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What is interesting about Factorio

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Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#301

Post by spyckie2 »

StavrosK wrote: post #284
spyckie2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the need to treat life as a dichotomy between work and play, but I feel you might have lost some of the magic of your childhood. For me it's the opposite, I hated complex games as a child but really enjoy them today. For me, the best feeling is working hard for something and really getting into the details and enjoying all the complexity of the experience / challenge. I think that most human beings are w…

Wait, if you don't want to do anything once a week you're diagnosed as depressed? How many people don't want to just sit around even once every week?!

The official stance from my psychiatrist was, if you have times where nothing seems that interesting to do or there is no motivation to do normal day to day activities, and that happens regularly (once a week) then you're clinically diagnosed as having minor depression. If you have those several times a week it can be major depression.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#302

Post by thu2111 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #248
thu2111 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was during some sort of story-driven tutorial in which biters would swarm a base after a few minutes of play, so research wasn't relevant. There was no way to get past them except by just beating them out action style. I did search pretty thoroughly.

"This was during some sort of story-driven tutorial in which biters would swarm a base after a few minutes of play, so research wasn't relevant" I have heard of this issue, and have seen a screenshot of someone else in the demo where the game placed the biters way, way, way too close to the player's base. That's just unfair, especially for a newcomer to the game. I'd consider this a bug in the demo, and would report…

I was playing the purchased game, so it wasn't a demo.

It was on a level where you had to reach a computer in some crashed rocket, if I recall correctly. You had to build turrets and keep them filled with ammo, but you started in a corner of the map with no base or raw materials, so you really had to move quickly before the ammo the game gave you to start with ran out and you became overwhelmed. You also had to use grenades to take out a biter nest so you could get to the rocket, and had a limited number of those too. So it was basically an action game rather than a building game at that point and a very badly balanced one.

But like I said I felt there were a lot of other issues. I really wanted to like the game, but "solid" wasn't the impression it left me with.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#303

Post by ge96 »

fouc wrote: post #6

As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

Isn't that funny, I can buy any game now but I usually lose interest after an hour or two playing it like Red Dead Redemption, played 2 hrs haven't touched since. I can get "quick hits" if it's a rapid PVP or something but getting into a story/following some long progression...

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#304

Post by sharkdog »

pixl97 wrote: post #258
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in reading their analysis on price setting. $30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.

>I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.

That is definitely not the reason why they don't go on sale. Sales are a good business practice and they usually result in higher sales. They don't go on sale simply because they want to be fair to their customers. They've said many times that they are financially well off and that they don't need the large amount of money that a sale can bring in.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#305

Post by glenneroo »

sdegutis wrote: post #25
fouc wrote: post #6

As someone that stopped playing games in university, I've found it weirdly hard to get back into games many years later. Factorio seems like the type of game I would've liked as a teenager, but now it just feels like work to me. As do most interesting games. It seems like there's a learning curve to games that I don't want to spend the time dealing with anymore.

That's because these kinds of games always were a form of work. When you have a higher purpose in life, these types of games drain you and leave you unfulfilled and unsatisfied and like we should have spent our time in a less tedious and wearisome recreation. I can no longer play Minecraft, and haven't even been able to get into Factorio.

> unfulfilled and unsatisfied

If you're not satisfied, maybe you should try Satisfactory - it's a FPS lite-version of Factorio :)

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#306

Post by glenneroo »

Faark wrote: post #251
debaserab2 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you can answer this for me then: what is the goal in a game of factorio?

The stated goal is to launch a rocket. But doing so hardly ever gave me a feeling of closure (excluding the 8h achievement speed-run) I got after finishing some story-based game and the "you won"-screen has a "keep playing" button for a reason... I expect most player use it. If the core game loop doesn't bring you satisfaction and you don't find motivation in setting your own goals, then this game just isn't the righ…

That was the original goal, at least over a year ago. They have since extended the tech tree requiring you to launch lots and lots of rockets containing satellites in order to acquire Space Science packs.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Space_science_pack

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#307

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pixl97 wrote: post #258
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in reading their analysis on price setting. $30 is much more than it was 3 years ago. I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. I guess I'll take it off my wishlist.

>I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.

People only buy it on sale because for those people the value isn't enough to justify the cost. Sales can increase revenue.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#308

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sharkdog wrote: post #304
pixl97 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've been waiting for a discount on factorio. Don't unless the company is bought out. They will never discount the sale price as it leads to the behaviour you just listed, people will only buy the game when it goes on sale leading to low sales when said game is not on sale.

That is definitely not the reason why they don't go on sale. Sales are a good business practice and they usually result in higher sales. They don't go on sale simply because they want to be fair to their customers. They've said many times that they are financially well off and that they don't need the large amount of money that a sale can bring in.

One might justify keeping the original ticket price as it being unfair to early acquirers to lower prices but I don't find that a compelling argument; people are usually happy to pay extra for novelty. The early acquirers get something for paying the higher price.

Usually second hand goods draw prices of older items (ie less novel - shop-new but not design-new) down. But quashing of secondary markets for software allows prices to be kept high.

I have an irrational urge to acquire this 2nd hand now ...

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#309

Post by sdegutis »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #300
sdegutis wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your philosophy, music and art do not serve a necessary function, and eventually, even liking things will be made "more efficient" by using chemicals via pills to adjust the brain chemicals until the liking is added or the desire for liking is removed.

Read my comments again. In my philosophy, we should strive to get rid of or minimize all necessary stuff, in order to free time, money and attention for pursuits of things one wants and not just needs . So, painting stays, dusting the apartment goes.

Some people find it fun to clean and a chore to play video games.

Re: What is interesting about Factorio

#310

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

pmoriarty wrote: post #283
JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I love it. I just went back to play last night and I got my Red and Green science built in a way with zero excess. All the miners lead straight into a furnace which fed straight into an automation factory which fed straight into the Red and Green science. The only thing I used belts for was getting the sciences to the Labs. Then I unlocked the the next level of science and it all instantly became spaghetti…

"If you can get clean whole numbers for a majority of your ratios, then you have a nearly perfect automation process even if it's all spaghetti belts." Another way to go is to use robots for delivery. That way there's no spaghetti of belts because there are no belts.

That also works, but you can't really do that until like midgame unless you use some mods. You need to have at least red and green science production and have researched a fair bit of technology before you get robots. Then you need the chests which is another tech. But yeah, normally once I get the robots I setup an automation factory just to create robots and put them in the roboport.

Then I can start getting rid of belts by just having the robots do the work. Setup a hit load of worker bots on the perimeter to fight any of alien things and fix the damage automatically.

The robots change the approach massively. But, I also enjoy the process of creating belts that get consumed near perfectly so that I create the exact same amount of each science. That's just my OCD side of things though.

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