[0.17.1] intro too hard

[Reesetifer]

I am somewhat of a veteran player but I figured I'd give the tutorial a test. I'm finding I am getting completely overrun on the step before I get to the green science packs. so many bitters are being spawned in that I'm spending all my time getting ammo. I attached the save if want want to challenge yourself on surviving, I fail shortly after.
It might be worth mentioning that I skipped the automation step (accidentally), by manually inserting components for green circuits.

You could give the damaged upgrade, instead of speed, to decreases the amount of ammo I need to go through.

[gazdac]

Got pretty surprised at the end as well. Had 3 factories pumping out ammo (2 inserters each) and still got overrun. Something like 12 turrets with the speed upgrade, still I lost from running out of ammo as well. I did finish the research while they chewed up the empty turrets, and managed to "win".

Definitely did not feel fair or working correctly. Look at all those corpses.

campaign_kinda_won.jpg (1.21 MiB) Viewed 9442 times

[malventano]

Yeah, this did seem overwhelming. Even if I had inserters loading guns it would have been pretty hard for the iron production to keep up. Seems a bit steep for what would be a brand new player.

Also, it should be [0.17.1] and not [0.17.10] in the topic. I know the devs are quick, but they are not *that* quick

[credomane]

I'm having an incredibly hard time with the tutorial. No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable. If you don't complete the tutorial within roughly an hour or so after moving to the 2nd location you can pretty much kiss your chances good-bye.

It seemed like to me after getting the cutscene for biters also spawning to the East of the player the frequency of attacks quickly became overwhelming.

[CDarklock]

I'm having an incredibly hard time with the tutorial. No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable. If you don't complete the tutorial within roughly an hour or so after moving to the 2nd location you can pretty much kiss your chances good-bye.

I got paranoid in the second location when I saw the ammo automation requirement. 25 magazines per minute? That's... a lot. I should probably plan to have enough turrets to USE that kind of ammo. Also probably a good idea to research walls and automate those.

For most of the research on green science, I was fine. Around the 75% mark I doubled ammo production, and when I hit the last few bits of research one side of my base still ran out of ammo.

A large part of this is that the two sides are REALLY far apart. So not only do you need twice as much defence, you also have this long delay where you're running across the base to fill these turrets, and then you have to run all the way back across to fill those turrets, and each time you have to manually run up to all the turrets and probably pull out repair packs to fix the wall. I researched bullet speed, as well. I think I should have researched level 2 of that.

In the end, nine turrets on each side and a double-thick wall was enough, but I still had ammo problems right at the end. Overall time was just over four hours.

I did use some "game logic" to cheat the system a bit. When I had to automate everything, I deliberately did not automate, and instead poked around researching everything and building defences. The basic theory was that until I get these things automated, the attacks will not get too heavy, because each block of goals is a difficulty gate. This is frequently how tutorials work. Racing through with the bare minimum is usually a Bad Idea.

[invisus]

No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable.

No access to splitters and undergrounds is certainly making this more difficult for me. I feel like I'm trying to race through the tutorial with one hand tied behind my back, and an empty pistol in the other...

[Koub]

[Koub] Moved to balancing

[Zavian]

No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable.

No access to splitters and undergrounds is certainly making this more difficult for me. I feel like I'm trying to race through the tutorial with one hand tied behind my back, and an empty pistol in the other...

I haven't had an opportunity to try 0.17 yet, so I'm not sure what the Intro campaign looks like, but you can often use inserters as a poor man's splitter replacement, and long handled inserters instead of undergrounds.

[brunzenstein]

No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable.

No access to splitters and undergrounds is certainly making this more difficult for me. I feel like I'm trying to race through the tutorial with one hand tied behind my back, and an empty pistol in the other...

I haven't had an opportunity to try 0.17 yet, so I'm not sure what the Intro campaign looks like, but you can often use inserters as a poor man's splitter replacement, and long handled inserters instead of undergrounds.

Anyhow - splitters and undergrounds would be very helpful - otherwise the tutorial seems to me quite balanced.
The problem is for the newbie that he must find the tutorial first - and that's for a newcomer not easy to be found and sorrily not presented at the first start with a question: "do you want to learn how to?..."

[Tryp]

I'm not great at high difficulty Biter defense anyway, but banging my head against the tutorial campaign for a while was completely fruitless.

I'm not sure if it's because I play at a.... Relaxed pace, but I could not keep up with the constant attacks, and the cramped area with no splitters or undergrounds made ramping up iron and ammo production to meet the demand really hard.

It was interesting to me as a challenge scenario, but for a new player experience, I think that trying to survive the scenario as-is is discouraging and not a great example of the gameplay one can expect from Factorio.

[abregado]

It might be worth mentioning that I skipped the automation step (accidentally), by manually inserting components for green circuits.

My expectation is that like many people, you were expecting a tutorial and played very lazy (compared to your regular level of play). Its ok, I see it a lot. Actually it means it would have been easier for you because the attacks are based on pollution, and after automating Circuits many players leave them running for no reason.

You could give the damaged upgrade, instead of speed, to decreases the amount of ammo I need to go through.

The goal of the attacks is to increase consumption of resources to a point you cant match. Ammo is the only item in which I (as the level designer) can control how much you need to consume. Think about research and science packs. If i make the Technology cost 100000 packs, the player will just wait for it to finish slowly. If i make the research time very fast, they will complete it with one lab.

The old tutorial and campaign asked the player to increase production for no reason. The key change here is that I increase consumption and let you decide if you want to increase production.

[abregado]

Seems a bit steep for what would be a brand new player.

The difficulty is based on pollution, so if your factory was "big" and you did not produce many bullets (as a % of your total production), then you will fail. New players do not produce as much pollution as a vet.

I will be tweaking it to make it easier, but balancing is easier if you start clearly at one end of the scale.

Could you all email me the autogen screenshots found in the script_output folder?

[abregado]

No splitters and underground belts is proving to be a massive headache getting production up to anything reasonable.

No access to splitters and undergrounds is certainly making this more difficult for me. I feel like I'm trying to race through the tutorial with one hand tied behind my back, and an empty pistol in the other...

New players dont know what those items are. Dont let your knowledge of later game mechanics be a crutch. Hehe this is like if people used to modern society were thrust into a post apocalyptic world!

PS. I am taking all this feedback seriously. This is experimental remember and I never expected to get the numbers right on the first go.

[abregado]

The problem is for the newbie that he must find the tutorial first - and that's for a newcomer not easy to be found and sorrily not presented at the first start with a question: "do you want to learn how to?..."

agreed. The Main menu is currently being redesigned.

[abregado]

I'm not great at high difficulty Biter defense anyway, but banging my head against the tutorial campaign for a while was completely fruitless.

The Intro is supposed to be suitable for all players. Perhaps I need to add in a "low combat" option for players who prefer less biters.

I think that trying to survive the scenario as-is is discouraging and not a great example of the gameplay one can expect from Factorio.

I would agree that it is not a good example of Freeplay, but I do need to demonstrate the gameplay found in Deathworld/Wave defense as well. This will be the demo!

I will work on making the deaths softer, and I think it is very abrupt when you die. More opportunity to pull off a comeback is needed.

[wahming]

The Intro is supposed to be suitable for all players. Perhaps I need to add in a "low combat" option for players who prefer less biters.

It definitely isn't right now. Based on the feedback so far, there's definitely conditions under which the biters scale up to insane levels. You might want to introduce a hard cap on how frequently they can spawn?

The difficulty is based on pollution, so if your factory was "big" and you did not produce many bullets (as a % of your total production), then you will fail. New players do not produce as much pollution as a vet.

In my case, I was buffering output into chests, and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that new players might do that, since there was an example of it earlier on with iron from the furnaces.

[abregado]

You might want to introduce a hard cap on how frequently they can spawn?

There is one.... it is just rather high. Yeah the difficulty will come down. I want to rewrite the algo that calculates attack rate so that it pulses more and gives the player times to recover before being hit again.

[FasterJump]

When I reach 65% of the research, I noticed that my ammo production was too low. I shut down all my base except ammo production. I produced ammo for 30 min but I produced exactly as much as I consumed. The pollution didn't drop at all. I managed to win by rushing the end of the research as biters broke in my base.

So basically if the player produce 200 green circuits, he's screwed? I though you was teaching to automate production. And I think killing new players is not pedagogic, especially for an "introduction" campaign.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the campaign.

[Serenity]

Not having splitters and undergrounds is somewhat annoying, but you can just use inserters to move stuff from one belt to another

Stopping production of green circuits definitely shouldn't be necessary. It's completely normal to put some into boxes so you don't have to handcraft them

I managed it right in time and ran out of ammo just after I was finished

[Ranakastrasz]

Got my ass kicked personally. Two thick walls, like 30 turrets on each side, and 4 bullet makes. Probably needed more, but, well..... I had a huge amount of trouble with not having underground belts or splitters. I could have lived with red inserters, but no, you have to do one of those "Lines must never cross" puzzle. It was spaghetti, and I couldn't even spaghetti properly.
I think I got green science 50% researched by the time the east was overrun. Tried to manually fend them off and was crafting bullets manually, but pistol doesn't cut it, refilling turrets didn't last, and they tore through the wall. Ate the turrets. Got pushed back into the main factory. Was trying to advance back to the wall to fix it, when my power went out. They kinda ate my steam engines. So I called it quits for the night.

Brutal, AND handicapped. Not a good mix.