Oregon Trail is not a Rougelike

[CobraKaun]

For the love of god - can we all please stop referring to roguelike games as "rougelikes"

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

[Kestral B]

Yeah, it's true this game has a lot in common with Oregon Trail.

One of the things I've been thinking about is how little reward/incentive there is in "playing it safe" most of the time, since if you are too cautious and fall behind the scrap/power curve you basically doom yourself. In "roguelike" games with no time limit, discretion is nearly always the better part of valor, but that's not true in FTL.

However, I really love this game as is, and there's only one change that I really want the devs to make ASAP.

It's even a really easy change:
Add a veteran crew roster of survivors from previous games. If you win, the whole surviving crew goes is sent to the roster. When setting up a new ship in the hanger, you can swap out some of the default crew for crew from the veterans roster. This would allow us to get attached to characters that can, occasionally, outlive a single mission.
Cautious players will want escape pods, and additional progression for longer lived crew will also be wanted...but that's extra content and can wait. Just a list of survivors, and the opportunity to take them out and risk their lives a second time would make a huge difference right away IMO.

[Arcalane]

For the love of god - can we all please stop referring to roguelike games as "rougelikes"

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Yep.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RougeAnglesOfSatin

[Zelnick]

@Pilgrim:
... and some people still like Oregon Trail, how it is. In my opinion, you can rarely plan your way in roguelikes, because the randomness IS a keyfeature. Open a false door in Dredmor, for example? Monsterzoo! Happy days and jubilation, you can't forsee that. Meet an overpowered enemy in Transcendence in the arena? Well, your journey ends here and never reach the core...

You have mentioned Urquan2; i think, the devs of FTl never had that in mind. It's just your wish (my wish too), that we have a crazy Universe to explore, in the good old SC2 fashion. But good news: click on the link in my signature. That's Project6014 will be the wishful successor of StarCon2 (but not roguelike ).

[Kruztee]

For the love of god - can we all please stop referring to roguelike games as "rougelikes"

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike

Yep.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RougeAnglesOfSatin

Sigh, thanks Arcalane...

[Fleshpie]

Well I've never played a true roguelike but I think most of the problems with the balance stem from the fact that there are not a whole lot of tactics to use in the first place. Maybe when more weapons, events, systems, races, areas, and strategies are added we will see these problems disappear. Maybe.

[Kieve]

Yep.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RougeAnglesOfSatin

Sigh, thanks Arcalane...

I love you both.
Rogue. R-O-G-U-E. Rouge is something completely different.

[SlowerThanLight]

The more I play this, the more I agree with the OPs assessment that this feels more like a series of slot machine spins than a strategy game. The the issue isn't that bad things happen to you (bad events are suitably telegraphed and easy to avoid), it's that you either get enough combat encounters and shops to build up an arsenal and win, or you don't and becomes impossible to progress.

It isn't about "playing with the cards you are dealt." The main issue is that the skill cap in this game is extremely low. For any given configuration, there is usually one obvious best strategy. The game tries to switch it up by having missions that present alternative victory conditions (eg prevent them from running, or take them alive), but these scenarios also have pretty easy to spot best solutions and so the problem still exists. The simple combat system just doesn't have enough depth to support anything but the most repetitive of tactics, and I never really feel that the outcome is ever in doubt.

There's no real solution to this. It's just the way the game is. There is a charming period where the sense of exploration is still fresh, but it doesn't take long to have mastered the mechanics, at which point it starts to become dull. It helps that there are different ships, but it once you've figured out the game, mastering them doesn't take too long and I get to the point where I just don't want to play anymore.

At first, I thought I really wanted an endless mode where you could just keep exploring forever, but now I realize how dull that would get. I had fun, but it's not going to grab you the way that Elite or even X3 can.