Re: Friday Facts #309 - Controversial opinions
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 4:57 am
I like how much this speaks as to what kind of player each member of the development team is, a very nice post and arguably more informative than even the special FFF edition where they directly described themselves.
So for Twinsen's opinions:
I never actually considered inserters messing up my rations and timings and such, since I don't really care about such things and I don't think the vast majority of the playerbase does either. They're not really relevant until you've played the game for hundreds of hours and got positively hooked. Does this invalidate your concern? Not at all. Having a high "skill ceiling" is one of Factorio's major strengths. This kind of change would barely affect me, and would have a major impact on how the game is played on a high level, so yes, it could be easily argued to be a net positive for the game. However, I hope you'll excuse me if I don't exactly give a standing ovation if or when it occurs, and yes, I will miss the neat little animations of the inserter arm grabbing directly onto an item. I believe /v/ would call this change "soulless", but then again who cares what they say.
Blueprint importing is a part of an apparent issue that woes many developers - how do you make a puzzle satisfying to solve in a cultural climate where the solution can be googled in 5 minutes?
Ultimately, I believe this is almost a phantom problem. I as a player was completely unaware of it before you mentioned it. I don't import blueprints, but I don't mind people who do, and I don't think they find the game boring or leave negative reviews because of it. In fact I think to them this is just another way of overcoming the challenge, and I'd argue that, when viewed from a certain angle, it's even smarter than coming up with your own solution. Instead of racking your little brain trying to make the little puzzle pieces fit correctly, you identify that you can go online and ask someone else, or look one up. There are people out there who actually find this satisfying and a clever way of avoiding frustration, I say let them have that satisfaction, even if I don't swing that way personally.
I can see it being a genuine issue if it turns out that like, 90% of the playerbase just beats the game practically using stitched together parts of other people's factories. But looking at people of all skill levels sharing their factories on reddit, steam community hub and such, I just don't see it as a prevalent tactic. What I do see is a massive prevalance of bots, and that grinds my gears way more as I find it actually stifles creativity much more, as they're the logistics system of choice for megabasers, the kinds of people you want to challenge more, not less.
Now for wheybags:
Yes! Finally someone else says what I've been saying for years! Either make the biters interesting or ditch them, they're an embarrassment. I 100% agree weapons should be more interesting to use than holding down spacebar and vaguely aiming in the direction of the biter horde, make fighting them fun already. It could be via giving them interesting AI that challenges you in more ways than "see if you can spam enough turrets before you get overrun", it could be via making the weapons more fun to use in a plethora ways, literally the world is your oyster, there are so many examples of fun combat games out there to take inspiration from. It's really inconsistent how a game that is as fun to play as Factorio is so boring in this one aspect, the one that's the easiest to get right. And it's really frustrating that the preferred way of solving it has been to stick to the core theme so stringently and outsource combat to automation, the one thing that you always do in this game. Combat has the potential to be the fun little side activity you embark on while you take a break from all the automation, but as it stands, if you treat it that way, you'll be met with a boring chore.
This is the only game I've played that made nukes and tanks boring to use, just think about that for a minute.
As for why miners directly output to belts (and chests and furnaces and such), this also struck me as odd, but I never was able to conjure a reasonable argument as to why they would (or wouldn't) work that way. Makes for some nifty earlygame tricks like making burner miners feed coal to each other and I'd be sad to see that go.
Removing water output from boilers would have grave consequences for boiler setups, but I'd still be up for the challenge I think.
Regarding fluid physics, I see you have made a bunch of very reasonable arguments against them. I have nothing reasonable to say except I hope nobody listens to you in this one instance. You see, one thing I love doing is the no power connection challenge - I allow myself electricity poles, but whenever they connect, I must disconnect them. It is way less masochistic than it sounds and makes for a lot of fun coming up with brand new designs incorporating pipes and steam engines. It turns the whole factory into a steampunk dystopia. If you made fluids work like electricity, the novelty of it would almost completely disappear and I'd be very sad. Ironically the whole idea of this challenge is to make power distribution more interesting since by default it, well, isn't - so my controversial counter-opinion would be to make electricity more complex, like the fluid system.
goto TOGoS:
Oh yes, I've always fantasized of exploration being a part of the Factorio experience, along with the combat improvements. Again, automation is fun, but there are times when you just feel like hunting for big game biters in the thick of an exotic concrete jungle and find some long-lost ancient artifacts of a bygone era, like an old rusty warehouse full of stack inserters you haven't yet researched or such. The community-made abandoned city from the previous FFF is a good proof of concept for this kind of thing, it's the kind of stuff I'm expecting from the singleplayer campaign.
I think it'd be super neat if buildings had a setup time and construction animations, and it's a little bit depressing that it can't and won't ever happen due to VRAM limits and the late stage development and whatnot. Also goes without saying bots are inherently OP and very uninteresting to use, however I don't think the latter issue can be fixed with a simple nerf to their behavior such as what you're suggesting. If you nerf them like that they just go from boring and OP to a bit more fun to watch but useless.
I like immersive features such as limited inventory and whatnot, and I pitched the same concept here of building large buildings and trains on-site years ago. I think this could be a fun avenue for mods. However, I find that when I play the actual game, I get super annoyed by how long refineries take to tear up (like a full second? eww), so I don't think we actually want this in vanilla for real though.
apropos posila:
Sounds fun, I'd be up to see what crazy bindable actions you could come up with unrestrained from the duty to have everything bound by default.
regarding Rseding:
This controversial yet brave opinion may very well divide the community for years to come. I don't know what possessed you to share it, I can't imagine the risk was worth it.
So for Twinsen's opinions:
I never actually considered inserters messing up my rations and timings and such, since I don't really care about such things and I don't think the vast majority of the playerbase does either. They're not really relevant until you've played the game for hundreds of hours and got positively hooked. Does this invalidate your concern? Not at all. Having a high "skill ceiling" is one of Factorio's major strengths. This kind of change would barely affect me, and would have a major impact on how the game is played on a high level, so yes, it could be easily argued to be a net positive for the game. However, I hope you'll excuse me if I don't exactly give a standing ovation if or when it occurs, and yes, I will miss the neat little animations of the inserter arm grabbing directly onto an item. I believe /v/ would call this change "soulless", but then again who cares what they say.
Blueprint importing is a part of an apparent issue that woes many developers - how do you make a puzzle satisfying to solve in a cultural climate where the solution can be googled in 5 minutes?
Ultimately, I believe this is almost a phantom problem. I as a player was completely unaware of it before you mentioned it. I don't import blueprints, but I don't mind people who do, and I don't think they find the game boring or leave negative reviews because of it. In fact I think to them this is just another way of overcoming the challenge, and I'd argue that, when viewed from a certain angle, it's even smarter than coming up with your own solution. Instead of racking your little brain trying to make the little puzzle pieces fit correctly, you identify that you can go online and ask someone else, or look one up. There are people out there who actually find this satisfying and a clever way of avoiding frustration, I say let them have that satisfaction, even if I don't swing that way personally.
I can see it being a genuine issue if it turns out that like, 90% of the playerbase just beats the game practically using stitched together parts of other people's factories. But looking at people of all skill levels sharing their factories on reddit, steam community hub and such, I just don't see it as a prevalent tactic. What I do see is a massive prevalance of bots, and that grinds my gears way more as I find it actually stifles creativity much more, as they're the logistics system of choice for megabasers, the kinds of people you want to challenge more, not less.
Now for wheybags:
Yes! Finally someone else says what I've been saying for years! Either make the biters interesting or ditch them, they're an embarrassment. I 100% agree weapons should be more interesting to use than holding down spacebar and vaguely aiming in the direction of the biter horde, make fighting them fun already. It could be via giving them interesting AI that challenges you in more ways than "see if you can spam enough turrets before you get overrun", it could be via making the weapons more fun to use in a plethora ways, literally the world is your oyster, there are so many examples of fun combat games out there to take inspiration from. It's really inconsistent how a game that is as fun to play as Factorio is so boring in this one aspect, the one that's the easiest to get right. And it's really frustrating that the preferred way of solving it has been to stick to the core theme so stringently and outsource combat to automation, the one thing that you always do in this game. Combat has the potential to be the fun little side activity you embark on while you take a break from all the automation, but as it stands, if you treat it that way, you'll be met with a boring chore.
This is the only game I've played that made nukes and tanks boring to use, just think about that for a minute.
As for why miners directly output to belts (and chests and furnaces and such), this also struck me as odd, but I never was able to conjure a reasonable argument as to why they would (or wouldn't) work that way. Makes for some nifty earlygame tricks like making burner miners feed coal to each other and I'd be sad to see that go.
Removing water output from boilers would have grave consequences for boiler setups, but I'd still be up for the challenge I think.
Regarding fluid physics, I see you have made a bunch of very reasonable arguments against them. I have nothing reasonable to say except I hope nobody listens to you in this one instance. You see, one thing I love doing is the no power connection challenge - I allow myself electricity poles, but whenever they connect, I must disconnect them. It is way less masochistic than it sounds and makes for a lot of fun coming up with brand new designs incorporating pipes and steam engines. It turns the whole factory into a steampunk dystopia. If you made fluids work like electricity, the novelty of it would almost completely disappear and I'd be very sad. Ironically the whole idea of this challenge is to make power distribution more interesting since by default it, well, isn't - so my controversial counter-opinion would be to make electricity more complex, like the fluid system.
goto TOGoS:
Oh yes, I've always fantasized of exploration being a part of the Factorio experience, along with the combat improvements. Again, automation is fun, but there are times when you just feel like hunting for big game biters in the thick of an exotic concrete jungle and find some long-lost ancient artifacts of a bygone era, like an old rusty warehouse full of stack inserters you haven't yet researched or such. The community-made abandoned city from the previous FFF is a good proof of concept for this kind of thing, it's the kind of stuff I'm expecting from the singleplayer campaign.
I think it'd be super neat if buildings had a setup time and construction animations, and it's a little bit depressing that it can't and won't ever happen due to VRAM limits and the late stage development and whatnot. Also goes without saying bots are inherently OP and very uninteresting to use, however I don't think the latter issue can be fixed with a simple nerf to their behavior such as what you're suggesting. If you nerf them like that they just go from boring and OP to a bit more fun to watch but useless.
I like immersive features such as limited inventory and whatnot, and I pitched the same concept here of building large buildings and trains on-site years ago. I think this could be a fun avenue for mods. However, I find that when I play the actual game, I get super annoyed by how long refineries take to tear up (like a full second? eww), so I don't think we actually want this in vanilla for real though.
apropos posila:
Sounds fun, I'd be up to see what crazy bindable actions you could come up with unrestrained from the duty to have everything bound by default.
regarding Rseding:
This controversial yet brave opinion may very well divide the community for years to come. I don't know what possessed you to share it, I can't imagine the risk was worth it.