Subset Games Forum

I support the decision of no endless game after defeating the boss.

I've played enough endless modes in previous games to have learned that, if there was an endless mode in FTL, eventually you'd get the very best parts for your ship, and then spend some time plowing through content ad nauseum. Even if the challenge ramps up to the point where death is inevitable, after you've done this once, why should you care about doing another run just to get the same ship you got bored of before? A high score isn't enough.

Far better to cut things off nice and clean, post up the results of the last run, and entice the player to start anew, from square one, a base in which there's plenty of content balanced to support. The enticing thing about this is, due to the randomness of the scenario generated, there's always a potential your next run will be better than the one before. This is further enriched by the idea of having new hull styles to play with and unlocks to pursue.

So, contrary to what you'd think at first (endless mode = more time = greater longevity), this lack of endless mode actually significantly improves FTL's long-term appeal over having an endless mode.

That said, it's not that an endless game is an impossibility or a terribad idea, but it needs a proper treatment to do right. From what I've seen of FTL, a lot of the game's existing encounters and mechanics are balanced with a definitive end in mind, so new ones would need to be introduced to keep things interesting over the long haul.

An everlasting gobstopper of "endless" mode is actually a bit of a challenge in game design. For example, most MMORPGs are designed with endless gameplay in mind, and the result is inevitable burnout unless there's something to keep you coming back.

Well, if the game was made in such a way that you meet the megaboos when you're at half your power, the other half of the game might be "cleaning up" of the rebel fleet and returning home... maybe to find an even bigger boss... or something...

-I would like the endless mode after managing to beat the boss. Like in some sandbox games, a prompt asking if you would like to carry on or end your game could be displayed.

-I get the idea behind geldonyetich's logic, but the fact is that some of us will play the heck out of it anyway and eventually the novelty of the random encounters will fade all the same. Simply making it so a day passes for every jump to another map point and keeping a count of how many days you have been on the run would give a little extra bragging rights to those who want to go on. Wouldn't be hard to implement for the guys at all either.

I'm a little against the idea that the end-game needs a different treatment. If not done right, it could create the impression that the "real game" only starts once you've beaten it, like in some MMORPGs. Which is probably not what they had in mind.

Just my two cents, geldon totally makes sense, but not everyone gets bored with the same things. My favorite part in XCom for example is the point right when you start developing plasma weapons up till anything before the endgame : I kind of always delay the final mission because I know it means I'm going to have to say goodbye to my team soon lol.

I guess the game will ship without endless mode though, too bad but not a deal-breaker in any way.

So it's been a couple years and AE is about to come out. Does anyone know if endless mode will ever be a thing? There is probably a mod out there, though I doubt the mod will be compatible with AE. I guess there are plenty of other features that Justin and Matt are working on right now. Alas, I remember back in the beta when endless mode was a greyed out option at the end of the game...

Wow, a thread thats more than a year old...

I agree that the gameplay experience can wear out if the player can play endlessly and is not pressured by the fleet. I still made a Infinite Addon for FTL Captain's Edition, cause this feature was often requested and turned out more easy to make than I expected. It will most likely be fully compatible with AE.

The CE Infinite Addon creates a semi endless sandbox play. At the end of each sector you can decide if you want to head towards the Federation base, or continue to roam "Contested Deep Space Sectors". These sectors feature a very wide variants of events and their difficulty will be the same as your current sector lvl. That implements some kind of player controlled difficulty scaling. Upgrade costs increase exponentially. The player can also go back to FTLs regular sectors at any point of the playthrough. If you advance far enough, you can even decide to face the boss and end your game. Or you can travel deep space for ever.

We are also almost done implementing procedural content generation for this addon. This will add thousands of weapon and ship variations to the game, filling the sandbox with more loot and enemies to encounter. This wouldn't really fit into vanilla FTL, but it plays out nicely in this sandbox environment of CE Infinite.

You can check out all the details in the mod thread.