6 ms·

I know a lot of people who enjoy this game, and I am trying to get into it at the moment. I played a couple of hours earlier this week, and this is my review:

I know a lot of people who enjoy this game, and I am trying to get into it at the moment. I played a couple of hours earlier this week, and this is my review: The premise of the game is excellent. You have crashlanded on a remote planet and have to start from nothing, acquire resources, build tools, build machines, automate the acquisition of resources, etc., until you have developed enough technology that you can build a spaceship and flee the planet. Wow. There are 2 things I don't like. Firstly, I don't like the "biters" that come and destroy your base. I don't really think this adds to the game in any way. It feels like it was added to the game to make it appeal to the "gamer" demographic rather than the "programmer" demographic. If I'm working away on one corner of my base trying to solve automation problems, I don't want to have to run away and piss about shooting some pointless biters who are trying to destroy my stuff. I know the answer is "that's an automation problem too! build turrets!". But I just want to calmly play the game at my own pace, I don't want to have to be attending to urgent biter problems. I stopped playing the other day after biters destroyed a load of my stuff and I no longer felt invested in the game. That's not fun for me. I want to play the game, but I don't want my stuff getting destroyed if I do a subpar job of defending it. Secondly, (and this is partly related to the biters, but not completely), I find the game surprisingly stressful. I think this comes from the interplay between short-term and long-term problems. I don't know exactly what game mechanic causes it, but I think I would find it much more enjoyable if I could calmly work on problems without having to run around topping up coal and otherwise putting out non-automatable fires. Perhaps it's just the visuals of loads of materials stacking up on conveyor belts and going to the wrong places, and the kind of visceral feeling that the problem is getting worse for every second that it's not solved. I don't know. I don't find that relaxing. I will have another go though. I love the concept, and I haven't actually got to the end of the tutorial yet. I understand that when you start the proper game you can ask for "peaceful" mode which turns off biters, which sounds ideal for me.

Thorentis 6y ago
> I don't really think this adds to the game in any way. I think they are intended to push you along with development. Since they continue multiplying and evolve to become stronger if you don't destroy their bases, you need to make sure your tech develops and that you deal with them. It's meant to push you towards constantly improving your tech, rather than focusing on e.g. optimising your copper plate assembly lines for hours on end.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  And weaponry is a massive part of the tech tree (not to mention rewarding; train based artillery: yes please).
nindalf 6y ago
> I want to play the game, but I don't want my stuff getting destroyed if I do a subpar job of defending it. You're looking for "peaceful mode". I've played on both peaceful mode and normal settings. The advantage of biters existing is that they act as a check on runaway expansion and encourage you to move to cleaner energy sources. When you replace coal plants with solar or nuclear, you'll find that biters aren't annoyed by your base so much.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  I played my first couple of games on "peaceful mode", and played one on non-peaceful (in order to get the achievements for completing the game without solar power & lasers). There's .. enough complexity to the game such that I can see it'd be better to start with non-peaceful. Comparing non-peaceful mode to peaceful mode, a bit more of your time goes into setting up and maintaining defenses; but once a good set of defenses is established, playing is ~roughly~ the same as what peaceful would be. Peaceful is fun. Non-peaceful is also fun. But the powerful weapons at the end aren't as enticing on peaceful as they are on non-peaceful.
  - Chico75 6y ago
    The developers explained the rationale in an old blog post. Basically they were able to see through playtime statistics that people playing in peaceful mode gave up at a higher rate than non-peaceful, because they didn't feel that pressure to keep improving things.
MrLeap 6y ago
Sounds like peaceful mode is for you. I happen to like the biters. They give a nice "pay off" for all the industry you're creating. They're a chaotic externality that changes how you have to design things. I think they're a bit too binary though. Either they're brick walls or cotton candy.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I've had the same thing. I got the hang of it with peaceful mode, and launched the rocket :) Then I went back and tried with biters there, and enjoyed it. There is definitely an extra element with them present. Every time I start a game now, I customise it and keep the biters, but make them weaker and less aggressive so they're not a constant pain in the arse, but still present. I totally get the anxiety around "things piling up", but that is something you learn how to deal with. One of the things I found useful is the concept that a stockpile sitting on a conveyor belt is as valid as a sitting in a chest. And rate-limiting production by "there's no more room on the belt" is also perfectly valid. It does get more fun when you get to the flying robot stage, and there's a screen full of whizzing robots making everything happen.
shabbyrobe 6y ago
I really didn't enjoy the game with the biters turned on, but absolutely loved it when I switched to peaceful mode. There are enough problems to sort out without them, like "why do I suddenly not have enough iron plates", or "why do I suddenly not have enough copper plates", or my personal favourite, "why do I suddenly not have enough iron plates again"!
- nullc 6y ago
  "Why are my trains deadlocked", "Why is this tank empty", "Why are my trains deadlocked again"!
  - pixl97 6y ago
    "Why did I install the Angles and Bob's mods", "How do I build a waste processing loop so my entire base doesn't lock up", "Why did my wife and kids leave me"
nullc 6y ago
I played and completed this game a couple months ago also after first playing the tutorial/demo levels. I feel like the demo levels were setup to teach to to fear and deal with the biters. As a result when I played the real game they were no big problem in the early game because I immediately invested in building walls and appropriate armaments. In the demos I felt like they were too much to handle and too easily overpowered me. In the real game things are staged so the biters are initially weak, far away, and attack infrequently giving you plenty of time to prepare for them. Biters causing damage disproportionate to my ability to blink off just wasn't a problem in the real game for me. They caused more damage over time, but by the time they did I had endless supplies of the things they were breaking and automated repair, etc. Once I automated defences (and cleared out nearby nests-- which kind of acts like a useful arcade minigame with its own strategic elements-- e.g. inching turret outposts closer to the nests), it's unusual that biter attacks took any of my attention at all -- maybe just a glance on the map if it told me something other than a wall had been destroyed. Later in the game, pressure from the biters created logistic challenges that kept the game interesting. Basically when you've mastered the ratios and the supply chains, and deployed logic to balance your fluids, and whatever-- the game can get a little grindy without some kind of hazard here and there. And keeping the weapons/repair supply chains satisfied at your outposts is a significant engineering challenge itself. Some people I've seen complaining about the biters I think didn't play the tutorial/demo levels and were just caught completely by surprise by them and massively under-invested in defence/offence. As you note-- there is peaceful mode. From reading the subreddit I understand some number of people run without the biters. I believe there are also settings you can adjust to make them less of a problem without turning them off completely. I found that some of those stressed you experienced get better as I went on, because I learn how to fix them ("oh, this again?") and aren't too starved for the basic resources needed to do so. Some tools, like construction robots also make some annoying problems a LOT easier to deal with. I felt I'd basically mastered the game once my solution to a problem in an area could be to sweep it with the demolition tool, remove everything, than rapidly churn out some novel blueprints, tile them all over the place... then be back up in running quickly and not feel like I was losing anything by wiping away the prior work.
hoelle 6y ago
Biters are there to add pressure. After you get the swing of things in Peaceful mode, a Normal game is much more fun. Then, give Death World a try. It's the most compelling challenge in video games I've ever found. Bring a friend or two and you're guaranteed to make memories.
- oujunhao 6y ago
  Once I got the hang of a default world, Death World was an extremely satisfying challenge. It helps me to not get stuck trying to perfectly place my iron smelting line because I have to get it down now or else the biters will destroy everything.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
I don't know if it means anything really, but: Subnatucia: gather resources and build things so you can get off the planet you've crashed on. Encouraged to respect the environment. Actually get to leave the planet. No automation. Factorio: gather resources and build things so you can gather resources and build things so you can gather resources and built things so you can... Environment is just a resource. Build a rocket, but instead of leaving just keep building more rockets. I thoroughly enjoyed Subnautica despite some resource grind. The experiences it creates, culminating in what I can only describe as "leaving your first apartment for the last time", were well worth the investment to me. I put it in my top 5 games of all time. I stopped playing Factorio immediately after launching the rocket, and didn't enjoy the time I spent doing it. I think I only kept playing because I could slog through and finish it and I was "working" from home with the goddamn plague anyway. In a lot of ways it is like Universal Paperclips: the automation exists for its own sake to the extent that you'd destroy the universe just to keep the score going up. With UP, a lot of people talked about the dangers of AI, but seeing what Factorio does to people maybe we don't even need the AI. We have developers out there right now optimizing for "engagement", looping people into their own little recursive realities to efficiently harvest their eyeballs for advertisers. We know this is harmful to them. We know this is harmful to society. But the factory must grow. We need more paperclips.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Yeah, the constant underlying theme in Factorio of ruining a virgin planet with all this automation and pollution just didn’t sit well with me. I finally tried it when it hit 1.0 and it was some interesting stuff but the “turn a planet into a mess, kill anything that gets in your way” aspect was a real turnoff.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Thematically I can appreciate the statement there, but I don't think the gameplay backed it up very well, at least not for me. If I had enjoyed my time with it and been one of these people who continues to strip the planet bare in order to launch rockets for its own sake, then I would say that the game's theme was an incomplete thought since I was never confronted with the weight of my actions. I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, maybe at some point the biters cease to exist, the plants all rot and die, the day time gets darker and darker as the sky is obscured with smog. Something like that.
volkl48 6y ago
I felt the same as you in the tutorials, wound up stopping around the 4th tutorial and dropping it for months, and disliking the biters immensely. I wanted to tinker, not fight. A friend convinced me to give it another go later on in a multiplayer game and I got hooked. ---- The biters are more enjoyable when you already know and understand the game systems. I agree they're very stressful when you also don't really know what you're doing yet with the game. I would suggest leaving them off for a first game if you're feeling they're stressful. I still prefer to play with them turned down, or to play a Rail World (where they exist, but don't expand back into cleared areas.), but I don't keep them off now. ------ Anyway, in terms of progression, it's somewhat important to explain that you haven't learned all the types of automation in the game, and that also changes their impact. There is also automated construction (and reconstruction) that eventually becomes possible. I don't have to piece back together some destroyed assembly line by hand because I missed an avenue for getting attacked, robots do it for me so long as I have repair packs or replacement materials in inventory they have access to. The game at that point also supports things like copy/paste for entire designs and saving/importing blueprints. Have a great production setup and just need more of it? Copy-paste another row of it and hook up the inputs/outputs, not manually laying out 100 assembling machines, 200 inserters, etc.
psyc 6y ago
I have 20 hours playing with biters, and 1600 on peaceful.

Thorentis 6y ago

> I don't really think this adds to the game in any way. I think they are intended to push you along with development. Since they continue multiplying and evolve to become stronger if you don't destroy their bases, you need to make sure your tech develops and that you deal with them. It's meant to push you towards constantly improving your tech, rather than focusing on e.g. optimising your copper plate assembly lines for hours on end.

Freak_NL 6y ago
And weaponry is a massive part of the tech tree (not to mention rewarding; train based artillery: yes please).

nindalf 6y ago

> I want to play the game, but I don't want my stuff getting destroyed if I do a subpar job of defending it. You're looking for "peaceful mode". I've played on both peaceful mode and normal settings. The advantage of biters existing is that they act as a check on runaway expansion and encourage you to move to cleaner energy sources. When you replace coal plants with solar or nuclear, you'll find that biters aren't annoyed by your base so much.

rgoulter 6y ago
I played my first couple of games on "peaceful mode", and played one on non-peaceful (in order to get the achievements for completing the game without solar power & lasers). There's .. enough complexity to the game such that I can see it'd be better to start with non-peaceful. Comparing non-peaceful mode to peaceful mode, a bit more of your time goes into setting up and maintaining defenses; but once a good set of defenses is established, playing is ~roughly~ the same as what peaceful would be. Peaceful is fun. Non-peaceful is also fun. But the powerful weapons at the end aren't as enticing on peaceful as they are on non-peaceful.
- Chico75 6y ago
  The developers explained the rationale in an old blog post. Basically they were able to see through playtime statistics that people playing in peaceful mode gave up at a higher rate than non-peaceful, because they didn't feel that pressure to keep improving things.

MrLeap 6y ago

Sounds like peaceful mode is for you. I happen to like the biters. They give a nice "pay off" for all the industry you're creating. They're a chaotic externality that changes how you have to design things. I think they're a bit too binary though. Either they're brick walls or cotton candy.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I've had the same thing. I got the hang of it with peaceful mode, and launched the rocket :) Then I went back and tried with biters there, and enjoyed it. There is definitely an extra element with them present. Every time I start a game now, I customise it and keep the biters, but make them weaker and less aggressive so they're not a constant pain in the arse, but still present. I totally get the anxiety around "things piling up", but that is something you learn how to deal with. One of the things I found useful is the concept that a stockpile sitting on a conveyor belt is as valid as a sitting in a chest. And rate-limiting production by "there's no more room on the belt" is also perfectly valid. It does get more fun when you get to the flying robot stage, and there's a screen full of whizzing robots making everything happen.

shabbyrobe 6y ago

I really didn't enjoy the game with the biters turned on, but absolutely loved it when I switched to peaceful mode. There are enough problems to sort out without them, like "why do I suddenly not have enough iron plates", or "why do I suddenly not have enough copper plates", or my personal favourite, "why do I suddenly not have enough iron plates again"!

nullc 6y ago
"Why are my trains deadlocked", "Why is this tank empty", "Why are my trains deadlocked again"!
- pixl97 6y ago
  "Why did I install the Angles and Bob's mods", "How do I build a waste processing loop so my entire base doesn't lock up", "Why did my wife and kids leave me"

nullc 6y ago

I played and completed this game a couple months ago also after first playing the tutorial/demo levels. I feel like the demo levels were setup to teach to to fear and deal with the biters. As a result when I played the real game they were no big problem in the early game because I immediately invested in building walls and appropriate armaments. In the demos I felt like they were too much to handle and too easily overpowered me. In the real game things are staged so the biters are initially weak, far away, and attack infrequently giving you plenty of time to prepare for them. Biters causing damage disproportionate to my ability to blink off just wasn't a problem in the real game for me. They caused more damage over time, but by the time they did I had endless supplies of the things they were breaking and automated repair, etc. Once I automated defences (and cleared out nearby nests-- which kind of acts like a useful arcade minigame with its own strategic elements-- e.g. inching turret outposts closer to the nests), it's unusual that biter attacks took any of my attention at all -- maybe just a glance on the map if it told me something other than a wall had been destroyed. Later in the game, pressure from the biters created logistic challenges that kept the game interesting. Basically when you've mastered the ratios and the supply chains, and deployed logic to balance your fluids, and whatever-- the game can get a little grindy without some kind of hazard here and there. And keeping the weapons/repair supply chains satisfied at your outposts is a significant engineering challenge itself. Some people I've seen complaining about the biters I think didn't play the tutorial/demo levels and were just caught completely by surprise by them and massively under-invested in defence/offence. As you note-- there is peaceful mode. From reading the subreddit I understand some number of people run without the biters. I believe there are also settings you can adjust to make them less of a problem without turning them off completely. I found that some of those stressed you experienced get better as I went on, because I learn how to fix them ("oh, this again?") and aren't too starved for the basic resources needed to do so. Some tools, like construction robots also make some annoying problems a LOT easier to deal with. I felt I'd basically mastered the game once my solution to a problem in an area could be to sweep it with the demolition tool, remove everything, than rapidly churn out some novel blueprints, tile them all over the place... then be back up in running quickly and not feel like I was losing anything by wiping away the prior work.

hoelle 6y ago

Biters are there to add pressure. After you get the swing of things in Peaceful mode, a Normal game is much more fun. Then, give Death World a try. It's the most compelling challenge in video games I've ever found. Bring a friend or two and you're guaranteed to make memories.

oujunhao 6y ago
Once I got the hang of a default world, Death World was an extremely satisfying challenge. It helps me to not get stuck trying to perfectly place my iron smelting line because I have to get it down now or else the biters will destroy everything.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

I don't know if it means anything really, but: Subnatucia: gather resources and build things so you can get off the planet you've crashed on. Encouraged to respect the environment. Actually get to leave the planet. No automation. Factorio: gather resources and build things so you can gather resources and build things so you can gather resources and built things so you can... Environment is just a resource. Build a rocket, but instead of leaving just keep building more rockets. I thoroughly enjoyed Subnautica despite some resource grind. The experiences it creates, culminating in what I can only describe as "leaving your first apartment for the last time", were well worth the investment to me. I put it in my top 5 games of all time. I stopped playing Factorio immediately after launching the rocket, and didn't enjoy the time I spent doing it. I think I only kept playing because I could slog through and finish it and I was "working" from home with the goddamn plague anyway. In a lot of ways it is like Universal Paperclips: the automation exists for its own sake to the extent that you'd destroy the universe just to keep the score going up. With UP, a lot of people talked about the dangers of AI, but seeing what Factorio does to people maybe we don't even need the AI. We have developers out there right now optimizing for "engagement", looping people into their own little recursive realities to efficiently harvest their eyeballs for advertisers. We know this is harmful to them. We know this is harmful to society. But the factory must grow. We need more paperclips.

egypturnash 6y ago
Yeah, the constant underlying theme in Factorio of ruining a virgin planet with all this automation and pollution just didn’t sit well with me. I finally tried it when it hit 1.0 and it was some interesting stuff but the “turn a planet into a mess, kill anything that gets in your way” aspect was a real turnoff.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Thematically I can appreciate the statement there, but I don't think the gameplay backed it up very well, at least not for me. If I had enjoyed my time with it and been one of these people who continues to strip the planet bare in order to launch rockets for its own sake, then I would say that the game's theme was an incomplete thought since I was never confronted with the weight of my actions. I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, maybe at some point the biters cease to exist, the plants all rot and die, the day time gets darker and darker as the sky is obscured with smog. Something like that.

volkl48 6y ago

I felt the same as you in the tutorials, wound up stopping around the 4th tutorial and dropping it for months, and disliking the biters immensely. I wanted to tinker, not fight. A friend convinced me to give it another go later on in a multiplayer game and I got hooked. ---- The biters are more enjoyable when you already know and understand the game systems. I agree they're very stressful when you also don't really know what you're doing yet with the game. I would suggest leaving them off for a first game if you're feeling they're stressful. I still prefer to play with them turned down, or to play a Rail World (where they exist, but don't expand back into cleared areas.), but I don't keep them off now. ------ Anyway, in terms of progression, it's somewhat important to explain that you haven't learned all the types of automation in the game, and that also changes their impact. There is also automated construction (and reconstruction) that eventually becomes possible. I don't have to piece back together some destroyed assembly line by hand because I missed an avenue for getting attacked, robots do it for me so long as I have repair packs or replacement materials in inventory they have access to. The game at that point also supports things like copy/paste for entire designs and saving/importing blueprints. Have a great production setup and just need more of it? Copy-paste another row of it and hook up the inputs/outputs, not manually laying out 100 assembling machines, 200 inserters, etc.

psyc 6y ago

I have 20 hours playing with biters, and 1600 on peaceful.