Its not too hard, its just ** unfair

[Bruder Tac]

I have played FTL 19h in the last 10 days.
And i'm really ***** by this game.
I play easy and the best rounds in this 19h was flagship stage 2.
Its not too hard, i like it difficult, but this game is just unfair as hell.
I had 6 or 7 rounds in this 19h were i get 6 or more empty jumps in a row.
Several rounds where i can't get only one weapon up to stage 6 where i get killed, because of my weapon lack. And i try to visit every store i found.
Or i can only earn ~100 Scrap or less in a whole sector with 8-10 jumps.
Or i broke down by fuelissue, because every shop has only 1-3 fuel and not one ship drops fuel.
Or one of my favorit, 1st jump in the 2nd sector, 4 mantisboarders, round done. no chance. Even with doors open and oxy off.
Or yesterday, i loved this round. Everything went really good. 3 burstlaser II, 1 ion bomb, 2 mark1 attackdrones. full shield, full crew and 2 points in oxy and medibay, and enough power for everything. And of course there must be a point where it get worst. At the last exit to the flagship, there was nebula and a slug interceptor with 4 weapons and a teleporter. And I get cut down to 7 energy and the first shot of the slugs directly a complete fire with hullbreak on my weapon room, with a damage of 5 points in the weapons. The boarders killed my shield and the round was finished.
Or useable ship for the flagshipbattle, and the all repairspots are left and the base is the last right star on the map. Many thanks for that.
Or i had to fight vs the rebel fleet one time in the flagshipbattle to get a repair. And of course. 14 rooms to choose and the ASB crack my shield with 2 hullbreaks and complet shields off. And the rebel takes out my weapons and my engine in the next shot.

I have played many hard games and when FTL is set easy its really not difficult, but the whole game is soo ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unfair. You could bet 100$ vs 1 russian money that there will always be a point to prevent the battlehip for beeing touched by the player.
Not enough money drops, no weapons to buy or drop, no fuel available, an early boarding of 4 mantis. And even when everything really looks good and you think you could beat the flagship, you get a freak jump to something you can't win, because you get a energy cut to 20% or a ultra-mega lucky punch by the enemy or what ever.

[DarkTwinge]

FTL is a game that feels unfair until you learn and get better at the game. It can be won consistently - good enough play will overcome virtually any amount of bad luck.

[Bruder Tac]

Than tell me, what i should have done against the slug interceptor with 4 weapons, 3 shield, 3 boardes and only 7 energy, and no weapons after the first shots?
Or with less than 100 scrap in the whole first sector and only 100 scrap in the 2nd sector.

[Harry]

Originally posted by Bruder Tac:

Than tell me, what i should have done against the slug interceptor with 4 weapons, 3 shield, 3 boardes and only 7 energy, and no weapons after the first shots?
Or with less than 100 scrap in the whole first sector and only 100 scrap in the 2nd sector.

You just have to deal with it: I won with two shields and 3 weapons... and not enough power to power everything.

[DarkTwinge]

One thing you can do is to try and notice when you're making mistakes. A lot of times you might be in a really bad situation -- but that situation is only bad because of mistakes you made earlier.

Maybe you should've upgraded to Tier 2 Shields with your first 50 scrap. Maybe you should've bought that Burst Laser I because it does a good enough job even if it's not the most amazing weapon. Maybe you needed to route through the sector better to hit more beacons and get more encoutners, netting you more scrap. Maybe you needed to run from that tough fight instead of taking 15 damage.

Errors can happen in any number of places, and they build up against you over time if you make too many.

[slappy_d0]

The real trick to winning is extreme micro-management of every aspect. Managing systems properly early on with little crew can help a lot, timing of weapons is KEY. You have to do it the entire time right from the beginning because the scrap functionly compounds.

Your instance of "the slug interceptor with 4 weapons, 3 shield, 3 boardes" is likely the classic case of improper play early on that left you underprepared at that point.

[rynoth]

@Bruder Tac

Agree 100%

The only constant in the game is target "X" system to get the pilot to leave to repair it thereby giving you a free hit on your next volley (presumably after you've already destroyed the cockpit to buy more time). But that's taking advantage of poor AI/game design and not my idea of skill based gaming.

There's a difference between difficult gameplay and unfair gameplay.
More often than not it feels like the RNG favors the computer in a fight. 1 run with 3 Mark II lasers, target cockpit, 5 shots miss and the other 4 are absorbed by the shields.
If only I'd had a 4th laser. :P

The lack of weapon accuracy or targeting sensors was a poor decision by devs in my opinion.

Far too many bsht moments in this game.

[Bruder Tac]

And the next round for the a**.
In nebula, 2 energy left, no shield, no engine, both disabled during the fight and the only weapon was the burst laser mark II. And the enemy has a 3 gun, 2 shield ship.
First shot for me, shield, shield, miss. He shots on me, oxy broken, weapons broken, a hullbreak in the engineroom.
This fight isn't winable and during the engine disble even not escapeable.
Noone in the universe can win this fight. Maybe with a teleporter, if you have one.

And of course in the round before, i had 5 empty beacons in sector 1 and 8 empty beacons in sector 2. On the last jump, fuel was empty and entering sector 3 with a stockship, isn't a good idea. so restart.

[Harry]

Originally posted by Bruder Tac:

And the next round for the a**.
In nebula, 2 energy left, no shield, no engine, both disabled during the fight and the only weapon was the burst laser mark II. And the enemy has a 3 gun, 2 shield ship.
First shot for me, shield, shield, miss. He shots on me, oxy broken, weapons broken, a hullbreak in the engineroom.
This fight isn't winable and during the engine disble even not escapeable.
Noone in the universe can win this fight. Maybe with a teleporter, if you have one.

And of course in the round before, i had 5 empty beacons in sector 1 and 8 empty beacons in sector 2. On the last jump, fuel was empty and entering sector 3 with a stockship, isn't a good idea. so restart.

Ermm, two energy? The minimum that you START with is 5. This means it is possible for this to happen, however, the enemy has 3 weapons online, 2 shields online and at least some engines, most likely high. This means it is late in the game and therefore you should have about what he has. If you say bad luck then I cannot believe you are giving yourself enough time in each sector. I'm sorry, this time it is definitely your fault.

[Wasted]

if you have only played 20hours you probably haven't yet really started to understand the core game mechanics.. it takes more time than that

[Martial.Lore]

Originally posted by wasted:

if you have only played 20hours you probably haven't yet really started to understand the core game mechanics.. it takes more time than that

I agree. It took me 35 hours to beat the game on easy for the first time, but after I had done it once I started getting victory after victory, unlocking new ships and new layouts with ease.

[cyber_ninj4]

@Bruder Tac
http://ftlwiki.com/wiki/Cloud_save_game_syncing

There is the location of you save file. Turn off cloud syncing for the game, back up your save from first sector when the game decides to give you a good run. I myself have saved at the end of the first sector with a free beam weapon, firebomb, and mark II. This is in addition to the artemis and mark II that the Kestrel gets.

This way I can decide how I want to play going forward, go beam, go bomb, sell it all and go boarding, drone...etc. I get to enjoy every aspect/playstyle of the game without having to pump countless hours into a game based mostly on luck. Some people have that time, I unfortunately have a 9-5 and don't live with my parents. :\

The final battle was the most lack luster part of any game I've ever played. You might as well save scum (as I stated above...believe me I wish I HAD) and just beat it. There literally isn't a single redeeming quality to be found in FTL. It's under-produced, over-hyped, and entirely forgettable once you beat it.

[a razor named qualia]

Originally posted by cyber_ninj4:

@Bruder Tac
http://ftlwiki.com/wiki/Cloud_save_game_syncing

There is the location of you save file. Turn off cloud syncing for the game, back up your save from first sector when the game decides to give you a good run. I myself have saved at the end of the first sector with a free beam weapon, firebomb, and mark II. This is in addition to the artemis and mark II that the Kestrel gets.

This way I can decide how I want to play going forward, go beam, go bomb, sell it all and go boarding, drone...etc. I get to enjoy every aspect/playstyle of the game without having to pump countless hours into a game based mostly on luck. Some people have that time, I unfortunately have a 9-5 and don't live with my parents. :\

The final battle was the most lack luster part of any game I've ever played. You might as well save scum (as I stated above...believe me I wish I HAD) and just beat it. There literally isn't a single redeeming quality to be found in FTL. It's under-produced, over-hyped, and entirely forgettable once you beat it.

How have the mods not banned you yet?

[Sojiro]

Actually the game is completely fair about empty nodes. There is a set amount of empty areas in each sector, so you won't randomly end up somewhere without anything to do. You *can* be very unlucky and chose the 6 empty nodes in a row out of the 25 available, but skill can mitigate that: learning to plan your trajectory so that you pass *next* to a maximum amount of nodes gives you a much higher chance of spotting stores and distress calls. Not to mention the long range sensors.

There are a number of things I thought were completely random and unfair in this game, but as I learned how it works I started to understand how I could stack the deck in my favor. Now that sort of mishap almost never happens.


@cyber_ninj4
This game is a ROGUELIKE. Complaining about the fact that you have to face random challenges with random resources (and need time to master its very high difficulty) without save scumming is completely stupid. That's like buying a FPS and then whining that you don't like shooting, or buying a puzzle game and then complaining that you need to think hard.

The randomness combined with the reliability of certain trends makes for perpetually renewed challenges that can be consistently beaten with skill. There's a reason why a really good FTL player can easily win 90% of the time if that's what they want to focus on.

So yeah, the game is hard. There are a lot of important mechanics and events and items, so it takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to beat the game regardless of the hand you're given. That's the entire point of roguelikes. If you don't want a difficult and unforgiving game where winning is a real achievement that takes actual skill, don't play FTL or other games like this.


Bruder Tac complaint is that the game is unfair. And it can certainly feel that way. But when you really get it, the randomness is just one more thing to handle.

[Harry]

Originally posted by Sojiro888:

Actually the game is completely fair about empty nodes. There is a set amount of empty areas in each sector, so you won't randomly end up somewhere without anything to do. You *can* be very unlucky and chose the 6 empty nodes in a row out of the 25 available, but skill can mitigate that: learning to plan your trajectory so that you pass *next* to a maximum amount of nodes gives you a much higher chance of spotting stores and distress calls. Not to mention the long range sensors.

There are a number of things I thought were completely random and unfair in this game, but as I learned how it works I started to understand how I could stack the deck in my favor. Now that sort of mishap almost never happens.


@cyber_ninj4
This game is a ROGUELIKE. Complaining about the fact that you have to face random challenges with random resources (and need time to master its very high difficulty) without save scumming is completely stupid. That's like buying a FPS and then whining that you don't like shooting, or buying a puzzle game and then complaining that you need to think hard.

The randomness combined with the reliability of certain trends makes for perpetually renewed challenges that can be consistently beaten with skill. There's a reason why a really good FTL player can easily win 90% of the time if that's what they want to focus on.

So yeah, the game is hard. There are a lot of important mechanics and events and items, so it takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to beat the game regardless of the hand you're given. That's the entire point of roguelikes. If you don't want a difficult and unforgiving game where winning is a real achievement that takes actual skill, don't play FTL or other games like this.


Bruder Tac complaint is that the game is unfair. And it can certainly feel that way. But when you really get it, the randomness is just one more thing to handle.

Well said.

[Wasted]

The concept of "fairness" isn't found in nature.

Adapt and overcome or perish.
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I bet people who cry about FTL never take personal responsibility in their personal lives and instead always blame somebody else.

If you are walking across the street and get hit by a car... its your fault.. if you don't want to be hit by a car, don't go where cars are. I'd bet the entitled mor0n blames the drunk that hit them as they lay dieing.