Factorio Forums

bobucles wrote:

Not understanding them at first is the entire point. If there's nothing to learn, and a silver spoon is thrust into your mouth, there would be substantially less game. For me, understanding things I didn't understand before is sheer pleasure. Why are we even talking about removing that pleasure?

You're still assuming a position where the player already knows several core concepts about the game before they even begin. If a player doesn't know how to play the game then they don't know why it should be fun. Giving players SOME kind of initial direction for those first steps is not a bad thing.

I don't open a book with completely alien symbols for fun. I open a book that's made with letters and words I already understand and know.

No, I'm not.

If only the devs had given any of this a moment's thought ...

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-241

Koub wrote:First guiding to discover this basic design every player should have used one day, then showing how to save this design in a blueprint, and letting him keep it afterwards.

This is how it should be done. This way, the player feels a sense of achievement at making his/her first blueprint, and the player can use the blueprint in the future.

QGamer wrote:We do need to teach new players how to use blueprints. We do not need to give them hints. Let the player figure out good builds on their own. That's what makes it fun.

QGamer, that is true, you can teach a newbie to use blueprints. But how do you explain their value, especially when construction bots are late-game? I am asking because nobody is going to learn anything unless they see some value in it.

Will providing 5-6 basic blueprints ease the game's start and bypass some of the experimentation experience? - yes, absolutely. Will they affect the whole game experience? - not really, because 5 blueprints are just a drop in the bucket of hundreds of production lines that a player designs and constructs.

When I was little I learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels. Very quickly I stoped needing them, the training wheels were unscrewed from my bicycle and I ride very well ever since. What's wrong with doing the same with game designs and lowering the entry barrier to the game?

voddan wrote:QGamer, that is true, you can teach a newbie to use blueprints. But how do you explain their value, especially when construction bots are late-game? I am asking because nobody is going to learn anything unless they see some value in it.

With tutorials, like the ones being described in this week's blog, which are well known to be slightly lacking at the moment because the game is still in development and not finished.

Will providing 5-6 basic blueprints ease the game's start and bypass some of the experimentation experience? - yes, absolutely. Will they affect the whole game experience? - not really, because 5 blueprints are just a drop in the bucket of hundreds of production lines that a player designs and constructs.

Well, if it's such a negligible effect, it's not really worth spending much development time on, is it? Alternatively - and I hesitate to repeat myself - newbies could visit one of the several websites that already have blueprint strings available for thousands of designs. Or learn from other people on the forums, same as any other game with a fanbase.

When I was little I learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels. Very quickly I stoped needing them, the training wheels were unscrewed from my bicycle and I ride very well ever since. What's wrong with doing the same with game designs and lowering the entry barrier to the game?

Because what works well for literal toddlers learning transferable life skills doesn't necessarily apply to a fantasy computer game for adults, even metaphorically?

"Lowering the entry barrier to the game", as if it's some huge obstacle - in a game that is literally all about figuring out problems. You can read any one of a thousand testimonies from players about how they were immediately hooked the first time they screwed things up and restarted. If there were clear evidence that a lot of people are being put off by any particular game feature, let alone blueprints, your request for additional hand-holding in the early game might hold up. I've never seen many.

Deadlock989, sorry to say that, but your post doesn't make a lot of sense. You seem to ignore the points I am trying to make, and your counterarguments, while present (thank you very much), are separate from the whole discussion.

You speak from a position of a senior player who worked hard to get his game skills and doesn't want new players to get them any easier than you did. You completely ignore the fact that at the moment Factorio is a niche game despite having a potential for becoming a cultural phenomena like Minecraft, Heroes of Might and Magic or DOTA. A lot of the Factorio issues derive from a terrible new-player experience. The devs are aware of it and are trying to fix it (new UI, new tutorials, etc). The suggested tweak for the blueprints is supposed to be a part of a larger solution to the problem. Denying the problem even exists is counter-productive.

I'm not taking sides in this discussion, but I just like to point out that there is a fine line between guiding and smothering, between showing and spoiling.

Because what works well for literal toddlers learning transferable life skills doesn't necessarily apply to a fantasy computer game for adults, even metaphorically?

bobucles wrote:

Because what works well for literal toddlers learning transferable life skills doesn't necessarily apply to a fantasy computer game for adults, even metaphorically?

pic

I believe that is called a quote mine. He is actually referencing a toddler, not calling someone a toddler.

Hedning1390 wrote:

bobucles wrote:

Because what works well for literal toddlers learning transferable life skills doesn't necessarily apply to a fantasy computer game for adults, even metaphorically?

pic

I believe that is called a quote mine. He is actually referencing a toddler, not calling someone a toddler.

It may not look like it, but I am actually completely dismantling his argument one by one. Sit back and enjoy.

I very much don't think that giving players ready-made blueprints is a good idea. Even if they're suboptimal, that's just doing too much of the initial work for them, and there's no shortage of player-made starter base blueprints out there for those that do want to go searching for such shortcuts. I do, however, strongly agree that there should be a blueprint tutorial that covers creation, the library, and the use both as a planning aid and for construction bots (the latter introduced once bots are unlocked, perhaps)). I do also think that the tutorial campaign could introduce them. FFF #241 touched on the fact that stages of the campaign are broken up by cuts in which a bunch of new machines magically appear, which is jarring and unintuitive, and I think blueprints could be introduced as a way to smooth that transition (i.e. give the player a blueprint for the next stage's setup so they can stamp it down and fill it in, then maybe have construction bots appear and build the blueprint for subsequent transitions to keep that process from getting tedious).

Giving a player premade blueprints is bad imo. All designs should be learned by the player himself.

However implementing early game blueprinting before bots are available is much more valid idea.
I have suggested an Automated Construction Kit which would (replace an Axe) or (use weapon slot like Nanobots do) to allow automated construction of blueprinted entities around a player at some rate.
Until then there is no point even trying to teach a newbie using them.
When it comes to using them tutorial is fine.

Tutorial and not something like premade blueprints. Never that.

An idea from a different angle, what about late game tutorials and blueprints?
EX: A tutorial for how to use blueprints as a remote control, and then give them a blueprint for a toggle and remote control.
EX: A tutorial for how to make a graph to show what's in the logistic network storage (connecting a row of lights to the logistic network instead of combinators or a roboport), and a blueprint for that graph.

There are a couple late game things (especially with combinators) that are unintuitive or hard to understand, but mostly useful late game.

Medic5700 wrote: Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:21 am An idea from a different angle, what about late game tutorials and blueprints?
...
There are a couple late game things (especially with combinators) that are unintuitive or hard to understand, but mostly useful late game.

Tutorials? Yes! Things like combinators and advanced late-game setups may warrant the use of tutorials to show players how things work & give them a few good ideas.

Blueprints? No. Let the players figure things out for themselves, so they can feel pride in their hard work. If they want blueprints there are plenty of resources on the web that can help them. Ingame, players need hints and guidance but should have the opportunity to discover the richness of the game on their own.