Factorio Forums

coffee-factorio wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 11:42 am But that's functioning as intended.
.....
This mechanic is supposed to be hard.

In that post I was focusing on the disconnect between perception and reality, not on the difficulty itself. It's ok if something is difficult if it's introduced correctly. The problem with quality is that the complexity is hidden and out of step with the other tech you get at the time, and with the tools you have to deal with it. And so this explains some of the complaints people have.

I can make a similar argument about Gleba, but for a different reason - the difficulty is front loaded. There are a lot of things to learn at once, but after that initial learning cliff it's fine. The difference between Gleba and quality is that with Gleba the difficulty is more obvious. But I think both could be introduced better. For Gleba, it would be easier if some of the concepts were introduced on Nauvis - such as the ag tower, and seeds.

With quality, it would be a lot easier if rare was a separate research.

I don't understand what you're trying to say about gambling, it doesn't seem relevant.

quineotio wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 12:34 pm I don't understand what you're trying to say about gambling, it doesn't seem relevant.

It's not relevant and is incorrect, it look like for the sake of using the word gambling because it was mentionned earlier, even though what defines gambling as risk and an addiction is what you bet and in factorio there's no money, only free infinite ressource and your time so really the parralel is just about the randomness, which is better described when using the law of large numbers as you did in your more recent post.

coffee-factorio wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 1:09 am But there's a valid challenge there: what if you take away the language of stats or optimization, can you get the point of view to translate into gambling because that's all we're given as a prompt?

coffee-factorio wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 1:09 am From the perspective of "gambling", if my goal is to teach gambling. I want to teach the subject. I don't want to teach a particular game.

coffee-factorio wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 11:42 am 4) Yes. Gambling and optimization both contain a logical phenomenon called a paradox. From a gamblers perspective a paradox is that they are doing something that is exciting, but not satisfying or enjoyable. And their addictive behavior is being driven, at a certain point, by emotions that are more at home to the horror and war movies I like and not the hang out and chill minecraft experience you seem to want.
I am not worried about you as a human being if you hate gambling, I'm just wondering why you thought it would be something kind.

I think we can draw the parralel with a LLM that takes its output as input a bit too much.

I am writing this post as succinctly as humanly possible. So I have to keep quotation blocks to a minimum and keep most responses limited to two paragraphs. The sole exception is the list, and it is already fairly short.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pm ... let's give this one last good try:

What do you mean when you say:

XT-248 wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 9:17 pm meaningful criticism

Quoting only two words left out some nuance.

Meaningful criticism, also known as constructive criticism, is feedback that targets a specific problem or issue and offers actionable feedback. In this instance, that means the feedback is for the game's mechanics and how to improve them.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pmMeaning, can you succinctly bring up your issues with quality (and spoilage and maybe gleba as a whole) one last time? In a manner that is falsifiable and that incorporates some of the counter-points already brought up in this thread?
Ideally I would like to see your latest Gleba factory and maybe some other factory where you are actually using quality, too. I am genuinely interested.

I am going to break it into three distinct groups: quality, spoilage as in the mechanics itself, and some specifics to the Gleba world itself. This is not an exhaustive list, given the falsifiability condition and the goal of keeping this post as short as possible.

Quality:

• Lack of onboard experience for quality.
• Quality as a mechanic can create an individualized "success or famine" experience where some people struggle, and others don't.

Spoilage:

• There is a limited onboard experience through the tech tree, but everything is upfront all at once. No room to experiment or learn.
• Evidence of both success and failure disappears so quickly, giving designers little feedback, with a potential for no data at all.
• The best approach to craft the most "science value" from Gleba Science packs, with the least amount of fruit needed, having no competing alternative production strategy currently.
• Time delta from spoilage for most spoiling items has little to no impact on the final product's freshness. The sole exception is Gleba Science packs, which start at 100% freshness and lose science value over time. At higher quality tiers, the decrease in science value from time becomes much more noticeable.

Gleba:

• Gleba has poor visibility due to a heavy visual clutter aesthetic when it comes to finding areas to grow fruit and has minor cosmetic impact. The minimap search function partially mitigates this issue. I am seeing a lot of new people who don't even know this search function exists.

As you can see, I don't have much feedback or strong feelings about Gleba. I will come back to this point later in my response. My feedback is more about how quality and spoilage, together or separately, are experienced in the game than about the Gleba world itself.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pmgave you good solution to that problem.

What solution was offered? I am going to take a guess. Monitoring? The problem already happened, and it was a one-time flunk. I don't have a "before" save game to set up monitoring and to reproduce it a second time. I can only work with what I do have, which is a save game after it happened.

If I do set up monitoring, it can create a lot of noisy data and false positives and false negatives from running several hours-long sessions to recapture that specific one-time flunk.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pmThe first time you land on the planet everything spoils essentially immediately. I don't know how else you want to be onboarded?

Once again, going back to the old basic oil processing vs. current basic oil processing example from earlier. Small exposure to one part of making a functional spoilage design, then building on prior successes and moving to the next step until the Gleba Science pack arrives at a lab. Since the oil example is not doing its job well. So I am going with a different example: starting a new freeplay game.

A player starts a new freeplay game and opens up the tech tree. They see two immediate goals: craft 50 iron plates and craft 10 copper plates. This encourages new players to build a starter smelt array. After smelting successfully, they gain access to power infrastructure and machines that run on power. Then they can start to automate instead of handcrafting. Repeat and rinse until they launch a rocket.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pm

General quality-system issues (apply to any quality science/production, any planet):

I am seeing a couple of things I didn't mention that came from someone else, indicate would be a problem, or need a response from me.

worph wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2026 11:21 pmAs you seem to only have an issue with quality on Gleba by admission, I am confused why you also brought up all of these other things, that are related to how quality functions fundamentally.
I don't think you ever conceded that you don't like the quality mechanic itself, but looking at all the points you brought up it looks to me like you don't like both quality and Gleba, but maybe quality itself might be a bigger issue for you (albeit, maybe gleba evokes a stronger emotional reaction, despite quality maybe being the core problem).

I've been seeing a troubling trend lately on the internet: people deciding how others feel about things while knowing absolutely nothing about others and how they actually feel. That said, I do feel that there is room for improvement in all three subjects: spoilage, quality, and Gleba. Mixing spoilage and quality together causes unresolved issues from both mechanics to occur at the same time. I don't dislike this because that is how it works in the game right now.

Gleba is just a world and doesn't evoke any strong feelings in me. Everybody knows that I am the only person who truly knows how I feel about anything. Someone made a poor guess and was wrong; it happens.

For reference, the Gleba tech tree triggers are, grouped by depth:

• Mine an iron rock and a copper rock
• Mine a jellynut tree and a yumako tree
• Make nutrients: 10 for the biochamber tech, 500 to unlock the soil branch
• Make a biochamber
• Craft bioflux: 1 for the bacteria tech, 25 for the rest of the basic bioflux products
• Craft 100 bioflux to unlock science

and everything else requires actual research.

XT-248 wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 7:47 pm Meaningful criticism, also known as constructive criticism, is feedback that targets a specific problem or issue and offers actionable feedback. In this instance, that means the feedback is for the game's mechanics and how to improve them.

You should have asked the AI to define actionnable too, because saying " i don't like gleba" isn't actionnable feedback, and it being repeated doesn't constitute as such any contructive feedback, that's like 90% of what you've been posting on that unrelated thread, unfortunatly apart from a suggestion that seem irrationnal, after claiming you got the basic rapidly, you suggested to make wood spoilable, which only seem to be made for easing the part that doesn't need to be ? the basic ... That's like adding a pre-introduction when you explained you couldn't use beacon or quality due to their complexity and cost, your suggestion appear disconnected to any of the observation you made about your experience of the game.

How making wood spoilable would help someone like you use quality on Gleba ? or understand the utility of quality beacons ?

To me it appears there is no actionnable feedback, it's noise and false positive about the actual negative feedback that exist for the game , which is less than 3% review on steam, and there's like nothing about quality or Gleba...

XT-248 wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 7:47 pm This is not an exhaustive list, given the falsifiability condition and the goal of keeping this post as short as possible.

Quality:

• Lack of onboard experience for quality.
• Quality as a mechanic can create an individualized "success or famine" experience where some people struggle, and others don't.

Spoilage:

• There is a limited onboard experience through the tech tree, but everything is upfront all at once. No room to experiment or learn.
• Evidence of both success and failure disappears so quickly, giving designers little feedback, with a potential for no data at all.
• The best approach to craft the most "science value" from Gleba Science packs, with the least amount of fruit needed, having no competing alternative production strategy currently.
• Time delta from spoilage for most spoiling items has little to no impact on the final product's freshness. The sole exception is Gleba Science packs, which start at 100% freshness and lose science value over time. At higher quality tiers, the decrease in science value from time becomes much more noticeable.

Gleba:

• Gleba has poor visibility due to a heavy visual clutter aesthetic when it comes to finding areas to grow fruit and has minor cosmetic impact. The minimap search function partially mitigates this issue. I am seeing a lot of new people who don't even know this search function exists.

• Spoilage onboarding: As both Hurkyl and myself have pointed out: There is onboarding. There are trigger techs. By engaging with those, players will inevitably get to experience spoilage; immediately. And they will keep experiencing it after that.
• Quality onboarding: I can see a miniscule argument for this, but I don't think it's required at all. Many mechanics in the game, especially in space age are much more complex and you are just expected to figure it out. OP highlighted this quite well: once he put quality modules in, he immediately saw things change. That MAY be irritating at first, but it's very noticeable. And players can literally opt-in and out in a dozen different ways: Disable it entirely, only use it on endproducts, only use it on certain planets, only use it after beating the game, don't research it at all, remove all modules for a short period etc. etc. It's clearly not meant as a mechanic specifically for beginners (doesn't mean beginners are forbidden from using it). Dumbing down or restricting an end-game mechanic is not the way to go in my opinion.
• Time delta: Simply not true. Fresh bioflux is very valueable for shipping throughout the solar system. Also agricultural science are not the exception, they are THE goal here.
• Quality science: Is a different argument. Quality science being non-optimal has nothing to do with factories breaking or spoilage/quality being bad. There have been different threads about this and they are valid. But arguing that quality (and spoilage) break factories because quality science is not perfectly efficient is... interesting.
• The rest is nitpicking about graphics and ignoring feedback already presented. Can the graphics be improved and are the monitoring solutions somewhat advanced circuitry? Yes. Does it break factories in the current version? No.

I would still love to see some of your factories.

mmmPI wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 8:32 pm To me it appears there is no actionnable feedback, it's noise and false positive

I agree that the feedback essentially is not actionable, but I disagree with you about TX-248 being a willfully bad actor in here (as insinuated earlier). I wonder if this is less deliberate bad faith and more a pattern they struggle to recognize or control themselves.

quineotio wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 12:34 pm

coffee-factorio wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 11:42 am But that's functioning as intended.
.....
This mechanic is supposed to be hard.

In that post I was focusing on the disconnect between perception and reality, not on the difficulty itself. It's ok if something is difficult if it's introduced correctly. The problem with quality is that the complexity is hidden and out of step with the other tech you get at the time, and with the tools you have to deal with it. And so this explains some of the complaints people have.

I can make a similar argument about Gleba, but for a different reason - the difficulty is front loaded. There are a lot of things to learn at once, but after that initial learning cliff it's fine. The difference between Gleba and quality is that with Gleba the difficulty is more obvious. But I think both could be introduced better. For Gleba, it would be easier if some of the concepts were introduced on Nauvis - such as the ag tower, and seeds.

With quality, it would be a lot easier if rare was a separate research.

I don't understand what you're trying to say about gambling, it doesn't seem relevant.

Well, the thing about rhetoric, is that I'm supposed to come to some mutual understanding where possible.

I actually really agree with your point about the disconnect between perception and reality. I think the idea with having modules only on Nauvis is that you show a variation of quality akin to roulette. And people build up skills to handle the problem of having multiple production standards, which doesn't ever really exist after you get a recycler.

This is problematic because it's as boring as watching paint dry unless you have a background in investment banking or have put some hours into Seablock. It's also not what you're going to be doing for the post win game of Space Age where people will use quality.

As for the bit about gambling... so there's two parts of that. There's a logical phenomenon called a paradox. So an example of one of those, related to how quality breaks things, is the "Ship of Theseus" problem: if I replace each plank of a ship, when is not the same ship? You face a variant of that problem "The Space Platform of Theseus" because if you replace each work station with qualitatively better parts, you can be faced with a situation where the platform itself has the same but the output and cost is measurably different.

I have not even begun to talk about the joys of more productively making garbage products.

In optimization and paradoxes you tend to see an interesting phenomenon where if you take an extreme position, you end up in a measurably bad philosophical position. If I fully built the space platform of Theseus out of legendary parts form normal then it'd be the same, but you could probably build a lighter much more performant ship for the same cost.

As for the bit about gambling specifically... so paradoxes generate contradictory statements. If I feel like I hit a nerve with one, I'm backing off. I feel like I hit a nerve because the idea of a video game which isn't bad, isn't good, and is more less just causes your brain to work could be taken for something else. As for whether or not it's healthy, engineering is a profession and paradoxes are a part of that profession. Sometimes a someone can optimize the knapsack problem, sometimes you put them on another project. You have to fool around and find out.

worph wrote: Wed Sep 23, 2026 10:51 pm I agree that the feedback essentially is not actionable, but I disagree with you about TX-248 being a willfully bad actor in here (as insinuated earlier). I wonder if this is less deliberate bad faith and more a pattern they struggle to recognize or control themselves.

I didn't mention anyone in particular as a willfully bad actor, no one think of themselves of being a bad actor on purpose i think, and it would be very difficult to make the difference between someone acting up and not if they were not giving any clue, at least not with unfalsifiable proof. There's none regarding the intent of the actor ^^, it's only the acts. Some players may be so frustrated by a mechanic and unable to achieve a reasonnable discussion where they receive unanimous agreement that their misfortune was a sign that the game should be changed to suit their incoherent rambling that they genuinely believe using an AI to try and beat a dead horse is constructive feedback. It would be difficult to tell apart from a troll that would play dumb for whatever reason maybe a good one in their mind ^^

Obviously video games are for a large public and there can also be immature people playing whose behavior would be more akin to the one of a child or a teenager, they do not have necessarily bad intent when they troll, they may be doing it by lack of ability to express themselves in a different way, not finding the words, or when they find the word and express them, other people can see the flaw in the logic and they get mad, refuse to recognize it and continue complaining about different thing. I can also imagine they start trolling because they are ignored when they express themselves in their normal way, because their argument look like someone who has no clue what they are saying or pedantic but shallow. It can appear easier to post inflammatory and simplistic content to make other people react in such case, in desperate need of attention, feeling genuinely frustrated and no-one around to hear their complaint. It's more of an awkward expression of misery than an actual intent to harm when trolling i think sometimes. Although sometimes it can happen that there is an antagonistic fixation that develop when those cry for attention are not receiving the expected result it appears and i had to deal with some personnal attacks in private message ^^ This is when i realized some people are trolling also out of frustration after an argument on the internet x)

All this being said, i think this discussion illustrate well some of the positive of quality, it's easy to get in, by just using modules in the mall, as mentionned in the FFF and advised by experienced players, but it's also hard to master, as demonstrated by some other players who despite their (alledged) experience are still not getting all the details. It's also easy to not opt-in, and even opt-out, like OP from the discussion , if one think quality's too complex for them.

I think if a player is unfamiliar with the game or with math or video-game so that they don't realize using a beacon can be cheaper than adding more of the same machine, or that updating a major version can have impact on their save-game they may be starting further than others to understand the quality mechanic. At least it allows to ponderate the opinion, or to contextualize where it is coming from especially when it comes to criticism about balance or difficulty of the game. I think OP when asking for things that may have been missed showed a kind of self-awareness that leaves room for learning new things which was absent from the subsequent complaints which had this closed for good seemingly defiantly and proudly at the same time even so childishly that trolling is the only word that came to me.

coffee-factorio wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2026 12:57 am Well, the thing about rhetoric, is that I'm supposed to come to some mutual understanding where possible.

Yes.

I suppose the point I'm making is that not having the recycler is not fun, and not good for teaching the concept. Kovarex said it himself in the quality reveal:

"it can be a HUGE trap to try to get too high quality of too many things too early." - FFF #375

Why would you design it this way (a HUGE trap)? And why wouldn't you adjust it when lots of people react by not using the system at all? It's such a weird thing to do to players ON PURPOSE. You spent time making the system. Don't you want people to use it? Is it a deliberate troll?

It's not as if there aren't things that COULD be done to ease the pain. I've suggested ways to make it better in the early game, but another alternative is to make it a purely late game thing so that people have more familiarity with the game systems and access to all the tools when it's unlocked. In terms of difficulty (as it currently is designed), it would fit being unlocked on Aquilo. This isn't my preferred approach though.

The thing about quality (and Gleba) is that I believe a major cause of the issues people have are a result of the way these things are presented, and this serves no long term benefit. If you can overcome the initial hurdle of learning the systems, it doesn't matter that it was hard to learn - it doesn't effect your experience after that. Teaching systems badly only hurts the new player experience. Is there any good reason to make things unnecessarily difficult for new players?

Another thing that makes no sense to me is that Wube hasn't really talked about quality (and Gleba) beyond "it's working as intended" and "we don't want to spoil your fun but we're removing space casinos". They've spent so much time on quality of life and bug fixes. I don't understand the priorities. Which is why explaining it is hard without invoking egos being hurt due to critique.

Space Age could be a LOT better with relatively little work. So much work has been put into the underlying systems. I understand getting tired of working on something after a long time, but if this is the case the project should be handed over to other people. There's plenty of design space left. It just feels like so much is being left undone and it's such a shame.

"Generally, we are happy with the game design of Factorio and Space age. The progression is good, things are mostly well balanced (one or two exceptions), and there isn't anything we feel is majorly missing." FFF #440

This statement is a borderline lie. I find it very difficult to believe that they actually believe this.

I still don't understand how what you're saying about gambling is relevant.

quineotio wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:50 am "Generally, we are happy with the game design of Factorio and Space age. The progression is good, things are mostly well balanced (one or two exceptions), and there isn't anything we feel is majorly missing." FFF #440

This statement is a borderline lie. I find it very difficult to believe that they actually believe this.

They have more regular player than ever, and overwhelmingly positive review : https://steamdb.info/app/427520/charts/#9y , and they did some balance changes since then so it's likely closer to the intended balance now .

quineotio wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:50 am It's not as if there aren't things that COULD be done to ease the pain. I've suggested ways to make it better in the early game, but another alternative is to make it a purely late game thing so that people have more familiarity with the game systems and access to all the tools when it's unlocked. In terms of difficulty (as it currently is designed), it would fit being unlocked on Aquilo. This isn't my preferred approach though.

Both are inconsistent and are restrictive, it's not making it better in the early game if you remove players the possibility to make "rare" before another research, it's delaying the benefit and adding another pre-requisite. It's worse to restrict quality to only at or after Aquilo, it's just punishing everyone for you don't want to hear about quality till then, just don't use the module and don't even do the research why would you feel better without the choice ?

quineotio wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2026 2:50 am They've spent so much time on quality of life and bug fixes. I don't understand the priorities.

you can use a mod to make the game easier, not to fix the bugs