About why the Rebel Flagship is bad game design

[Mahtasooma]

I like this game. A lot. I have 77 hours played.
I like how you are allowed to try so much different styles of play.

Until the last fight. Without raw burst power, you will never survive phase 3, period.

The problem with the Rebel ship is, that apart from the four weapon rooms you can take care of, some powers simply cannot be addressed. Especially the one in phase 3. Or at least not that I know.

But also in phase 2, if you take out the drone room, there should not be a phase 2 drone assult superpower.

This results in needing some form of survival combined with sheer burst damage to take down the Flagship. If you set up your ship for a slow assault, hacking, just winning by Teleportation and so on... well, good luck with that.

And that is not what it should be. For every conceivable way you can GET to the Flagship, there should be an adequate tactic to take it down. But there simply isn't.
At least that's what I think. Or somebody show me a way to win against the Flagship with a Fire focussed Rock crew boarding tactic with Hacking and Drones.

[Kuro]

You can play as you want, 50 - 60% evasion and some weapons is enough to finish him off. With level 3 - 4 shields you will only take about 4 damage every burst on average.

You are given a massive advantage of being able to choose what you want to do. You can board and kill it's crew ( except one so the AI doens't kick in ) and nothing gets repaired. You can hack the shield and fire on them freely, you can mind control the pilot and everything will hit. You can board the weapon systems and get them permanently offline. You can fire and breach bomb modules and give their human crew no chance to repair. You can cloak whenever a burst fire comes and you will take zero damage. You can take defense or repair drones and make the fight that much easier.

What surprised me about this game is actually that every single tactic is viable. You can defeat the flagship even with only boarding crew and a laser or rocket launcher. You can defeat the flagship only with simple laser, a hack and a fire bomb. There is only one thing that is off and that is balance, not possibilities. Cloaking simply makes the boss fight too easy on any difficulty. It counters the entire 2nd and 3rd stage by the click of a button.

[Mahtasooma]

Originalmente postado por Refusenik:

I made observations on why I failed and figured out how to improve.

And how often did that observation result in "well, guess that's just RNG"?

[Mahtasooma]

Originalmente postado por Refusenik:

The only variables are target selection and hit/miss.

And that never resulted in you losing a game in hundres of hours where volleys simply ignore all your fancy dodge and hit the vital systems, breaching and setting fire to each of them?

You seriously seem to be playing another game.

But I like your attitude.

[Samseng Yik]

Lets see. Many great RPG out there.
If your party don't have enough level and right gear, you get demolished by boss.
Certain boss is DPS race, if you don't have enough DPS, you get demolished.

This is not bad design. All bosses have their rule.
Why don't you finish all FF with only level 1 ? If you can't does this mean the game is badly design?

Many games out there, you need to have enough offensive power/level in order to win the game.
If you can grind to lvl 99 and finish every bosses, I say these games have serious design flawed.

Currently all 3 phases of RFS require different tactic. Raw damage is always the answer only if you can survive their drone/hacking/MC. You also can only has max 3 subsystem install. So which 3 combination you want to try? To me, having MC and Defense Drone help the most.
If you have teleporter but not enough crew, you can MC enemy then tele them to your ship and kill them 1 by 1. Lots of tactic involved.

It don't have to let any idiot strategist win in order to be a good design boss/game.

[El Pumpking]

I wonder what happens if you actually manage to completely drain the flagship of oxygen, so the crew starts dying. I'm thinking something like 4 shields, 45-50% evade and max level hacking. Dunno if that is a good plan (most probably not) but it would be funny to see if the flagship "magically" jumps away when the last crewmember dies.

[Gekkibi]

Originalmente postado por The Pumpking:

I wonder what happens if you actually manage to completely drain the flagship of oxygen, so the crew starts dying. I'm thinking something like 4 shields, 45-50% evade and max level hacking. Dunno if that is a good plan (most probably not) but it would be funny to see if the flagship "magically" jumps away when the last crewmember dies.

Sounds like an awesome strategy. I'm wondering why nobody else have figured that out.

Please test what happens and tell us...


....



....



Is he gone? *giggles*

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originalmente postado por Fox:

You can play as you want, 50 - 60% evasion and some weapons is enough to finish him off. With level 3 - 4 shields you will only take about 4 damage every burst on average.

You are given a massive advantage of being able to choose what you want to do. You can board and kill it's crew ( except one so the AI doens't kick in ) and nothing gets repaired.

...as long as you're not on hard mode, yes.

Slaughter almost all the crew, including everybody in the interior.

Then for phase 2 and 3, once the missile weapon is down you cripple the ship's defenses from the inside. Even if you aren't rolling in firepower, the flagship is greatly weakened w/o helm and shields.

[Amanozako]

Just *having* cloaking makes the 3rd phase the easiest phase by far. Since you had to have made it past phases 1 and 2, you had to have made it past the other stuff it's had, so you can deal with the triple laser and triple missile launchers. The mind control is extremely easily countered by just having your own level 1 mind control, or if absolutely necessary, hacking their mind control. And their boarding party isn't even hefty compared to the things you're very likely to have faced earlier on in the game (like 5 mantis from an event + an enemy ship that has a teleporter with more crew waiting to join the fray).

So, all that leaves is the massive laser burst it does periodically. When it activates, cloak. Assuming you have at least a few levels in engines (which you probably should) and you have crew with at least some experience in piloting and manning the engines, you'll have 100%+ evade, and the entire burst does nothing. In summary, the 3rd phase isn't close to as hard as the 2nd phase, assuming you have cloaking (which I do admit is a significant investment, but very much worth it anyway for everything else in the game as well).

[Wasted]

77 hours played = new player imo

[Asane]

my biggest complaint about the game has always been the fact that the last boss battle is the entire challenge, and it's tough to lose before it, I find that the final boss forces you into a specific mold that you will gain forces for throughough the rest of the game, where the first half feels like a unique start, by the end of the 4th or 5th sector, I've already worked towards making the same build to combat it.

[Sephard]

I always dodge the Phase 3 Super Barrage by cloaking. I'll probably never give up the cloaking module.

[Gekkibi]

Originalmente postado por Azane:

...by the end of the 4th or 5th sector, I've already worked towards making the same build to combat it.

It's always a bad idea to bet against the RNG. The best way to deal with the flagship is to use what you get and adapt. Can't find a cloak anywhere, and you're already in sector 6? Adapt and get another system. If it's a drone bay then you still have enough time to find more drone schematics.

[Trip Fisk]

I can't help but feel the need to complain about how unfair the final boss battle is is without merit. Its not intended to be a fair fight. There is literally a magic wave of infinite rebel forces chasing after you throughout the entire game. Defeating the rebel flagship and its irksome ability to bend rules to the point of outright cheating with whatever pos you're piloting makes victory that much more satisfying.

FTL is a game about fighting for a side that is basically sitting there waiting to lose.

also, you'd be surprised how much of the junk the flagship throws at you misses when you've got 50-55% evasion. Definately helps survivability with phase 3 where everything can easily go wrong.

[Cheetah]

This game would not be the great game it is if every ship you make it to sector 8 in could defeat the flagship. Sometimes, you have a winning setup by sector 8, sometimes you don't. Just how this game goes.

[Gekkibi]

Originalmente postado por Sublime:

Originalmente postado por Azane:

my biggest complaint about the game has always been the fact that the last boss battle is the entire challenge, and it's tough to lose before it, I find that the final boss forces you into a specific mold that you will gain forces for throughough the rest of the game, where the first half feels like a unique start, by the end of the 4th or 5th sector, I've already worked towards making the same build to combat it.

I disagree. In fact, I think it's exactly the opposite. Getting to the boss is the hard part. Killing it is simple if you're capable of reaching the last stand.

Yup, same opinion here. Basically the flagship is just an equipment check. It became little bit more random (and thus more challenging) now, but still isn't the hardest part of the game.