The Problem With Pickaxes - Digging Out Factorio's Core

[Rythe]

Ending your post with an insult to someone for something you could have ignored, also makes you look like an idiot. So...

People who shout 'FACTS' like it's some sort of talisman that means God is on their side are, in fact, usually idiots. It's a useful insight into a common behavior, and the person in question had very much earned it. If you don't like that - tough. Grow up. Get a clue.

As to your rebuttal:
[*]Yes, removing the durability so one pickaxe lasts forever does make it less annoying. Does nothing to change the fact that it is of limited utility at best and loses all utility the moment you complete for first construction bot. You call it bad cost/benefit analysis. Please present us a cost/benefit analysis for retaining the pickaxe. Try to be objective and not include how you feel about having it in the game.

Because leaving the code alone and assets in place means zero work whereas ripping them out involved work? Because ripping them out meant mods that use/rely on the pickaxe have to be updated the same to even work at all? Which is more work. Exactly what do you imagine Wube having to do to maintain a feature that is just left 'complete as is'? Do you think they're about to overhaul mining in a way that the manual mining side of things will need work/maintenance?

[How does the pickaxe fit in thematically into the game? A proper thematic tool would have been a multitool, or perhaps a ruler, or a micrometer. Those are all make much sense when you think of a factory and the need to build things with precision.

Try reading the OP for this thread that covered exactly this? Sure, I could write it better, clean it up a bit, but if you work on your reading comprehension some, you might just manage to figure out what I was saying about Factorio's theme and the place the pickaxe has in it. Because I've already laid exactly that out.

Removing things by hand does make sense. Our hands are still the greatest multitool ever made. Sure there are lots of things our hands cannot do on their own, however we can use our hands to build the tools that can get the job done. I will grant stating that the pickaxe doesn't make sense for factory item removal was not a very strong argument for removing the pickaxe from the game.

You're being pedantic and haven't watched any remodeling shows where people take sledges to buildings. No, the pickaxe isn't exactly the right tool, but it beats having nothing where you gotta start prying stuff up that're probably bolted/staked into the ground for stability like an inserter. Grats on missing the bit where I said the player character takes no observable action during this process so it's not like we can say what, exactly, the character is doing to remove a building.

Not really. If I hadn't decided to play through the tutorial campaign first after buying the game, I wouldn't have known to craft the pickaxe. Soon as I get construction bots going, I stop using the pickaxe and just use the deconstruction planner with my bots. As it stands now, I really don't have much of any reason to make a pickaxe since I use a mod that gives me a Power Armor Mk.2, roboports, fusion reactors, and construction bots right out the gate.

My experience disagrees with your experience. Now what?

You're also a power player re: my quick categorization of player types. You're not suppose to care about the pickaxe. It isn't for people like you who derive enjoyment from Factorio the way you do. Try expanding your perspective beyond your own myopic self. Try caring about what other people care about for once, simply because they do and it means something to them.

If you go back and read the FFF in question, the decision to remove the pickaxe was due to new players using it incorrectly. Clearly, it isn't as direct and informative as you believe.

The UI being so badly designed to allow this isn't a problem with the pickaxe but the UI. Which I said in the thread for that FFF. It's like I have to repeat everything for you.

I personally do zero hand mining these days. I can understand why speed runners still hand mine, but that is a play style choice.

Oh, so you do understand there are other kinds of play styles out there different than your own. It would be nice if you acted like it. It's confusing that you say something and then keep on like you don't believe your own words.

Cars help you get around your base in speed and style. So too can the tank. The tank also gives you a big massive hp buffer when clearing biters. Again, the tank, guns and etc. help you clear biters if you play with them enabled. Which can be fun to do so when you are bored of building your base and want a change of something to do. They also factor into the game and become useful in multiplayer pvp matches. Now, pvp isn't my thing in this game, but for those who like it, I am sure they would disagree with you as well.

You're taking what I said out of context to what I was replying to in order to exposit on random things as if you have a point, but you don't. So good job wasting everyone's time.

[featherwinglove]

You have your game and I have mine. If you don't want it in yours, I'm fine with that. Why can't you be fine with me wanting it in mine?

What made you think I have a problem with your game?

You were quoting my response to the guy who did. I read too much into the context, sorry. However, you did not, so I'll bring that context back in below. (...if I can get this frickin' thing to nest quotes properly!! )

After reading that all ... i must say ... WTF???
Really? How want a pickaxe when you can have automated machines!
I find they make it right, and clean up that useless piece of code.
And for that who want to have a pickaxe ... play Mincecraft.

Hmm... ...yeah, Mincecraft is offline

There's really nothing in this post, just one "you can have automated machines!" Well, here: you can have automated machines!! I mean, is there some sort of problem, some sort of fundamental incompatibility with having both in the same game? Or what point are you trying to make?

My point is that having both in the same game really adds a lot of flavor and meaning to Factorio.

Oh, and there's an insult, "that useless piece of code" - well, now we just have to make some other "useless piece of code" so have you gained any ground by saying that? Or are you just trying to mine salt?

Really?

If not for the fact, that pick ax gets used and you have to craft a new one, I would never notice it exist in the first place.

Yes, really! If you want to see how it adds a lot of flavour and meaning to Minecraft, you can start with a search for Age of Engineering on Twitch or Youtube, go see how many LPs there are and how popular they are.

This is not Minecraft. I can't imagine Minecraft without pick ax, while at the same time, I can't imagine why would you ever need a pick ax in Factorio.

There's the whole conversation; I've emphasized a part that you only quoted and spoiler tagged a quote added back in that I wasn't using at the time. So, I was saying that you can have both pickaxes and automation in the same game, and having both in the same is demonstrated in both games, and I like both games that way. Got all that?

Minecraft is actually very easy to imagine without the pickaxe. All you need to do is gift yourself an appropriate replacement using the operator console, say, the void miner might be to your liking, after installing the mod that has it. There's the practical matter of interacting with with your own base, for which it would be quite easy to mod out the vanilla tools, but modding out hand tools in their entirety in a mod pack to make Minecraft feel like vanilla Factorio is possible (although very difficult because a lot of automation mods add hand tools specific to their machines.)

Just play creative, though. It gets rid of everything you don't like - tools, character hit points, the hunger bar, and if you still like to process resources in a factory, you can do that in creative mode. Why wouldn't you? (There's a point in here somewhere - something about having the problems of the "real" world of the player character. I hope you can find it.)

In a way we are lucky devs never came up with an idea of a separate chainsaw to cut down trees...

They didn't have to. We all (including the devs) probably agree that it shouldn't be vanilla.

I haven't really seen the intelligent, reasoned defense of FFF#266 that I was looking for, especially the removal of the pickaxe.

Likewise from the opposite side. So far I heard that:
- FEELS

I didn't see anyone reasonably addressing counter arguments for the pick ax:
- FACTS

Yeah, well... I mean, from these points, it seems like you're just trying to insult the other side, not make a point that will have any influence.

I haven't really seen the intelligent, reasoned defense of FFF#266 that I was looking for, especially the removal of the pickaxe.

- it's annoying - disappears without warning, crippling the player, causes lost time

This is actually a FEELS point. If you enjoy having tools in the game, this is something that you pay attention to and if it breaks unexpectedly, it's your own bloody fault. (Unlike real life, Factorio has a durability indicator so precise and accurate that you can predict the exact tick the axe will break if you pay close enough attention.) If you don't like the axe, you can mod it out. The fact is that the last mod which truly mods out the Factorio hand tool (called Fast Entity Mining) was not updated for 0.13, which means there is probably (brb, I need to check SpaceDock) ...probably no way to get it even for 0.12. I probably still have it in nearline storage (i.e. a laptop that died in a fire, but the hard drive survived - I say "probably" because I haven't spun that drive in almost two years; I'm certain it's still there.)

The point is that the axe must be more important than you think it is if more modders have put effort into adding axes than even removing the ones that we have!

- doesn't interact with the factory in any way, other than removing objects

So? The ability to remove objects is pretty important isn't it? You've never screwed up a build? You've never had an old burner drill in the way that you needed to get rid of?

- it's primary purpose is to extract resources, which is automated within first 5 minutes

Not in my installations. The one I spent the most time in, in which the axe had a major role because I gave it one, had hand mining of ores completely disabled. In a vanilla free game, you start with a furnace and a burner drill. If you swap out the wood in the power pole for something else, you punch one tree to get it started, 'F' up enough coal from it to head over to an iron patch, grab enough iron to build another burner drill and a chest, head over to a stone patch (or go punch a rock - not a stone patch, that would be cheating - while waiting for the iron to smelt for the iron chest and next burner drill ...I hope you knew that stone furnaces and burner drills are matched so you can turn a burner drill on an ore patch to aim the chute at the furnace, and both operate at 100% utilization.) From there, you can keep building more burner drills until your sick of them, and switch over to electric whenever you feel like it.

Simply never build an axe. See how it goes. You can do this right now in 0.16. It's been a while, but I have gone to considerable lengths to make an axeless installation. (Quite saw where #224 was coming from after that mod )

[featherwinglove]

I just want to quickly throw in some context...

This is easily lost in freeplay mode, but quite effective in a campaign for new players or players who value an immersive and cohesive experience in general, which is why I went over different player types once upon a time.

That must have been more memorable for me reading it than him writing it, 'cus I remembered exactly where it was and found it in less than fifteen seconds.

Factorio is a hybrid puzzle/power fantasy game. The puzzle lies in the math, limitations of various things like AM ingredient limits, and the reward for creating and solving puzzles of your own within the tools and limitations supplied by the game (like an in-game video decoder). The power fantasy is building the biggest factory with the best numbers the fastest.

This hybrid nature has split the player base, and the easiest tell between the two is how they see bots fitting into the game. A power fantasy type sees anything that slows down their arrival at the bots as a bad feature because, for them, the game doesn't start until bots are unlocked. So mining axes and ingredient limits in AMs are pointless because they don't matter to bot play or hinder bot play which hampers the power fantasy. To them, a good change is any change that makes it easier for the numbers to go up faster.

Conversely, the puzzle types see removing calc details and simplifying features as bad because it dumbs down the puzzle complexity and opportunities, usually. To them, any change that removes logical/puzzle type barriers to reward is bad. Which usually means they want to make it harder for the numbers to go up faster, but again, based on puzzle mechanics. Simple drudgery for the sake of drudgery sucks to them too.

But you can see that these two types are basically opposed to each other, and most of the drama regarding feature changes is split down these two player bases wanting the game to cater to them more at the expense of the other. The changes in this FF is a gift to the power types at the expense of the puzzle types.

(And the exploratory/experience types are just thankful for any crumbs that land their way, and the limited mining axe progression/initial manual mining is a part of their play)

[Maddhawk]

. . . snip . . .

I am mistaken, you do not appear to be an idiot, you are just plain . . . I will let you pick your word to describe yourself. All you can do is insult people who present reasoned discussion on a topic YOU brought up. Congratulations. I should probably stop here, but I will go ahead and address your points. Especially, since you appear to be all worked up and exorcised over this. . .

As I said, you could have ignored that little tid bit he had put at the end. Just as I chose to ignore it. As to "Grow up. Get a clue." I would advise you to take a long hard look in a mirror first and tell that to your reflection.

Wube made a decision. They told us why the made it. Their observation was, apparently, a sizeable portion of new players were using the pickeaxe incorrectly and this led them to believe it wasn't adding anything to the game. I quote, "We noticed that players, when they start with Factorio, they often try to mine by taking the pickaxe into the cursor and doing the mining (as they might be used to doing from Minecraft or other similar games). So we were thinking how to improve the tutorial to avoid this mistake, but the next natural question was: "Why would we even need to have pickaxe in the game?". We realized that it is the item that you just craft in the beginning, and upgrade once in the middle for a steel pick, and that is it. The cost of it is zero compared to the factory output. It is just bloat." Right there they told us why they made the call to actually remove it.

You don't like it. Fine. You have a right to not like it. You have right to make a thread about it. The rest of us have a right to voice our own opinions and thoughts as well. If you really really want it back so much come 0.17, then join the discussion on developing a mod to keep the pickaxe.

Here ya go. abregado started a mod thread for restoring the pickaxe for those who want it as a mod once 0.17 goes live. You can contribute there to get it back. This way new players won't be hassled by it. Vets who don't care for it won't be bothered by it. Vets who do like it and want it to stay, can have their pickaxe back.

I did read your original post. You gave a sappy feel good story of YOUR experience. You wrote an emotionally laden piece in an effort to demonstrate why the pickaxe is so important to you. Fine, great, I'm happy for you. You are certainly entitled to do as much. However, once you have demonstrated your emotional attachment, you got to step back and provide reasoning and logic to Wube that goes beyond emotions that they are making a mistake. I have yet to see you do anything of the like at all. Instead, you provide the knee jerk reaction of people hell bent on retaining the old simply because that is they things have been and 'by golly that is how things are gonna continue to be!'

You call your emotional filters a "theme". But, it isn't. It is your interpretation of the game. Thing about interpretations, just like opinions, they are varied as there people on the planet. No two are alike.

You like to use a fancy word like 'pedantic' to try and show yourself off as a better person. Calling me dull, in a fancy way, doesn't respond to anything. It just shows that you have no counter argument. You have no support for your position other than your emotions. So once again, all you can do is resort to attacking people.

Then you go on to talk about home improvement shows. This is a video game. My own comment about a more appropriate tool was intended show how redundant both of you were being. You point out that there is no animation for picking things up. That is precisely the point. I never missed that at all. That is whole point as to why your own comment to Matthias_Wlkp was just as useless as his.

Your experience can disagree all it wants with my own. That is why you have a different opinion in the first place. Furthermore, your own personal categorization of how others play is meaningless and has no place in this at all. What does have a place is the fact that you clearly do like the pickaxe. So does featherwinglove. He is quite passionate about it too. Passion has its place, but don't let it cloud your mind at the same time. I direct you back again to the quote above from the FFF - #266. That is the reason why it was yanked. I would recommend you direct your passion to helping abrugado develop a pickaxe mod.

You say the UI is badly designed. I disagree. I will grant there is room for improvement, but I wouldn't call it bad. You assume I read the thread about FFF - #266. I have not. I very rarely read those threads. I do not feel the need to read them. If you feel like you are repeating yourself, well that is on you, not me.

You think I act like I don't believe my own words? If you read up a couple replies, I offered an idea for a solution to the entire pickaxe dilemma. It keeps the pickaxe removed from the base game, yet allows for it to be brought back with a mod. It then provides a means for other player tools to be added to the game and slots for them generated. I don't know if such a solution is feasible at this stage in the game's development. But hey, I DID offer something to help you guys out who like the pickaxe so much.

I took you serious and fair. I gave you a fair response to your own thread. I did not attack you, nor insult you. I did offer you advice about calling others idiots, lest you make people think poorly of yourself. I did so to look out for you. In the end, you have allowed yourself to get worked up and are not thinking clearly. In the end all you can do is attack those who present reason and logic.

For your sake, I hope Wube has a solution that you can be happy with. For myself, I will just keeping using my Power Armor and construction bots right out the gate and call it a day.

[Rythe]

...snip...

And you're projecting your faults onto me, ignoring my reasoning because you don't actually care to listen so your internal filter simply says I'm making purely 'emotional' arguments so you don't have to confront them.

The symbolism of the pickaxe is that the things you craft are your tools in order to serve you in your efforts to achieve some goal. That's a concrete and direct explanation and examination.

I gave aspects of immersion and experience that are concrete enough to be somewhat objective about like 'internally consistent'.

My player types are based on Bartle's which I've been aware of since WoW was new. There's videos about it.

You're wrong about everything.

Oh, and you implied I was an idiot about four times now? And you have the sanctimonious gall to pretend you're better than me? That you stayed above that?

[Maddhawk]

...snip...

And you're projecting your faults onto me, ignoring my reasoning because you don't actually care to listen so your internal filter simply says I'm making purely 'emotional' arguments so you don't have to confront them.

The symbolism of the pickaxe is that the things you craft are your tools in order to serve you in your efforts to achieve some goal. That's a concrete and direct explanation and examination.

I gave aspects of immersion and experience that are concrete enough to be somewhat objective about like 'internally consistent'.

My player types are based on Bartle's which I've been aware of since WoW was new. There's videos about it.

You're wrong about everything.

Oh, and you implied I was an idiot about four times now? And you have the sanctimonious gall to pretend you're better than me? That you stayed above that?

First time, I let you know your reaction to that other guy, could lead people to thinking poorly of you, using your own insult of choice as to what people might think. Second time, I let you know your response shifted you from appearance to firmly being there. YOU were the first one to seek out to derail your own thread with insults towards others. YOU set the tone. YOU made your own bed.

You have yet to present a single rational reason to retain the pickaxe as a default item in the game. Not one. Your entire reason to keep it is nothing more than a "it fits my fantasy and feelings and it pisses me off that it is being removed because Wube wants to improve the experience for new players." Yes, you are making emotionally based arguments. You are upset that 0.17 is going to break your immersion because your pickaxe will be gone until a mod is provided to put it back into the game. Boo hoo. I weep for your loss. EVERYTHING you have said to date is pure opinion.

I don't care one way or the other if it stays or goes. Personally, I can see Wube's logic and find that they have a compelling argument. You have none. Only reason I ever even posted in this thread was because it seemed the pro pickaxe people were trying to push Wube to keep it for the sake of their mod experience. My first responses were directed to them.

I responded to YOU, because you decided to be a sanctimonious prick. I was nice about it at first.

Your player types are STILL irrelevant. They have ZERO bearing on if it is a good idea or a bad idea to get rid of the pickaxe. It doesn't matter what you base them off of.

For the record here is my first post in this thread:

If you look at my suggestion I'm not talking about a manual upgrade planner. I'm talking about an automatic one where you define what you want to upgrade (same as upgrade planner) but the robots automatically upgrade parts of your factory they pick if you have enough items in stock. This way eventually everything will be upgraded automatically.

There's no easy way for a factory to know exactly what you want upgraded or when. Sometimes things are meant to be NOT upgraded such as weaved belts or burner inserter backups or the like. Sometimes an upgrade needs a physical overhaul such as steel furnaces to electric furnaces. Other times an upgrade process can stall a factory for hours, like stuffing tier 3 modules into everything. The job of deciding what and when to upgrade is best left to player brains. That's more fun anyway.

As I said, you define upgrade yellow belt to red for example and then ALL yellow belt will be replaced by red belt over time. This is the feature I want. If you have some entities you don't want to upgrade, you don't put them in the upgrade list. Most entities in the game are straight up improvements in every way from previous tiers, so there is absolutely no reason not to upgrade them if you want. Upgrading them won't break anything.

I am with bobucles on this one. This is an idea I do not want to see in the game's core. If you want this, then make a mod of your own that does it. As bob said, there are times when you want to keep some belts as yellow belts forever. You do not want them upgraded. So having a system that slowly begins to automatically replace all yellow belts with red or blue belts becomes a problem. Furthermore, I also agree with bob that a big portion of the fun of the game comes from doing the upgrades manually yourself. It is clear you do not find this fun. That is fine, again make a mod that provides the feature you want.

@Featherwinglove and others who think like him.
I see a problem with the train of thought you folks have. Y'all clearly like the game. Y'all clearly greatly enjoy the modded game. Most, if not everyone, disappointed in the removal of the pickaxe and the changes to mining coming with 0.17 are all playing a heavily modded version of Factorio and greatly prefer it over the base game experience

The problem that arises is that y'all enjoy the modded experience so much so that y'all believe that Wube not only should, but must develop the game core explicitly for the betterment of the modded game.

I disagree. Wube must develop the game's core engine for the stand alone NO MODS experience. This is to establish the game's baseline from which all new players learn the game's fundamental mechanics from. It is from this perspective that these changes come from. From this initial starting point, the community can then modify the game and tailor it to each persons own custom desires and tastes. Yes, this does man some mods, probably many mods, will require significant work to keep them up to date as Wube moves the base game towards a final version.

This is a fact that every mod maker should be keeping very much in the forefront of their brains as they build their mods. Mod makers who do not do so are engaging in significant short sightedness. If there are certain mods you enjoy so much that you want to see them stay around for a long time to come, then reach out to their authors and ask them how you can help. Perhaps you can help the modder repair and/or update the mods code. Or perhaps you can donate to them so they can afford to set aside more time to maintaining the mods you enjoy so much for the newer version of the game.

Y'all shouldn't be pestering Wube to stop moving their game towards completion simply because a change comes to the base game that causes problems with your favorite mod.

--Now, the OP made a very passionate opening post as to what the pickaxe meant to him. I can see how he came to feel that way. My own experience with the game is so much more limited so I do not feel the same. To me, the removing of the pickaxe is a good thing. But, I can understand why others would like to see it stay. Especially, how people coming from Minecraft would like to see it stay. I have never played Minecraft by the way.

This is where, once again, modding comes back into the scene. If you want the pickaxe back in 0.17. Make a mod. If you are like me and do not have the skills to do so, then find someone who can and ask them what can you do to support them to make such a mod. I believe some of the Factorio devs are even already looking at a way to do so based on the thread linked above.


TL;DR - Stop complaining about changes cause it breaks your favorite mod. Instead look at each change from an unmodded, new player perspective and then base your judgement on a change from that viewpoint. As for mods, find your favorite mod authors and ask them how can you help and support them to keep their mods updated for future versions of the game.

I gave you fair credit for what you believe in and how you felt. Until and unless you can come up with a rational reason why the pickaxe should remain as a baseline item in the game, I see no further point in wasting time with you.

[featherwinglove]

Ending your post with an insult to someone for something you could have ignored, also makes you look like an idiot. So...

People who shout 'FACTS' like it's some sort of talisman that means God is on their side are, in fact, usually idiots. It's a useful insight into a common behavior, and the person in question had very much earned it. If you don't like that - tough. Grow up. Get a clue.

This doesn't quite achieve the Smash Jigglypuff QED Maneuver. That would have been pointing out that three of the five points, i.e. 60% above the word "FACTS" are 100% "FEELS" points, with words like "annoying," "doesn't fit the theme," and "Really??" Oh, and the other two are factually wrong

Okay. Uh huh. Oh, she got this? OOH, she did! (Jigglypuff rests) I mean, it didn't kill, but at least it sent a message, right?

[featherwinglove]

What kind of players who have been with the game longest also do not matter.

Well. This tidbit seems to be representative of the quality of the entire wall of text that I pulled it from, so it feels like I could just- I'm lazy, instead of spending ten seconds to repeat it, I'll spend a full minute finding where I've said it before, brb.

Casual players not caring what the truly dedicated think is par for the course and generally assumed anyway. I wish they wouldn't keep jumping in with what reduces to an explicit "We don't love you, please be quiet" like this all the time. It adds nothing to the conversation and just raises blood pressures.

[Rythe]

Your player types are STILL irrelevant. They have ZERO bearing on if it is a good idea or a bad idea to get rid of the pickaxe. It doesn't matter what you base them off of.

There's the money shot. I give better support for what I've said than you've any right to expect, and you dismiss it and me out of hand with a complete tantrum.

I gave you fair credit for what you believe in and how you felt. Until and unless you can come up with a rational reason why the pickaxe should remain as a baseline item in the game, I see no further point in wasting time with you.

No, you didn't. And if you didn't care about the axe, you wouldn't be here. If you weren't vainly defending your pride, you wouldn't be wall o' texting me still.

Oh, and one difference between us is that I accepted the bed I made when I called out idiotic behavior. You're still talking out of both sides of your mouth like a coward.

But there the line is crossed and a mod should step in, probably lock this whole thing down.

You're adding nothing but emotion and derailment here, Maddhawk. Go away. Live up to your name somewhere else.

[featherwinglove]

I have found other bits worth responding to.

I have NEVER seen a game embrace modding like how Factorio has.

This I agree with, and until mid-November, I tended to plug Factorio as the greatest game ever, the one that will smash Minecraft. And then they started acting like Blizzard and Bethesda.

Not even Blizzard or Bethesda, both of which made their fortunes on making modder friendly games.

Both of which are now going down in flames. There's more to it than being modder friendly, and Wube has started to screw up in some of those other ways as well. I've made direct comparisons to their faces, both on these threads and in responses to PMs.

Mod developers do not work anything. They make mods because they are having fun. If they begin to feel like making mods is work, then they are not having fun anymore.

I said that, not so bluntly since I was going over the details, but yeah, I don't know what you're trying to accomplish summarizing my points for me while flying off the handle everywhere else. Sorry, that was an axe reference, I'll leave you alone now

[Koub]

Moderator-me speaking here. I'm fine with debating, even debating with passion, but I'm not fine with insults and calling each other names.
I'm letting this topic open, because I don't like silencing people if I have the choice. However, you all do realize that neither camps (I'll call them the pro pickaxe and the anti pickaxe camps) will NEVER ever change their mind.
So no more insults or personal attacks please.

[featherwinglove]

My player types are based on Bartle's which I've been aware of since WoW was new. There's videos about it.

I'm not all that impressed by the Bartle classification- ...actually, I'm not impressed in the slightest. I'm also of the impression that a taxonomy is invalid when even Wikipedia sounds silly talking about it. As for the Extra Credits video, I was never particularly impressed with them, but since this trash pile came out, I don't give them any watch time. I clicked away the moment I discovered it was their channel.

"Killer <1%"

The most popular game on the Switch is Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, a 2D arena fighting game about one month old. Most popular games are fighting games. In the Grand Theft Auto franchise, the basic game mechanic is stealing cars, and I recall several people who visited both its subreddit and that of Kerbal Space Program, which is a literal heaven simulator and the learning curve is basically a rocket's takeoff, describing the difference in the personality of the subreddits down exactly the lines I predicted on the basis of what the games are and what kinds of players they attract: GTA's community was somewhat toxic and generally unhelpful, while that of Kerbal Space Program was cooperative and had a lot more humor. One of the most popular serialized franchises of all time is Call of Duty, another is Halo, and yet another is Battlefield.

The bigger problem with the article and taxonomy is the lack of acknowledgement of any overlap in gamer motivations. This bears out in the Wikipedia article when it explains a test of the system looking at 7000 MMO players: "One of the results was that the Bartle's Explorer type didn't appear and more importantly its subfactors 'exploring the world' and 'analysing the game mechanics' didn't correlate." Well, so much for that.

It's quite likely that I came across this nonsense before, laughed at it before, and completely forgot the encounter; I am getting just enough deja vu to suggest that. Another clue is the website is apparently about "UX design" ...user "experience" vs. user "interface". The sort of people who use such language I tend to find- ...icky. And their products even more so.

Minecraft got lucky. The itches that it scratched in the gaming market had not been visited in a long time by major game publishers, and when they were, it was in generally uncreative ways that didn't address especially the creative side of gaming. While it is generally easier to destroy than create (even in Minecraft), there isn't much to destroy without those creating, and this created a feedback cycle in the multiplayer scene that took off with new game types that didn't answer the creative side of Minecraft players who weren't motivated in that way. Factorio is unlikely to do that, but it's not impossible. Many games which potentially could have done a similar thing (Fallout 76 springs immediately to mine) have PvP disabled, making it mechanically impossible.

[Rythe]

I'm not all that impressed by the Bartle classification- ...actually, I'm not impressed in the slightest.

Bartle's isn't that impressive because it's a first pass rough approximation, but does at least begin to explore the idea that there are different types of players with different motivations. Partly why I didn't use his exact framework.

So give the man his due for starting the conversation in a useful way, even if he didn't manage to stumble into perfection.

And I might be less tempted to add fangs to what I say if people weren't so keen to dismiss it as emotional because they don't like the hard logic my rhetoric is based on. It's another stupid attempt at an 'I win' button for people who aren't quite up to the challenge, aren't willing to believe another stance has merit, and can't accept another's desires might be based on something valid and real if said desires conflict with their own.

[MobRules]

I find MDA to be much more useful than Bartle's.

Factorio is a hybrid puzzle/power fantasy game. The puzzle lies in the math, limitations of various things like AM ingredient limits, and the reward for creating and solving puzzles of your own within the tools and limitations supplied by the game (like an in-game video decoder). The power fantasy is building the biggest factory with the best numbers the fastest.

This hybrid nature has split the player base, and the easiest tell between the two is how they see bots fitting into the game. A power fantasy type sees anything that slows down their arrival at the bots as a bad feature ...

Conversely, the puzzle types see removing calc details and simplifying features as bad because it dumbs down the puzzle complexity and opportunities, usually. To them, any change that removes logical/puzzle type barriers to reward is bad. Which usually means they want to make it harder for the numbers to go up faster, but again, based on puzzle mechanics. Simple drudgery for the sake of drudgery sucks to them too.

But you can see that these two types are basically opposed to each other, and most of the drama regarding feature changes is split down these two player bases

I don't think it's a puzzle vs powerfantasy issue. I'm much more of a puzzle lover than a power-fantasy player (finally added Bobs Mods despite not being able to find much clear info about them, love them, I'm 100 hours in, don't have bots yet -- I keep improving the logistics on my older systems before getting around to expanding. Lots of trains, though!) and my reaction to getting rid of the pickaxe is that it's a minor, unimportant, but basically positive change.

(Minecraft would be a different story. Even though I played heavily modded with tech mods, and would get the Ars Magica projectile-area-of-effect-dig spell as fast as I could and stop using the pickaxe, it's a crucial part of the game's flavor, and if they anounced they were getting rid of it for any reason, I'd think they'd jumped the shark). For myself, it isn't an important part of the flavor of Factctorio: Factorio is about automation and rediculously complex production chains and complicated logistics puzzles. For me, the pickaxe is completely incidental to all that.

Someone mentioned campaign mode vs freeplay. That might be more telling -- I considered the campaign to be a tutorial mode, played it half-way through, figured I had the hang of it, and switched to the freeplay that I saw as the more-complex "real" game. Someone who considers campaign mode to be the "real" game would probably have a very different idea of what the game is "really about" than I do.

Regardless, they're looking at ways allow the pickaxe to be added back in by mods. That makes this issue largely moot, doesn't it? If it can be modded back in, then removing it shouldn't be a big deal, even for those for whom it's an important part of play, most of whom I'm getting the idea tend to play modded anyway?

[Maddhawk]

What kind of players who have been with the game longest also do not matter.

Well. This tidbit seems to be representative of the quality of the entire wall of text that I pulled it from, so it feels like I could just- I'm lazy, instead of spending ten seconds to repeat it, I'll spend a full minute finding where I've said it before, brb.

Casual players not caring what the truly dedicated think is par for the course and generally assumed anyway. I wish they wouldn't keep jumping in with what reduces to an explicit "We don't love you, please be quiet" like this all the time. It adds nothing to the conversation and just raises blood pressures.

I will say that I could have worded that better. The point I was trying to get across is that all players matter, not just those who adopted the earliest and have been playing the longest. Generally, those players will many of the better ideas. That said, they are also going to be far more prisoners of their own experiences to date, aka less open to change.

I don't see Wube acting like Activision/Bethesda/EA/Ubisoft/NC Soft. Did I miss something? (Entirely possible I may have since I had been playing Lineage II a good deal back in November. Sadly NC Soft is still mismanaging the game into the ground.)

Neither are going down in flames . . . yet. Future remains to be seen. Blizzard is being consumed from the inside out by Activision and given its size, I expect the process to take upwards of another decade or more before Blizzard can truly be deemed dead. Bethesda is a private company. So getting information on their financials is much harder since they are not required to hold disclosures for shareholders and the like. That said, I hear Elder Scrolls Online is going well now. As such, it might be a bit premature to say they are going down in flames too. To say they are receiving a strong message of how much greed customers are willing to tolerate would be much more accurate. I just hope they listen to the message.

[featherwinglove]

I don't think it's a puzzle vs powerfantasy issue. I'm much more of a puzzle lover than a power-fantasy player (finally added Bobs Mods despite not being able to find much clear info about them, love them, I'm 100 hours in, don't have bots yet --

I'm so curious as to whether you've had a moment like this. I am surprised that he failed to realize that basics are supposed to be an integrated part of the BEB system and a direct handoff item. A handy thing to remember is that as the number of electronic component types increases with more advanced electronics, the total number of electronic components items per crafting second drops, and a component bus will work for logic and processing boards. (It's a bit off-topic, but I actually haven't tried 0.17 science yet, my opposition to the rails in the production science pack is based on a well developed intuition for such things and I'm pretty good at seeing what a build looks like in my head. In related news, I hardly ever use blueprints from different games.)

(Minecraft would be a different story. Even though I played heavily modded with tech mods, and would get the Ars Magica projectile-area-of-effect-dig spell as fast as I could and stop using the pickaxe,

It's usually the TC Hammer for me, and building wands are really handy too.

Someone mentioned campaign mode vs freeplay. That might be more telling -- I considered the campaign to be a tutorial mode, played it half-way through, figured I had the hang of it, and switched to the freeplay that I saw as the more-complex "real" game. Someone who considers campaign mode to be the "real" game would probably have a very different idea of what the game is "really about" than I do.

I'm not sure if anyone considers the current campaign mode to be the "real" game. I thought it was until I got to the fifth mission (I think I did a free play by that point) and just realized I was incredibly bored. I'm the sort of guy who wished every RTS game had a free play mode (I want vs. 4 CPU in Homeworld and it was a bit of a struggle, but once I was over the hump, the game crashed, and I couldn't help but think it was being a sore loser ) Galactic Civilizations 2 is a story-driven game with a free play mode. I never finished any of its campaigns.

Regardless, they're looking at ways allow the pickaxe to be added back in by mods. That makes this issue largely moot, doesn't it? If it can be modded back in, then removing it shouldn't be a big deal, even for those for whom it's an important part of play, most of whom I'm getting the idea tend to play modded anyway?

You've probably figured out that I consider the removal of the axe in and of itself to be less important than how it was implemented, and how the developers responded to the backlash. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the topic of modding it back in, and only started the discussion after two months. I was also struck by the flawed logic both in and following FFF#266 regarding most everything else. Four changes were announced as I recall, and all of them were bad, not only removing mechanics that vanilla players might find interesting - simply because they weren't being used in vanilla - they were more realistic than what appears to be in the pipeline to replace them, and they were being used by most of the big modders. Instead of removing these mechanics, they should have extended the vanilla game to use them; the reason mining hardness is meaningless is because the vanilla ores don't vary enough in hardness to affect the tools, and, more importantly, there is only one tier of vanilla mining machine. Efficiency = same problem, the only reason it's meaningless in vanilla is because vanilla offers no upgrades to it ...they don't even take modules!

The axe, for me, has a very interesting story: it didn't seem to really have an excuse to exist, but Bob's made this interesting progression of it for some reason. I also had this annoying sense that resources were a bit too easy to fetch, even in Bob's (and that turned me off Angel's really fast because everything of Bob's is extracted from just four ores.) The Mountains mod solved both issues in one swoop, and so does Diggy, although it's even more extreme. So, early game axes are a bit of a resource sink, even with Bob's 40% cost steel, but later on are a progression more of the capability to reach and exploit the resources covered by Mountains and protected by Bob's Enemies, a satisfyingly complex problem.

One to ponder is why I find Outpost 2 more satisfying than vanilla Factorio, comparing apples to apples within the two games suggests that Factorio is obscenely better ...except for the victory conditions. (fix) The Outpost 2 stuff lies elsewhere, in managing the colony population and its morale, capabilities related to colonists rather than tools, and a much wider variety of weapons, enemies - and I just realized there were five changes announced in #266 - damage types. Outpost 2, as near as I can tell, doesn't have different damage mechanics under the hood, there are different damage mechanics at high level: Sticky Foam temporarily stops your vehicles. Artillery land mines fired as fairly ordinary ammunition cover the ground with temporary invisible mines, and motivates you to narrow your columns or stop moving until they expire. You can also capture vehicles. What's annoying is that all these capabilities were given to one side, and the other gets the mother of all normal weapons, Thor's Hammer, and the endgame strategic reusable launch vehicle. Both sides got EMP though, that disables buildings and vehicles completely until it wears off, while doing no permanent damage. But, the side that gets the reprogram spider also got an EMP ballistic missile with a huge area effect. And the reprogram spider is immune to EMP, so theoretically, the combination could walk away with your army! The reprogram spider, however, is tremendously weak to conventional damage, still stopped by sticky foam if those go off course, and so I've never heard of this actually happening.

[HurkWurk]

I gave you fair credit for what you believe in and how you felt. Until and unless you can come up with a rational reason why the pickaxe should remain as a baseline item in the game, I see no further point in wasting time with you.

I think it should exist but be altered. replace "tools" and "pickax" with "hand tools" which later upgrade to "power tools" then to "automated tools".
by the automated tools level, almost everything should be nearly instant. and should be indestructible. construction robots would need an automated tools to build and not require anything to do repairs.

but to everyone's point about inventory. its one slot, its a private slot. and it should not matter to you since its not taking up a actual inventory slot.

[Maddhawk]

I gave you fair credit for what you believe in and how you felt. Until and unless you can come up with a rational reason why the pickaxe should remain as a baseline item in the game, I see no further point in wasting time with you.

I think it should exist but be altered. replace "tools" and "pickax" with "hand tools" which later upgrade to "power tools" then to "automated tools".
by the automated tools level, almost everything should be nearly instant. and should be indestructible. construction robots would need an automated tools to build and not require anything to do repairs.

but to everyone's point about inventory. its one slot, its a private slot. and it should not matter to you since its not taking up a actual inventory slot.

Now, that is an idea I like.

[Lorash]

-

[lovewyrm]

Hmm, a lot of things were said already, but I want to give my opinion on "implied pickaxe" vs "graphically displayed" pickaxe.

I do think these things have an effect. Like cats who like to chase laserpointers, an implied, ephemeral prey they can never catch, can actually get frustrated by it, and cat owners are therefore advised to toss the cat a physical toy in the end they can dig into.

Of course this is not easily done in the game, you can't easily make the pickaxe this tactile, but it can still represent a sort of focus.
Scrooge McDucks lucky coin. A pair of shades on a terminator. A menacing, clawed hand on a dungeon keeper.

I don't have any hard data and big researches, but just from some experience I would argue that even a graphical representation of the ability to "dig" is better than just the numerical concept.
It can perhaps evoke either a questing mood, where you scrounge for your starting materials with a rustic, crude, yet solid pickaxe made from good, solid, mundane material.
And later its unassuming, non braggardy appearance can remind you what helped you carve out your cherenkov glowing tech utopia... a humble iron tooth on a piece of tree carcass. A retroactive medal you could flash at a newcomer who thinks you just pulled all these wonders out of your behind. When in fact it was your initial spark of toil that made everything else spring to life this magnificently. And you did it all with iron and wood.

Or, uh, well, player.miningSpeed += 2;