Factorio Forums

Well, this is one of those loooooong conceptual postings. Sorry about the length, it's really needed.

Yesterday we had a short discussion here
Subject: [0.8] Campaign too difficult

slpwnd wrote:

ssilk wrote:The problem is, that a player doesn't learn how to pick up anything.

The picking is actually introduced in the very first level (when the player has to pick up the mined resource from the burner mining drill). Maybe it is too early or it should be reinforced later in the campaing.
Making levels not to be overloaded and still teach the player something about the game is really hard

So I wrote a mail to Thomas, looks like so:

I think what you try is the wrong way.

Nobody would be ever able to survive on that planet if not trained before.

So let's step back. Level zero.

Character (it's his name) is on the way to his first (and last) mission: the vanguard of a big colonization ship. They should prepare the planet for the (meanwhile in orbit waiting) colony ship with 1 billion settlers.

Therefore he sits in the train to the training camp. When he arrives, the first thing he gets is the "suit", some super high tech, which enables him to build all the nice stuff. Then the trainer comes (remember this: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 9821#p9821 ) and shows him all the training areas he needs. You can imagine this camp as a very big map departed by training zones. It's a bit like in Portal: If you enter a zone it resets to its initial state, you can try to achive a goal in that zone or leave the zone at every time. The zones are easy, but in many cases they reveal their full potential after digging much deeper. But to be able to go with the ship on the next morning (!), you need to solve minimum 1 test (of 20-30?). Good enough!

After solving the first test he will be forced to go, to make place for the other 399 vanguards, which also need a test today. And so he goes to the planet, is waked up after 600 years, 400 years too early, because a meteor destroyed half of the ice shield of the ship on the way, so this was a planet with "minimal, non intelligent life" and good enough for colonization in such case.

His job is to built ... forests. So we follow him, how he drives along forests. Not his own, natives! Then he is in the middle of a complete dessert and tries to plant trees into dry sand (no water yet) and goes back to the camp for lunch, when he saw, that all is lost. All rockets crashed due to some unknown enemy, the ship was also hit, the whole crew lost their lives the board computer took over and brought the ship to Lagrange point 4 (see wiki). Character is now the last on the planet and now the real hard live (and story) begins, when the board computer asked Character to make the whole thing alone. Then the last communication satellite is destroyed and Character is really, really, really alone. Night comes and the first biters make him see the danger.

The missions follow then. The advantage is now compared to the current, that everything the player needs is already explained. And if not, the player can replay the training zones. The suit gives him the ability to "dream back" into the training zones. So the player can nearly always come back.

You can remove many explanations, remove stupid training levels and make a much stronger learning curve. Instead you bring in content, make cool maps, reveal the secret how they killed all the people and destroyed the rockets (I've really no idea how), we found the "big boss" and brought him something important which changed his opinion and gave the menkind a last chance and in the end we are in the free game.

Thomas wrote back,

slpwnd wrote:those are some very good ideas. The first (or zero) level on earth is an intriguing concept - the only danger I can see is not to "scare away" people with the complexity waiting for them ahead. But it does make sense and there is a lot of space for some story unfolding. The biggest problem is that it is a LOT of work. And I mean really a lot. I know that current demo is not glamorous but still took us ages (figure out the levels, rough playthrough, tweaking the details, testing on someone who hasn't seen it before, etc.). We have plenty of things on our plates at the moment (finish the trailer, stabilize 0.9, do the taxes administration, tweak the oil industry, work on sound integration, improve circuit networks, the multiplayer!, the list goes on for a while . If you could post what you have written below somewhere to ideas / suggestions so it doesn't get burried in my inbox only that would be nice. For now we will have to do with what we have.

Well, of course I know that.

The idea was to introduce a story framework, something, which is needed to enable parallelization of work. Of course: it must not be exactly this story. But something, which enables to create levels or "zones".
Because that is one huge, huge amount of work, to create nice maps, create a story, trigger events, make it playable...

My opinion: That can't be done by this team. Not yet.

So the logic is simple: If we want something like that, it must be done by us. We have the manpower to do this.

Besides many other problems this will bring (this story is too technically for me, why does it take 600 years, Character as name is too ridiculous, why does the mothership has an ice shield? Well the last one is already explained here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ield#p8702 ) there are technical gaps, which needs to be done by the devs. Things like: how can we "reset" parts of the map, how to control the interaction between map parts, or turn parts of the map off, because too much CPU and too far away. How can we have more characters in the game, how can we create and control some conversation between them, depending on what the player does. How can we set up "targets" in an easy way? An "invisible tier," which enables complex wire logic, which makes creation of maps with logic much easier (of course not replaces LUA but makes level design much easier). Copy parts of a map into another within the map editor. And some dozen of things more. I stop here, because it won't lead into the wrong direction to fix up on the details.

Because in the end we have some competitions:
- which is the best story, which fits into the technical needs of splitting the campaign and the tutorial
- which is the best level/zone for that part of the story...
- best dialogs for that level, how will they bring the story forward?
- best graphics for special entities.

And so on...

I try to be realistic: I don't see that happen before summer. Even if this is wanted is not clear. There is the multiplayer thing, they need to go for the mass market. Many open questions.

But only now is the chance to begin such a thing. The right number of competent people. So, to those who read till to the end: who would like that direction of development? Who would like just to begin, not knowing what will happen, or if the work was for the garbage?

And what will the devs think about it?

I like the idea... It's HARD work, a'ight, but it should be doable... at least as a "mod" or "Campaign pack"...
If you need some helf, don't hesitate to call me

Having a separate tutorial and campaign modes would be a good thing for the overall project. I'm unlikely to play either personally as I much prefer the sandbox side of things but anything that can help people to learn the game early on rather than having them bounce off should be a welcome addition.

Ya know this is alpha =/ Seems silly to make a separate campaign/tutorial when you still don't know what all you are going to add and next patch your tutorial/campaign becomes outdated. Fast and simple should be the goal for alpha. Beta/Greenlight will be when it is time to prepare the game for newcomers.

Why not making a training-campaign? Each level covers a single topic, so after an update you just have to add or modify a single level.

ssilk, you wrote about 20-30 "sub"-levels. I guess that you already have a rough plan/idea what each level should contain. It is just that I cannot figure out how you come to this big number of topics.

Also a quote from the dwarf-fortress wiki:

Most new players will lose their first few forts sooner rather than later; when you lose a fortress, don't feel like you don't understand the game. Dwarf Fortress has a steep learning curve, and part of the process (and fun!) is discovering things for yourself.

Serving explanations of every tiny bit of game-mechanics might help in the short-run, but kills all the fun you could have by discovering by your own in the long-run.

drs9999 wrote:Why not making a training-campaign? Each level covers a single topic, so after an update you just have to add or modify a single level.

Exactly so I would start.

ssilk, you wrote about 20-30 "sub"-levels. I guess that you already have a rough plan/idea what each level should contain. It is just that I cannot figure out how you come to this big number of topics.

I think like follows:
- Levels with some pre built stuff. Like a training camp.
- They can look very differently, borders are the fantasy of the creator.
- There are "stations" for each "lesson" in the map.
- When you reach a station, you will be explained what you see and what you should do. Let's call it tasks.
- Every station should not need longer than 1 mins expanation, and 3 mins for the task and another min of reflexion (what have been learned etc.), so a lesson is not longer than 5 mins,
- the whole level should not take longer than 15.

That no absolute limits (but to set a target). If the idea is good, it can last much longer.

Also a quote from the dwarf-fortress wiki:

Most new players will lose their first few forts sooner rather than later; when you lose a fortress, don't feel like you don't understand the game. Dwarf Fortress has a steep learning curve, and part of the process (and fun!) is discovering things for yourself.

Serving explanations of every tiny bit of game-mechanics might help in the short-run, but kills all the fun you could have by discovering by your own in the long-run.

Well. I'm very concerned about that. What I want to show them are the basics and some small tricks. Like the underground belt trick, because that is something, which is really not so self explaining. Or how they can use the splitters to achive fractions. Because this is a never ending question. Things, which makes the game playable. I want to show them also, how to dig deeper. How to use the debug mode for example. But that's much, much alters.

Levels and their lessons:

- running, mining, fetching, putting, exploring (concept of tiles and chunks), distances (find something exactly 100 tiles in the north and bring it back) absolutly basic stuff. Boring, but I really know users, which need help with that.
- more key commands, the key-options. You can make it yourself.
- Chests and especially stacks (how they work, for example take two items, one is broken, they take two stacks), the different sizes of stacks for different items, moving items between stacks (take all etc), which entities include stacks (not only chests)
- The belt system 1: Straight belts. Placing, rotating, keeping mouse pressed and run. Turns, joining, crossing. My idea about that is, that he needs not to walk, he moves on the belts from station to station, and when he stands on the belt, the next lesson is explained. Like if you're talking with your friend on a escalator in a warehouse.
- The belt system 2: The belt lanes. How to swap a lane. 2 lanes to 1, changing the lane-side.
- The Belt System 3: Splitter. How it works for splitting, how for joining. 1 lane in to lanes. Making fractions.
- The Belt System 4: Underground belt and splitting lanes trick.

Note: The belts are the most complicated new thing in factorio. They look easy, but the questions about speeding them up etc. show me, that there should be a very slow learning curve.

- Basic Electricity1: First show a setup, which explains the parts of the production as overview. Like a tour through a very big power plant. After that creating a first mini power production. For the first we feed it with wood.
- Basic Electricity2: The lamps, because it is night of course. What the steam engine and power poles tell. The electric info screen. Different electric networks. What happens when we have a blackout and what to do against (all at night of course).
- Inserters1: how they work, what they do, burner inserter, basic inserter, then fast. The connection to entities with stacks. A bit of placement and takeup-area.
- Inserters2: then the long hand and his usages. The inserter stack size bonus. How inserters limit themselves not to completely fill the stacks of assembly etc. Inserters instead of belts? Smart inserter: only the filter function, the circuit is an extra lesson!
- Miners. Burner miner and joseki with a chest in front (not the coal joseki). Miners and their area. Setting up a big mining field. First impression of pollution...
- Furnaces: How to fill with fuel. What they produce. Built up a simple steel production.
- Crafting: How to craft yourself, the crafting in detail, autocrafts only the needed stuff, what mean the numbers, crafting queue, how to abort crafting, how to make it faster (preproducing intermediates after crafting).
- Assemblies: the next step of crafting. Need to produce every step in an assembly.
- Advanced assembling: Using two belt-lanes, combinations of belt, inserter, assemblies. Small productions streets, red and green potion. I wont explain the blue potion ever, because this is one of the first targets, a player achieves alone.
- Autoplacement: How autoplacement works for all types of items.
- Radar, map: how the map is revealed, whats a chunk.
- Advanced electric1: Solar panels, Accus, Night & day, how will it look in the electric network info. Balanace out production, so that you come over night.
- Advanced electric2: Built solar driven radar stations. Use accu as transformer to limit electric flow.
- Pollution: Why and what are the effects. Try low pollution production...
- Defense: All the different defense weapons (Turrets, mines...). How to efficiently use gun turrets. Important upgrades... usage of energy.
- Circuit network: Red and green wire, what it is, what happens if you put or remove something from a smart chest. Smart inserter logic. Some examples (produce exactly X of Y).
- Fluids: pipes, underground pipes, pumps, stores, and what the pipe-windows tell
- Oilindustry 1: Pumping oil and a first setup for refinery.
- Oilindustry 2: Sulfur acid, rubber.
- Oilindustry 3: Cracking, barrels, fuel.
- The Blue Potion: I think to testing scenario, where the player can autocraft his first blue potion (all resources are in reach, all needed stuff is in chests), because this is an important step. The recipes are eventually painted on the ground...
- Robots: Roboport, range of construction bots. Reloading. How do they repair.
- Ghost buildings: Plant mines as ghosts, and how they replace destroyed mines?
- Deconstruction: How to remove a whole forest. The bots need something, they can put the stuff into, when destroying
- Blueprints: ... I've made too less with it to have a good idea... and getting from when building. I mean the whole blueprint is in the beginning, and there are plenty of things we might be able to do.
- Car: How to use. What we can do with it. Some parcours/speed runs. Simple transporting.
- Logistics1: Personal logistic slots and logistic bots, requester chest.
- Logistics2: The logistic chests and how they work. Two setups will be shown: A production of red and green potion and feeding them in chests. And a simple storage: Put anything in by belt and get needed items out on belt.
- Logistics3: Balancing the right number of bots in a Logistic network: A big logistic network, queues too long. Speed up research, more cargo research. Splitting into several networks and feed the long distances by belts ...
- Railway1: Placing tracks, built first train.
- Railway2: Make stations, make schedules, built train stations
- Railway3: Signals, blocks. Multiple train stations (with the same name).
- Fighting1: The different hand-weapons. How they can be used. How useful they are. Upgrades. Ammunition.
- Fighting2: The capsules. How to use them. What they do.
- Fighting Tactics: Tower rush and that it is lame. Fighting with car. With capsules...
- Modules: Enhancing productivity, Beacons
- Digging deeper: the forum, the wiki, usage of the debug mode, console commands

Well. Till here everything is clear. This is knowledge, which comes from earth. After that, everything changes, this is knowledge, we can't know before the space mission started. I wanted to make clear, that here is a border, which must be watched carefully, because when some times mixed together, it can't be redone.

- The natives: All kinds of biomes (from fish to biter nest).
- Understanding the natives: Why do biters attack, where do they come from, what are the worms for. Their tactics. Not everything!
- The alien artefact: How to get them and what it is needed for
- Power armor: What it is and how to use, the different upgrades and their usages.

That's it. Let's count: 48... pffff.... well that's because I splitted some into 2, 3 or 4 levels.

That was exactly what I expected

Right now you do not teach the basics - you explain the whole game...

I just replayed the tutorial-campaign and just under the aspect of given information it is quite good.
I would add a level for advanced logistics especially trains & wiring, plus maybe the bots, but for me they are and were self-explaining. And that is all, that is everything you need to know to start playing...

(Maybe another level for blueprints, but I have not tried them, too, so no opinion about that as well)

drs9999 wrote:That was exactly what I expected

Right now you do not teach the basics - you explain the whole game...

Hum. Well looks like. This is only the plan, what things might to be learned. For me they are also test maps, on which I try out some special stuff. For others they are a wonderland of nice maps.

I just replayed the tutorial-campaign and just under the aspect of given information it is quite good.
I would add a level for advanced logistics especially trains & wiring, plus maybe the bots, but for me they are and were self-explaining. And that is all, that is everything you need to know to start playing...
(Maybe another level for blueprints, but I have not tried them, too, so no opinion about that as well)

Well. Two things. First, the game will change. New aspects will be introduced and it is in my opinion much easier to create a new map, then to include new stuff into existing, and integrate that also with a story. Second, you and me are surely not the typical factorio players. The questions will come (you saw eventually those questions in the last week) and you will see, that I'm right with this very detailed explanations in game about special details. Ok, even that won't help to get postings like "help, can't create blue potion", but it reduces them to only 10%.

ssilk wrote:For me they are also test maps, on which I try out some special stuff. For others they are a wonderland of nice maps.

Well, that sounds like a great offer to the community, but imo the in-game tutorial sections is the wrong place for that.


And do not get be wrong, of course the current tutorials need polishing and seperating different topics into different levels seems the right approach for that in the future, I was just reffering to the amount of information that is currently presented.

What is the typical factorio player anyway? At least I expect that he/she can setup a production-chain from ore to e.g. green science pack after a short period of play-time. Not a perfect, but working one.

And about your explanations, I am impressed every time I read new calculation/test thread and it is really intresting to read all the stuff I had never spent a single in-game thought about, but in the end the quintessence is the following:
Is it good to know these things? - ABSOLUTLY!
Are they needed to play the game? - Not really

drs9999 wrote:

ssilk wrote:For me they are also test maps, on which I try out some special stuff. For others they are a wonderland of nice maps.

Well, that sounds like a great offer to the community, but imo the in-game tutorial sections is the wrong place for that.

See subject. It's about training. I don't know what happens with that idea, but I know it's needed. Not because it is needed to play the game, but because the people which try it out think so.

And of course I won't make at first a level about they keys WASD etc. but I wanted to make this list somehow complete to avoid mixing of themes, because when many people work together like so there must be a minimum of plan.
See the long list above only as a kind of script. The only thing I await from that is, that some like that, know about the direction where this should lead to. Perhaps this ends with a completely new idea, who knows?

And about your explanations, I am impressed every time I read new calculation/test thread and it is really intresting to read all the stuff I had never spent a single in-game thought about, but in the end the quintessence is the following:
Is it good to know these things? - ABSOLUTLY!
Are they needed to play the game? - Not really

Hm. When I begun to play chess years ago I learned it from my grandpa. He explained me the rules. And we played some weeks. Then he gave me a book, said "read it, because I get bored from your bad playing". And I learned it and some weeks later he said "now the game with you is fun".

ssilk wrote:

drs0999 wrote:And about your explanations, I am impressed every time I read new calculation/test thread and it is really intresting to read all the stuff I had never spent a single in-game thought about, but in the end the quintessence is the following:
Is it good to know these things? - ABSOLUTLY!
Are they needed to play the game? - Not really

Hm. When I begun to play chess years ago I learned it from my grandpa. He explained me the rules. And we played some weeks. Then he gave me a book, said "read it, because I get bored from your bad playing". And I learned it and some weeks later he said "now the game with you is fun".

Does playing Factorio that way bore the computer?

Discovering new things is fun. If you put too many things in the tutorial, there aren't enough new things left to discover.

I think to multiplayer. Which might come anytime.

And again: it's not a tutorial, it's training. See subject!

But I think I understand, what you mean. This is nothing than a test, does it work, is it good?
We don't know and I can't prove it in any other way than doing one or two levels.

The last days where a bit bad for me. Got a virus. This week much work. I have no idea, when I can do that.

ssilk wrote:And again: it's not a tutorial, it's training. See subject!

But in the OP you also said:

ssilk wrote: - which is the best story, which fits into the technical needs of splitting the campaign and the tutorial

I assumed that it should replace the tutorial.

So what is the idea then? Replacing the tutorial, working as an (optional) campaign between tutorial and campaign/freeplay or something like a knowledge-base that will reveal all the existing nifty mechanics?

P.S. In any case I agree that it is at least worth a try

drs9999 wrote:I assumed that it should replace the tutorial.

Why? It's there, it's good. Perhaps, but who knows?

So what is the idea then? Replacing the tutorial, working as an (optional) campaign between tutorial and campaign/freeplay or something like a knowledge-base that will reveal all the existing nifty mechanics?
P.S. In any case I agree that it is at least worth a try

Training. It doesn't change, if you ask more often But you're right, I didn't explain it very well...

Perhaps the best name for it is Dojo and the single lessons are Kata.

My frustration with the tutorial campaign is that, by Level 3, you're still trying to figure out how crafting works, how to place machines correctly, etc., and you get spammed with a lot more info than you can absorb, all the while being attacked by bugs and dying. I would suggest saving the bug spamming for a time when the player is a little more accustomed to dealing with the machine interfaces, connections, priorities, etc. I realize that this is just the Alpha and that the game is impressive but, you are looking for feedback after all and that's what I'm providing. Do with it what you will.