Biters, Survival

[Factorium]

I feel like the Biters in this game are too same-y and uninteresting. The survival aspect is lacking. I love the building part but what is the point of having the biters part? Most people even disable it. I don't think it's because it is uninteresting as an idea, but because in it's current state it's a bit lacking, even with most mods. What I feel like is lacking, mostly, is the enemy diversity, spawn rates, etc. and the ways you can react to them.

What I would recommend for Factorio is to draw some inspiration from the old Warcraft 3 Maps like MineralZ and "Tag" maps. For example, if there were biters that fly and explode on impact, it would force players to put up some anti-air turrets. Burrowing units that can go through walls (like a burrow-move spell with some cooldown) would force players to make a few layers of walls and turret systems. High-range creatures that can attack the turrets through the walls (and are effective against buildings unlike the splitters) would force players to use some long-range turrets. Very tanky-high defense units that force you to focus them before they break your walls, very high-speed biters, water biters and turrets (although that has been brought up in mods I believe) and if we wanna go crazy parasites that leech onto players and slowly kill them if not cured, teleportating monsters like the ones in Minecraft, biters that spawn biters from biter corpses or reincarnate them, healing biters that have to be taken out so that you can stop the enemy invasion force (can be added with like a simple fast hp regeneration aura, doesn't have to have new effects or cast animations and such), biters that go invulnerable for a few seconds, biters that can channel a charge and break through walls, biters that set stuff on fire, etc. and the responding turret types - splash dmg, only-air, "poison" dps (which we kind of already have), etc. Choice in turrets instead of just spamming (mostly) laser turrets if you can afford it. No single solution type of turret. Element TD (warcraft 3 maps again) has some very interestingly designed turrets, although I understand most would not fit easily into a more realistic approach towards turrets.

Many of these biters and changes can be done by simply changing some stats like movement speed, attack speed, damage, range, health, since I know that creating fully animated new creatures is a lot of work. Most of these could just be upscaled and recolored versions of the current sprites, I don't think people would mind as long as it makes the biters as a whole more interesting.

Also, putting out enemy nests could be made into a fun adventure mini-mission if there were more enemy types and spawning grounds and if it mattered a bit more somehow. Maybe if it gave some sort of rewards that are worth risking going outside.



Now, I realize the game focuses a lot more on the factories aspect, but it's incredibly fun in multiplayer survival games to split up your roles - have one person be the Walls & Turrets Military guy, the other a Builder, the 3rd and Adventurer who puts out enemy nests, etc. It would create a really interesting multiplayer dynamic to have the biters be as interesting as the building part (well I doubt they could get to that level without a lot of work, but at least closer).

The reason I'm writing this is because recently a few friends and I replayed the old Warcraft 3 MineralZ map and it was so much fun to play in multiplayer, even though it was way inferior to Factorio in it's building, sound, art, almost all aspects. I sat and thought about it for a while and it wasn't the fact that in Factorio it takes 4h to build a good base and in MineralZ only 40m, I'd gladly spend even 8h in Factorio in one sitting, but the fact that the biter aspect in Factorio is just so lacking and uninteresting. I can't find any other words as to not be insulting towards it, but it's just way too plain. Enemies only scale in stats but not in stats that change gameplay like high-differences in MS, Health, etc. They just become more of themselves - https://wiki.factorio.com/Enemies#Biters and there are only 2 invading enemy types and they are not the most interesting in terms of type. One is just an average melee unit and the other an average ranged. The whole Biters aspect in Factorio feels like a chore that's not on par with the complexity of the building and so most people disable it. My friends and I have played a few times multiplayer but because of the fact that the biters aspect is lacking there is no multiplayer between us. There is not much reason to fully cooperate except to optimize our base, but most people really prefer building their own base since it's a very creative aspect. Similar to Minecraft, when people build something they mostly build it because it is their thing and they wanna build it the way they want it and don't want to have half of their base built by someone else. And similar to Minecraft, if there is no incentive to really, like really, work together and reason to build fast, why play these games multiplayer? In Minecraft the zombies stop mattering after the first 30m and in Factorio the only way to make the biters matter is if you boost their evolution and stats, but they still remain just as linear and samey throughout even 20h of playing.

Anyway, that was a bit of a rant, my end point is: try to make biters into a fun challenge, not a chore and it would boost the multiplayer aspect of this game immensely, which could convince many more multiplayer people to buy this game and the game could become interesting to people who aren't as creative as others and don't like building for building itself but building/teching for a reason (like in Frostpunk). I have a few friends of those that could probably be convinced to get this game. There is also the fact that multiplayer makes more people buy your game because people have a reason to convince others to get it. Anyway, I'm not sure regarding the sales aspect, obviously I'm just voicing an opinion and Factorio has a very strong base of supporters and 95% of people like it as it is and don't care for the biters, but hey, I'll throw out my opinion anyway.