Mike5000 wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 4:49 am
Zavian wrote: Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:32 am
If you actually want the devs to change their minds on this, then you need to provide a
logical argument that explains "why keeping the pickaxe makes Factorio a better game".
That has been done many times. What has not been done is to explain why removing the pickaxe makes Factorio better.
Quoting from the original FFF
Fast forward to these days and play-testing some of the tutorial tweaks. We noticed that players, when they start with Factorio, they often try to mine by taking the pickaxe into the cursor and doing the mining (as they might be used to doing from Minecraft or other similar games).
So we were thinking how to improve the tutorial to avoid this mistake, but the next natural question was: "Why would we even need to have pickaxe in the game?". We realized that it is the item that you just craft in the beginning, and upgrade once in the middle for a steel pick, and that is it. The cost of it is zero compared to the factory output. It is just bloat. So the change for 0.17 is that we completely removed mining tools from the game. The mining speed at the game start is the same as with iron pickaxe, and the research that unlocked steel pickaxe just increases player mining speed accordingly and that is it.
I can't speak for the devs, but I can give you my personal opinion on the issue. In general streamlining games by removing mechanics that aren't really used (eg the pickaxe, mining hardness) often results in a better and more polished gameplay experience. To me both the pickaxe and mining hardness fall into this category. In addition to the problem pointed out above, the pickaxe has almost no gameplay value. It is just an occasional resource sink whenever you last pickaxe wears out. I my opinion it has no reason to exist as an item in vanilla. I expect that also applies to 99% of mods. As I already stated I expect the main exception to be mods that extend the pre-burner/burtner stage, when the mod expects you to do a lot of hand mining. For most players I expect that they will barely even notice it's removal.
Once the devs have decided that they are going remove the pickaxe and mining hardness from vanilla, then tidying up the code (eg removing mining hardness from the engine) potentially makes sense. (Also, depending on the implementation, it is possible that in the old code mining drills might have needed to fetch extra data every time the drill mined something, so removing that might be a tiny performance optimisation. Even if it doesn't affect performance, keeping the code tidy by completely removing the out of date mining hardness code can be good practice).
As for the pickaxe slot, don't forget that we are getting a new GUI. So it's potentially not a matter of removing the pickaxe from the new GUI, but of not bothering to add it. (Adding a hidden pickaxe slot that mods could make visible is just doesn't make sense. Even if someone makes a compelling argument about how having a visible pickaxe improves the game, mods can already add custom GUIs, so I expect that they can add a custom button that shows a pickaxe, its wear, and allows you to change it, assuming anyone really wants that). But in general cleaning up the UI by removing anything unnecessary is good practice).
The best solution is to keep the pickaxe but make it not wear out in vanilla.
That does nothing to address the problem pointed out in the FFF. Even if you solved that problem in another way, in my opinion Factorio will be a better game because they are cleaning up the UI by removing unnecessary items.
One of the least best solutions is to remove the inoffensive popular bugfree pickaxe and then code up a whole new mechanism to replace it and then dump the whole mess on the unfortunate modders.
And I do not understand why some people want to keep it. From my point of view it adds almost nothing to the gameplay. It's an occasional resource sink, potentially at an inconvenient moment. Is that planning ahead for so you don't run out of axes at an inconvenient moment attractive to players?
Most of the arguments I've seen have been along one of three lines. (I'll freely admit I've started skimming the relevant topics. most of them just seem to be repeating the same gush of emotion, without having any solid logical arguments).
1. "It been in the game since the very beginning, so they shouldn't remove it". To me that just not logical. If the devs decide that keeping it serves no logical purpose, then they should remove it, even though it has been there for years.
2. "Having the axe in the UI increases immersion". Ok I can get that, but surely that is a minor effect. I think that can only be evaluated after playing for a while without it. (Obviously this is an area where different people will have different opinions. Personally I don't expect it to matter at all).
3. Some sort of emotional attachment to the pickaxe being what enabled you to start down the road to automation, and to build your factory, and hence being desperate not to loss that connection to the past. Pure emotional argument, but makes no logical argument about why keeping the axe makes Factorio better.
If you have a link to a post where someone express a different argument that you think is compelling (and based on logic, not just emotional attachment), then I'd be interested to read it. (I'll admit I've become jaded on the topic, and tend to just skim many of the posts. They all seem to be going around in circles, with everyone just rehashing the same ground).
Again as stated above, for vanilla and 99% of mods I expect the pickaxe is such a minor feature that they either ignore it entirely, or just add a new technology to unlock an upgraded axe when appropriate. Don't forget that the devs job is to make the best game they can. That means making the best possible vanilla experience. Having a vibrant, successful and diverse set of mods and a decent mod api is a bonus. Sometimes that focus on making the best possible vanilla game means making decisions that disappoint/annoy/upset some players. (Indeed I expect most decisions the devs make will annoy/disappoint at least a few players. I know they have made some decisions I've been disappointed in. But I've said my piece, accepted the result, and moved on).
