Disappointed by Unfair Boarding AI and Randomness, Thoughts?

[Memorable Zebra]

I don't mind legitimately being out gunned.
I don't mind losing if it's my fault.
I don't mind dying if it's my fault.

What I do mind is when control has been taken away from me and unfairly given to someone else.

Let me explain. Suppose I get boarded by 4 enemies. I'll go round up my dudes to attack them. As we have a 4v4 going down, I notice that my guys are attacking in a basically random manner, distributing damage equally against each enemy. All the while they're focus firing my guys down to the point where I have to begin running them out of the room at 1/3 health or they'll die before they can get out.

I can't tell my guys to attack more intelligently, but the computer can? This is in serious need of a fix. I'm not even asking for the ability to micro manage, I'm just saying if you're going to deny me the ability to micro manage, at least make my guys as intelligent as theirs.


I suppose this just contributes to the more underlying problem of randomness and uncontrollableness: that the entire game is based on what the stores might give you and the best strategy to winning is essentially to explore within 1 jump of every node in every system to maximize how many stores you discover and hence visit. Because if you don't get the correct assembly of weapons by the final map, you lose. Period. You can't win with two beams, a burst laser, a missile launcher. It's just impossible to get through 4 shields enough times to do damage if you don't have more missiles or ion cannons. Upon reaching the last map, I can tell myself every time what the outcome of the game will be, and if I lose, at which stage of the final boss I lose at. And that kind of predestination is not a compliment. It's no fun going into a losing battle, looking back on all your previous decisions and knowing you played optimally given the knowledge at the time. But now you have no choice but to start a gun fight with a knife.

And I guess that's the difficultly of creating a good game with roguelike elements such as this. You want a sense of the uncontrollable. But also, no matter what happens, you want it so if you played your hand correctly you should be able to win. In The Binding of Isaac, no matter what items you get, you can still win. It might be more difficult with some builds over others, but it's doable. And part of the joy of the game is that every now and then you'll get a build that seems impossibly bad but actually turns out to be quite viable (like getting every attack fly...).

I realize the entire game is about managing your ship and optimizing it for the final fight. It's one thing to squander your resources, it's quite another to play smart but never get what you need to survive.


Fixing the boarding AI is essential, wouldn't change the shape of the game drastically, and would make things more fair. There's basically no reason not to do it. Adding in a protocol to the random generation that tracks past store drops and ensures a certain minimum of each type of weapon appears by the end of the game is less essential but would be very helpful in making the game fairer and more enjoyable.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I have never seen the behavior you're talking about, Zebra.

If I get a four-on-four rumble going, everybody fights the guy in front of them. If you have enough crew to outnumber the enemy, your excess crew will shoot at them, and if they have enough to outnumber you, their excess crew will shoot at your men.

They're not going to be focusing fire if you've got a proper barney going, they'll all be too busy beating up on the guy in front of them to focus their fire.

[Gorlom]

what are you talking about? player controled uits and computer controlled units alike attack only one person if there is one in melee range (on the same square) and distribute their ranged attacks evenly if there isn't.
maybe you met some mantis/rockmen/boarding drone while defending with humans/engi/zoltans ? Different aliens have different advantages or disadvantages in combat.

Binding of Isac has a vastly different mechanic for hits and misses. It uses physical collisions betveen objects on the screen. As in you can dodge if you just move your character and if your aim is off you miss the enemy.

In FTL the shooter and the target are stationary and hits and misses are decided by RNG.

If it was possible to beat the last boss with 2 basic lasers it wouldn't be much of a challenge when you get there with an ion bomb, ion blaster, glaive beam, 3 antiship drones and fully upgraded engines, stealth system and crew teleporters.
Basically I don't agree with you that the boss should be beatable every time. It wouldn't be any fun if it was balanced to the crappiest composition you can reach the boss with.