First suggestion: Achievements that unlock parts of the game

[Jason]

Hi first I would like to say congratulations on your success with the kickstarter, I played your game on onLive and had to back it after playing it so I am glad you got your success with kickstarter.

You have a great game even as an alpha/beta that I played on onLive but I am worried that if you add to much to be played with to soon into a new game it could overwhelm new players and also decress the longivity of the game as you have everything there to be played from the first game.

I know in some of your interviews your saying you will have unlockable ships but why just stop there? Have a lot of tech that has to be unlocked when you play the game. My suggestion: Achievements.

Usually achievements are simple statements that you have completed a challenge in a game but other than a title or badge it does nothing else to the game but what if you added achievements to FTL and each time you get one a new tech or ship or even scenarios are introduced into the game to be encounted in the next playthrough.

A good example: Cloaking, why have the ability to get cloaking from the first playthrough of the game, you might not get it or the shops might not have it in stock but for a lot of people the first time they play through they might get cloaking before even seeing a ship that can cloak.

So how about this make an attachment called Unseen Enemies with a counter say 0/3, when playing through a game if you meet an enemy that can cloak and defeat them your achievement Unseen Enemies goes up by 1 to 1/3 and when you defeat 3 cloakable enemies you get the achievement Unseen Enemies and a statement that cloaking technology will be available to find or purchases in your next playthrough.

Do this for a lot of the advanced tech and weapons and ships and even scenarios where if you unlock certain achievements it unlocks new encounters for you like new enemies or situations.

I think this would be a fun way to unlock tech in this game rather than having everything available from the first playthrough.

Also don't say what each attachment unlocks till you unlock it, no one likes transparent wrapping paper so why spoil the surprise

Make each achievement hint at how to unlock it but not enough to give the game away.

Well what do you think anyone got any comments on this idea?

[hillhome]

Personally I'd prefer to have all options open to me at the start and keep the random nature of the game as that's a BIG part of what adds to the excitement and replayability of this game for me.

I am sick to death of achievement based games that force you to do certain things repeatedly to unlock something. Perhaps I'm just missing the days of older games when it was all available "out of the box"? It just seems like this game would be better served by keeping the random stuff intact as much as possible.

[Ziggarius]

While I'm not "sick to death" of achievement based games. Achievements should be something you get for enjoying the game, not something that is the goal to get to play the full game instead. So, I'll have to agree with hillhome here, I'd rather the game be fully open and random to start off with rather than having to unlock it via achievements.

[ezryder]

I would rather have technology and ships be available logically as the player progress through the game. Have a decent amount of basic tech (shields, missiles, beams, etc) and start out in the Kestrel. A few other ships could be available at the start, but getting them would require trading in the Kestrel and some extra scrap on top of that (unless some monetary system other than scrap is implemented). Slightly higher levels of tech (one tech level better of each of the basic tech on the Kestrel) should be available for purchase/upgrade, and not be crazy expensive.

Then as the player explores and encounters new ships, they can upgrade to those ships by trading in their current ship +/- some scrap (depending upon game balance). Ships not all having the same number of rooms could be a reason for a scrap refund when trading in your current ship.

The achievements approach is nice, but having there be an in-game mechanic that decides if the player can get a ship or tech would be better, IMHO. Having all the "toys" at the start would destroy the mystery and adventure of encountering a new design of ship with new technology and wondering "ooh how do i get those missiles that weird ship is using?!"

[bFusion]

This was done (kind of) with The Binding if Isaac and I agree that it's a great way to work as a self-tutorial for the game to get used to new items and equipment as they become available instead of getting overwhelmed with options from the get-go.

However, I do feel that in the end it simply becomes a grind to "unlock" everything instead of playing the game how you'd like to play it. I feel that if a procedural unlock system is in place, after "beating" the game for the first time you should be given a settings option to unlock everything, or at least certain items or equipment. It could even be a way of managing the difficulty of the game as well (e.g. "Unlock cloaking devices, enemies will use them too and do 5% more damage).

In the end, however, I'd rather just have everything unlocked right away or granted to me via resource management instead of an achievement-based system.

[Stelly]

I quite like this idea...

I was thinking about the tutorial you could make it part of the game, and create an achievement, as for the tutorial it could be like flight school before you go out into the great unknown

Stelly

[Digital]

Everyone seems to be approaching ships as individual units... I'd really like to see the ship be modular and customizable. Maybe have the "Frames" be unlockable in some fashion, but where you put the rooms at the very least should be player chosen.

Regardless of that though, I have to say I agree with Hillhome/Ziggarius on this. Achievements as a bar to progress don't feel like "Achievements", they feel like "Hurdles". I certainly like having achievements in a game, both normal ones (finished game on 'x' difficulty, killed enemy with 'x' unlikely situation), educational ones (achievements that guide you towards a tactic which is important... "Dropped shields with a missile" or something) and bizarre ones (spoken as someone who has carried a certain gnome through a game, and someone who has killed a cities population worth of zombies in another certain game).

I don't however think that you should have to unlock sets of them to play the full game. Personally that makes it a chore instead of a list of things you've done. It moves that one 'tough' achievement from being a personal mission, to being a thorn in the progress of something else you're wanting to do.

My 2c anyway.

[Freyar]

I'm not quite sure I like that idea. It can feel pretty cheap or frustrating if a particular resource never shows up in your game and you find out it's because you didn't play a specific way. I'd rather keep achievements as a little doodad to keep track of some ideas on how to alter play more than just using it as another way to lock tactical options away.

[hillhome]

I don't however think that you should have to unlock sets of them to play the full game.

yeah that's what I was trying to saying haha. I don't want to feel like I have to grind out achievements to get to the "good stuff".

The "selling your ship" to upgrade to a new "class" of ship sounds really interesting too!

[OrangeBottle]

I don't like this idea.

EA had it in Spore, and it really bothered me that I couldn't buy things when I had the money for them, instead having to do repetitive tasks(Paint X planets, Use X terrain sculpt tools, blow up X enemies, etc) to unlock new tools.