Combat system far too fast?

[Mansen]

Finished the demo last night and I am for the most part sold on the game - I especially love the automation processes, where I have to start thinking about assembly and logistics of moving everything together (I hope the game gets a trade module at some point). But the combat. Jesus the combat is fast.

Is this a longterm design choice, or is it "up in the air" with a more robust combat system as a possibility? Enemies are charging at me faster than cars, and all of my guns feel as though they've been taken out of Duke Nukem or Serious Sam.

[Nova]

The car is much faster than every enemy and you can upgrade your weapons. You need the upgrades to make damage to the big biters. Even medium biters are a serious thread without upgrades.

[Mansen]

...you have actual cars in the game? I was making a loose real world comparison.

Regardless - Combat is much too fast paced for my tastes.

[kovarex]

But this is hard to solve.

The player can't be slower, moving around the Factory slower would be annoying.
Enemies can't be slower than player, you could outrun them anytime you want to, it would be too slow.

The player can build the slow down capsules, that make the enemies much slower.

[Mansen]

And why can't the player be any slower? You're basically sprinting everywhere as it is. The enemies aren't equally fast as the player now, so arguing that they can't be slower than the player seems fairly superfluous.

I never made the claim that this is an easy thing to "solve" (Change would be the correct word here) - But with how things are now it feels more like a flash "mow em down" game, than an industry/colony builder with aliens.

[Nova]

The player can't be slower, kovarex is right. It would be very annoying to "walk" wo the other side of your factory. (Using the car ist not possible in this situation.)
Making the enemies slower is a bad idea, too. You could just "run" and shoot them down. Run in cycles and shoot = always win.

[Mansen]

Tough crowd - Anyway, clearly this game isn't for me in its current state. I've made my arguments - If things don't change, I'll simply look elsewhere for my fix. Not the end of the world.

[Nova]

i just said that the "problem" can't be fixed by making the enemies slower. There are maybe other solutions.

[Nemoder]

I don't find speed of enemies to be the problem so much as they just aren't that fun to fight offensively. I have to use hit and run tactics with my vehicle to slowly beat down their bases until I can afford enough weapon upgrades and even then if any of the big biters get too close I'm dead very quickly even with decent armor. I'm not saying it should just be easier but I feel there needs to be more time for back and forth fighting or different tactics to make it a bit more enjoyable.

[Mansen]

i just said that the "problem" can't be fixed by making the enemies slower. There are maybe other solutions.

If anything you are stating speculation as fact with no practical experience to speak from - Have you actually tried playing at those speeds? No? Then you are offering nothing but speculation yourself.

[Nova]

I think you got the wrong quote.

1. Even the dev agrees with my opinion.
2. Of course do i have experience, i didn't play factorio for the first time.

[Garm]

Player speed is indeed slowest possible atm: while it is decent at the early game, working at end game complexes is hard enough - heck i made empty belt highways specifically so I could walk faster within my base.

Making it slower would cripple end game experience.


Making monsters slower than player would make them essentially harmless. Unless we get flying, shooting monsters, having slow melee types would add little to the game.

[ssilk]

I also think it is too fast, but I have some ideas.

- to reduce the overall speed, the player (and biters!) can be slowed down. This is possible, if we allow him to be fast inside his factory.
Two possibilities: a) roads. The player can built roads on which he is faster. Roads are cheap and easy to build and they may be extremely useful for having a nicer factory layouts. b) some other kind of locality, in which the player is faster. For example an energy field, which powers the players accu and skelet. Or the "home of the player", which makes the surroundings molecules "slipy", so that he can walk faster (but also the biters). I think this idea is interesting, because it introducs an element, which makes things slower, the further they are away from base.

- the second thing is to add more behavior to the biters. For example: wolves taste, then look and then run and then the others follow. And it takes time to gather speed. And not all follow, but some try to surround from the sides. Currently the biters walking around, doing their biter stuff and suddenly all of them follow. As human I don't have a chance to react. Or to study them. This is also missing that they have - like the worms - a zone, where it begins to be dangerous.
That's all some kind of "behavior" and I would say, that adding some behavior makes them more understandable (remember the thread, where I said, that we need to talk with the natives, if we want to make a peaceful game?). Understanding is the part of making a strategy and ... It takes time to have behavior. And this time makes them slower.

- and to come again to this point: I think the game is also too fast, because the control is complicated and not always ... Useful. Hm. The current speed says: hit and run, so I need only 5 keys. But the rest of the game says: we have here thousands of possibilities, lets the player choose everyone. And the mouse also for aiming. And we make two tiers of control, one for build and one for weapons. And we can also aim exactly. And... Or in other words: the control says, this is a slow and peaceful game. Hmmm. And I have really no good solution for that, but I think, when going into the broad market, this will hinder some more players.

[Balinor]

I like the current speed to be honest. The part I have issue with is I want to be able to create robots that go out and fight for me, I don't want to have to run around shooting the mobs all the time. I know we have the little robots currently but I find they aren't strong enough and don't last long enough. I'm more thinking of long term permanent robots.

[BurnHard]

Hm what do you think of raising the biters speed even more, raising their health a little, so that no kiting whatever is possible, and to increase the players health substantially.

This would lead to more close combat, but without the fear to die to fast because of not reacting the right way in the first seconds, thus reducing the stress.

Of couse if there are to many biters you could die as well, but not in just a few seconds.

[Nemoder]

Changing the biter speed or damage would mean you'ld have to rebalance turrets and walls and such a bit but giving the player a lot more health is a great idea, it would give you more time to decide if you can stay and keep fighting or try to retreat.

[Garm]

Dont forget - this game is called Factorio for a reason. I think the main idea of the game is that you start small and weak and build up from nothing, at the expense of natural wildlife


As such it makes sense to make main character weak - his defence, and offence would come from what he makes, not from who he is.
Main problem right now i think is that early game is a little bit unpolished - starting without pick is a massive pain, and without gun you are good as dead due to large volumes of creatures attacking at once. I believe it would be more prudent to lessen the spawn amount but not speed in the beginning.

Another good option would be to introduce more low-tech equipment:

Wooden fences, as early defence barriers.
Stone pick(?) or more easily craftable pick for beginning (has anyone tried starting with nothing? takes 2 days in game to make a pick, not to mention absence of a gun.
Spikes as early version of landmines - to reinforce that game idea.


Perhaps also vary biter aggressiveness by the time of day: make them more likely to attack if you operate machinery at night (light sources "attraction") while ignoring you during the day. Maybe introduce pollution threshold dependent of time of day as such as soon as you hit certain amount of pollution you could be attacked at any time.

But at the same time - keep up the threat at higher pollution levels:
- Make certain biters highly resistant to lasers, so that you need to use normal turrets.
- Make big worms do more damage to turrets, to prevent easy turret rush.
- Prioritize complexity over price - if turrets are harder to keep working 24/7 than lasers - they should be more usable, either by being versatile (different ammo, for different biters) or by being specialized in something others cant do (long range?, splash damage?)


I don't think it is a good idea to allow players attack and destroy biter bases early, and destroy them without turrets way until end-game. This game isnt about that.

[cube]

Dont forget - this game is called Factorio for a reason. I think the main idea of the game is that you start small and weak and build up from nothing, at the expense of natural wildlife


As such it makes sense to make main character weak - his defence, and offence would come from what he makes, not from who he is.
Main problem right now i think is that early game is a little bit unpolished - starting without pick is a massive pain, and without gun you are good as dead due to large volumes of creatures attacking at once. I believe it would be more prudent to lessen the spawn amount but not speed in the beginning.

Another good option would be to introduce more low-tech equipment:

Wooden fences, as early defence barriers.
Stone pick(?) or more easily craftable pick for beginning (has anyone tried starting with nothing? takes 2 days in game to make a pick, not to mention absence of a gun.
Spikes as early version of landmines - to reinforce that game idea.


Perhaps also vary biter aggressiveness by the time of day: make them more likely to attack if you operate machinery at night (light sources "attraction") while ignoring you during the day. Maybe introduce pollution threshold dependent of time of day as such as soon as you hit certain amount of pollution you could be attacked at any time.

But at the same time - keep up the threat at higher pollution levels:
- Make certain biters highly resistant to lasers, so that you need to use normal turrets.
- Make big worms do more damage to turrets, to prevent easy turret rush.
- Prioritize complexity over price - if turrets are harder to keep working 24/7 than lasers - they should be more usable, either by being versatile (different ammo, for different biters) or by being specialized in something others cant do (long range?, splash damage?)


I don't think it is a good idea to allow players attack and destroy biter bases early, and destroy them without turrets way until end-game. This game isnt about that.

I completely agree.

[Psycho0124]

Yeah, the low tech stuff would be great to have. Corralling biters through Palasade walls and onto Spikes would be awesome.

- Make big worms do more damage to turrets, to prevent easy turret rush.

Sometimes your back is against the wall early on in the game though. Turret creep strategy is already painfully slow and expensive but it can open up resources and salvage terrible starting area luck (desperately needed resources under a biter base early on for instance). Without turret creep strategy, there will be a lot more doomed 'bad start' games. If this is ever implemented, we'll need to enlarge the biter-free area around the start location to reduce the doomed starts.

- Make certain biters highly resistant to lasers, so that you need to use normal turrets.
- they should be more usable, either by being versatile (different ammo, for different biters)

I really like the idea of specialized turrets and biters with resistance/weakness to various types but we have to be able to set target priorities for our turrets to make it usable. I picture my (Large Biter killer) turrets blasting away at the small biters in front while my (Small Biter killer) turrets peck away uselessly at the Big Biters, and me pulling my hair out as they chew down my walls..
Also, since the late game spawns only the large biters, eventually only one type of turret will be useful just like now. Hmm..

[Garm]

Sometimes your back is against the wall early on in the game though. Turret creep strategy is already painfully slow and expensive but it can open up resources and salvage terrible starting area luck (desperately needed resources under a biter base early on for instance). Without turret creep strategy, there will be a lot more doomed 'bad start' games. If this is ever implemented, we'll need to enlarge the biter-free area around the start location to reduce the doomed starts.

I've never said - prevent any turret rush just easy ones - for example encourage players to build walls in front of the turrets, and coding worms to attack closest target, thus making turret strategies still viable, yet not as easy as they are now: 10 laser turrets are usually enough to obliterate small base without any protection or support.

It can be also alleviated by moving big worms further away, or making them spawn at later evolutions.

Also, since the late game spawns only the large biters, eventually only one type of turret will be useful just like now. Hmm..

I guess 1 ammo - 1 biter idea wasn't good I concede that. But we still can get long range turrets, or splash damage. That way turret preference will be on a player play-style.



Ideal turret creep in my mind could be 3 things:

1 - decent complex of multiple turrets\walls\shield generators\repair stations. It would rely on constant power and item support from main base and player slowly moving it closer and closer to the enemy, or builds 2nd one closer under suppression fire of first.

2 - Deployable small army of robots that would act like meat shield drawing attack onto themselves, while player quickly establishes preliminary defences.

3 - War Trains. Nuf said.


It would be also beneficial to spawn extra resources within player spawn area - we already have it generate terrain - why not a modicum of resources - making sure that player will have barely enough.