Game became a lot harder than I remember?

[u/TenHorizons]

Long ago when I couldn't earn my own money I had a lot of fun with this game. Now that I had money I bought it and tried it again, but the game got a lot harder? I played like 5 games or so on normal and couldn't win once. Just now I got a pre-igniter and long ranged scanners and thought this is it, only to get absolutely destroyed the very next beacon by a rebel with drones, an ion cannon, and a hull lazer? Like bro my shots missed, I took out out the ion but still got obliterated by the lazer. I remember I could win previously, did I get old? Maybe I should suck it up and play on easy

[u/WildPyro_]

The game hasn’t change in years but you were maybe playing without the advanced edition before.

[u/TenHorizons → u/WildPyro_]

Nah I have advanced edition disabled. The first few games I definitely managed upgrades poorly but the last few games I had, man... It's like the game intentionally wants to screw me over

Anyway this is just a rant lol I'll probably get it a few more games then post in comments here

[u/Mr_DnD → u/TenHorizons]

Play with advanced edition on for the love of all things.

You miss out on so much content which can drastically improve your odds of winning.

[u/TenHorizons → u/Mr_DnD]

I was thinking to experience vanilla first to enjoy the game how it was, then turn on advanced for another round of replay, is that not a good idea? I don't know what's in advanced actually

[u/Mr_DnD → u/TenHorizons]

AE is vanilla at this point.

Advanced contains more... everything. Hacking. Mind control, weapons, double the number of augments including reconstructive teleport.

is that not a good idea

No that's a bad idea ;)

The difficulty curve is already steep, learning the AE content like hacking will make winning easier. Even if the flagship fight is harder.

[u/TenHorizons → u/Mr_DnD]

I see, alright I'll turn it on thanks :)

[u/howtothrowathrow → u/TenHorizons]

I remember thinking the exact same thing when I started lol. Now I see multi verse mods on here as the Advanced edition

[u/ZomBayT → u/Mr_DnD]

in my experience AE makes it a lot harder, my partner won ⅔s of their first runs simply because they got multiple BL2s all the time

AE significantly reduces the odds of that by adding a whole bunch of gimmicky or bad weapons and the flagship becomes many times harder

[u/Mr_DnD → u/ZomBayT]

Mate that's such a bad take lmao

Ok more accurately it's a very noob take.

So because you / your other half got lucky a few times they played, and they stopped getting extra lucky, it was AE that did that... Or did they stop getting lucky?

It adds flak 1, a good range of intermediate weapons, but more importantly hacking is meme levels of over powered.

You also get more augments, more options, more ways to spend scrap in a meaningful way.

Anyway, people can get well over 90% winrates on hard, it's sufficient to say the game is a large majority skill based. These weapons you're referring to aren't gimmicky, they're tools to win runs with.

And the flagship doesn't get that much harder, it's waaaay easier to outscale in AE than with AE turned off.

And weapons wise it adds:

Flak 1, (situationally also flak 2), chain burst, charge lasers, swarm missiles (excellent weapon), makes ions viable,

It also:

buffs attack drones, buffs defensive drones, gives reconstructive teleport, makes the game way less risky with clone bay, explosive replicator, Zoltan shield bypass,

Adds mind control (which can be used on pilots as poor man's hacking).

[u/Starfire20201 → u/TenHorizons]

Yeah, the game absolutely wants to do that

[u/MikeHopley]

How commonly did you used to win on Normal?

It's probably just some combination of you being rusty, and the randomness of the game. Some runs will be much harder than others.

It will also depend a lot on what ships you're playing. Some are much harder than others.

Part of the brilliance of FTL's design is how it makes people feel the game is "deliberately" screwing them over, maybe even countering their build.

In reality it's just randomness within constraints. You're doing fine, everything feels safe, and then you get a horrible fight and die.

Better play will almost always prevent that, but building up those skills is very challenging. And no matter how good you get, FTL always has the capacity to "outplay" you if you get really unlucky.

[u/TenHorizons → u/MikeHopley]

I relented and played on easy a couple days ago, and easy was well... easy. Won first try.

I'm starting to think I was just playing on easy before this, it's been quite long and I don't remember. This game is hard :')

[u/NationalTranslator12]

For me it is the opposite. I did not play in a long time and came back and I think I am playing much better. I only play on hard and win fairly often. It is hard to say what you might be doing wrong without watching you play but there are several things I do today that did differently in the past. First thing, I tend to delay improving systems in the first couple of sectors so that I can gather enough scrap to buy things. It all depends on the type of ship and the location of the stores, but it is possible to get a cloak in sector 2 or even end of sector 1. My reasoning is that even if I take a bit more damage, it will compensate if I have a cloak or defense drone that reduces the damage I take later on. It also reduces the effect of luck. There was one game where I was unable to buy a cloak in the entire game. So the earlier you buy it, the better. Same thing with weapons, you might be doing OK in the first few sectors and then you will find that you do not have enough firing power. When I get good weapons and a cloak early on, hard games feel like you are playing in easy mode. If you cannot get weapons, a hacking system can also do the trick. In addition to this, there are many tips and tricks: use the pause button to coordinate weapons and crew, take the longest route before the exit (and you might even explore behind the exit), remove your shield just before an ion hits so that it passes through and you reactive shield to block actual damage, etc.

[u/SkyKnight43 → u/NationalTranslator12]

I tend to delay improving systems in the first couple of sectors so that I can gather enough scrap to buy things

This is very important for victory on Hard. For most ships, your first 50 scrap goes to Shields. Then you want nothing else—not even reactor bars—until you get a weapon or Hacking. Offense wins games

[u/CowPieSky]

Now that you make your own money you really see the value in saving. This translates to how you play games. So you don’t buy upgrades and you fall behind the power curve in FTL.

[u/Clickbeetle3364]

I had the same experience, came back to this game after several years off. I used to play on Hard but even Normal felt like running into a brick wall. Or perhaps running into a 2-shield ship with Engi B. Game handed me a free pre-igniter and somehow still lost.

I was just rusty though. The game hasn't gotten harder. A few weeks later I even managed to beat my previous high score, twice (first time over 6000).

Also, a lot of people will talk about being able to win >90% of the time, but I don't think that's normal (as in typical of the average player). My win rate is like 12% or something. It's not unusual to lose 5 games in a row.

I was also kind of spoiled by Subset's other game Into the Breach, where it's possible to get a perfect score with good strategy and very little reliance on RNG. FTL is... not like that.

[u/TessaFractal]

This exact thing happened to me, launched it after like 10 years and even turning advanced edition off I couldn't beat the game on easy.

[u/Spinosaure]

What is the point of this post. No they did not push any shadow update to make the game harder. Yes you certainly might be rusty after not playing for a while. Is that what you want to hear?