I'd like to preface this by saying that I do think there are a couple of things in this blog post that I do appreciate, those being the introduction of the recycler and some attempt to further improve the progression of the player and their factory. The recycler does solve a long standing problem of obsolete or otherwise unwanted items cluttering either your inventory or some remote chest in your logistic storage, which is neat.
The idea of quality isn't inherently awful, on paper at least. Having some additional measure to improve your character's equipment and your factory is cool. It might be on the weaker end of achieving that, I'd much rather there were new, unique items and structures that accomplished the same thing, but I can understand from a development standpoint that that may not be as economical an endeavor. The suggestion is reasonable enough.
I don't like this proposed implementation, however.
It's not about the names for the tiers of quality. That's honestly the easiest thing to fix, I can't imagine it would take longer than a couple of minutes of editing the locale file per language, and the bulk of that time would frankly just be deciding on synonyms more appropriate for the setting. I find it absurd that most folks are hung up on this and not the more glaring issues of this implementation, but at the very least you guys aren't strapped for choice, given all the alternatives suggested.
Rather, my concerns are far more ingrained in the mechanics of it, things that are unfortunately not as trivial to address. I've read and understood the reasoning behind this implementation, the motivation behind it all, so I feel it'd be most fruitful to break down the parts I find contentious if not downright disagreeable, and offer my personal suggestions more meaningful than scrapping years of work entirely.
"This mechanic is optional."
In the strictest sense, it is. Delving into quality is not required for progression, nor is it something that is absolutely necessary to complete the game in a reasonable amount of time, if my understanding of the design is correct. Nor is it really required to create a well designed megabase.
But... is it really optional? When endgame legendary items and equipment are the best of the best, what better marker for having mastered the game and its mechanics exist, what better way to experience the game and various builds at their highest potential? It's optional in the same sense that playing beyond the victory condition is optional, which in turn is in the same sense that playing the game at all is optional. It's ultimately an arbitrary thing to point out, as it is part of the game. A part of the game only a fraction of the playerbase would meaningfully experience in its full depth, but part of the game nonetheless. It's optional... until it isn't.
It makes me feel like this point was brought up proactively as a defense mechanism, possibly to deprioritize the issues that may arise from it just because it's pushed to a point where few will properly give it a go to its fullest extent. This is purely the most cynical read, I'm sure this isn't framed in this way for any nefarious reason, it just looks unfortunate. Either way, a mechanic being optional doesn't excuse it from improvement.
"This mechanic scaled up is statistical rather than probabilistic." (The implication being that there's supposedly no inherent problem with the random chance associated with the mechanic, as it'd smooth out over a large base across a playthrough.)
That statement, too, is true, same for any recipe that would have random chance like uranium processing.
The problem is that, for each possible result from a particular process, alongside the expected returns of each result, the complexity for each recipe increases substantially. Unfortunately, the complexity increase is in a direction that's rather shallow. The electronic circuit build in the blog post is, essentially, the intended framework for engaging with this mechanic for all recipes. Repeatedly craft components, break them down, craft them again, repeat until they're at maximum quality. It's a solved problem, the only meaningful improvement to make for each build is belt arrangement. Repeat for *every* relevant component.
When it's a mechanic for uranium processing or a couple other processes, it's a unique consideration. When it's required to get the most out of your equipment and machines, that's just the game at that point. (Perhaps more accurately half the game, if science production is unaffected by quality, which I imagine it is for the sake of keeping productivity modules relevant.) In any case, it's a lot of clutter for, essentially, a modest but desirable increase in player capability and factory performance. I bet the system limit pushers are going to have a field day farming legendary solar panels and nuclear reactors.
You could not engage with quality at all, but then you're left out of the possibilities that improved items can bring. And if you do decide to engage with it, you're forced to implement the same sort of accommodation for every build. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
But there's one more thing that really irks me, something that I'm shocked more people aren't bringing up.
"Quality stacks are independent." Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... t/jznqxel/
This is absolutely dreadful for a couple of major reasons. As it stands right now in the public release, player inventory can get pretty cluttered, there are so many items that are useful to have on hand for quick construction, modification, and combat. Adding unstackable quality only compounds the problem. There's little reason to have anything but a singular quality for each item (and, with little exception, the best quality is going to be preferred). Anything else would just needlessly clog your inventory. It's far simpler to automate for whatever highest quality is practical to achieve for each item and then stockpile on that, than it is to even attempt to care about whatever other quality is possible for that particular item.
Moreover, and I'm surprised that there isn't even the suggestion that this came up as an issue during playtesting, unstackable quality means that machines can deadlock from not having enough of a particular item of the same quality. This problem is identical to the longstanding issue of damaged items not stacking with undamaged items, but now it's compounded to the point where it will become far more apparent to a player casually playing with quality. Even if items don't deadlock, inserters are limited to picking up all of the same quality, which means that stack inserters are inherently a poor choice in these builds. Y'know, the builds that tend to require a ton of components to sift through to roll for higher tiers of quality.
That was a lot of negativity, I apologize. To clarify, I do think this idea is ultimately salvageable. But it needs some revision. A mechanic being optional does not forgive it of its shortcomings, the best way to address it therefore is to, well, actually address it. Players will eventually engage with it, and if most folks do not see any fun in playing with it, it might as well not even be part of the expansion experience.
The randomization of the items inherently creates the necessity to solve it in fundamentally identical ways, creating either a network of filter splitters every build or letting the bots sort it out. What I suggest instead is, unfortunately, more involved development work than simple number tweaking, so I can understand it not being a desirable avenue. But I do think it necessary to make this mechanic work.
Y'all need more processes. That's it. Perhaps other planets may provide you with resources or technology that allow you to craft higher quality items guaranteed. While it is definitely, unavoidably, a significant undertaking just to better recontextualize another significant undertaking already made, it would further entrench the impact and significance of these other planets and make the overall experience feel more cohesive, with the added monumental bonus of introducing actually distinct and engaging complexity for once familiar products.
As for the item stacks? I'd say make it possible for each stack to mix quality, with the ability to single out a particular quality on inventory operations. I have no idea if this is practical, given the data structure of inventories. I have no idea if playtesting a working implementation of this reveals that five qualities is still way too cluttering. Frankly, if it does reveal that, it's probably for the best to trim the amount of tiers, anyway. But I get the sense that something will have to be done to address this stacking issue before it gets out of hand for folks that genuinely want to engage with quality on its own terms. At the very least a solution like this could be backported to damaged items and solve that as well.
Overall, I just want this mechanic to be fun. I want to be excited to work towards stupidly powerful power armor and assemblers. But the process of getting there should be fun. I don't want to dread having to experience anything this expansion has to offer, even if it is ultimately optional. Really, that's all I want out of it, and out of this discourse.
