Friday Facts #247 - Pricing and its exploits

[SIGILL]

After reading the weekly updates for quite some time but never participating on the forums, this post finally made me create a forums account.

From the point of a Factorio developer, I would say that it makes me proud and insecure at the same time

in particular made me want to express my respect for the Factorio development team, because you're not afraid of mentioning feeling insecure. That makes you people very human, and it's nice to see that some companies are not afraid of showing their humanity. I can understand those feelings very well, but I'd say you don't need to worry too much because Factorio is not successful just because of the 'idea'/concept of building an automated factory (to put it simply), it's also because of the execution of that idea is done right. I bet there are already tons of clones out there and there probably will be many more, but building a solid game is about more than just trying to implement a concept that was proven to be successful.

Anyway, like I said, I respect this development team very much, and together with CD Projekt Red you are one of the few companies in which I truly have faith. To me it feels like your top priority is creating a great gaming experience, even more so than making money (which I realize is of course the goal of every company). Your weekly posts covering the various topics in a pretty transparent way (technical, game development topics as well as thing such as this pricing exploit) add to that feeling, and I'd just like to say 'keep it up'!

Thank you for creating one of my favorite games in my 22 years of gaming!

[Pascali]

If there is some takeaway for us, than it is, that we shouldn't wait with finishing the game too much.

I love games, which are updated years - like Minecraft. Why ending, if you are still selling copies? I love to see a few updates every year -> for 50 years. Better then 50 updates a year for 3 years.

[Merlin_pfp]

i think factorio will always have the advantage when it comes to multiplayer

as you guys already seen arumbas massive multiplayer videos of the game still running with hundreds of players

i also wouldnt be surprised to see statisfactory come out with a much higher price then factorio i already calculate with 40-60 euros

[Pascali]

the games are totally different. God-Feeling vs. Ego-perspective.

[Lithane]

Anytime a game raises in price, especially one that doesn't go on sale, there are going to be people from websites like g2a that buy up gift copies or keys for the game, then resell them to people for a discounted from current, yet still higher than normal price. The only way to get rid of that is to not allow anyone to buy gift copies or keys that can be activated later, or at least restrict that ability before a price hike.

And the lower prices in Russia is something steam has been dealing with for a long time, since you can grab a vpn and activate a steam game that you bought for half off in Russia. It's harder to do if you set your billing address to somewhere outside Russia, but having multiple accounts, or not giving a billing address, is enough to get around their measures.

[Impatient]

IMO Satisfactory is tailored at a different audience.

Factorio is about efficient solutions and designs. The feel I get from the trailer, Satisfactory is about first person immersion, maybe (hopefully) combat, exploring and adventure. It changes the gameplay drstically, if I can ponder over a design in top down perspective for hours, or if I have to fit something working together, by moving around in FP view with limited oversight and maybe an enemy attack looming. I am also a FPS player and I very much like the prospect of that.
Satisfactory seems to be more in the path of minecraft, space engineers and those games. Satisfactory adds a 3rd dimension to factory building, which is a big plus. On the other hand, as it is a 3D-game and hardware resources are limited, factories will never be as big as in Factorio. Also, IF it is moddable, it is far more complicated to make new assets in 3D, thus the mod variety will never be as large as in factorio. And IMO moddability counts in this genre. I clocked around 1k hours in Factorio and going for the same goal, with the same mechanics gets outright boring after a while. Even if the path is long and the challenge to make the designs more efficient is always there. Last of my thoughts is on action. In Factorio the challenge by the enemy is horribly neglected. In Factorio I plop turrets and walls - or in a more efficient playstyle, I kill every hive in pollution reach - and I don't have to think about the enemy anymore. Maybe Satisfactory does it differently. Hopefully. The ability to use FPS gameplay to create a challenge is a big advantage on Satisfactory's side.

I will monitor Satisfactory closely.

What you can take from it?
1. Before you finish the game hire an RTS expert and ramp up the enemy challenge and the combat gameplay.
2. Finish Factorio and maybe get workign on Factorio 3D


The game of my dreams would have these chracteristics:

1. 3D, real time building and FPS combat
2. In every new game the surroundings, the tech tree (which is not visible in full from the start), the resources, the recepies and the enemies are randomly different. Let's call it the nature is different. So I never know what I will have to build, what I have to fight and what is an efficient way to do so.
3. I have to find out while under constant attack.
4. Still I want a construction planer and blueprints.

Prevailing in this setting would give me a true feeling of accomplishment.

Edit:

A little story:
We were playing multiplayer and advanced to somewhere beyond laser turrets. But the factory was sabotaged by griefers. Power was down and the enemy overran the factory. All players except two left. We grabbed some bullet turrets, ammo and as many of the most expensive items that were safely salvagable. We ran through enemy territory, out of pollution range until we found a suitable spot, cleared it and we built another factory and prevailed. That was the most amazing action and accomplishment I ever had in Factorio. A true adventure with blood and sweat in our eyes (not literally). Building the rocket in this or any other playthrough after that was dwarfed by it.



Edit 2:

I went to youtube and found the Satisfactory Q&A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1E6EWrAsII

What I take from it is that Coffee Stain is going for an AAA-title with polished graphics. And that's it. No mods, no base defense (they are makign fun of the idea of turrets) and - I do not beleive it - no procedurally generated maps or resource locations. So I play every game on the same map, with no challenge or diversity at all. Though 3D, FP view and exploring in vehicles is still fun, fuck that. It is like real FPS versus gameplay in comparison to COD Single player campaign with a controller. Oh boy, a cash grab against dull couch potatoes who probably wouldn't even understand how to play Factorio.


What you can take from it?
How to make a cash grab. How to aim at couch potatoes.
Have a look at their campaign or tutorial. Most likely it will make a hughe effort to teach idiots how to play their game.

That is how the world spins. It angers me every time. Wube and Factorio are shining lights in the darkness.

'nuf said.

[ratchetfreak]

What you can take from it?
1. Before you finish the game hire an RTS expert and ramp up the enemy challenge and the combat gameplay.
2. Finish Factorio and maybe get workign on Factorio 3D

bot AI in RTS often just boils down to cheating the build order, spy on the oponent's build order and tech to counter and attacking specific points at certain times

[Impatient]

bot AI in RTS often just boils down to cheating the build order, spy on the oponent's build order and tech to counter and attacking specific points at certain times

The combat against the natives in Factorio is assymetric. So it is no problem at all to give them challenging stats, tactics and events.

[eradicator]

1. Before you finish the game hire an RTS expert and ramp up the enemy challenge and the combat gameplay.

Mostly RTS games have more than 2 types of enemy/friendly units. Rock-paper-scissors type balancing is also frequenty used these days (i.e. litterally three archetypes). Factorio doesn't have either. It's not about combat. Not that i don't agree that the combat would benefit from feeling less like an afterthought.

The game of my dreams would have these chracteristics:
1. 3D, real time building and FPS combat
2. In every new game the surroundings, the tech tree (which is not visible in full from the start), the resources, the recepies and the enemies are randomly different. Let's call it the nature is different. So I never know what I will have to build, what I have to fight and what is an efficient way to do so.
3. I have to find out while under constant attack.
4. Still I want a construction planer and blueprints.
Prevailing in this setting would give me a true feeling of accomplishment.

You obviously have very different dreams than i, and probably many other people have. I think on a very rought scale, you can say there's two type of games, "thought" games and "reaction-time" games, which fundamentally contratict each other so you can't have both at the same time. I like factorio becaues it is a thought type game. I like being able to plan ahead, and so a hidden/random tech tree that i can't learn makes the game frustrating. I also enjoy sitting down, relaxing, and building some factory. If i was under constant adrenaline inducing attack i'd go find another game. And i get my sense of accomplishment from building a well working factory, not for building a spaghetty mess in a war-of-attrition.

The combat against the natives in Factorio is assymetric. So it is no problem at all to give them challenging stats, tactics and events.

Have you tried rampant mod? I had it on an MP game once and it was so good at its guerilla tactics that we had to disable it because we didn't want to spend most of the time on defense.

[Jap2.0]

bot AI in RTS often just boils down to cheating the build order, spy on the oponent's build order and tech to counter and attacking specific points at certain times

The combat against the natives in Factorio is assymetric. So it is no problem at all to give them challenging stats, tactics and events.

That's a good point. Also, the Age of Empires 2 AI was fairly good without any cheating - in 1998! - so it's by no means impossible to make a good RTS AI without cheating. Also, combat isn't really a major part of Factorio - if you want combat, use the Rampant mod or play some RTS or first person shooter.

[Impatient]

The game of my dreams would have these chracteristics:
1. 3D, real time building and FPS combat
2. In every new game the surroundings, the tech tree (which is not visible in full from the start), the resources, the recepies and the enemies are randomly different. Let's call it the nature is different. So I never know what I will have to build, what I have to fight and what is an efficient way to do so.
3. I have to find out while under constant attack.
4. Still I want a construction planer and blueprints.
Prevailing in this setting would give me a true feeling of accomplishment.

You obviously have very different dreams than i, and probably many other people have.

Probably.

I think on a very rought scale, you can say there's two type of games, "thought" games and "reaction-time" games, which fundamentally contratict each other so you can't have both at the same time. I like factorio becaues it is a thought type game.

On this I do not agree with you. Probably a niche, but these two game elements can be combined for a challenging game. Most of the times they are sepparated though, because thinkers don't want to be shot at, while thinking and fighters don't want to have to think too much while fighting.
As an example of a game in that niche I point to KAG - King Arthur's Gold. Although it is a different type of game (platformer) and simpler than Factorio, it features these two game elements combined and was able give birth to such a fun and challenging game experience that it gathered a small circle of highly skilled hradcore gamers around it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqi8bHi3a2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh52OahYxIw

Have you tried rampant mod?

I love it. I also recommend dangOreus for a nice and challenging difference to whoever is looking for one. An abbundance of ore (in the wrong ratios though) but you can not build on it. You slowly have to mine free the space to build the factory. The predominant bus-layout can not be applied and blueprints are useless because the space is so dammed limited. Additionally the miners are always outside the perimeter defense meaning they are prone to attacks. Very cool.

I love it when the stakes are high and a good idea or a failed attempt at something matter a lot.

Also, combat isn't really a major part of Factorio - if you want combat, use the Rampant mod or play some RTS or first person shooter.

But I would like to fight over the factory I sunk hours into. I want to be forced to built redundant parts of the factory becaus part of it could be destroyed in the next unexpected attack. I want my ass being handed to me because I neglected a threat. Imagine sneaking into the enemy hive in stealth gear, with the one nuke you barely managed to make, dodging the sort of enemy units which still are able to detect you, to plant that nuke, because the next attack, 10 minutes out will obliterate the base. that is the shit i crave for.
The only true combat challenge in Factorio currently are PVP games, but which are very rare.


Edit:
The mod I meant is dangOreus, not OreGalore.

[Jap2.0]

The only true combat challenge in Factorio currently are PVP games, but which are very rare.

Yeah, it'd be nice if there were more frequent PvP games - we have tens of thousands of active players, and a public server platform, yet it's quite rare for me to find a PvP game. I certainly don't want it to be all that I do in Factorio, but I think it would be fun to do occasionally.

[eradicator]

@Impatient:

Congratulations, you walked right into the "trap" i layed, trying to keep the post short. I said - carefully worded- :

you can't have both at the same time

.
And i mean time, not game. A single game can have both, but they can't happen at the same time. because the very definition of "action" is something fast, and if it's fast you don't have time to think. The YT videos you linked aren't really helpful to someone who doesn't know that game (i.e. me), i only get a vague idea of what you're hinting at. And ofc there's a lot of shades to that scale. So, selfquoting again: "on a very rought scale". And to further the thought, it's more of a gamer preference thing than a "you can't make games like that" thing. Like you said too:

a small circle of highly skilled hradcore gamers

(the "hradcore" typo totally invokes strong russian accent in my mind).

OreGalore..huh, i always thought it was more about sorting ores, which now is trivial thanks to filter-splitters. Good to know there's more to it, hope people have fun with it =).

The only true combat challenge in Factorio currently are PVP games, but which are very rare.

I'll pretend that's totally confirming my actioneers vs thinkerers categorization and has nothing to do with pvp balance or game mechanics :P.

Concerning (multi-quote):

[...]I love it when the stakes are high and a good idea or a failed attempt at something matter a lot.
[...] Imagine sneaking into the enemy hive in stealth gear, with the one nuke you barely managed to make

The difficulty i see with that is, that factorio is fundamentally about large scale production. If you managed to make a nuke, you probably have a production line that'll make 10 more while you're fighting. To get that sort of experience factorio just has the wrong scale imho.

I played some Oxygen Not Included last week. Think i restarted on the same map 10-ish times, each time ending in desaster, never getting to the point i want (a semi-stable self-sufficient base). And now i've mostly given up. Realizing the game is rigged towards failure and some of the game mechanics (pipes, aarrg!) are also broken. If you want a challenge, try Rimworld though. The graphics probably shoo many people away (or don't they?), but the whole thing is engineered from the core to be a "last straw" kind of gameplay, and that it does really well. And it manages to deliver either base-building or frustratingly suicidal difficulty, depending on what you chose. (Be prepared to have your favourite one-eyed peg-legged sniper abducted in a raid :p)

[Koub]

because the very definition of "action" is something fast

Except in Derrick

[BlueTemplar]

I think on a very rought scale, you can say there's two type of games, "thought" games and "reaction-time" games, which fundamentally contratict each other so you can't have both at the same time. I like factorio becaues it is a thought type game. I like being able to plan ahead, and so a hidden/random tech tree that i can't learn makes the game frustrating. I also enjoy sitting down, relaxing, and building some factory. If i was under constant adrenaline inducing attack i'd go find another game. And i get my sense of accomplishment from building a well working factory, not for building a spaghetty mess in a war-of-attrition.

You haven't played many different strategy games if you don't think that you can have both ! (And yes, at the same time.)
It's all been done already :
- Giving orders while the game is paused (can pretty much do that in Factorio by setting the game to very low speeds, try Vlad's Auto Time).
- Having a partially randomized, partially visible tech tree so that both : you can plan ahead, but each game is also different.

bot AI in RTS often just boils down to cheating the build order, spy on the oponent's build order and tech to counter and attacking specific points at certain times

The combat against the natives in Factorio is assymetric. So it is no problem at all to give them challenging stats, tactics and events.

That's a good point. Also, the Age of Empires 2 AI was fairly good without any cheating - in 1998! - so it's by no means impossible to make a good RTS AI without cheating. Also, combat isn't really a major part of Factorio - if you want combat, use the Rampant mod or play some RTS or first person shooter.

Of course it's not a problem, these days, RTS (much more complex than Factorio) AI is so good that it has to be dumbed down for the majority of players !

While in Factorio right now, to lose the game on the default settings you have to do nothing for about 53 hours (!) before biters overrun you !

The difficulty i see with that is, that factorio is fundamentally about large scale production.

There are other games about large scale production, and these stories of last-minute turning the game around still happen. (Albeit, like in Factorio, infrequently.)

[eradicator]

You haven't played many different strategy games if you don't think that you can have both !

Can people please stop making assumptions about what i have and have not done based on how they out-of-context-misinterpret what i write? It's quite frustrating.
So. Stop accusing me of bullshit. (This is also higly off topic so i will ignore any futher accusations.)
_____
Concerning your "counter-arguments":
"Giving orders while paused" → If you pause the game to think, the action is also paused. Q.E.D.
"Partially randomied tech tree" → You're talking about planning a couple of moves, i talk about planning ahead for the next map. You also ignore that that was merely a personal preference i described because someone talked about "the game of their dreams".

Edit: Added relevant quote of @BlueTemplar because certain other people seem to lack the ability to distinguish between accusations and arguments.
Edit2: Seperated accusations and arguments for hopefully sufficient clarity.

[Impatient]

bla bla bla

Can people please stop making assumptions about what i have and have not done based on how they out-of-context-misinterpret what i write? It's quite frustrating.

"Giving orders while paused" → If you pause the game to think, the action is also paused. Q.E.D.
"Partially randomied tech tree" → You're talking about planning a couple of moves, i talk about planning ahead for the next map. You also ignore that that was merely a personal preference i described because someone talked about "the game of their dreams".

So. Stop accusing me of bullshit. (This is also higly off topic so i will ignore any futher accusations.)

You stop being so rude. You act like everything that does not agree with your views is an insult or a stupid lie that has to be uncovered. What is the name of that bubble where your views are always the right ones per default?

[5thHorseman]

You stop being so rude. You act like everything that does not agree with your views is an insult or a stupid lie that has to be uncovered. What is the name of that bubble where your views are always the right ones per default?

The Internet?

[Koub]

[Koub] Please people, stop calling each other names, and chill.

[moredrowsy]

An honest commentary:

I initially discover factorio via a twitch streamer and I got instantly hooked on the game play when I bought the game. But to be honest? I stopped playing after a month.

Several factors:
1. Once everything is built, like many other simulation games, there isn't much to do. Sure, there are alien attacks and etc, but it's just mindless enemies, which is quite boring after awhile.
2. Reaching the end game made me realize how ugly the game's graphics are. I value game play more than graphics but at the end of the day (or should I say at the end of the game), who doesn't want a game with pretty graphics just to explore the kingdom they've built?
3. With that said, even with factorio's low graphics (in contrast to 3d), factorio can surprisingly be quite taxing on my system.

Several things I think the game can improve on:
1. Add objectives to the game: quests, enemy being more smart, some end game goal (besides the space launch stuff). I dunno, you're the developer. It's your job to make the game more worth while for the gamers when the core factorio buildings and structures are done. By that, I do not mean to make the game more "harder" to get resources or construct buildings. That's just more grind and it's no fun.
2. The game can improve on some graphics. It looks really dated and very very gloomy. I personally prefer a more vibrant game.
3. Game resources could be more optimized. I had a system with a bunch of steam engines (around 80 of them?) and whenever my system goes over that area, it just slows to a crawl.

Final comment: I've been wanting to come back to play factorio but every time I look at the release log, I think "oh, I'll come back until there's a major change for more game play" but unfortunately, every release change is just some minor bug fixes and etc. I think the last time I came back momentarily was when the game added terrain levels. That was fun for awhile.