manned with more that one crewmember
-split systems: systems that are on the ship multiple times. e.g. two shield rooms. every room just offers shields lvl2 but that means you can get a total of lvl4 shields. There are some variations how this could be done, but imo its a good idea.

And last but most important:
again:
Improve the AI! Make them use their weapons more accurately! Make them use anti-boarding tactics like most players due: suffocation! And make then board more efficiently: trying to destroy my med-bay before boarding it.
That would for sure make the game more balanced, as you cant just always use the same tactic and it works fine.

[leopardenthusiast]

I don't feel like replying to the entire post, but I will respond to this:

Improve the AI! Make them use their weapons more accurately! Make them use anti-boarding tactics like most players due: suffocation!

A lot of enemy ships do not actually have external doors (based on the (admittedly incomplete) images on ftlwiki.com, and the much more complete images on ftl.wikia.com, Rebel Fighter ships are the ONLY ships with external doors), and simply depowering oxygen and waiting is both foolish, and too slow to be particularly effective.

[mqstout]

A lot of these hit on things I've felt during my many plays of the game. Everyone in this thread certainly is well-informed and has thought about it a goodly bit.

• Teleporters: Once I learned about the scrap-bonus-when-taking-without-blowing-up, it basically became my sole strategy because Scrap is so vital to everything else. Then when I LATER learned the power of teleporters, it really is the single best strategy to use for any ship. Even WITHOUT the scrap bonus, it'd still be one of the best strategies, if only because the enemy has pretty much no defense against it.
• Teleporters Fix: Don't let teleporters go through shields. Yours and/or your opponents. Watch some Star Trek and others, and you'll see that's what happens. To use the teleporter, all levels of your shields are dropped and have to recharge. You also have to reduce your enemy's shields. (Perhaps they pierce through Teleporter-System-Level layers of shields.) Advanced Editions's increase in manned stations will help.
• Missiles: Missiles are strong if they hit; especially since they penetrate shields. But they have slow recharges, are dodged at the same rate as lasers and bombs and also are pretty much completely nullified by defense drones. Missiles are pretty much useless against the boss encounter, for instance, because of defense drones. Drone system/defense drone is almost my first upgrade target because of the way in which it totally nullifies enemy missiles.
• Missiles Fix: Make both tiers of defense drones target both lasers and missiles. While this sounds like it makes drones stronger, it actually makes them weaker: you can fire a "throwaway" laser beam to distract it while your missile slips in. The difference between D. Drone 1 and 2 becomes only a matter of its recharge. Both could use a bit of slowing.
• Humans: Human crew members are always replaceable by someone else.
• Humans fix: This doesn't bug me much. However, the increased XP growth rate/increased level cap has come up a few times and is a great idea. It fits the typical "adaptability" that is portrayed of humans.
• Slugs: Similar to humans, except you might keep one slug for certain conditions. There's never a reason to have more than one slug.
• Slugs fix: Give slugs something else so you might want more than one. Let slugs combine together to increase scanner levels, even in nebulas. Have 4 slugs? That's like having level 3 scanners.

Some other things discussed:

• AI: AI improvements could be great, but it's not terribly feasible. Writing good AI is extraordinarily difficult and it could open up other exploits. A few more general parameters that are generated per ship could go a long way. We already have that mantis ships like to use teleporters, and so on. ("This ship's captain likes to wait until all active weapons are charged and fire them into a volley." for instance.)
• Rock-paper-scissors: Please, no. This game doesn't need any of that crutch.
• Racial powers: I'm content with that being an exclusive to Crystals. Too many others and they all lose their charm (especially crystals), and it increases the micromanagement even further for questionable gain.
• Teleporter random-chance: I'm not sure adding more randomization to the game is quite proper. Most combat mechanics are explicitly not random with the exception of evasion. That's for a good reason and is good game design. However, it is a trope in sci-fi that could be addressed/added in some extraordinarily rare way. But, think about how you feel when you encounter the quest choices that can result in the loss of a crew member... Would you really like more of that feeling every combat?

[AkantorJojo]

A lot of these hit on things I've felt during my many plays of the game. Everyone in this thread certainly is well-informed and has thought about it a goodly bit.

I have not jet unlocked every ship, nor played on normal (I think I mentioned that, did I?). But I have now 52hours ingame time according to steam. I hope this is enough to be allowed discussing some issues

The teleporter advantage seams to be the biggest problem for everyone, and the ways to address it are numerous.
I'm not sure myself which one I consider to fit vanillaFTL best. Maybe changing the reward system would work just fine. maybe involving the shields is a good idea (but this would mean some ships need to be redesigned; Crystal B e.g.).
Adding more value for Humans and Slugs is something we seam to agree as well, as you never want to go for them is you have a choice; whilst I'm never sure if to take an Engi or a Zoltan to man my systems.

Some other things discussed:

• AI: AI improvements could be great, but it's not terribly feasible. Writing good AI is extraordinarily difficult and it could open up other exploits. A few more general parameters that are generated per ship could go a long way. We already have that mantis ships like to use teleporters, and so on. ("This ship's captain likes to wait until all active weapons are charged and fire them into a volley." for instance.)
• Rock-paper-scissors: Please, no. This game doesn't need any of that crutch.
• Racial powers: I'm content with that being an exclusive to Crystals. Too many others and they all lose their charm (especially crystals), and it increases the micromanagement even further for questionable gain.
• Teleporter random-chance: I'm not sure adding more randomization to the game is quite proper. Most combat mechanics are explicitly not random with the exception of evasion. That's for a good reason and is good game design. However, it is a trope in sci-fi that could be addressed/added in some extraordinarily rare way. But, think about how you feel when you encounter the quest choices that can result in the loss of a crew member... Would you really like more of that feeling every combat?

-I can understand most of this, even so I don't agree on everything.
-About the AI, I just want then to use their weapons better, and not just off cool-down.
-About rock-paper-scissors: It already is in the game. some slug ships are countered by boarding but well prepared for lasers just as one example. But I can see the fear you have.
-I can agree on this, therefore it was in a 'separate section' of my original post. I knew this was more of a major change in the way how it feels for the player.
-Random chances: Fully agree! It is frustrating... we don't really need more of it.

[itg]

Regarding teleporting, I think the best balance changes would be ones made to the enemy ships. My first picks would be to allow more ships to carry anti-personnel drones and significantly increase the odds of blast doors. These changes make things harder for the player without nerfing AI boarders.

As for actually modifying the teleporter, increasing the cost to, say, 120 (maybe even 150), would be enough to at least require you to make a commitment to boarding. It''s still a great investment at that price, but you'll probably have to forgo something else to save up that much scrap. The cooldown time on the teleporter could be increased by 5 seconds, the upgrades could be 50% more expensive, and a fourth level could be added for those people who currently like to buy the level 3 teleporter (never saw the point, myself).

I couldn't say how many of this kind of change it would take to balance boarding, but they're all "safe" changes that would hardly change the feel of the game.

[digiexafan]

Im gonna touch only on the teleporters OP point. As you are no doubt aware, the Lanius have recently been announced, and they have the ability of draining oxygen from occupied rooms. As such it would be suicide to board any ships with Lanius crew members, thus creating a counter to the teleporter=win that you describe

[5thHorseman]

Im gonna touch only on the teleporters OP point. As you are no doubt aware, the Lanius have recently been announced, and they have the ability of draining oxygen from occupied rooms. As such it would be suicide to board any ships with Lanius crew members, thus creating a counter to the teleporter=win that you describe

I don't know about suicide. It seems you would be pretty safe boarding their ships with a L3 teleporter or if you had Laniuses (Lanii?) of your own. And think about that one for a minute. A 4-man teleporter full of Laniuses. It'll be like the Rock Man/Fire Bomb strategy without needing the weapon. Well not exactly but it's a cool idea. I so want 8 of those guys on a 4-man-teleporter ship so I can overrun every ship I find with air-sucking demons.