Friday Facts #309 - Controversial opinions

[Deadlock989]

No, i don't read hints.

What a monumental waste of everyone's time.

It's a good thing that ALT-Mode is now a button next to the quickbar as players are more likely to find it.

Indeed, it's a great thing. Problem solved, you'd think ... But no. It's not enough for people who exercise their democratic right not to read anything or can't be bothered to learn anything. Let's cover everything in overlays permanently and force all the players who like it turned off, because they have this weird attraction to not being bombarded with icons and want to see the actual game's graphics, to press more buttons in every single game they start, just because a few other people can't be bothered to use their eyes or open a manual once in a while. Because the needs of people who know less and learned less are paramount.

How much dumber can we make this game? I'm starting to think the race to the bottom is bottomless.

[5thHorseman]

Let's cover everything in overlays permanently and force all the players who like it turned off, because they have this weird attraction to not being bombarded with icons and want to see the actual game's graphics, to press more buttons in every single game they start, just because a few other people can't be bothered to ...

...be forced to push the exact same button every time they start?

You are really arguing that the big problem here is that you have to push a button? The exact same button that I have to push to turn it on? Every single game? Why is your left thumb so much more important than mine? Why is the carpal tunnel I'll get 0.000001% faster than I would normally less of a concern than the carpal tunnel you'll get 0.000001% faster?

Alt mode should be on by default.
The button should not call it alt mode. It should call it "info mode"
You should be able to go into settings and turn it off by default.
This does not make the game dumb, or for dumb people.

[Nova]

The thing is, Deadlock989 really thinks he's right. We either have to argue in a way that accepts his way of thinking, or we have to ignore him. Everything else will pretty surely not lead to successful discussions or even him changing his mind.

Alt mode should probably be off by default to not overload new players. The campaign should at least once tell the player about the mode and then save a variable if the player ever enabled it. If he didn't, the game tells him again about the alt mode a few minutes (10?) later. Repeat until the player did activate alt mode at least once. Oh, and that's the way of handling nearly every GUI interaction which is not obvious or not so important. Some sort of "I know" button could replace the usage, through.

[Cadde]

No, i don't read hints.

What a monumental waste of everyone's time.

It's a good thing that ALT-Mode is now a button next to the quickbar as players are more likely to find it.

Indeed, it's a great thing. Problem solved, you'd think ... But no. It's not enough for people who exercise their democratic right not to read anything or can't be bothered to learn anything. Let's cover everything in overlays permanently and force all the players who like it turned off, because they have this weird attraction to not being bombarded with icons and want to see the actual game's graphics, to press more buttons in every single game they start, just because a few other people can't be bothered to use their eyes or open a manual once in a while. Because the needs of people who know less and learned less are paramount.

How much dumber can we make this game? I'm starting to think the race to the bottom is bottomless.

At what point did i say "forced on"?
We are talking about it being on by default, you press ALT and it's off again.
The point is that new players get to see it's there.

[mmmPI]

You do realise that when you start the game you CAN'T be overloaded with information, since there is NOTHING that Alt-view adds right ?

The first thing it may show will be the direction in which the burner miner output, which is useful and also is very small.

Then it will show the receipe on the furnace ?.

The thing it prevent sometimes is seeing all the little details that allow you to monitor if the machine are functionning, without the need for the bottleneck mod. A new player may need to pay attention to those details.

But I don't think the "information overload" is a thing, especially when you start the game as a new player i don't expect one to fill-in the screen with buildings.

[Oktokolo]

I always try to be respectful

Try harder. You're not very good at it.

No, i don't read hints.

What a monumental waste of everyone's time.

[5thHorseman]

No, i don't read hints.

What a monumental waste of everyone's time.

Hints ARE a waste of everyone's time. There's no way to know that you've not seen a particular hint, so after the first few in a row that don't actually help I (and many others) turn them off. Loading hints are fine, though I frequently ignore them as well and if your computer's good enough they won't stay on the screen long enough, but "Here let me interrupt your game right at the start and give you a random piece of information that isn't useful right now" is a terrible way to teach.

[Unclebod]

Hints ARE a waste of everyone's time. There's no way to know that you've not seen a particular hint, so after the first few in a row that don't actually help I (and many others) turn them off. Loading hints are fine, though I frequently ignore them as well and if your computer's good enough they won't stay on the screen long enough, but "Here let me interrupt your game right at the start and give you a random piece of information that isn't useful right now" is a terrible way to teach.

Not only a question to 5thHorseman, but anyway:
What if the hints where made in a way so:
Every hint was numbered with x out of Y hints.
They were always showed in sequence
The game remember what the last one you were shown was, and continues with the next one

Would that make hints more useful or less useful?

[5thHorseman]

What if the hints where made in a way so:
Every hint was numbered with x out of Y hints.
They were always showed in sequence
The game remember what the last one you were shown was, and continues with the next one

Would that make hints more useful or less useful?

I guess it would help me know to skip them if there are like 100 left, or to blow through them and not learn anything useful right away.

But no, I don't think they'd be more or less useful without context. If the game could determine that I need to know something and then tell me that thing, it'd be great. Otherwise it's in the way.

EDIT: And no, I don't think the game can reliably determine what I need to know in many situations.

"It looks like you're trying to route steam through a water pipe. Would you like help with that?"

[Deadlock989]

The thing is, Deadlock989 really thinks he's right.

Of course I'm right. Some people won't stop complaining until every smidgen of challenge, every obstacle, is stripped away, until the game suits them and their utter lack of ambition alone. The developers cave in bit by bit, until you suddenly have a game that features a cute hand-holding robot companion with a funny name who walks you through how to play. Everything not optional becomes compulsory. All because you get a few people who actually boast about how they don't like to read or do any research of their own.

That's the race to the bottom.

[conn11]

The thing is, Deadlock989 really thinks he's right.

Of course I'm right. Some people won't stop complaining until every smidgen of challenge, every obstacle, is stripped away, until the game suits them and their utter lack of ambition alone. The developers cave in bit by bit, until you suddenly have a game that features a cute hand-holding robot companion with a funny name who walks you through how to play. Everything not optional becomes compulsory. All because you get a few people who actually boast about how they don't like to read or do any research of their own.

That's the race to the bottom.

And in how many cases was this kind of „dumbing down“ actually implemented? Not saying that your worst case scenario is inherently wrong or absolutely implausible to occur. But it strongly seems that the devs have a mind of there own and quite rightfully so and of course there is the feedback from the playerbase, yours included, advocating against such changes.
PS: for example a default toggled on Alt-Mode can hardly be counted as handhelding or „dumbing“ down.

[Drury]

I always try to be respectful

Try harder. You're not very good at it.

no u

[cpy]

Any classic wow streams from devs?

[Cadde]

The thing is, Deadlock989 really thinks he's right.

Of course I'm right. Some people won't stop complaining until every smidgen of challenge, every obstacle, is stripped away, until the game suits them and their utter lack of ambition alone. The developers cave in bit by bit, until you suddenly have a game that features a cute hand-holding robot companion with a funny name who walks you through how to play. Everything not optional becomes compulsory. All because you get a few people who actually boast about how they don't like to read or do any research of their own.

That's the race to the bottom.

In which way does ALT-Mode dumb the game down?

IMHO, it removes eye strain and makes it possible to tell at a glance which fluid output is what. Without it, are you supposed to guess your way to which output produces what?
I am not saying they should remove the toggle here, i am saying they should focus on teaching new players it exists as it's a very useful tool to remove unnecessary confusion.

But i guess we should all adhere to your clearly superior standards... Even if you are the minority.

...

Also, i said i want ALT Mode on by default for this reason. Letting new players aware of its existence.
And then i said i run all of pyanodons mods, which makes me an advocate for dumbing the game down... Sure thing boss!
Keep your superiority complex to yourself please, you are just hurting everyone.

[Ghoulish]

Twinsen,

To address your thoughts on blueprints.

I understand your reasoning behind wishing to only have blueprints as a MODed feature, allowing (especially a new player) To stamp down a whole factory from a blueprint (I've seen such blueprint books) Defeats the whole point to Factorio. However as a case in point I have used the import feature in rail networks. And from learning from those designs have gone on to start building my own 16 lane 4 way intersection (`cos I can, not to be used). Having the ability to import blueprints helped me learn, it taught me. If blueprint importing was only MODed you would be denying a great swathe of your player base the ability to learn from example. And that would be a bad thing, to any degree.

You don't want players abusing the system, your solution might have a negative impact. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.. There will always be those people who buy levels - or for Factorio stamp them all down. For me and you this clearly this misses the point, as I assume it would with a majority of players too. But the import system is a great tool, a nice way to learn for me, it mustn't be removed (not of course has anyone said it will).

[eradicator]

Twinsen,

To address your thoughts on blueprints.

I understand your reasoning behind wishing to only have blueprints as a MODed feature, allowing (especially a new player) To stamp down a whole factory from a blueprint (I've seen such blueprint books) Defeats the whole point to Factorio.

I think this is typical "designers overcontrol syndrom" (or whatever you want to call it). I don't think that's a good way to design games. To me the blueprint system is one of the deciding features that makes factorio so unique where every other game (minecraft, etc) constantly forces you to build the exact same layout over and over and over again. By hand. I can't describe the agony. Just look at the number of "early bots" mods to get a feeling of just how agonyzing it is to manually build the same thing more than once.

Blueprints (plus robots) perfectly solve this problem. But if someone decides to use it to copy large factory bits from the internet why is that wrong? Maybe they're having more fun with other bits of the game. Maybe they're learning from others? Maybe... they're even participating in a forum thread to find an optimal solution for yet another self-imposed problem. There are so many reasons *for* blueprint sharing. And the only reason against is "but i want them to play MY way!". And besides removing the library wouldn't even solve the problem. It'd just lead to people posting pictures instead of strings (many already do), and other people rebuilding those pictures in their games. Or just start sharing savegame files of empty maps with blueprints. As a designer you have to accept that people want to and will enjoy your game in ways other than you originally intended. You can try to "guide" people, but you shouldn't put them on an iron leash. But this is clearly something you already know, so maybe you just forgot about it ;).

[UnluckyClover]

Inserters should not chase items. Function is always first. Form which is meh fix it later. This game is about function.

Blueprint import/export should be a modded feature. Just NO. Leave this alone. If I want a no blueprints I will play Satisfactory. (Which I do not).

Combat/Biters. Weapons shouldn't lock on. No. Let's make it where we kill people for fun & have Bitters as the cops. Oh wait I'll play GTA if I want to aim.

Miners shouldn't output directly to belts. Just NO. Leave this alone. Find something else to work on.

Boilers shouldn't have a water output. Easy just make the steam engine only be able to take steam only. This would take what 3 hours maybe.

Pipes should work like electricity. Just do it would make your jobs easier.

Adventure mode, should be an option again easy fix. Maybe a week worth of work.

Robots should take up space and time & Items should have volume and mass. Again this is not Satisfactory Just stop. This is FACTORIO where automation, function, calculation, & BLUE PRINTS are the name of the game. If this is not then redo the trailer.

Power-user hotkeys. I use this.

Mining furnaces and assembling machines should return the ingredients for the in-progress recipe. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS!


So over all Function FIRST then fix how it looks.

[gorothdablade]

Just a random though on the vein of bp import.

The Game start option of allowing or blocking importing bp's would probably be the best way to implement this as opposed to moving the code off into an "Official" mod.

IF (and I stress IF) they did that, what about having certain achievements be locked behind the no import config. Would make Spoon runs much more difficult.

[bobucles]

A lot of the ideas presented in the FFF completely change the game. They may seem simple up front, but simple ideas have a way of avalanching down the iterative pipeline. There are even more crazy and fun ideas to explore, but I think there needs to be a new platform to see how they end up playing out, if you know what I mean.

[eradicator]

what about having certain achievements be locked behind the no import config.

Controversion Opinion of my own: Get rid of "achievements" again. All they do is cause people to whine when they're disabled due to mods/commands/editor/cosmic rays. Ofc they also whine when certain achievements get easier/harder due to changes in game mechanics. The dev time wasted on these psychoactive carrots would probably have been enough to complete spidertron *and* the space platform extension.