[0.17.2] Tutorial seems very difficult

[Lorash]

I don't mind a good challenge, but the amount of biters that attack my "green science base" in the campaign is unnaturally high. If I was a new player I'd probably lose this level. Save attached.

[posila]

Hello, thanks for the feedback. I don't know where to sort this in - I forwarded a link to this thread to the campaing team. For time being, I'll put it to Not a bug, especially because what you described is exactly how it is supposed to work.

[wheybags]

Moved to the new Campaign/scenario suggestions subforum

[humblegar]

There is just something weird with the timing when you are supposed to get the "logistics science pack".

- You have no underground belts, so you can't easily feed your turrets or make your base very efficient (splitters too I guess, but you can do without those).
- You don't really have the options to clear out the biter bases, like you would in a normal game.
- You are basically starving because you have to churn out ammo and walls, while you would like to research stuff. We are talking 5+ assemblers for ammo just to stay alive.
- Running around desperately filling turrets is extremlely tedious and will probably make new players quit or play with biters off.
- An insane amount of biters attack from both sides.

I am guessing something has changed with biters, pollution , agro or something since the campaign team tested it themselves. Maybe it is the biter nest pollution absorption.

[CDarklock]

- You are basically starving because you have to churn out ammo and walls, while you would like to research stuff. We are talking 5+ assemblers for ammo just to stay alive.

That's absolutely intentional. Biter attacks in the campaign are driven by a combination of pollution and research percentage, such that you need more and more of your base's production dedicated to ammo as research progresses. At 90% research, the biter attacks are designed to consume 100% of your production capacity in ammo, so unless you've gotten ahead of the previous attack strength, you're guaranteed to be overrun.

I think the intended result here is that you start cranking out magazines, circuits, and research. As the research progresses, you have to refit your circuit production to produce ammo instead.

And the faster you are researching, the less time you have to see and respond to the pattern of the attacks. At six science a minute (as recommended), researching the 150-pack green science tech takes 25 minutes. Ammo is consuming about a third of your production capacity; each production line is about two assembly machines worth of production. And if you refit green circuits, it will consume about two-thirds of it. So:

1. Refit green circuits within 8 minutes
2. Add further capacity within 16 minutes
3. Outpace attack intensity before 22 minutes

That's two labs. If you have four, your times get shorter. If you have six, they're even shorter. At eight, you have to figure out what's going on and respond to it in less than six minutes (Doug E. Fresh, you're on).

And if you're producing that much science, you'd need dozens of assemblers producing ammo. Because it's percentage-based and scaled to pollution. If you build out much larger than the requirements for the goal, the game punishes you for it. Mo' production, mo' problems.

Likewise, if you add (say) two assemblers producing walls, it skews your percentages and you go from needing four ammo assemblers to five.

But! If you spend ten minutes beforehand researching optional tech, and refit your electronics production for ammo, while building your defence perimetre and setting up your turrets... everything changes.

That ten minutes at 50% production (assuming two wall assemblers) gets you far enough ahead that 50% production for the next 25 minutes is essentially 70% production the whole time. What you actually need is an average of roughly 55% production, so you have a surplus at the end.

An experienced player doesn't need very long to crank out those production lines, and then when the game says "research production science" they go "yeah, definitely, right away" without thinking for one second that assigned goals advance the story progression.

Because that's not how Factorio works, is it?

I think it's that assumption that is biting people. "This is not how the game works." But the entire structure of the campaign looks and feels like an RTS mission, so I think most players will approach it like an RTS mission. Which means they're not approaching it the way Factorio works, they're approaching it the way Starcraft or Civilization works.

[Mike5000]

I would summarize the overall problems with the tutorial in this way:

1. Tutorial is somewhat more difficult than the game - which defeats the tutorial's purpose as an introduction.
2. Tutorial is MUCH more grindy than the game - which defeats the tutorial's presumed purpose as a marketing tool in the demo.

I bought Factorio a long time ago based on first the video and second the tutorial in the demo.

I would never have bought Factorio based on this tutorial after wasting entirely too much time shoveling coal into machines, slowly figuring out numerous things that a tutorial should have explained, and then being killed by swarms of zerg which would challenge even expert players.

[humblegar]

- You are basically starving because you have to churn out ammo and walls, while you would like to research stuff. We are talking 5+ assemblers for ammo just to stay alive.

That's absolutely intentional. Biter attacks in the campaign are driven by a combination of pollution and research percentage, such that you need more and more of your base's production dedicated to ammo as research progresses. At 90% research, the biter attacks are designed to consume 100% of your production capacity in ammo, so unless you've gotten ahead of the previous attack strength, you're guaranteed to be overrun.

I think the intended result here is that you start cranking out magazines, circuits, and research. As the research progresses, you have to refit your circuit production to produce ammo instead.

And the faster you are researching, the less time you have to see and respond to the pattern of the attacks. At six science a minute (as recommended), researching the 150-pack green science tech takes 25 minutes. Ammo is consuming about a third of your production capacity; each production line is about two assembly machines worth of production. And if you refit green circuits, it will consume about two-thirds of it. So:

1. Refit green circuits within 8 minutes
2. Add further capacity within 16 minutes
3. Outpace attack intensity before 22 minutes

That's two labs. If you have four, your times get shorter. If you have six, they're even shorter. At eight, you have to figure out what's going on and respond to it in less than six minutes (Doug E. Fresh, you're on).

And if you're producing that much science, you'd need dozens of assemblers producing ammo. Because it's percentage-based and scaled to pollution. If you build out much larger than the requirements for the goal, the game punishes you for it. Mo' production, mo' problems.

Likewise, if you add (say) two assemblers producing walls, it skews your percentages and you go from needing four ammo assemblers to five.

But! If you spend ten minutes beforehand researching optional tech, and refit your electronics production for ammo, while building your defence perimetre and setting up your turrets... everything changes.

That ten minutes at 50% production (assuming two wall assemblers) gets you far enough ahead that 50% production for the next 25 minutes is essentially 70% production the whole time. What you actually need is an average of roughly 55% production, so you have a surplus at the end.

An experienced player doesn't need very long to crank out those production lines, and then when the game says "research production science" they go "yeah, definitely, right away" without thinking for one second that assigned goals advance the story progression.

Because that's not how Factorio works, is it?

I think it's that assumption that is biting people. "This is not how the game works." But the entire structure of the campaign looks and feels like an RTS mission, so I think most players will approach it like an RTS mission. Which means they're not approaching it the way Factorio works, they're approaching it the way Starcraft or Civilization works.

That is an interesting way to look at it. But I do not doubt that I can beat the campaign or tutorial, and that was not my point.

A new player getting into the same situations I got into would probably just quit and wonder why all these people are praising the "run around refilling ammo" game, and not even know that some of famous youtubers like KOS play without them.

I like biters and always play with them, and still did not enjoy this at all.

There is a long thread on reddit about this as well.

[wheybags]

As people have hinted at above, but not spelled out explicitly, the tutorial final stage scales to your perceived skill level.
The idea is to make it fun for experienced players, while also not overwhelming newbies.
It is actually not so hard for a new player to finish, here's a twitch stream of someone playing for the first time, who didn't really have much trouble with the biter's difficulty: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/387484549

It's possible that things are a little too hard for experienced players at the moment, we will be looking at this for the next iteration. However, bear in mind that if you know the game, it's not supposed to be easy!

RE

slowly figuring out numerous things that a tutorial should have explained

The helper character will wait to see if you figure things out by yourself before offering help. There may be some genuine missing information in the NPE, which we would be interested to know about. But before you report any issues with this, please make sure you've played super slowly, and not used any features you shouldn't know about yet (alt-mode, ctrl-click, etc).

RE having no undergrounds/splitters: I had problems with this myself at first, I just figured "I'm not going to bother automating anything properly until I get them, it's too much of a pain in the ass". However, a new player doesn't know they exist, and if you just get over your attachment to them, you can automate things just fine.
This really is only an issue for experienced players.

Anyway, all of these issues will probably be addressed in the next FFF.

[CDarklock]

That is an interesting way to look at it. But I do not doubt that I can beat the campaign or tutorial, and that was not my point.

Not suggesting it was. I just wrote that light novel as a sort of train-of-thought while things were occurring to me.

A new player getting into the same situations I got into would probably just quit

I honestly don't think so, because I hate the combat sections of the game, and this is literally the first time I thought combat was both fun and challenging.

I've also reloaded one of my old saves to find that the difficulty of attacking biter bases has gone way up. One of the things I try to manage reasonably diligently is the clearing of biter bases in a substantial margin from my pollution cloud, along with keeping that cloud minimal.

pollution.png (42.33 KiB) Viewed 7040 times

I strive to keep power production no more than 1 MW above peak consumption, and production no higher than necessary. Right now, I am running four iron miners and one each copper and coal miner, producing nothing but automation science packs and magazines. I also have minimal steel production running, but it's backed up and stalled because I'm not using any steel for anything.

At my current research level, I can clear out a four-spawner base in 0.16 with about 43 magazines while taking minimal damage. I don't have a car or anything and I don't turret creep; I just approach from the outside and circle-strafe the base.

In 0.17, I had to retreat twice from a two-spawner base because I was taking heavy damage from worms. I don't like this, and when I went after a three-spawner base, I was outright killed after blowing through over 85 magazines. This suggests combat is significantly more than twice as hard.

I... like this? Really? Because I've never liked combat in Factorio before, ever. But I'm looking at this and saying "I'll bet if I got some grenades..." and also debating whether to start using turrets in the mix. Where turrets felt cheaty before, now they feel like a reasonable strategy. I want to see how well they weather worm attacks. Can the worms hit them from outside turret range? Does the DoT effect kill turrets quickly? How well does a grenade-walk with turret backup work?

And this isn't a "you polluted too much" issue, either. Some of the people who say "this is way too hard" are pumping out a thick red cloud across half the map and whinging about how the biters suddenly give a crap. I'm conscientious about pollution. I'm careful about my perimetre. And the combat is way harder, but it does not make me want to quit. I actually care about the combat now.

That seems like exactly what the devs are going for. I didn't have too much trouble with the campaign, and I'm not having too much trouble with this save, but I have certainly shifted military matters higher on my priorities.

Side note: the first time I ever got the achievement "It stinks and they don't like it," which requires triggering a biter attack by pollution - the biters simply never showed up. I don't know how tough that achievement should be, but it does seem like there should be, like... an attack.

[humblegar]

As people have hinted at above, but not spelled out explicitly, the tutorial final stage scales to your perceived skill level.
The idea is to make it fun for experienced players, while also not overwhelming newbies.
It is actually not so hard for a new player to finish, here's a twitch stream of someone playing for the first time, who didn't really have much trouble with the biter's difficulty: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/387484549

It's possible that things are a little too hard for experienced players at the moment, we will be looking at this for the next iteration. However, bear in mind that if you know the game, it's not supposed to be easy!

RE

slowly figuring out numerous things that a tutorial should have explained

The helper character will wait to see if you figure things out by yourself before offering help. There may be some genuine missing information in the NPE, which we would be interested to know about. But before you report any issues with this, please make sure you've played super slowly, and not used any features you shouldn't know about yet (alt-mode, ctrl-click, etc).

RE having no undergrounds/splitters: I had problems with this myself at first, I just figured "I'm not going to bother automating anything properly until I get them, it's too much of a pain in the ass". However, a new player doesn't know they exist, and if you just get over your attachment to them, you can automate things just fine.
This really is only an issue for experienced players.

Anyway, all of these issues will probably be addressed in the next FFF.

Hey, thank you, I hardly noticed this post, due to the epic replies above and below

If the difficulty is just us experienced players making it hard on ourselves, and you guys are following along and taking a look at it, then all is great.

[Darinth]

As people have hinted at above, but not spelled out explicitly, the tutorial final stage scales to your perceived skill level.
The idea is to make it fun for experienced players, while also not overwhelming newbies.

I just want to say that's rude. Awesome, but rude. Going through the NPE... expecting for this to be a nice leisurely experience... get zerged by the biters because this wasn't supposed to be hard...

I see where the comments about people thinking that this would be unconditionally overwhelming to new players come from. It might actually be useful to communicate in some fashion that the tutorial difficulty effectively scales to your perceived skill. Would probably save a lot of people from thinking that the game will wreck new players. I mean I think I'd take it as a personal challenge if the NPE wrecked me... but I also would be really concerned and inclined to say something if I didn't know that it scaled to my perceived skill.

[CDarklock]

Going through the NPE... expecting for this to be a nice leisurely experience...

It is, if you actually try to have one.

npetest.png (30.83 KiB) Viewed 7007 times

I'm not even into the second area yet.

[Therax]

I'd suggest a tutorial stage to explicitly recommend loading turrets from belts with inserters. The tutorial quickly becomes overwhelming if you start out hand-feeding ammo to turrets, which is plenty in the early stages of research, especially if your production and pollution is fairly low. Then when the biter aggression increases, the player has no time to automate because all their time is taken up hand feeding until they are overrun. Hinting harder that ammo production and distribution should be fully automated would put the player in a better place to respond to the increasing threat.

[CDarklock]

Hinting harder that ammo production and distribution should be fully automated would put the player in a better place to respond to the increasing threat.

I'm noticing a few things on this time through the campaign, like... this should have clued me in that biter activity was increasing. I've seen a little group of three biters. I've seen a little group of five biters. Now this?

incoming1.png (709.64 KiB) Viewed 6935 times

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

EDIT: Meanwhile, Compy is very distressed that I won't follow him because I'm pulling a sneaky and mining a chest full of stone to build walls.

water.png (239.64 KiB) Viewed 6933 times

[_wf_]

Part of the problem is that building anything during that final research makes the problem worse, since you have just generated pollution that didn't go into ammo. So it's not just that you have little time to respond, it is actually detrimental to do anything but running around and repairing/refilling.

This is where the complaint about this being tower defense comes from. The second you press that "Research" button, your base is effectively locked and you just have to hold for the ~10 minutes it takes. (Adding insult to injury is that you're currently told none of this, but I guess this will be fixed.)

As an additional trap, experienced players will mostly just refuse to think about how to do ammo distribution before they get splitters/underground belts, because it never plays a role in normal Factorio.

[MoleOnDope]

At 90% research, the biter attacks are designed to consume 100% of your production capacity in ammo, so unless you've gotten ahead of the previous attack strength, you're guaranteed to be overrun.

I know this comes directly from the devs, having read about this topic for a while now.
Leaving all previously made points behind about what is the perceivably correct grade of difficulty for the unknown being called "new player": How can this concept be the core idea of the first steps?

How can a game read out its basic rules before concluding:

"The game cannot be won unless being ended prematurely"

Don't get me wrong, factorio is one of my favorite games already. None of these discussions take away from that fact, I'm hyped to sink another 350hrs into it if I can. The update is gold in more aspects than just graphics and mechanics improvements.
But the campaign... Yes, it's elaborate, it tries to bring across very carefully chosen points in the most creative way possible and I feel honestly sorry for criticizing the devs that have put so much work into it... But I can't view it as anything else than an accumulation of bad choices (sorry, that's too harsh... I personally dislike it, period.).

It doesn't really affect me that much in the long run because I'm going to stick with freeplay as before, but I'd really like the final game to have a campaign that makes as much sense as the rest of it.

I'll make a seperate topic on this once I've had the time to give the tutorial one more chance.

[CDarklock]

Part of the problem is that building anything during that final research makes the problem worse, since you have just generated pollution that didn't go into ammo. So it's not just that you have little time to respond, it is actually detrimental to do anything but running around and repairing/refilling.

Not early on. At initial research commencement, you are required to invest 2% of your production in ammo. At 90%, you're required to invest 100%. This implies that at 100% research, you're expected to invest roughly 111% of production in ammo (100% - 2% = 98% increase / 90% research = 1.09% increase per 1% of research).

That's impossible, of course, so there must be another solution.

The second you press that "Research" button, your base is effectively locked and you just have to hold for the ~10 minutes it takes.

Conversely, UNTIL you press that "research" button...

As an additional trap...

Am I really the only person who thinks traps in challenges like this are not only fair, but expected?

[Ranakastrasz]

Part of the problem is that building anything during that final research makes the problem worse, since you have just generated pollution that didn't go into ammo. So it's not just that you have little time to respond, it is actually detrimental to do anything but running around and repairing/refilling.

Not early on. At initial research commencement, you are required to invest 2% of your production in ammo. At 90%, you're required to invest 100%. This implies that at 100% research, you're expected to invest roughly 111% of production in ammo (100% - 2% = 98% increase / 90% research = 1.09% increase per 1% of research).

So, lets hope they started production and stockpiling, and more importantly, aren't mining anything they don't need directly, and aren't producing anything that is not science packs or bullets.

That's impossible, of course, so there must be another solution.

Only if it had to go on indefinitely. You should end up with a buffer, and in any case, you could totally keep ramping up production, but it would require a fully saturated belt and autofeeders. At 90% you are probably expected to have them break through, and you have to defend the research until it finishes.

The second you press that "Research" button, your base is effectively locked and you just have to hold for the ~10 minutes it takes.

Conversely, UNTIL you press that "research" button...

As an additional trap...

Am I really the only person who thinks traps in challenges like this are not only fair, but expected?

Tutorials are not supposed to be challenges like this. Tutorials are supposed to be demostrating basic game functionality, so you can get used to the controls and mechanics. The first tutorial is something you probably shouldn't be able to lose, unless you intentionally attempt to do so.

And yes, this would make a great hardcore challenge. Biter attacks are always at the edge of what you can handle. Keep growing your production of defenses, keep them intact, and finish the victory research to win. Beware. Efficiency is key. At 90%, anything that is not directly contributing to your success will be a liability, and the biters will punish severely. Expect to run out of ammo. Good luck!

Or something.

[CDarklock]

So, lets hope they started production and stockpiling, and more importantly, aren't mining anything they don't need directly, and aren't producing anything that is not science packs or bullets.

I'm in the middle of the second area of the campaign right now (fifth time), and here's what I've been asked to do so far.

- Research military technology
- Craft a pistol
- Craft 10 magazines
- Put the magazines in the pistol's ammo slot
- Craft 100 magazines
- Research active defence
- Craft a turret
- Load the turret

Are... are people having trouble connecting the dots, here? Is there some ambiguity in what you are being told to do?

Tutorials are not supposed to be challenges like this. Tutorials are supposed to be demostrating basic game functionality, so you can get used to the controls and mechanics. The first tutorial is something you probably shouldn't be able to lose, unless you intentionally attempt to do so.

The latest FFF has an interesting statement:

"As you might expect I try not to mention the word tutorial anywhere."

That got me to thinking. Maybe our expectations of what keeps being called the campaign are entirely off-base.

Maybe expecting it to be a tutorial is... wrong.

That's a lot of the criticism I had for the campaign. It didn't teach me enough things. I wanted it to teach me more things. I felt like it frequently left me to figure things out on my own. And the message I kept getting from the devs was "yeah, that's deliberate; we wanted you to figure it out."

That didn't sit right with me, because a tutorial shouldn't be like that. But it's their game, they're the boss, and "we meant to do that" is pretty much the end of it. "Resolved: By Design."

But seeing them say they "try not to mention the word tutorial" - maybe I have just not been looking at it right.

[ManaUser]

Am I really the only person who thinks traps in challenges like this are not only fair, but expected?

Well obviously the devs thought that. But they also liked that ugly concrete.