Quality killed this game for me

[CheeseMcBurger]

One thing I loved about Factorio was the immense replayability, because it was so easy to improve previous layouts and factories. You quite quickly reach the point where you get advanced oil refining, assembler 3 or stack inserters, so that you can really start tinkering and optimising.

I feel like all of that went down the drain with qualities. This is mainly because they are available so late in game, and only in steps, that it is hard to reach the point where you start to truly optimise. In Factorio 1, a lot of times I was just in creative mode, improving on designed, that I then used in my ongoing playthrough. This all feels pointless now, because when doing it now, hours later I unlock qualities. Then hours later another quality level, and then later the next quality level. I'm now 100 hours in my save game and still have not reached epic qualities, so what's the point in sitting down and improving anything? By the time I actually reach epic, I'm probably just bored, or give up due to too many possibilities. Same with platforms / ships. Qualities are absolutely crucial to get a good and compact design. I loved designing my first ship, but then suddenly it felt pointless putting in too much effort, because a lot of the puzzle would be solved with rare. Then you get to rare and the cycle repeates.

I'm not saying the game is bad. There's for sure many people who like it this way. But for me, I just feel lost in the game and the interesting bits feel like they never pay off, because too much is still changing. Qualities is one of those ideas that sound great in theory, but just don't work for me in practice.

And I hate Gleba.

[TheFrizz]

I both agree and disagree. In general I agree that one of the greatest weaknesses of 2.0 + SA is the lack of particular kind of distinct satisfaction. In regular Factorio, you start as a newbie and you make some giant pot of spaghetti. But you pull through, and after you have some experience tucked under your belt, you shake your head shamefully at your former self and then plunk down rows of neatly designed beauties that you blueprint with pride.

With 2.0 + SA, you are wiser, you already know Factorio and wanted more, so you purchased more. And as you are playing you are well aware that some time in the future, this design will be deprecated because new building will be available and the entire shape will change. This is true for quality, but is not restricted to just quality. In my opinion, the even worse culprit is productivity research. "Eventually I'll have +300% plastic productivity and I will only need one cryo plant per X whatevers, so this design is just temporary."

I just think it eats away at the sense of accomplishment for designing great things, when eventually they will be no longer applicable. I guess, said another way. Factorio Space Age would be a better game if along the way, clever design tricks felt like achievements worth saving and benefitting from in the future. You have the ability to "invest" in good designs now and reap the rewards for the rest of your playthrough. Of course this concept is still true in the game to some degree, but the number of buildings / productivity techs / quality / shipping from other planets combine to dilute and water down this feeling to the point where it doesn't exist until the very very end game.

[CheeseMcBurger]

> I just think it eats away at the sense of accomplishment for designing great things, when eventually they will be no longer applicable. I guess, said another way.

Very well said.

> until the very very end game.

And that's several dozen hours into the game. A point where a serious question is raised: Do you even want to continue playing then?

[NineNine]

It sounds like you want a shorter game. You can always play 2.0 if you don't like how long Space Age is.

[Kyralessa]

Quality is a mod.

You can turn it off.

[Panzerknacker]

No you cannot, Space Age depends on Quality.

[Kyralessa]

No you cannot, Space Age depends on Quality.

Just tested, and you're right: If playing Space Age, it won't load without quality.

Quality is optional, though. One can choose not to research it and not to use it.

We have made it so that quality is 'invisible' in the game until quality modules are unlocked, so you won't see anything related to quality if you haven't researched quality module or are playing the base game. This includes all the GUIs and interactions as mentioned earlier.

It's also worth noting that while it's a lot of fun to play with quality, using it is completely optional. The expansion is balanced in a way that using quality can be beneficial, but it is reasonable to finish the game without touching quality at all. Typically, people who want to just finish the game are more likely to not touch quality much, while those who want to build a big factory will have very good reasons to use it.

From https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-375

[quineotio]

It sounds like you want a shorter game. You can always play 2.0 if you don't like how long Space Age is.

Quality is optional, though. One can choose not to research it and not to use it.

I don't think these types of responses are valid. Yes you can just not use quality. You can just not get the productivity upgrades. You can just not use the new buildings for their productivity. You can just not use bots. You can just not use faster belts or stack inserters etc.

And yes, you can just not play Space Age. But this is not a defense of Space Age or quality.

What the OP is talking about is something I feel also. SA is designed in a way that discourages actually playing. By far the easiest way to play is to use bots for everything, because by doing so you bypass many of the problems the OP brought up. But using bots for everything removes one of the central parts of the game - making interesting designs and routing resources.

And by far the easiest way to increase your factory's output is to change nothing, and let your research upgrade things for you, occasionally replacing buildings with quality upgrades as they become available (but without actually changing any designs). Playing this way gets you deep into infinite research without much effort, but there's barely any gameplay beyond the initial setup.

The fact is, SA is a constantly moving target, so there's never a point where you can sit down and refine what you have unless you actively ignore parts of the game, or alternatively you wait until you have legendary everything and +300% productivity on everything. But at that point, why would you bother - you've already finished the game.

[mmmPI]

If you don't like quality, not using it sounds like a straightforward option to me.

[NineNine]

It sounds like you want a shorter game. You can always play 2.0 if you don't like how long Space Age is.

Quality is optional, though. One can choose not to research it and not to use it.

The fact is, SA is a constantly moving target, so there's never a point where you can sit down and refine what you have unless you actively ignore parts of the game, or alternatively you wait until you have legendary everything and +300% productivity on everything. But at that point, why would you bother - you've already finished the game.

Just because you have everything upgraded, doesn't mean that the game is "finished". As with the rest of the game, there are going to be new challenges that you haven't run into before. For example, I have legendary almost everything (trying to make quality producing systems on Aquillo is going to kill me), and my latest challenge is trying to get enough throughput of science back to Nauvis. You can call the game "finished" at any time you'd like.

[Tertius]

so what's the point in sitting down and improving anything? By the time I actually reach epic, I'm probably just bored, or give up due to too many possibilities. Same with platforms / ships. Qualities are absolutely crucial to get a good and compact design.

Quality is one thing too much with all what the game offers until you know how to deal with it and when to deal with it. I ignore quality in my Space Age walkthrough completely, so I don't get bogged down by it. The game works well this way. Quality ISN'T crucial for platforms. You're not going above ~300 km/s, but that's ok. Instead of going to 600 km/s, you just deploy 2 platforms instead of 1. With everything else, use speed modules+beacons instead of quality items.

Reaching solar system edge and building a promethium platform with just normal components works. No issues.

Space Age has different milestones and game goals: the player is constantly unlocking things and improving his factories. But at no game stage except the very late game where you already have everything it's possible to build "maximum factories", production lines that cannot be improved any more. With the base game, this is possible after unlocking tier 3 modules. In Space Age, you first need almost everything unlocked to have all required tech for a maximum factory, and after that you need to build up maximum (quality) items, which cannot be just crafted like a tier 3 module. The goal is not to duplicate your maximum factories to increase output, it's to build up the items for maximum factories.

[quineotio]

Just because you have everything upgraded, doesn't mean that the game is "finished".

This is technically true, but in practice "finished" means there's no motivation continue. You can keep building and go for a million SPM or whatever, but that doesn't mean SA in its current state is ideal. It could be a lot more fun (and a lot more replayable) if certain changes were made.

[mmmPI]

Factorio cannot be ideal, it belong to the physical world and as such is subject to its nature. When reading changes people proposes to make the game suit their desire sometimes it appears that the proposition are going in opposite direction because players enjoy different things in the game, and would wish to alter remove others differently.

This is why mods are great imo ! Quality being an official mod has this 'optionnal' status to me. But player can change it , or not use it if they don't want to. I am using a mod to renamme the quality level at everygame to something ridiculous, and so far i haven't been bored.

[mrkev]

... For example, I have legendary almost everything (trying to make quality producing systems on Aquillo is going to kill me)...

Just btw, there is no need to make legedary production on Aquilo. All you need it import legendary holmium plates. Main solid resource on Aquilo is Lithium, but that is made from holmium plates and two "qualityless" liquids (ammonia, lithium brine). Quantum processors can be done in space (IMHO better solution) and everything else Aquilo specific (cryo plant, fusion reactor & generator) can be done with bots.

[mrkev]

... Same with platforms / ships. Qualities are absolutely crucial to get a good and compact design. I loved designing my first ship, but then suddenly it felt pointless putting in too much effort, because a lot of the puzzle would be solved with rare. Then you get to rare and the cycle repeates.

Qualities are not crucial to get a good compact design, You don't actually need quality at all. IMHO, there is no point in chasing it like this.
I have decided early on, that I'm gonna go for normal + legendary builds, nothing in between. Which meant starting it somewhat late (just before "winning the game"). And it was fine. I've 13 ships, first 7 were build with 100% normal items, 3 ary a hybrid and 3 are 100% legendary.

Legendary items are usually 2.5x faster. Which means you need 5 normal items, where you'd use 2 legendary. That's not that big of a deal. You can get simmilar results with modules. Ofc, the combination of legendary modules, legendary beacons and legendary items makes the biggest difference.