We need a better end goal

[TheTom]

Sorry, the satellite launch does not cut it. I know that the orbial gameplay was cut (moved to a DLC possibly). And I am not asking for that.

What about building a spaceship home? One that consists of a LOT of modules (300-400, of 4-6 different types) that are EXPENSIVE and require a launch EACH. Research for each that is EXPENSIVE. Basically: Put a MASSIVE ressource black hole into the end game.

Right now the end goal is "launch a satellite" and by the time you can do it, it is totally trivial to do. Your factory basically can handle it without any thinking. And that should not be it. Make it something that requires eihther an ungodly amount of time, or a really large factory (which most people already will have).

[afk2minute]

Sorry, the satellite launch does not cut it. I know that the orbial gameplay was cut (moved to a DLC possibly). And I am not asking for that.

What about building a spaceship home? One that consists of a LOT of modules (300-400, of 4-6 different types) that are EXPENSIVE and require a launch EACH. Research for each that is EXPENSIVE. Basically: Put a MASSIVE ressource black hole into the end game.

Right now the end goal is "launch a satellite" and by the time you can do it, it is totally trivial to do. Your factory basically can handle it without any thinking. And that should not be it. Make it something that requires eihther an ungodly amount of time, or a really large factory (which most people already will have).

Try to do it within 4 hours.

[hitzu]

What about building a spaceship home? One that consists of a LOT of modules (300-400, of 4-6 different types) that are EXPENSIVE and require a launch EACH. Research for each that is EXPENSIVE. Basically: Put a MASSIVE ressource black hole into the end game.

Making something just "expencive" doesn't work as a barrier. I just can leave my game run the whole night waiting for my stocks are full of required ingridients. This is dull and requires no efforts. One can make something that constantly drains your resources so you should make a decent factory to support the demand, but it is limited by low level computer setups because those players also want to "win the game". So this consumption rate wouldn't be too high anyway.

[MeduSalem]

Try to do it within 4 hours.

The "find some goals for yourself"-attitude doesn't work for everyone and the devs basically aknowledged that and the lack of a proper endgame already.


That said the devs will probably not have the time to implement something beyond the Satelite Launch before hitting 1.0, after which they are going to take a vacation. After that they might come back and work on something like a DLC or Addon that might fix the issue.

[brunzenstein]

Sorry, the satellite launch does not cut it. I know that the orbial gameplay was cut (moved to a DLC possibly). And I am not asking for that.

What about building a spaceship home? One that consists of a LOT of modules (300-400, of 4-6 different types) that are EXPENSIVE and require a launch EACH. Research for each that is EXPENSIVE. Basically: Put a MASSIVE ressource black hole into the end game.

Right now the end goal is "launch a satellite" and by the time you can do it, it is totally trivial to do. Your factory basically can handle it without any thinking. And that should not be it. Make it something that requires eihther an ungodly amount of time, or a really large factory (which most people already will have).

Try to do it within 4 hours.

The end game isn't important at all. There is so much room for refining a system that one can use six lives and has still room for improvement

[MeduSalem]

There is so much room for refining a system that one can use six lives and has still room for improvement

About that... there is no real incentive to do it more than maybe 2 or 3 times over. Yeah, you are going to improve some things the next time, but eventually it boils down being exactly the same. But that's a totally different problem altogether... that different map settings/seeds don't really change anything... if you've set resources to a minimum and enemy density to a maximum and you managed to launch a satelite you are basically done with the game because that is as much as variety and challenge as you get.

Starting locations and biome's don't make any difference, the enemy is quite dull (only 2 types of bugs) which never mutate with unpredictible outcomes... and the research/recipe trees never change, so basically the same routine and setups for every playthrough. Which means the replayability is finite... which is a bad thing in a sandbox type of a game.

That said I am not bashing Factorio, it's a great game and provides fun for a long period of time, much longer than the average game out there, but the above things are valid concerns that have been raised by several people in the past.

[brunzenstein]

There is so much room for refining a system that one can use six lives and has still room for improvement

About that... there is no real incentive to do it more than maybe 2 or 3 times over. Yeah, you are going to improve some things the next time, but eventually it boils down being exactly the same. But that's a totally different problem altogether... that different map settings/seeds don't really change anything... if you've set resources to a minimum and enemy density to a maximum and you managed to launch a satelite you are basically done with the game because that is as much as variety and challenge as you get.

Starting locations and biome's don't make any difference, the enemy is quite dull (only 2 types of bugs) which never mutate... and the research/recipe trees never change. Which means the replayability is finite... which is a bad thing in a sandbox type of a game.

Try improving your efficiency with combinators and your lost until the next century

[MeduSalem]

Try improving your efficiency with combinators and your lost until the next century

I did that... to a certain extend. And I will be continuing to do that... as I'm not having that much of a problem to find some goals myself.

But I get why other people might have a problem with the "do everything again from scratch, but this time more efficiently" thing.

It's like building a house, then tearing it down just to build it once more, but this time a little bit faster and with less resources wasted and the only one patting on your shoulder is yourself. But eventually it's the same house with only minor differences, on the same plot of land, the same resources you integrated, the same people you had to deal with in the process. There is not really any random-factor to it anymore. You know what's to come and exactly how to deal with it. That makes it a routine... and routines are absolutely boring and a killing aspect for games.

[brunzenstein]

Let's see your combinators setups. I'm eager to learn from a master. I'm still struggling as I'm only a average math guy.

[afk2minute]

Try improving your efficiency with combinators and your lost until the next century

I did that... to a certain extend. And I will be continuing to do that... as I'm not having that much of a problem to find some goals myself.

But I get why other people might have a problem with the "do everything again from scratch, but this time more efficiently" thing.

It's like building a house, then tearing it down just to build it once more, but this time a little bit faster and with less resources wasted and the only one padding on your shoulder is yourself. But eventually it's the same house with only minor differences, on the same plot of land, the same resources you integrated, the same people you had to deal with in the process. There is not really any random-factor to it anymore. You know what's to come and exactly how to deal with it. That makes it a routine... and routines are absolutely boring and a killing aspect for games.

Well thats a sandbox game.
Thats how its supposed to be played, isnt it?
Creating goals for yourself and doing them. Make factory without belts, make factory using ONLY trains (no belt\robots at all), think of more yourself.
Try some mods if you explored everything in vanila game.
Want complex recipes bobs mods, want strong bugs - misanthrope, etc. Think of vanila game like tutorial before going into some bobs mods madness.

The only thing for developers in this case is to provide some really interesting scenarios with some interesting problems to solve (which you dont usually go into in a normal gree game).

P.S. combinators are for fun, complex designs are mostly useless.
Without some options like possibility of demand request from your machiness it will stay so.

[MeduSalem]

Let's see your combinators setups. I'm eager to learn from a master. I'm still struggling as I'm only a average math guy.

Well if you are looking for a Circuit Network master... then go for XKnight's builds... he's like the Circuit Network god on the forum in my opinion. My solutions pale in comparison... but then again I'm only using Circuit Networks where it's actually practicable to do it. Like some Oil Industry stuff for controlling cracking/usage priority and controlling the power efficiency of my factory by shutting the parts down that aren't in use, stuff like that... nothing that would require an elaborate setup or a lot of knowledge in math.

Well thats a sandbox game.
Thats how its supposed to be played, isnt it?
Creating goals for yourself and doing them. Make factory without belts, make factory using ONLY trains (no belt\robots at all), think of more yourself.
Try some mods if you explored everything in vanila game.
Want complex recipes bobs mods, want strong bugs - misanthrope, etc. Think of vanila game like tutorial before going into some bobs mods madness.

The only thing for developers in this case is to provide some really interesting scenarios with some interesting problems to solve (which you dont usually go into in a normal gree game).

Might be true to a certain extend, but then again I'm coming from the Golden Age of PC Gaming... where Sandbox didn't inherently mean "come up with some goals yourself" ... but also having different goals for each playthrough, additional random side-quests or events that may or may not happen, on top of the initial map settings/starting locations/etc having a lot more impact because they often changed the gameplay/outcome on a very basic level.

It's only nowadays that people seem to have accustomed to games only providing the bare minimum on that part and that sandbox quite often means "Bring some Creativity with you or otherwise it might get boring after a while."

... also the Mods part is another different story. A Mod shouldn't be the default solution for fixing a problem a Vanilla game is sufffering.

[afk2minute]

but also having different goals for each playthrough, additional random side-quests or events that may or may not happen, on top of the initial map settings/starting locations/etc having a lot more impact because they often changed the gameplay/outcome on a very basic level.

can you name a few of these games please?
Dwarf Fortress comes to mind but what else? But dwarf fortress (according to my friend, i dont play it myself) can become boring too at some point, where you just know what all dangers are.

Vanilla game can provide you with TENTH (or even hundrends) HOURS of gameplay already (especially if you dont watch\read something and try to figure everything for yourself). Its a very good result for a non-competetive game.
Mods are a solution, in my opinion.
Everyone likes different things in game, some love biters assault, osme like extreme complexity, some like simplicity, some like making mad circuit complexes, some like making trains.
Vanila game should be a "golden mean" so everybody will like it and then enhance it with mods (think of mods as enhanced version of settings) to their liking.

You cant play forever the same game. If its not multiplayer competetive.

The problem with your thinking is that you think of everything like an experienced player, for you nothing is complicated. For a new player - everything is something new\challenging. setting train signals? Dealing with oil?

[MeduSalem]

can you name a few of these games please?
Dwarf Fortress comes to mind but what else? But dwarf fortress (according to my friend, i dont play it myself) can become boring too at some point, where you just know what all dangers are.

If you like Logistics games then older things like Industry Giant 1/2, Transport Giant (if they still work on nowadays computers, but if I remember right they don't because of DirectX issues with newer graphics cards)... or Transport Tycoon and it's inofficial "remake" OpenTTD. Or even one of the Railroad Tycoon titles.
Maybe even games like Stronghold/Stronghold Crusader that incorporated medieval warfare ontop of an economy... I'm mostly influenced by stuff like that when it comes down to strategy/simulation games.

Most of them have different goals for each map, or different resources and production lines going... most of them also had landscape interfering a lot, providing additional space restriction challenges.

Newer stuff like Big Pharma has also some cool elements of randomness... where each playthrough features entirely different production chains. Basically shows that it can work if done right. Have been playing that a lot recently as well.

That said I'm also playing a lot of 4x games in various setttings like Fantasy/Space, whatever... and they also live a lot from initial settings having a lot of influence, or random stuff happening during a playthrough that might force you to re-think your strategy.

Vanilla game can provide you with TENTH (or even hundrends) HOURS of gameplay already (especially if you dont watch\read something and try to figure everything for yourself). Its a very good result for a non-competetive game.

I never said that Factorio doesn't provide any gameplay or isn't fun otherwise I wouldn't have at least 2000 hours of playtime on my records without using a single mod to date (except Blueprint string, which doesn't really count).

The problem with your thinking is that you think of everything like an experienced player, for you nothing is complicated. For a new player - everything is something new\challenging. setting train signals? Dealing with oil?

I'm also thinking from the perspective of a new player. The above mentioned additions of a proper endgame or more random factors wouldn't hinder them playing the game because such things can normally be shut off, toned-down depending on difficulty settings etc.

Also new players won't stay new players forever after which they realize that the fun they have is eventually finite and then a lot of them will clearly see why not having a proper endgame or more varied playthroughs with different outcomes is... actually a problem for the longlivety of a game. If it wasn't true, then nobody would complain, but actually there are a certain amount of players complaining, which eventually led to the Devs acknowledging that the game could do better on that part. But since their development resources are limited and they want to provide something that matches the overall good quality of the game it just didn't happen yet (and probably won't until a DLC/Addon).

May be that some players move on to mods, why not, others are wary of using mods because they break quite often, especially if the base game is still in development and effectively being updated.

[afk2minute]

can you name a few of these games please?
Dwarf Fortress comes to mind but what else? But dwarf fortress (according to my friend, i dont play it myself) can become boring too at some point, where you just know what all dangers are.

If you like Logistics games then older things like Industry Giant 1/2, Transport Giant (if they still work on nowadays computers, but if I remember right they don't because of DirectX issues with newer graphics cards)... or Transport Tycoon and it's inofficial "remake" OpenTTD. Or even one of the Railroad Tycoon titles.
Maybe even games like Stronghold/Stronghold Crusader that incorporated medieval warfare ontop of an economy... I'm mostly influenced by stuff like that when it comes down to strategy/simulation games.

Most of them have different goals for each map, or different resources and production lines going... most of them also had landscape interfering a lot, providing additional space restriction challenges.

Newer stuff like Big Pharma has also some cool elements of randomness... where each playthrough features entirely different production chains. Basically shows that it can work if done right. Have been playing that a lot recently as well.

That said I'm also playing a lot of 4x games in various setttings like Fantasy/Space, whatever... and they also live a lot from initial settings having a lot of influence, or random stuff happening during a playthrough that might force you to re-think your strategy.

Vanilla game can provide you with TENTH (or even hundrends) HOURS of gameplay already (especially if you dont watch\read something and try to figure everything for yourself). Its a very good result for a non-competetive game.

I never said that Factorio doesn't provide any gameplay or isn't fun otherwise I wouldn't have at least 2000 hours of playtime on my records without using a single mod to date (except Blueprint string, which doesn't really count).

The problem with your thinking is that you think of everything like an experienced player, for you nothing is complicated. For a new player - everything is something new\challenging. setting train signals? Dealing with oil?

I'm also thinking from the perspective of a new player. The above mentioned additions of a proper endgame or more random factors wouldn't hinder them playing the game because such things can normally be shut off, toned-down depending on difficulty settings etc.

Also new players won't stay new players forever after which they realize that the fun they have is eventually finite and then a lot of them will clearly see why not having a proper endgame or more varied playthroughs with different outcomes is... actually a problem for the longlivety of a game. If it wasn't true, then nobody would complain, but actually there are a certain amount of players complaining, which eventually led to the Devs acknowledging that the game could do better on that part. But since their development resources are limited and they want to provide something that matches the overall good quality of the game it just didn't happen yet (and probably won't until a DLC/Addon).

May be that some players move on to mods, why not, others are wary of using mods because they break quite often, especially if the base game is still in development and effectively being updated.

Its nothing to worry if it can provide that much hours and then becomes boring.
Its how computer games are. Sooner or later you will find everything about anything you are interested in and move to another game (except some fanatics).
That is sad fact about any computer game, no matter how great it was. It gets memorized, but noone plays it.
It always be like "wow in MY time games were great" proceed to play some new stuff, because thats how it works. How many hours of the games you listed you played last year for example?
Half-life was a great shooter. How many players are playing it now?
Heroes of MM 3 was a great non-competetive strategy game, its well remembered but forgotten.
Elite? All the greatest games ever existed are well remembered but are on shelves.
You cant make games last forever, thats not going to work. You can make it live longer, yes, but the long live comes not from variety. All the variety lasts some time, year, two, then its all the same. Cant make infinite variety. The only thing that can make a game really long living - is its ability to drive players into self-challenges. Thats it.
You need something really NEW (hint - mods are good for that and help the longetivity alot).
For example The Elder Scroll series without mods would be nothing, its there only because mods. Mods gave the game to stay long enough, nothing else. So i dont understand that you dont like mods solution there is a good example of what it cant do.
The only games that live LONG time without any mods (but they are constantly updated usually) are multiplayer competetive games.

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=24090 Collection of End-Game-Ideas / Enhancing Endgame

...

And I recommend to read a part of that before continuing discussion!

[MeduSalem]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=24090 Collection of End-Game-Ideas / Enhancing Endgame

Thanks ssilk, for posting that... Because it seems like I somehow couldn't deliver the point that the problem exists, is acknowledged by the Devs and will be worked upon when they finally have the time and resources to do so, even if I mentioned it in my previous posts.

[ssilk]

Well, you made the same mistake as many: Going too much into detail, searching for excuses to your opinion, participate on off-topic.
Just trust your feelings a bit more.

[Mendel]

Did you try the achievement/challenge thing yet where you have to beat the game while crafting no more than 111 things manually? Already making one factory, 10 red bottles and a laborary counts as something close to 100 things cause all the incredients count too! Oh, and it was also had to think hard about how to make an oil refinery without going over the limit

I was working with a single mining drill all the way until I was able to make a blue factory

I found that a nice challenge and would enjoy having more similar special challenges.



But yeah, I would really enjoy having more end game content that I dont have to invent myself

[aubergine18]

Problem with launching the satellite is that, other than winning the game, you don't get any benefit from it. I guess in later years, as DLC becomes available, satellite will discover nearby moons/planets (some with their own aliens etc), or asteroids with rare ores, etc. Eventually we'd have to mine other planets/asteroids to start building a space station or a long range spaceship to get home.

[brunzenstein]

the beauty of the game lays in continuous refining, polishing and learning how to become better by repeating / managing tasks more elegant.
Factorio is absolutely not a place to "win", in contrary in its DNA its pure:
"‘The journey is the destination’"