ahoodedfigure

@BisonHero: I've been lucky once in a while with the stealth ship, but even putting a ton of scrap into stealth and engines only goes well with a good weapon and a pre-igniter or something. It dies early very often, and if I get far it only works up until the boss, where I'm pretty much guaranteed to die. At no point was I able to afford shields, but I'll definitely spring for that chance if I ever get it. Even the titanium shielding thing only allows systems to last some of the time. And yeah, even the wimpiest beam is a real killer. I dread any ship with drones, but that goes for just about anything, especially the boarding drone that causes a hole, runs around punching people, can't suffocate, AND is instantly replaced if you kill it, since as far as I know the enemy has ample, or maybe infinite, drone reserves.

@AmatureIdiot: The starter Engi ship is pretty good. I think I got far with that one before the Zoltan ship sorta dominated my replays. Like you say, you need weapons or a decent supply of drones. I was doing really well once until my drone reserves tanked and I was basically helpless, jumping away from encounter after encounter. The starter and the Zoltan have probably been my overall best, the starter because it's balanced, the Zoltan because it has an insane advantage that feels like stealth-plus at times.

@TruthTellah: It's funny, of all the ships I've unlocked I STILL haven't gotten the first ship's alt. You're probably right that unlocking stuff before normal at least gives you a better selection to choose from. I think I have... 4 ships total and 3 alts, at least on one of the computers it's installed in. I think the first ship is fine for what it is, you actually have all the basic systems in place. My pet upgrade is the interior doors, because I use them to flush out fires and asphyxiate invaders, so I feel if my first few encounters allow me at least that much then I'm a step ahead of the meat grinder.

@ArbitraryWater: I know I probably yammer about Spelunky too often but I feel like that game has spoiled me.

And yeah, the stealth ship is fine if you manage to dodge everything. Shields are way too expensive to be practical unless you get a massive scrap yield.

@NaDannMaGoGo: You make a good point that you sometimes choose the way you lose. I've had situations where I had to choose between an upgrade, repair, or refuel. If I balance it out then I just die a bit more slowly. You also make a good point, one I keep forgetting, that there IS an easy mode, which I never tried, out of pride I guess.

I won't quite go so far as to say it's bad design, but it's not what it could be. The enjoyment I got out of it when things did go right told me that sometimes things are on target, but there seem to be just enough variables that it feels like things get snatched out of your hand in a way that doesn't feel that hot. I'm OK with a bit of suffering, and some of those near-misses have wound up being quite rewarding when I manage to survive, but I feel like it could be better.

@TruthTellah: Early on, my success rate did go up. I think my feeling is that it's plateaued, though. Like the upper bit of the parabola where it planes out and there's not much of an increase in survivability. I'd say one of the unlocked ships, the one with the special shield, increased my survivability quite a bit IF I manage to get extra crew and upgrade the weapons before the beam can't penetrate stuff anymore.

And yeah, there are tons of tactics. One of my best was combining boarding with stealth, actually. I think that was the furthest I got on the boss, until it jumped away with my boarders, killing them. The drone spam is a bit ridiculous-- I can't quite see how to get past that without cloaking, and even then the longest cloak doesn't last enough. I did make it to the stage after that, but by then I lacked the hull points, went to heal up, and lost because the ship outpaced me.

@TruthTellah: Sometimes it goes fine, even when fate's against me. I sorta smile bitterly and start up again. But I guess it feels that even a good effort is about equal as a bad one sometimes; I like games, in general at least, to reflect my input a bit more, rewarding me when I figure it out. Intellectually I get what you're saying, but I find in practice, given my reactions to some of the games of FTL I've played, that I like it when a game feels slightly more solid and figure-out-able than where it is right now. Like, even if I die a lot I feel like I'm going somewhere overall.

You're right it'd be good on a mobile platform, as long as the beam mechanics were fairly easy to get with your finger. Sometimes placing those is very very precise to get the best effect.

Played a lot of FTL. At the start I enjoyed it, I was unlocking things and running into impossible odds and dying like you're supposed to in games like this. But what's remarkable is how much luck plays a role in this game. Unlike a game like Spelunky, which has tons of random elements which become predictable when you see how they work and fit them together, FTL's randomness doesn't really calm down. Many games in, I'm still blindsided by an event that puts me in the middle of a battle with multiple drones plowing into my shields before I can even charge my weapons up, or puts me up against a ship with a shield level that my weapons just can't break through no matter what I do. So many of the basic encounters depend upon you finding a store that sells weapons, having the scrap to be able to buy one, and then having the scrap to upgrade the weapons generators in order to be able to cut through the slowly increasing level of shields from enemy ships. Some starting weapons loadouts are doomed to be obsolete after 1 or 2 sectors, meaning if you're not lucky enough to run into a weapon, you're pretty much fucked. That, and the end boss disobeys some of the rules you learn throughout the game. Maybe the roguelikes this game was styled after have bosses that do that? I don't know, I've never gotten to the end of a traditional roguelike. It doesn't feel as smooth as roguelikes I have played, though, whether or not you'd consider this to be a roguelike at all.

There's a lot to enjoy: the text choices, when not cheap, are fun and add a lot of atmosphere to what is a fairly static presentation. When luck is on your side, or you succeed despite your lack of luck, it feels like a triumph. And the miracles and good strategy that turns a possible defeat into a victory are rewarding, as well as the sense that you're actually PROUD of your crew for surviving, even if it was really just you telling them what to do.

I can't say I regret my purchase of FTL, but I feel like it needs finer tuning to allow for more ship configurations to at least make it a decent distance before being annihilated. If it was just difficulty I wouldn't even mention it, but it seems to be difficulty coupled with being randomly slapped upside the head, which for some folks isn't so pleasant. I still do play it now and again and once in a while I unlock something new, though many of these newer configurations seem more challenging to get right, and so many designs seem to suggest that moderation in all things (i.e. getting shields for the shieldless, etc) that you're sort of picking your own handicap a lot of the time. If I ever beat the game, I'll let you know.

Any questions you want to ask about the game, feel free.That includes players who are wondering about others' experiences.

@TennSeven: Careful when resurrecting old posts. Some people don't like it (I don't mind, though).

I've heard from a few people... no, wait. I haven't heard of this one at all. Given the changes in all things XCOM lately, my focus has been primarily on Xenonauts, and the XCOM reboot that overshadowed the one I profiled above.

If I had heard of it it was a long time ago in its earlier stages. You play it at all?

@Little_Socrates: Holy crap, your kind mention of me brought me into the conversation. Didn't know you could do that just by typing it, thought you had to hit reply. I guess I have to read the thread now to justify responding here.

@TaliciaDragonsong: I'm betting some level of complaining is going to be part of a lot people's ability to cope with games not being exactly what they were expecting. Usually things get that way when you have a mass market game, where they hold back on what they're doing because they don't want to risk alienating people (and thus sales), but since they still want to attract people to the game in the first place they'll use stuff to describe it that's sometimes a bit vague, or weirdly stated in hindsight, and when you get there you feel like it's not the game they were talking about. But yeah, there are people who want the world from a game who maybe don't understand the insane amount of work that goes into a piece of software just to get it working, much less playable, much less fun, much less what everyone wants it to be all at once.

And yeah, love is nice. Pretty core human emotion so it's hard to fight, hard not to enjoy, hard not to get led weird places by it. If it were a drug we'd take it all the time (and I wonder if anything would ever get done :) ). Many kinds of love, though. I like that English as ambiguous about this, because it allows us to re-interpret what the word means when the different kinds people talk about don't quite fit. Other languages name many types, which is useful, though I think I benefit from the ambiguity.

Been playing FTL most of the time. Fun game, if a bit brutal. I wish there were even more random encounters than it already has, but I guess there are plenty I haven't seen yet. It's a bit crazy to play a game and know there IS no way to load a previous save. I'm not new to the idea, but this is the first time I've really thought about the impact it has on my approach to playing. As far as MMOs I played Star Wars, and we're both still playing on the free account now and again, waiting to see how the free-ish version pans out. I wouldn't mind playing Guild Wars 2, since it's looked good from the beginning stages and it sounds like my kind of MMO more than most, but I tend to prefer games I can put down at any time :)

Hey, if you love writing, you're set. Keep with it! Even if you don't get direct feedback from people, the challenge of translating thoughts into something that others can understand, anticipating others' arguments, and trying to say something a little bit new, different, or at least personal is where you grow as a writer. That growth is life-long, and even if you're experienced you still can mess things up, too, so it's sort of interesting to see how a given essay turns out, and how it impacts readers (if you see the overall impact. Insert complaint about Giant Bomb lacking user metrics here).

Also, good for you that you keep multiple blogs spinning at the same time. Not easy, in my opinion. Let me know if you start writing blogs here more often.

@Mike76x: Useful list, thanks. Were you able to have a relationship with everyone (who was compatible) all at once? That's sort of what I reacted to; I remembered seeing a picture with everyone all lounging around on the bed together. If they all have their own reasons and they're all mutually exclusive, then I had a mistaken impression of what was possible. If you CAN have a relationship with everyone at once and no one seems to mind, unless the game is making a statement about polyamoury or whatever the term is, it feels a bit too much in that direction, the everyone-likes-you kind.

@YI_Orange: Yeah, balance is sort of the issue I guess. You look at a game that lets you do everything, it depends largely on whether or not there are logical consequences for me. You do something bad and this group gets angry, that sort of makes sense. You do whatever you want and everyone loves you anyway, it feels flat. I'd hope that in general games didn't do that as a matter of course, but in the later Elder Scrolls they seem to want to be all things for all people; you do side with one faction or another, if you want, and the stories seem to have some level of gravity, but I've heard when they're over the lasting consequences aren't as dramatic as you might expect. But I'm running off others' impressions again.

It can suck if everything you do seems t o piss people off, though. I think either way it's a reflection of how important the character is in the world, and I like to think that while making a difference, I'm not going to be the center of the universe (at least not all the time). I tend to find that sort of balance more satisfying myself, but it's OK to save the world now and again, as long as you felt like you somehow earned it, either through story or through your skills as a player.

@Deleth:

"I felt upon reading that you could make any or all companions your sexual playthings to be disturbing, not because I'm opposed to the old in-out in-out, but that it seemed like the characters had no wills of their own."

That specific point on the polyamoury that the player could induce on the narrative, nothing else, was made about DA2. It was an example of that narrative having a Mary Sue element. If anything, I'll admit I should have made my idea a bit more clearly stated as to why I felt this was the case.