3 Weeks of Factorio

[quantum]

It has been amazing 3 weeks of game play. It is definitely the best $20 I've ever spent on a game. I was anticipating playing this game for a year, ever expanding my resource reach and rail system. Sadly, I've come to realize that there are no end game consumers. There is no exit system for the goods produced by my factories. It looks like my sandbox is all out of sand. It was a nice run, hopefully this gets addressed in some future updates.

I did read a post from another player who had a great idea on an end game consumer. They mentioned an ability to craft a cargo hold and send resources back home in a space trade, that would be an interesting concept to employ.

[SaintFlow]

hi! there were many threads like this in the past.

people played this game, grew to love it, played more and got to a stage where you would really like to have some sort of end game which the game itself provides (i would love that too btw!). right now its just build stuff you set out to do yourself or install mods and then play again. not ideal imho. the game could definitely use some work on that front because lets face it, people who like what this game can do want to spend more "meaningful" time than just launching a rocket and deinstall and yeah, many ppl (me included) do like to make their own goals, but it is A LOT more fun if the mission you set out to do is not completely arbitrary and its way easier to build 78678678 km of train tracks if you can somehow justify in your mind that they absolutely have to be built!

devs have known those issues/wishes for years. i dont think apart from the infinite research plan they have anything really planned to implement though and my interpretation of their answers lead me to the conclusion that you should not get your hopes up. doubt there will be more end game things any time soon bud

[Deadly-Bagel]

You'll get a lot of runs out of earning all the achievements. Lazy Bastard was particularly fun (no cheating by looking stuff up!) and I've got plans for a 20 million electronic circuit mega factory which is the last one I need. I also intend on a no-belt run in 0.15 when it's released.

The problem is, what is endgame? Say you've got a crate you pump tons of resources into and then it flies off into space. You realise I've just described the rocket, right? We already have what you've asked for and as you said it's a bit underwhelming, but what else is there in this immense game? You could travel to space and mine asteroids but then what would you do with those materials?

Once the full game is released I'm expecting a bunch of endgame mods. Maybe you've got 40 hours to construct a blueprint of a city including utilities such as water purification and electricity, optionally you have to wipe out all bugs (maybe it's a limited map). This might occur in stages, where you get to the point of automating asteroid mining and making everything self-sufficient to support industry.

In the meantime (other than achievement hunting) I suggest the Supply scenario, it's short but pretty fun and you'll probably need a few attempts to keep up with it. There's also the Factory campaign or whatever it's called where you have to set up efficient mine-and-refine processes to turn a profit.

[cpy]

It has been amazing 3 weeks of game play. It is definitely the best $20 I've ever spent on a game. I was anticipating playing this game for a year, ever expanding my resource reach and rail system. Sadly, I've come to realize that there are no end game consumers. There is no exit system for the goods produced by my factories. It looks like my sandbox is all out of sand. It was a nice run, hopefully this gets addressed in some future updates.

I did read a post from another player who had a great idea on an end game consumer. They mentioned an ability to craft a cargo hold and send resources back home in a space trade, that would be an interesting concept to employ.

Wrong! Your sandbox is not out of sand! You are out of room for sand castles and noone to knock it down or sell it to. Or to build a space station as we were once promised.
Rocket launched score? Blah! True factorio player needs Planets destroyed counter!

I think there were or are few endgame mods already.

[quantum]

Great responses. Let me clarify, I'm not looking for an end game. To the contrary, I'm looking for the endless game. It took 6 years for me to burn out on Minecraft and 3 weeks to burn out on Factorio. However, I feel Factorio has a huge amount of potential. It simply lacks a reason for me to continue playing. Self appointed goals do not work for me. I simply need something to burn my resources on so I can continue to scout and install new outposts and expand my reach.

I enjoyed it so much after 48 hours, i immediately uploaded it to my Dedi and invited a few friends. I put it there assuming we would be spending many months on this game. I'll have to scout some of the mods out and see if there is anything to fix this problem.

[SaintFlow]

Great responses. Let me clarify, I'm not looking for an end game. To the contrary, I'm looking for the endless game. It took 6 years for me to burn out on Minecraft and 3 weeks to burn out on Factorio. However, I feel Factorio has a huge amount of potential. It simply lacks a reason for me to continue playing.

I'll have to scout some of the mods out and see if there is anything to fix this problem.

similar thoughts here. when you come across an up to date mod taking care of it in some way please give me a shout!

[Nich]

Auto rocket launches really do need to be part of vanilla.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Burned out after one game? Lightweight.

There are mods to increase costs, the Marathon mod is a pretty good example, requiring you to build massive factories for the most basic of components. I'm not personally fond of this as it's more extending gameplay rather than improving it but sounds up your alley. Then you've got the likes of Bob's Mods that totally overhaul the game and make it twenty times more difficult, you'll probably need at least a hundred hours for your first game and it encourages different styles of play.

Also remember the next version will have harder (and infinite) research, and maybe also a "difficulty" setting that increases the number of research packs per research which will significantly affect the length of the game.

[Hannu]

devs have known those issues/wishes for years. i dont think apart from the infinite research plan they have anything really planned to implement though and my interpretation of their answers lead me to the conclusion that you should not get your hopes up. doubt there will be more end game things any time soon bud

Devs can not do much at this phase of developing process. Factorio have a large community with huge number of play styles. If they made one end goal, most players would disappoint in any case, because it would not fit to their personal style and opinions. And there are also many players, like me, who hate tight predefined goals and end conditions in games. My actual game begins when I start my rocket production and it ends couple of hundreds of hours later when everything works flawlessly and I feel it boring to extend my base by copying production cells again and again.

[SaintFlow]

Oh, you misunderstood!

Endgame =/= end goal.

Endgame means that there are things to do after reaching e.g. max tech level/ first rocket launch. Not a tight goal, the opposite actually! Like in an MMO or Diablo 3 where the real game often starts after you completed the story.

Of course it is somewhat different in Factorio, but I stand by my opinion that the players who crave for more meaningful challenges after making it big should not be left alone by the Devs but treated with special care instead.

[Hannu]

Oh, you misunderstood!

Endgame =/= end goal.

Endgame means that there are things to do after reaching e.g. max tech level/ first rocket launch. Not a tight goal, the opposite actually! Like in an MMO or Diablo 3 where the real game often starts after you completed the story.

So you mean more content. I think that amount of the content in Factorio is in agreement with its price. Of course more would be always nice, but at least I would like to have significantly higher complexity after rocket launches, which needs more resources, entities, intermediate products etc. But it seems that current level is maximum for an average players or players with different style. It will probably work better if everyone can mod their game to fit their personal opinions after rocket. And of course vanilla game gives many possibilities after an official victory, for example to build a base which is able to produce continuously certain number of rockets per hour. It can be done with suitable limitations (no lasers, no solar power, no beacons, no modules, high biters, scarce resources, trainworld base etc.) to get more challenge. I have personally never understood why so many stop playing just when the most interesting phase of the game begins.

[SaintFlow]

I don't necessarily mean more content either

Yeah what you talk about are those arbitrary self proclaimed goals which have nothing to do with the game really. And i would like for the game itself to implement more forms of carrots dangling infront of your sight.

I am no creative person but throughout the years people have already suggested many awesome things one could do, some requiring much work, some requiring not so much work.

E.g. you could take the game into some sort of situation where there is a reason for you to produce something within a certain timeframe, or that you produce something in different locations on the map, etc etc.
Or another direction where you amp up the alien threat in some way in the end game.
Maybe you could even have a mixture of both with times where producing rockets is key and times where you need to defend.


And those are just the thoughts of a non creative person, imagine what creative people could come up with! And you maybe saw how it does not necessarily need more content to create more interesting end game situation with meaningful goals!

[Hannu]

Yeah what you talk about are those arbitrary self proclaimed goals which have nothing to do with the game really. And i would like for the game itself to implement more forms of carrots dangling infront of your sight.

OK. I like more free sandbox -like gaming. But maybe there could be optional scenarios fro those who want it. It would in any case be quite difficult to satisfy most players. Someone likes war and strong biters, someone want to maximize production numbers and so on. Forces end game would prevent many playstyles or at least would make them more difficult.

E.g. you could take the game into some sort of situation where there is a reason for you to produce something within a certain timeframe, or that you produce something in different locations on the map, etc etc.

It would be a good idea that biomes would have real effect to game (pollution effect is quite negligible at normal settings). For example resources should depend on biomes, and maybe there could be different enemy species. There could also be moddable (or hard difficulty setting) physical properties, like temperature and weather effects. But at least enemy and resource distributions would be very easy to program. But I think that then many players would complain that they can not make their favorite things in their favorite biomes or that the game is too complicated.

And you maybe saw how it does not necessarily need more content to create more interesting end game situation with meaningful goals!

OK. I understand now. Problem was that what you think is meaningful goal is probably annoying artificial restriction for me. But it is very common that players demand more predefined objectives with more strict rules, also with other sandbox type games, and maybe there could be some kind of scenario mode for such players. Also achievement system could easily have more late game achievements (launch 20 rockets per hour, defend 100000 biters with only gun turrets etc.)

[Nich]

I do wish resources were more biome dependent. Oil in deserts, coal in planes, iron/copper in forested/mountains. I would also think it would be if further out the best patches of Iron/copper where heavily mixed.

[SaintFlow]

OK. I understand now. Problem was that what you think is meaningful goal is probably annoying artificial restriction for me. But it is very common that players demand more predefined objectives with more strict rules, also with other sandbox type games, and maybe there could be some kind of scenario mode for such players. Also achievement system could easily have more late game achievements (launch 20 rockets per hour, defend 100000 biters with only gun turrets etc.)

Achievements are booooooring imho. dont have anything to do with the game either for me. many people like them, i dont really care about them as they are not tied in into the game experience most of the time.

well, i think what you want is just a full sandbox/creative a.k.a peaceful mode in here. which is absolutely fine! im not talking about scenarios either, just a better "main mode" end game experience.

i understand that for some, it might not be ideal to have more goals built in the vanilla experience, but thats an easy fix: peaceful mode or any other sandbox only mode. However, imho that should not hold back what the full vanilla experience end game could offer to players who crave for more!

[Frightning]

Endgame has been talked about a lot. My opinion, and one I see many others echoing in various forms is this: Right now, there aren't many things compelling you to continue building things on a larger and larger scale. At a certain point, you are making enough of everything you need to survive indefinitely, and at that point, the pressure to make more things vanishes. During the earlier parts of the game, you need to get resources to spend on things like military, research, expanding production, etc. But eventually, your research is all done (this one is planned to be getting addressed with infinite research, which I am looking forward to); you have plenty enough ammo, turrets, walls, and other military equipment, and won't need more for a long time; your production is more than adequate to keep up eminent future demands. This is the crux of the problem, give me a reason to make a giant factory that makes a ton of (x) item, and everything that is needed to supply it. That's what's missing.

[Hannu]

well, i think what you want is just a full sandbox/creative a.k.a peaceful mode in here. which is absolutely fine! im not talking about scenarios either, just a better "main mode" end game experience.

I do not like the peaceful mode. However, I want to be an engineering colonel who make strategic decisions like planning of defense lines and attack strategies and allocating resources to build and maintain military things instead of a lieutenant who make tactical decisions and take part of actual fight. In my opinion there should be automatic guard, scout and battling bots which I could place in strategic places and give them commands to get intelligence data, conquer more area and artifacts or defend an outpost.