FTL is getting a free Terraria style update

octoberasian said:
That image reminds me of every round of FTL since I bought it. Lol :p

The damn RNG tends to screw me over before I even get to the last sector.
Click to expand...

Yup, pretty much. Once you've played enough, though, you know by about the third sector whether you're gonna have a reasonable shot of surviving or not.
 
madFive said:
Is there an android version yet? Would love to be able to play on my phone too...
Click to expand...

No. <sigh> They said they weren't going to start on another platform until the update and the Ipad version were out. I suspect there will be a bug fixing period though.

I can't wait for that too.
 
picked it up on Steam yesterday evening, will give it a go this weekend. I was pleased they released it for Mac - FTL on the road FTW. :p
 
Bought this when it was on sale a few weeks ago. Haven't played it yet. I'm guessing by the comments in this thread that I need to start right away. :)
 
The iPad version is amazing. Maybe better than on the PC, even. This was how the game was meant to be played, it works perfectly on touch. Don't think twice: grab this one.
 
CEpeep said:
The iPad version is amazing. Maybe better than on the PC, even. This was how the game was meant to be played, it works perfectly on touch. Don't think twice: grab this one.
Click to expand...

I'd be down for an Android version.
 
Played the new Advanced version last night.

All prior unlockable ships are unlocked now except the Mantis and Slug, but each ship's alternate layout is still locked until achievements are met.

New missions, weapons, skills, etc. are really cool so far, but had my ass handed to me in my first battle on Normal-Advanced in the Zoltan... embarrasing...

Looking forward to make it to the boss eventually, but may have to use the old-reliable Rock Cruiser to get there on Normal.
 
Played the advanced version on easy yesterday. I got lucky on all the random decisions and managed to beat the final boss with 1 hp remaining. Hard game is hard haha.
 
I look forward to getting pwned even more by the AI on Easy. :D
(52.6 hrs...still haven't beaten the game....and was still working on unlocking the last few ships as well the last time I played it.)

Game is awesome. Hard as fuck, but awesome.
 
I love the update, but it seems even harder now. Maybe because i can't seem to get the augments I want. It was rare before but now it's even rarer.
 
mavrocket said:
Played the new Advanced version last night.

All prior unlockable ships are unlocked now except the Mantis and Slug, but each ship's alternate layout is still locked until achievements are met.

New missions, weapons, skills, etc. are really cool so far, but had my ass handed to me in my first battle on Normal-Advanced in the Zoltan... embarrasing...

Looking forward to make it to the boss eventually, but may have to use the old-reliable Rock Cruiser to get there on Normal.
Click to expand...

Soo weird I consider the rock ship one of the hardest ships to play, personally for me I can almost always win if I am in engi ship.
 
dbu8554 said:
Soo weird I consider the rock ship one of the hardest ships to play, personally for me I can almost always win if I am in engi ship.
Click to expand...

Depends on play style. The rock ship is for people who like boarding the enemy and playing with fire. That's the synergy to exploit with it. You drop a fire bomb/beam on a room and then put your crew in it. The enemies are screwed since they get beat by big rock monsters with lots of HP and catch fire.
 
As engi I try to get another Ion Weapon I just Ion their weapons and O2 or I Ion their Weapons and teleport some people over there depending on the layout *never board a ship with Medbay.

I have never found the slug ship/Stealth/Mantis my roomate gets the game and finds them all within 10 playthroughs bastard. But I have the engi/rock/zoltan but I really heard the stealth ship is sweet.
 
Sadly enough the new changes have pretty much ruined it for me. I always had a love/hate relationship with the game on account of the fact that the developers have no idea how to design a good difficulty curve. It is more a difficulty wall, with the last boss being many times harder than anything you've faced before. Also, there are a fairly narrow number of strategies that can work on the last boss, so if you don't have the necessary stuff to execute those, you are screwed.

Well, it has gotten worse with the new content. The rest of the game is just more interesting, not really harder. Different strategies, different ways of doing things, new stuff to deal with. However the final boss is even harder than it was before, and the new content helps little, if at all.

Some day, maybe, we'll be able to convince developers that "rogue like" doesn't need to mean "fucked up difficulty curve" but not today.

It's sad, really, because I really like the idea of FTL overall and I've enjoyed it to an extent, but the stupid imbalance of that last boss fight keeps it from being a great game.
 
Sycraft said:
It's sad, really, because I really like the idea of FTL overall and I've enjoyed it to an extent, but the stupid imbalance of that last boss fight keeps it from being a great game.
Click to expand...

The final boss is pretty damn hard. But I don't think it's out of reach (on easy), the ramp on difficulty is more, but not too bad imo. The RNG though, is a problem. You might think of it as somewhat alleviated with some chops having 2 pages of sales, but still really hard to get what you want. But the fight is more than manageable if you get the things you want/need.
 
RNG is really what keeps me from getting into these types of games. Roguelikes are hard enough without having to rely on a perfect lucky run to succeed.
 
RNG is also what makes roguelikes interesting. If it weren't for the random events, it's would be dull imo.
 
Serpent said:
RNG is also what makes roguelikes interesting. If it weren't for the random events, it's would be dull imo.
Click to expand...

Well the thing is it doesn't have to be completely random. I mean on a computer, things aren't actually random unless you tap in to the processor's hardware entropy unit, they are pseudorandom. So what you can, and should, do in games is do semi-random generation, but controlled with parameters to make sure that players get what they need.

A good example would be Civ 5 maps. It makes random maps so you never have to play on the same world twice, yet they are clearly not completely random. A truly random map, each tile just being whatever, wouldn't be playable at all. Rather it uses a random seed and then controls the generation based on various parameters that not only let you customize things, but make sure balance and playability are achieved.
 
Yep. And FTL is, at least to an extent. You can tell from various things it does that it is not just totally random generation. So playing the random card is a cop out. It either means they were too lazy to optimize the procedural generation or, and I think this is what it is in this case, they think that screwing the players is the sign of a "good game".

Unfortunately it seems like most indy devs that do rogue likes worship the altar of "moar hards is moar goods". They seem to miss the fact that Rogue was liked because of its replayable nature, not because it was extremely difficult.

FTL in particular annoys me not only because it is fundamentally a cool idea but because the difficulty is inconsistent. The boss battle is just WAY harder than anything before it. You can breeze through sectors 1-7 and then get smashed on the battle.

Also tactics that were perfectly valid in the rest of the game don't work there. There is a more narrow set of tactics that'll work on that fight. So if you didn't get the right equipment for that, well too bad, you lose.
 
3 Flak 1 guns and boss just melts. Though after I killed the third stage half my ship was on fire and I had 2 boarders beating my ass.
 
tehslippery said:
3 Flak 1 guns and boss just melts. Though after I killed the third stage half my ship was on fire and I had 2 boarders beating my ass.
Click to expand...

Try a Flak II (3 pwr), Halberd Beam (3 pwr) and Weapon Pre-Igniter. Boss is owned at all three stages, only the second drone stage can get a little hairy...
 
Serpent said:
The final boss is pretty damn hard. But I don't think it's out of reach (on easy), the ramp on difficulty is more, but not too bad imo. The RNG though, is a problem. You might think of it as somewhat alleviated with some chops having 2 pages of sales, but still really hard to get what you want. But the fight is more than manageable if you get the things you want/need.
Click to expand...

Once you understand that all of the zones and encounters before the boss are to prepare for the boss, it's a lot easier.
 
Sycraft said:
FTL in particular annoys me not only because it is fundamentally a cool idea but because the difficulty is inconsistent. The boss battle is just WAY harder than anything before it. You can breeze through sectors 1-7 and then get smashed on the battle.

Also tactics that were perfectly valid in the rest of the game don't work there. There is a more narrow set of tactics that'll work on that fight. So if you didn't get the right equipment for that, well too bad, you lose.
Click to expand...

It all depends on your equipment. I've had games where I struggled to get to sector 8 but once I was there I wrecked the boss easily. The boss fight is the only consistent part of the game. You always know what you're going to be up against and what you need to do in order to prepare the ship you are piloting for the inevitable encounter. You have 8 sectors to build a ship that can take out the boss and survive until it gets there. Most of the ship layouts can beat the boss easily if you are able to obtain the proper equipment on the way.
 
CEpeep said:
It all depends on your equipment. I've had games where I struggled to get to sector 8 but once I was there I wrecked the boss easily. The boss fight is the only consistent part of the game. You always know what you're going to be up against and what you need to do in order to prepare the ship you are piloting for the inevitable encounter. You have 8 sectors to build a ship that can take out the boss and survive until it gets there. Most of the ship layouts can beat the boss easily if you are able to obtain the proper equipment on the way.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

People make the mistake of zooming through the pre-boss sectors and then get their butts handed to them by the first stage of the boss, then complain that it's too hard. If they had some brains they would realize that they have plenty of time to create an uber-ship capable of handily beating the boss. Now sometimes you just get the short end of the stick and it's hard if not impossible to pick yourself back up from some random encounter your ship isn't prepared for, but these are few and far between (except on Hard-Advanced, that's just a doozy making it through sector 3...).
 
Sycraft said:
Well the thing is it doesn't have to be completely random. I mean on a computer, things aren't actually random unless you tap in to the processor's hardware entropy unit, they are pseudorandom. So what you can, and should, do in games is do semi-random generation, but controlled with parameters to make sure that players get what they need.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Complete RNG is just a nightmare, IMO.

For example, my GF plays Candy Crush Saga (for some reason...doesn't spend money on it though), and I am pretty sure that is completely based on RNG. So for a given puzzle, it may not even be possible to finish it in the given number of moves based on the starting layout. To me that would be completely infuriating, and I think that is a large reason why that game makes so much money, because you may be like 2 moves away from finishing a puzzle, and of course they allow you to buy extra moves...

Anyway, point is, to me a completely random set of circumstances where you may or may not even have a chance at finding the equipment you need to defeat the end boss is not something I want to deal with.
 
MavericK96 said:
Exactly. Complete RNG is just a nightmare, IMO.

For example, my GF plays Candy Crush Saga (for some reason...doesn't spend money on it though), and I am pretty sure that is completely based on RNG. So for a given puzzle, it may not even be possible to finish it in the given number of moves based on the starting layout. To me that would be completely infuriating, and I think that is a large reason why that game makes so much money, because you may be like 2 moves away from finishing a puzzle, and of course they allow you to buy extra moves...

Anyway, point is, to me a completely random set of circumstances where you may or may not even have a chance at finding the equipment you need to defeat the end boss is not something I want to deal with.
Click to expand...

well, they broke the mods. turning off the fleet chasing you does help a lot but still hard with random fights and environments.
 
MavericK96 said:
RNG is really what keeps me from getting into these types of games. Roguelikes are hard enough without having to rely on a perfect lucky run to succeed.
Click to expand...

I think one of my most memorable wins in the game was when I had a number of setbacks and mistakes. I was tempted to throw in the towel at several points and restart, but opted to press on and pulled off a victory.
 
bloodhawke83 said:
well, they broke the mods. turning off the fleet chasing you does help a lot but still hard with random fights and environments.
Click to expand...

They aren't broken, you just have to turn them on again. There are some files you may want to delete first based on which mod install thing you used, there is a thread on their forums. I have fleet pursuit turned off.
 
tehslippery said:
They aren't broken, you just have to turn them on again. There are some files you may want to delete first based on which mod install thing you used, there is a thread on their forums. I have fleet pursuit turned off.
Click to expand...

their site is like the obamacare site, doesn't work.
 
mavrocket said:
Once you understand that all of the zones and encounters before the boss are to prepare for the boss, it's a lot easier.
Click to expand...

I understand that, but like mentioned... the RNG causes you to not be able to get what you need. And sometimes leaves you utterly unprepared.

I get what Sycraft is saying and I agree with him. There should be a sort of way to get what you want, provided you really risk to get it. A lot of time though, it isn't possible because of the impending Rebels. If it were just hard rebels, then yea, it'd be fine, but they get rid of any possibility of getting to a shop that might have something you need. That's what really gets to me.

The RNG is what's fun though, there just needs to be a balance. Sometimes it's so lopsided for you, it's easy. Sometimes it's so lopsided against you, that it's utterly impossible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top