What difficulty do you play on?

[Rontemon]

I have only won the game once and it was in easy mode. Now I'm trying normal mode and I can't even get past the first sector after multiple tries! It is as if the odds are stacked against you the higher the difficulty.

[Quazimortal]

I've tried normal and I suck at it, I play exclusively in easy mode.

[slappy_d0]

Welcome to the world of micro-management. Play on hard and you'll learn your mistakes faster, but it's a brutal ride. Higher levels are mostly about scrap management, but limiting hull loss is just as important. Read through the forum, there are a million tips, but in the end it's learning timing and mechanics. Do you know the fire rate of your weapons? Do you know the fire rate of theirs?

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Ronald:

I have only won the game once and it was in easy mode. Now I'm trying normal mode and I can't even get past the first sector after multiple tries! It is as if the odds are stacked against you the higher the difficulty.

i played easy till i could consistantly win, then i went normal. was just winning on that when AE came out and kicked me back down to easy. just about back to playing on normal.

[Austellus]

I play on easy, as I am such a tough manly man I don't feel a need to prove my machismo by playing on a difficulty I don't enjoy.

I might just about be able to play on normal, but I don't think I'm good enough at the game to mitigate the RNG. Not saying the game is luck based, it's just skill in this game is your ability to deal with the hand you're dealt, and I don't think I'm all that skilled.

[Dr. McWeazel]

Originally posted by Ronald:

It is as if the odds are stacked against you the higher the difficulty.

That's kinda what "Harder enemy generation" means.

As for the difficulty I play on, it varies. I've caught myself playing on Easy a lot, but that's mostly been "proof-of-concept" runs with ships that I really just dislike (Engi A, Stealth C, Rock A, and a couple of others). When I play to win, it's almost always on Hard.

[Ray Robertson]

Originally posted by Hutch:

I play on easy, as I am such a tough manly man I don't feel a need to prove my machismo by playing on a difficulty I don't enjoy.

So, you are a bully. Picking on all those weak ships.

[ジャンク]

Played my first few on normal (original edition), made it mayyybe to the fifth sector once or twice, then switched to easy (still original) for a few runs. Once I beat that a few times I gave normal advanced edition a try. It has not been gentle with me.

I don't really fault people for sticking to easy mode if they're still enjoying the game—especially for a game like FTL—normal is def frustrating sometimes and I'm sure hard is much worse. I guess I just derive part of my fun from the challenge of it, and watching as my skills grow. But I would recommend to anyone that's past their first few games to give advanced edition a try. I think it is considered a little harder but there's a lot of cool new stuff in it.

[Brobuscus115]

Originally posted by Ronald:

I have only won the game once and it was in easy mode. Now I'm trying normal mode and I can't even get past the first sector after multiple tries! It is as if the odds are stacked against you the higher the difficulty.

This game is tough, thats for sure. it all comes down to a couple of things. 1. knowledge, to play on Normal, you have to know yours and your enemies weapons and abilities. (also you should know which events to accept and avoid) 2. micromanagement. you cannot just attack the enemy and expect to win. you have to pay attention to your own ship almost as much as you pay attention to the enemies ship. 3. persistance, you have to put time into this game to get gud, sometimes you will die and ragequit but you have to keep trying. i myself mostly play on easy, but depending on the ship i can usually get a win on normal(or at least make it really far) 4. luck. this game is highly RNG based. if you get a randomly generated ship with 3 shields and like 5 laser shots on sector three, that sucks and you will probably die or at least take alot of damage. but eventually you will get a good run where you can beat the boss.

this game is tough but usually some skill and elbow grease is all you need to win (eventually)

[Brobuscus115]

Originally posted by Dr. McWeazel, PhD:

Originally posted by Ronald:

It is as if the odds are stacked against you the higher the difficulty.

That's kinda what "Harder enemy generation" means.

As for the difficulty I play on, it varies. I've caught myself playing on Easy a lot, but that's mostly been "proof-of-concept" runs with ships that I really just dislike (Engi A, Stealth C, Rock A, and a couple of others). When I play to win, it's almost always on Hard.

i actually really like the Engi ship or did at least, ever since they added the defense drone that can destroy your combat drones, it has gotten a bit ridiculous to win a run when you pretty much lose if they have that particular defense drone. pre AE it was a fun ship though

[Rampageblast]

easy

[Culain]

I play the game on normal with about an 80% success rate on my runs. I've beaten it on hard a few times but I don't tend to have much fun on that difficulty. Easy is well too easy, there have been nurmerous times where I've gotten to sector 4-5 on easy and had enough firepower to win.

[gall0ws]

Normal.
At normal you really start to learn how to play and I think it gives the "real" FTL experience. All you need is a little bit of patience, then you start to improving really bad, run after run, ship after ship; eventually easy will be too easy for you.
I think it's hard to become good at this game in easy mode. It can be gratifying too, but you are not somewhat "forced" to rethink your approach and optimize your run.

[DarkTwinge]

Exclusively Hard unless I'm doing speedruns which are on Easy. I've been very happy with the level of difficulty provided by Hard in AE - they set it just right where you can't make very many mistakes, but with good play you can still win consistently.

[Culain]

Big fan of yours twinge, looking forwards to more of your streaming. ^_^

[DarkTwinge]

Originally posted by Culain:

Big fan of yours twinge, looking forwards to more of your streaming. ^_^

Thanks! We just started a Hard Mode win streak like I did on Normal before AE - aiming to get all 28 in a row without a loss. So far we have the Stealth C and Rock A down. I don't want to get burnt out on FTL though, so I'm mixing in runs between other games like Dark Souls II, Cave Story Hard, and NecroDancer.