Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[bobingabout]

"I'll have to make changes to my mods."

Can't you just simply fix the oil to the way it supposed to be as before the patch?

more changed than just the oil: https://github.com/wube/factorio-data/c ... 906db835aa

that's a lot to undo.

But no, I actually like one of V's proposed solutions. He was going to add a second basic oil processing recipe that added crude -> Heavy and light. I'm probably going to implement something similar, or just drop my top heavy oil processing recipe (lots of heavy and very little PG) down to basic processing.

I have a plan.

[FluffDaSheep]

Sulfur not being from PG is dangerous, because it can easily happen that the player does not have enough PG sink

I appreciate that, as an artist, the physical perspective is about as far outside your wheelhouse as it is possible to be while staying in the same light cone, but it's important to remember that Factorio used to, and I say used to advisedly (perhaps due to the influence of a former staffer now moved on?), put a great deal of attention into making things, if not precisely realistic (magic gear wheels, to say the least), at least approaching a close parallel to physical consistency within its two-metals-oil-and-water framework — and this is what players like about it. The oil refining system, then, was always the crowning epitome of this principle, hewing a lower compromise with the hobgoblin of "balance" than most other games, so that a player with familiarity with real-world systems could at least recognise (if through a mirror darkly) the processes being depicted... and the sheer idiocy of harvesting sulphur out of the petroleum gas, which is very much not where it crowds naturally, was the most pustulent suppurating boil marring the face of this achievement. I've always personally assumed that it simply came out of a failure to understand the petrochemical industry's often baffling and contradictory English-language jargon by primary speakers of other European languages. Loosely speaking, it doesn't matter whether the player has enough of a petroleum gas sink; sulphur should be where sulphur should be and there's no arguing around it, because if you didn't want it to behave like sulphur, you should have called it something like "batterium" and called it a day.
And the solution to an excess of petroleum gas is the same as the solution to an excess of any other petroleum product and the same solution we have always used in real life: [convert it to solid fuel, which I interpret as simply a sop to the fact that the game's fluid mechanics are much less well-formed than item handling, and] light it on fire.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. As someone who works in petrochem, nothing about these changes makes any sense.

Even if I thought that this was the best solution for the learning curve (I don't), it doesn't matter because it breaks immersion. Even worse, it may misinform people who don't have any knowledge on the subject and are looking to learn.

One of the Factorio trailers even says "then you will become a good engineer". Ask yourself how this change contributes to that lofty goal.

[mcdjfp]

I can't speak for anyone else but I would be ok (not necessarily happy, but ok) with the oil change if not for 3 things. I like the old oil, but I could understand focusing on what was needed immediately and getting the process right later on. (the new progression)

1. The way it was presented. It felt rushed, it felt jammed down our throats, it felt like you didn't care what your current customers thought.
2. I don't think the change will help much. This is the biggest reason for me. Multi-fluid outputs do not feel like a significant portion of the midgame tedium compared to the delay of construction bots, 2 new science packs (before the rocket, not counting the old alien science), the now forced oil outpost (the starting oil spots have been removed), and the variety of other pressures at start of the midgame.
3. "The puzzle" has been used as an explanation many times to both change things and leave things alone. This feels like a violation of that concept.

I don't want to come across as angry, but how this change was presented basically poisoned the concept.

I was already disappointed at how what I considered to be the best part of the rail planner was removed simply because one of the developers wanted to change how the hotkeys worked for the rail planner. Yes this was finally fixed, but I hardly noticed. I also didn't really like the response when someone asked if mods could restore mining hardness and power. I was eagerly waiting for 0.17 stable. Instead I got an announcement about a reworking of a core game mechanic (oil), and by the way, it is coming Monday. (Why wasn't 0.17 made stable, then the midgame issues could have been part of an extra set of experimentals before a second stable 0.17)

It doesn't matter what you intended, it felt like it was getting jammed down out throats because there was something wrong with it.

Then we hear that it was delayed was not because of concerns but because of a bug. Very few posts that did anything but suggest other massive oil overhauls received any type of reasonable response in the meantime.

It felt jammed down our throats, and because of this I suspect a measurable part of the community will never accept the change (regardless of whether it was right or wrong) even if they put up with it, and will find it hard to trust anything that is said about it. I hope this doesn't result in a spilt community between those that use the official oil recipes and those who modded back the oil recipes and techs. Do achievements from modded games get reported anywhere?

Don't take this as a reason to ignore posters, take it as probably the biggest reason (and a self-created one) a different solution to the midgame tedium needs to be found and this idea tabled for a considerable amount of time.

[Trebor]

But no, I actually like one of V's proposed solutions. He was going to add a second basic oil processing recipe that added crude -> Heavy and light.

I missed that, could someone link the post?

What was the argument against having two BOP recipes?

[bobingabout]

But no, I actually like one of V's proposed solutions. He was going to add a second basic oil processing recipe that added crude -> Heavy and light.

I missed that, could someone link the post?

What was the argument against having two BOP recipes?

I don't think he said it in a post, it was just one of the ideas he had that he was trying out.

[Reika]

I can't speak for anyone else but I would be ok (not necessarily happy, but ok) with the oil change if not for 3 things. I like the old oil, but I could understand focusing on what was needed immediately and getting the process right later on. (the new progression)

1. The way it was presented. It felt rushed, it felt jammed down our throats, it felt like you didn't care what your current customers thought.
2. I don't think the change will help much. This is the biggest reason for me. Multi-fluid outputs do not feel like a significant portion of the midgame tedium compared to the delay of construction bots, 2 new science packs (before the rocket, not counting the old alien science), the now forced oil outpost (the starting oil spots have been removed), and the variety of other pressures at start of the midgame.
3. "The puzzle" has been used as an explanation many times to both change things and leave things alone. This feels like a violation of that concept.

I don't want to come across as angry, but how this change was presented basically poisoned the concept.

I was already disappointed at how what I considered to be the best part of the rail planner was removed simply because one of the developers wanted to change how the hotkeys worked for the rail planner. Yes this was finally fixed, but I hardly noticed. I also didn't really like the response when someone asked if mods could restore mining hardness and power. I was eagerly waiting for 0.17 stable. Instead I got an announcement about a reworking of a core game mechanic (oil), and by the way, it is coming Monday. (Why wasn't 0.17 made stable, then the midgame issues could have been part of an extra set of experimentals before a second stable 0.17)

It doesn't matter what you intended, it felt like it was getting jammed down out throats because there was something wrong with it.

Then we hear that it was delayed was not because of concerns but because of a bug. Very few posts that did anything but suggest other massive oil overhauls received any type of reasonable response in the meantime.

It felt jammed down our throats, and because of this I suspect a measurable part of the community will never accept the change (regardless of whether it was right or wrong) even if they put up with it, and will find it hard to trust anything that is said about it. I hope this doesn't result in a spilt community between those that use the official oil recipes and those who modded back the oil recipes and techs. Do achievements from modded games get reported anywhere?

Don't take this as a reason to ignore posters, take it as probably the biggest reason (and a self-created one) a different solution to the midgame tedium needs to be found and this idea tabled for a considerable amount of time.

I agree with all of this, and want to add one more thing to the idea that this change feels "rushed out"; like I hinted at on Saturday, in the past whenever changes were made to progression, there was great detailing of all the effects of this, and how all the side-effects were considered and addressed. Often entire FFFs devoted to single effects. This time, however, while the effects were - mostly - considered, it feels far more superficial and less well-planned than in the past; every bit of compensation for this change has felt like an afterthought tacked on to hastily address some issue that should NOT have been unforseen. The poster child for this, in my opinion, was the flamethrower ammo; it was realized that the oil recipe changes would make it available far too late in the game, but the reaction was to go "OK, it uses petroleum gas. Done.", with no regard as to whether that made sense - as both players and developers later agreed it did not - or what, if any, balance effects it might have. Overall, the whole thing gives the impression that the initial oil changes were not given all that much thought or planning before the first FFF went out - by which point the decision seems to have already been all but finalized - and this is both inconsistent with historical development of the game and gives a foreboding sense of what might come in the future.

[nafira]

Sure, having two outputs presents the "multiple outputs can block" early on, while not reducing the amount of things you need to do/worry about almost at all. Basic oil processing can still get stuck and that way it feels unsustainable, and the player just wants to rush advanced oil processing just like before - to get the functional version.

2 outputs is still much easier to manage than 3, so it helps and is a step rather than a jump.

I think this one of the most problematic part indeed.
There's not many options :

• Full jump as wanted by the devs (LO,HO,PG) (0,0,45) =>(25,45,55)
• Full jump but with more PG and adding water to the recipe (0,0,60) =>(25,45,55)
• Two steps to have a first taste of pipe management (15,0,45) =>(25,45,55)
• Create 3 level of Oil (Basic, Some fluids and better, Better and all Fluids)

• As stated before, the first option certainly have the point of introducing pipes. But to what ? Rushing on advanced ? It's no fun and pointless.
• Second option, it introduce underground pipes. That's something. Add some water to the recipe, and Add some PG as a reward. The goal is to maintain a certain interest of having Basic Oil.
• Third and more debatable option, is having a bit of light oil, to convert to Solid Fuel, as a first step into fluid management. The goal here is to introduce more than 1 fluid, but keeping it low, so that the player really enters the topic with advanced.
  It breaks the logic of "simplifying" Oil, but I don't players will haveto many problems : one on the left and one the right, it's basic and it works since there's no other usage for Light Oil as Fuel.
  I don't really understand the worry about being stuck since player will need fuel for trains and coal for military packs, and plastic. Using coal for trains is a waste at this stage.
• Last one, more complicated : having three levels. It's a lot of rework and balancing. I think it's the way to go, but it's not for today.

I think the best argument to defend the point of view of the third proposition, is that we already faced underground belts, it's mandatory, nearly.
So why keep the player in "easy mode", while he already implemented such things (not good at start, but whatever).
It's a simple starting research !!
Why on Earth would you block the player as a beginner, while he is at a stage where he need or have trains, which is far more complicated than fluids for a beginner.

Changing recipe is a thing, but creating a false step is just useless and create frustration while jumping of a cliff when entering Advanced oil (see all 30 pages on this news).
We understand the change, and we want to try it with you, but 20'ish 24/7 dev can't see it all. It's still 20 people with a someway biased vision (it's your work, not a game).

Here we have a greater range of diversity (solar vs nuclear,bots vs belts,etc), and we don't agree on many things.
But we nearly all said it to your team : "Guys, let's talk, because it's a freaking bad idea what you are going to do, let's share in a bi-directional way".


We have newbies, regular players, smart ones, stupid ones, modders, grumpy people, positive people, and the list goes on.
If you release that in the end of a major version, changing nearly everything in middle game, and some recipe, it's going to be a tsunami of "my map is broken" at all levels. Don't rush it, please !
And it won't help beginners in the end.


Just look at stats of number of inscription since first announce and number of post in the news sub-forum.

[fakeposer]

What the f?!? Sulfur? really? There is no other use for sulfur ANYWHERE except oil production. At least solid fuel has multiple other uses. FUCK SULFUR FOR CHEMICAL SCIENCE, add something to the game instead of trying to make life difficult in the most annoying of ways.

[Yandersen]

Considering recent events, I hardly see point of why you spent time posting it. Just to have some sort of relief maybe? IDK. I spent over 20 hours in total typing buttons for the last two weeks, and even more time I spent thinking finding solutions, both mine and the others, simulating things in my head and analyzing the effects, weighing props and cons... I honestly curious why do some people still trying to speak reason, cuz me too feel addicted continuing, though I realize there is no point. Human nature is interesting...

The only unusual experience I got from all this as that I mentioned, that most of the things I personally proposed for last 2 weeks were ignored by everyone - neither criticized nor supported (I mean by the other contributors). So I do not understand how to interpret that reaction - either it means those were so obviously bad that people did not even wanted to waste time criticizing, or they were good enough so that was nothing else to add to improve, or... Idk. I find it hard to adequately justify own creativity from personal point of view solely. Kinda missed that learning experience.

[crambaza]

Trust me, From a person who has Source access and can view more of the discussions that the devs have with each other than most people, V is actually one of the ones against the changes as they are (getting only petroleum) and the most vocal to having it changed.
I'm not going to name any other names, but, basically, not everyone in the dev team agrees on the current changes. Even the person who originally suggested that the oil phase be simplified doesn't like the end result. It's all a bunch of compromises. They have been listening to feedback and making changes as a result, they have been testing things out to see what works, and what doesn't.

I'm not saying I am for the changes as they are now, but I've seen suggestions that I liked agreed with be proposed to the team as a whole, and get rejected.

Changes will be made, and pretty much everyone who knows the game as it is now will be disappointed in one way or another.
However, they are making changes for a reason, we just have to grit our teeth and bear it.

Besides... if you don't like the changes, I'm sure someone will make a mod to undo it.

All things considered, "actually, NOBODY likes these changes!" isn't the strongest defense that could've been mustered.

That, plus the fact it goes very much to the point I made some days ago: If V is actually one of the ones most against the changes (among the dev team), why the hell is he the one tasked with defending them on the forums?

Because I took the changes as my responsibility and did a lot of iteration, and alternate proposals, to truly test that the original proposal is actually the best. From all the discussed things we believe it is. The arguments that I gave you are pretty much the same that people defending these ideas from the start would give you. Unless you want a head on a pike instead of arguments, it should not matter much who gives them to you? In the end I do agree with the FFF305 solution, it's just that I have implemented multiple other variants to be able to evaluate them properly.

I understand that each change to oil had drawbacks.

I am sad, and upset, that the method decided on has the largest drawback of all. Delaying construction bots.

I have no specific numbers, but I assume that there are people like me that have started over, after using a solution to oil.

This means that on our subsequent playthroughs, we could already handle oil, it was no longer an issue.

However now when we are doing a new start, our construction bots are delayed on ALL playthroughs because it was suspected that new people couldn't handle oil. Now all people who start over are penalized because some people believe that new people will get frustrated.

Well, of course, now I'm frustrated. I get it, it's not my factorio, it's your factorio. I don't feel like I am owed anything, I certainly got my money's worth, years ago, and I keep playing.

Eventually if you change enough things, everyone feels attacked. I just guess this was my thing.

I like the rush to construction bots, to get things going, with repetition, clearing trees, and even setting up blue science. Now, I need blue science to set up bots.

I of course would have preferred any solution to oil that kept construction bots at the game phase they are on, or of course, no change at all.

I really hope something is done to get construction bots back sooner. I get it, you don't think it's an issue pushing them back. That's fine, it's not an issue to you, it is an issue to me. And I feel like the decision is to disregard what I want because Oil may have been an issue to some future people. It's never been an issue to me.

It's not my factorio, it's your factorio. I'm fine with that, just so disappointed.

[BEEFE]

I haven't been playing for a while so I feel like it's out of my lane to complain, but I really really don't like removing heavy and light oil completely from the green science tier, or requiring water/steam piping to generate them. Among other reasons, being able to craft solid/rocket fuel with only oil as an input is very convenient even into the endgame.

I agree with people above who'd like two basic oil processing recipes as a compromise, one for gas and one for liquid.

[crambaza]

The Oil Changes:

Too bad you seem locked in to this.

Pushing back construction bots is not a "fun" change.

The suggestion made by the user last week, to have Basic Oil Tech produce Heavy Oil only which must then must be cracked down, was the most elegant solution. You learn about the different outputs, because you are making them when you crack down the heavy oil. It's like the game play becoming the tutorial, which is perfect. Then later when you ramp up to Advanced Oil Tech, the change can be plugged into your existing line. You hook up the Light Oil to the Light you have cracked from the Heavy. Same with the Pet. Gas. You are now working with multiple outputs like a champ! You taught the new player how to play efficiently. You taught them through game play.

Your solution to only produce Pet. Gas at the low levels is weird, and doesn't solve any issues. You pushed back the problem, and taught the new player nothing.

I'm returning to this idea as the best solution.

Don't make unfun changes. Pushing construction bots is not fun.

The best solution, upon reflection, is still: Produce only Heavy Oil and force cracking early. The counter argument to this was "We can't do this because it teaches new people how to solve the problem". Upon reflection, this is a bad counter argument anyway.

Isn't that the idea, teach them good habits through gameplay? Yes, this means that most people will be more efficient with oil. This isn't a bad thing.

As well, it's less of a simplification than making only Pet Gas. "Oil in, Pet Gas out, then make plastic and sulfur" is hardly a puzzle. And at the end, you haven't taught anything about efficiency and better oil production through cracking.

"Oil in, Heavy Out (And make some sweet lube, for those bots baby), Crack to light (and make some sweet efficient solid fuel), Crack to Pet Gas and make plastic and sulfur" is still a puzzle, because you have to identify how much to break off at each point to keep Pet Gas going. As well, when Advance Oil is learned, you have already taught cracking. Excellent. That's what you want. Why is teaching people to do better, a bad thing?

Whatevs.
crambaza out!

[SomeLazyBastard]

Are we basically witnessing a cynical process in which the game attracts a certain kind of audience who happily pay for the experience offered and then the game is gradually made less complex (e.g. removing recipe input limits on low level assemblers) in order to accommodate a more casual audience and bring in new money? (thinking face emoji)

[Theikkru]

[...]The best solution, upon reflection, is still: Produce only Heavy Oil and force cracking early. The counter argument to this was "We can't do this because it teaches new people how to solve the problem".[...]

No, the devs' counterargument to that proposal was that it (A) adds two extra steps to basic oil and that goes against the goal of simplifying things, and (B) actually dumbs down the multiple outputs problem because advanced oil becomes completely optional, since people can just brute-force more basic oil and crack to avoid the problem entirely.

I'm against the changes as implemented too, but for a proper debate you need to be accurate about the opponent's claims.

[Gullyn]

...Good job alienating only dev who was willing to activelly discuss and brainstorm this change...

And there you have it. Only one dev was willing to discuss this major change with the community. That should remove any doubt that this was a dog-and-pony-show.

Just to add to my statement: I wasn't strongly for or against the changes. But I was *really* excited to see what Wube and the community together could come up with.

[Astrella]

And there you have it. Only one dev was willing to discuss this major change with the community. That should remove any doubt that this was a dog-and-pony-show.

I mean, I wouldn't exactly be enthusiastic to engage with the doom and gloom that's happening in this thread as a dev...

[mmmPI]

But no, I actually like one of V's proposed solutions. He was going to add a second basic oil processing recipe that added crude -> Heavy and light.

Really curious to see what adjustment would be needed for it to work.

pros :

having both BOP at the same time could allow to stop making sulfur from PG without the problem of needing a PG sink (realism and rebalance)
It also let a 1input 2 output process for players to try their hand before the 2 input 3 output.
could allow for con-bots with green science ( using the 2 receipe together before AOP ).
Doesn't force early cracking

cons:

It would be hard to make it worthwile to use AOP rather than a ratio of the 2 different BOP in late game.

Not sure how it impact solid fuel or science.

[bobingabout]

But no, I actually like one of V's proposed solutions. He was going to add a second basic oil processing recipe that added crude -> Heavy and light.

Really curious to see what adjustment would be needed for it to work.

pros :

having both BOP at the same time could allow to stop making sulfur from PG without the problem of needing a PG sink (realism and rebalance)
It also let a 1input 2 output process for players to try their hand before the 2 input 3 output.
could allow for con-bots with green science ( using the 2 receipe together before AOP ).
Doesn't force early cracking

cons:

It would be hard to make it worthwile to use AOP rather than a ratio of the 2 different BOP in late game.

Not sure how it impact solid fuel or science.

I've heard a lot of argument about this new basic oil processing and if it would become redundant with advanced.

For seasoned players making advanced oil for the first time, basic oil processing basically becomes completely pointless, because even if you were only interested in PG, you get more than double from advanced if you crack everything down.
on the other hand "Megabase" players wouldn't really care about wasting the extra crude it takes to run basic, because they're watching UPS, and having a single output of PG would save on the UPS that would otherwise be required to crack down the other oil products.


In the old way though, depending just how much lube you were after, you could run a mix of basic and advanced processing.

[Astrella]

In the old way though, depending just how much lube you were after, you could run a mix of basic and advanced processing.

I always just ran advanced completely and had a circuit-controlled cracking setup attached to it myself.

[JCav]

And there you have it. Only one dev was willing to discuss this major change with the community. That should remove any doubt that this was a dog-and-pony-show.

I mean, I wouldn't exactly be enthusiastic to engage with the doom and gloom that's happening in this thread as a dev...

Indeed. The Chicken Little responses are a strong incentive NOT to allow people EA to a game title. Not a single one of the complaints levied against this change would even exist if the game was simply presented when complete as 1.0 and nobody had ever known a BOP recipe other than this.

Besides, they explained their positions on the issue in the FFF. People are welcome to make their arguments for or against it, and if a particular response merits enough interest from a developer, yet needs more information to properly discuss among themselves, I'm sure they'd ask.

Let's not pretend that simply by continuing to yell about it, that Wube has to repeatedly write FFF and forum posts until there's some sort of player consensus on the matter.