So I got FTL: Faster Than Light

[Inkidu]

I like roguelikes, but damn this one might as well be luck-based: The game. It goes beyond just hits and misses in combat. You're either doing really well your you're doing really badly. It's got a very unstable equilibrium to it. There's no point in running away (like other roguelikes) because it'll only make you weaker instead of giving you a chance to heal since everything is based on scrap and the largest amounts of scrap are based on.

You're at the utter and complete mercy of the RNG more so than any other game I've played. Sure there are little things you can do, but they don't add up to much. The problem I'm finding is that when a game relies too much on luck or a RNG then it boils down to two things for me.

"Well, it's not my fault, just bad luck."
"Well, I just got lucky, no real skill involved."

It really dampens that sense of understanding and mastery than comes from games like this. There's not much you can learn, especially when it's just a run of bad luck. It doesn't feel like I'm trying to beat a game, it feels like I'm trying to get then golden run. That statistical probability where everything goes my way. You can go through a whole game never getting a weapon or even, and other games you could (I imagine, haven't beaten it yet) get four burst mk II lasers and a weapon pre-igniter and shred just about anything in the game.

Generally I think fuel limitation and an advancing wall of doom was pretty petty overkill on the developers part. I've played plenty of roguelikes. I mean yeah Nethack you learn things, don't go down stairs while incumbered. In FTL it's well you jumped into a solar-flare sun without any reasonable expectation of knowing and you're going to have to fight a tough ship and... oh, this is the first jump of the game too.

So I'm wondering what other people think about the game, because I'm just frustrated and it's not that fun kind of roguelike frustration.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I remember having discussions like this about XCOM. It seems like any time a RNG is involved at all, certain individuals perceive the game as suddenly being "entirely luck based". It either needs to be a binary set of decisions with guaranteed results, like a puzzle game, or it's all a vortex of luck and mad gambling and there's zero skill or tactical decision making involved.

It is possible that my curt tone reveals how I feel about this particular argument.

Yes, there is an element of luck in FTL. Yes, random chance can bone you, and yes, you can luck out and your luck can snowball.

No, you are not at "the utter and complete mercy of the RNG".

 

[Inkidu]

I remember having discussions like this about XCOM. It seems like any time a RNG is involved at all, certain individuals perceive the game as suddenly being "entirely luck based". It either needs to be a binary set of decisions with guaranteed results, like a puzzle game, or it's all a vortex of luck and mad gambling and there's zero skill or tactical decision making involved.

It is possible that my curt tone reveals how I feel about this particular argument.

Yes, there is an element of luck in FTL. Yes, random chance can bone you, and yes, you can luck out and your luck can snowball.

No, you are not at "the utter and complete mercy of the RNG".

My problem is that I've played XCOM, and while the individual hits and misses are RNG. You've got ultimate decision in whether or not you you try and shoot down the UFO that's outclassing your ravens by packing it with one-use items or try and take on a supply barge when you know it's not going to end well.

In FTL every move you make is basically dictated by RNG, what's at the point when you get there, what your scrap and supply rewards are going to be. Even how this binary decision is going to pan out this time. Sure there are some that people know to avoid routinely (giant spiders), but most are not as cut and dry. You're completely at the mercy of what the game decides to give you. XCOM at least lets you hire more troops and planes at any time as long as you've got the money, but in FTL if you can't find a store you're just out of luck.

In other roguelikes like Nethack or ADOM you can run away, bottleneck, you can take it one step at a time withdraw and it doesn't necessarily make you weaker, but running away in FTL simply hurts you. Even if you run away in XCOM you can at least possibly get a promotion for a troop in FTL it's just a loss. So there's not question that you're more at the mercy of the RNG in FTL. It relies on it a lot more than XCOM or any other roguelike I've ever played.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In other roguelikes like Nethack or ADOM you can run away, bottleneck, you can take it one step at a time withdraw and it doesn't necessarily make you weaker, but running away in FTL simply hurts you. Even if you run away in XCOM you can at least possibly get a promotion for a troop in FTL it's just a loss. So there's not question that you're more at the mercy of the RNG in FTL. It relies on it a lot more than XCOM or any other roguelike I've ever played.

More at, yes. Completely at, no.

I've finished FTL many times. As have a lot of other people. I never felt like my successful runs were informed entirely by luck, just as very few of my unsuccessful runs were completely outside of my control. It's a Roguelike. Encountering failure states is part and parcel of the experience.

I'm sorry the game is annoying you. There is some luck involved. You're most certainly not entirely at the whim of the RNG, though. If FTL has a problem, it is that it is a somewhat tactically shallow game with a fairly clear set of good decisions and bad decisions in terms of how you kit out your ship and deal with encounters. That's something I'd like to see addressed in a sequel. I'm not going to hack on it too hard for this, though, as it was an indie project and sold for $10 at its most expensive.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

The only aspect of the game that I do feel that way about is in regards to unlocking other ships because not only do the events to unlock them happen only in certain sectors, some require specific things on your ship to do. Let me give an example with unlocking the Mantis ship.

Requirements

1. Be in the Mantis Homeworlds

2. Have a teleporter

3. Have a level 2 or higher med bay

4. Encounter the thief KazaaakplethKilik

5. Don't destroy his ship but instead just kill the crew

6. Check the ship for survivors

7. Bring KazaaakplethKilik (Who you find still alive on the ship) to your medbay to save him.

These are a lot of things that need to happen in order for you to get the ship. If you didn't know that this is how you unlock it then it could take you forever to unlock the ship. And there are lots of unique events in the game already so there's no way to know that the KazaaakplethKilik one is special.

But as to the actual fighting mechanics and such, I don't agree, I've found myself in control of the situations I find myself in most of the time.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

There's no point in running away (like other roguelikes) because it'll only make you weaker instead of giving you a chance to heal since everything is based on scrap and the largest amounts of scrap are based on.

This is way off base. Yes, if you get into an encounter that's over your head and run away you will almost certainly lose resources in the form of hull integrity, missles, drone parts, or what have you, but if you /don't/ run away from an encounter like that, you're going to lose a lot more, and likely die either at that node or within the next few jumps. I can only think of one time where I died almost purely due to luck, and that involved an encounter with both a powerful ship and an ion storm on my first or second jump. And even then I realized later there was a chance I would have made it if I had pumped everything into shields, engines, and oxygen, and hightailed it out of there instead of trying to fight. Every other game of it I've ever played has either ended with my death, because of a mistake which I was able to identify in retrospect, or on one shining occasion (I haven't played much since I beat it) with a victory -- on normal, no less. I never even bothered with easy mode. Now that victory did involve a huge boost from luck, in that I got a scrap recovery arm early on and had tons of cash as a result, but I still would have died if I hadn't known what I was doing. Basically a good player will be able to mitigate the impact of bad luck. A bad player will still lose despite good luck.

Edit: Whoah, I just noticed my title changed to "Master Archivist." I didn't even realize there /was/ a title after "On the Record."

 

[Inkidu]

No the fighting isn't what I'm talking about (though there have been a few times where I was hopelessly outclassed and I shouldn't have been). It's the other elements. Where you go, and where you can even go is determined by random generation. Then the random events have random outcomes (that you can sometimes influence) but might as well be a coin-toss. Are there any tips for mitigating that kind of randomness or is it just luck of the draw? Because when it comes to actually going forward in the game I don't feel like I'm progressing just getting lucky.

 

[Altorin]

where luck comes into play mostly in FTL is just what you find in the shops - sometimes, they just never have a component you want, or they have it at the wrong time. But everything can be balanced out a bit through careful gameplay. The base game has a measure of a difficulty curve (there is an "infinite" mod for the game, but that... don't get me started, its difficulty curve is non-existant). You start out fighting garbage ships, and it seems fairly simple, but you NEED to keep your shields upgrading. If you neglect them and fall behind you're going to lose.

The only aspect of the game that I do feel that way about is in regards to unlocking other ships because not only do the events to unlock them happen only in certain sectors, some require specific things on your ship to do. Let me give an example with unlocking the Mantis ship.

Requirements

1. Be in the Mantis Homeworlds

2. Have a teleporter

3. Have a level 2 or higher med bay

4. Encounter the thief KazaaakplethKilik

5. Don't destroy his ship but instead just kill the crew

6. Check the ship for survivors

7. Bring KazaaakplethKilik (Who you find still alive on the ship) to your medbay to save him.

These are a lot of things that need to happen in order for you to get the ship. If you didn't know that this is how you unlock it then it could take you forever to unlock the ship. And there are lots of unique events in the game already so there's no way to know that the KazaaakplethKilik one is special.

But as to the actual fighting mechanics and such, I don't agree, I've found myself in control of the situations I find myself in most of the time.

quoted for truth. My friend and i have played through the game MANY MANY times (20-30) with the sole intent of getting that Mantis ship.

Even knowing what to do to get it, most of the time, even in Mantis Homeworlds, it just doesn't appear. We've only seen that quest come up a handful of times, and each time we were unprepared for it for one reason or another. It's madness really.

No the fighting isn't what I'm talking about (though there have been a few times where I was hopelessly outclassed and I shouldn't have been). It's the other elements. Where you go, and where you can even go is determined by random generation. Then the random events have random outcomes (that you can sometimes influence) but might as well be a coin-toss. Are there any tips for mitigating that kind of randomness or is it just luck of the draw? Because when it comes to actually going forward in the game I don't feel like I'm progressing just getting lucky.

that randomness is just part of the game.

here are some tips though to take the edge off

- Plan your jumps in advance
- pick up a Long Range Scanner if you can find it (that will help a LOT in avoiding Hazardous location)
- keep your shields up-to-date with your enemies
- know when to push an assault to kill a ship and when to take a plea for mercy (blowing up a ship will almost always result in higher scrap, and sometimes even more fuel/missiles/drones then they were offering
- diversify your crew (Blue options are almost always safe - 99% at least)
- upgrade your secondary systems (getting level 2 Doors is mandatory almost immediately, and getting level 2 sensors will REALLY help your peace of mind, as you can see the enemy as they scramble around trying to fix the problems you're laying on them)

 

[Specter Von Baren]

No the fighting isn't what I'm talking about (though there have been a few times where I was hopelessly outclassed and I shouldn't have been). It's the other elements. Where you go, and where you can even go is determined by random generation. Then the random events have random outcomes (that you can sometimes influence) but might as well be a coin-toss. Are there any tips for mitigating that kind of randomness or is it just luck of the draw? Because when it comes to actually going forward in the game I don't feel like I'm progressing just getting lucky.

It depends on what your situation is. For instance, if I get the event where I'm asked to look into the eye or open a Mantis escape pod, I NEVER do it unless my ship is woefully unmanned because you can just lose a person from those events. It's all a matter of knowing what events can do and weighing the pros and cons of doing something in events. The worse you're doing, the more risks you should take because you can't beat the boss without being in a good condition, on the other hand, the reverse is true, you don't want to take a big risk when you're doing really well because a slip up (Usually the loss of a crewmember) could really set you back.

 

[Inkidu]

No the fighting isn't what I'm talking about (though there have been a few times where I was hopelessly outclassed and I shouldn't have been). It's the other elements. Where you go, and where you can even go is determined by random generation. Then the random events have random outcomes (that you can sometimes influence) but might as well be a coin-toss. Are there any tips for mitigating that kind of randomness or is it just luck of the draw? Because when it comes to actually going forward in the game I don't feel like I'm progressing just getting lucky.

It depends on what your situation is. For instance, if I get the even where I'm asked to look into the eye or open a Mantis escape pod, I NEVER do it unless my ship is woefully unmanned because you can just lose a person from those events. It's all a matter of knowing what events can do and weighing the pros and cons of doing something in events. The worse you're doing, the more risks you should take because you can't beat the boss without being in a good condition, on the other hand, the reverse is true, you don't want to take a big risk when you're doing really well because a slip up (Usually the loss of a crewmember) could really set you back.

That's great sounding, but it's still random. If you're screwed you're screwed and if you're good your good. Yeah, you might be a little more desperate, but you can still lose a crew member (maybe your last). So much of the game is just out of your control, and there's not even a guarantee that just ignoring an event will actually let you ignore it. So you're still just tossing the coin no matter what you pick.

So that's why it feels like I'm just lucking through the game. Sure there are things like the sensor aug, but that may never ever come up anywhere. So the base game is fly blind, get lucky.

 

[lacktheknack]

A lot of gamers have issues with "risk management".

They toss themselves at games like FTL or XCOM going for "the gold", and are surprised when it doesn't give them the result thy want when they treat it like a slot machine.

Admittedly, FTL isn't the greatest example (it could use a bit more work, really), but there's still far too much choice involved with it to call it "overwhelmingly luck-based".

Seeing how the OP doesn't think running away has value, I get the feeling he's not properly weighing his options at any given moment.

 

[Inkidu]

A lot of gamers have issues with "risk management".

They toss themselves at games like FTL or XCOM going for "the gold", and are surprised when it doesn't give them the result thy want when they treat it like a slot machine.

Admittedly, FTL isn't the greatest example (it could use a bit more work, really), but there's still far too much choice involved with it to call it "overwhelmingly luck-based".

Seeing how the OP doesn't think running away has value, I get the feeling he's not properly weighing his options at any given moment.

There are two instances where running away has value. You've been over run by the fleet, or you're at a sun. Any other time is going to cost you scrap and hull damage, and other resources ultimately making you weaker in the end. If you're underpowered you might as well try and win it so you can maybe make it to the store.

Don't talk to me about risk management. I play XCOM on Classic iron-man for fun. (EW upped impossible so I haven't worked my way back up to it yet). The problem is that you need a lot of things to fall your way in FTL's sectors. I don't mind combat. However, it's very easy to end up with say twelve points you can go to without risk of overrun and then seven of those points are simply filler points.

The amount FTL uses randomness is just an order of magnitude higher than XCOM by far. Honestly if the game had a luck-stat a la Fallout I would put all my points in that.

Whereas XCOM is risk-reward game play you don't go for this nation and you get 200 bucks but might lose the nation.

FTL is risk game play. You go here and do this and you might get this, or you might get jack for any and every decision you make that's not a blue option, and I think I've had a few blue options fail, I'm not sure. I've played like sixty games (I don't know if it counts restarts).

 

[Candidus]

Sorry Ink, I just flat out disagree.

Perhaps it's because I only use the ships I've got the strategy down for, but if I spin up a normal difficulty game in the Mantis 4-man teleport cruiser or the Zoltan-B, I'm probably going to complete the game.

Even if I don't beat the game, I almost always reach S7.

Keep playing. Seriously. You'll crack it in the end.

 

[Inkidu]

Sorry Ink, I just flat out disagree.

Perhaps it's because I only use the ships I've got the strategy down for, but if I spin up a normal difficulty game in the Mantis 4-man teleport cruiser or the Zoltan-B, I'm probably going to complete the game.

Even if I don't beat the game, I almost always reach S7.

Keep playing. Seriously. You'll crack it in the end.

All I've got is the starter ship and the Engi cruiser. Has anyone beat it with the starter ship or do they just unlock something else.

Though no doubt I'll beat it. The way luck is a factor there is one statistical probability where unless I just let them shoot me down I'll win.

 

[Candidus]

All I've got is the starter ship and the Engi cruiser. Has anyone beat it with the starter ship or do they just unlock something else.

Though no doubt I'll beat it. The way luck is a factor there is one statistical probability where unless I just let them shoot me down I'll win.

I've seen my friend play a few rounds in the engi cruiser A and B. Looks very stable with a Defense Drone I, 1 in Cloak and 3/4 in shields (and then whatever offensive methods you prefer; boarding drones recommended).

I prefer to use ships that utilize boarding parties all game because plundering intact ships means more scrap from the very start, plus you've already got hard-as-nails troopers when you get boarded yourself! But yeah, it has been proven to me that Engi can finish pretty reliably.

I've never finished in the starter ship though. Anyone who can do that reliably I'd like to hear from. Give strategy pls.

 

[Inkidu]

All I've got is the starter ship and the Engi cruiser. Has anyone beat it with the starter ship or do they just unlock something else.

Though no doubt I'll beat it. The way luck is a factor there is one statistical probability where unless I just let them shoot me down I'll win.

I've seen my friend play a few rounds in the engi cruiser A and B. Looks very stable with a Defense Drone I, 1 in Cloak and 3/4 in shields (and then whatever offensive methods you prefer; boarding drones recommended).

I prefer to use boarding parties all game because plundering intact ships means more scrap from the very start, plus you've already got hard-as-nails troopers when you get boarded yourself! But yeah, it has been proven to me that Engi can finish pretty reliably.

My problem isn't fighting ships, it's just what events I'm going to happen to get.

 

[Altorin]

Sorry Ink, I just flat out disagree.

Perhaps it's because I only use the ships I've got the strategy down for, but if I spin up a normal difficulty game in the Mantis 4-man teleport cruiser or the Zoltan-B, I'm probably going to complete the game.

Even if I don't beat the game, I almost always reach S7.

Keep playing. Seriously. You'll crack it in the end.

All I've got is the starter ship and the Engi cruiser. Has anyone beat it with the starter ship or do they just unlock something else.

Though no doubt I'll beat it. The way luck is a factor there is one statistical probability where unless I just let them shoot me down I'll win.

yeah.. the starter ship is fairly bad.. try unlocking the alternate starting ship, it's quite a bit better and starts with an interesting shotgun weapon setup that will wreck absolutely wreck anything with 2 shields or less (not that those are particularly difficult in general, I'm just saying, the starting weapon loadout for the second kestrel ship is hilarious to behold)

the best ship I find in general for just easy going fun is the Federation Cruiser, which I think you unlock by beating the game.

Are you playing on Normal is the other question? because if you're just starting out with the starter ship, that might be your problem. The game is really harsh on Normal, and you might find it worth your while to shift down to easy to unlock some ships, get some options and learn the ins and outs of how the game works.

I will just say this though.

Get a crew teleporter. The last boss is almost impossible I find without it. You also need a missile launcher of some sort, but a crew teleporter can really help make the boss easier - but do not kill all the crew.. it activates the AI and if the AI starts repairing the weapon systems you've been sabotaging with teleported crew.. good luck is all I'll say in that regard

 

[Candidus]

My problem isn't fighting ships, it's just what events I'm going to happen to get.

Ahhh, events... Well, in terms of system events, getting 2 in shields asap will make asteroid belts less game-endy in sectors 1 and 2. Systems with nearby stars will still be a threat, but I don't think they're as dangerous as asteroid belts.

For dialogue/choice events, my rule of thumb is: risk ship damage but don't risk crew.

Some examples might help, but I don't want to spoil anything you haven't seen.

 

[Inkidu]

Yeah, I'm not playing on easy, but other than high scrap the luck on events is still the same. So I'm just going to keep trying I suppose. Easy only gives you more scrap so I think I'll stick to normal.

 

[Requia]

On easy at least I can beat it 50-50 with the ships I like, it's not *that* luck based. Also its very short, so a bad roll of the dice doesn't hurt the way a 20 hour roguelike does.