What's the Idea behind "forcing goals" with every new game?

[H8redd]

I don't know why, but this seems silly to me that goals are being forced on new games. I've never used them and I find them annoying. Giving resources for free just because you've built something doesn't make sense to me. If people find it hard at the beginning, then turn on this option or maybe start with more resources, but forcing this is very unplaisant to say the least.

[Balsover]

The goals are annoying. I don't want to do the things that its telling me to, but I feel forced too, and the rewards for doing them make me do them.

Get rid of them, and let players build the way they want. Don't tell me I have to build 2 of something, when I don't have to.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by Balsover:

I don't want to do the things that its telling me to

Sooo... You don't want to build a farm, set up iron smelting and build a maintenance shed? Are you sure you are playing the right game?

Joking aside, the goals first got added because people kept screaming for a tutorial. I'm not sure about balancing around resource injections either, but we'll need a replacement for the guiding line the goals provide if they do get rid of them, or people will start screaming again.

[Peter34]

Sometimes the goals require me to do very specific things that I'd prefer to do in a different way, like "connect a Raincatcher to an Electrolyzer". That's mildly annoying. On the other hand, I've always been very, very positively surprised at how good the game is at "detecting" when I actually make these specific connections that it wants. It'd have been super annoying if that wasn't working well, but it isn't, so it isn't.

[Eruannon]

Originally posted by Kaery:

Originally posted by Balsover:

I don't want to do the things that its telling me to

Sooo... You don't want to build a farm, set up iron smelting and build a maintenance shed? Are you sure you are playing the right game?

Joking aside, the goals first got added because people kept screaming for a tutorial. I'm not sure about balancing around resource injections either, but we'll need a replacement for the guiding line the goals provide if they do get rid of them, or people will start screaming again.

Rather than insanely early goal, why not take a look at DIFFERENT goal, such as, for example Advanced Oil Processing where You are FORCED to burn Light and Heavy oil in a flare, and You cannot use it anyway else, such as through a gas boiler?

And it quite literally locks some goals behind it.

Let us be honest - quite a few goals are rather specific in what and how You want to do, rather than generic result based goals.

And by the way - lack of tutorial or quality of goals as tutorial is another can of worms, as those goals may be slightly annoying due to how exact they are in ways to achieve goals, and how BAD they are at explaining game.

Getting actual tutorial would help a lot for new players. Old ones are already used to this game after all.

[pk2jp[]]

+1

[Xenomorph Kitty]

Originally posted by Almaravarion:

Originally posted by Kaery:

Sooo... You don't want to build a farm, set up iron smelting and build a maintenance shed? Are you sure you are playing the right game?

Joking aside, the goals first got added because people kept screaming for a tutorial. I'm not sure about balancing around resource injections either, but we'll need a replacement for the guiding line the goals provide if they do get rid of them, or people will start screaming again.

Rather than insanely early goal, why not take a look at DIFFERENT goal, such as, for example Advanced Oil Processing where You are FORCED to burn Light and Heavy oil in a flare, and You cannot use it anyway else, such as through a gas boiler?

And it quite literally locks some goals behind it.

Let us be honest - quite a few goals are rather specific in what and how You want to do, rather than generic result based goals.

And by the way - lack of tutorial or quality of goals as tutorial is another can of worms, as those goals may be slightly annoying due to how exact they are in ways to achieve goals, and how BAD they are at explaining game.

Getting actual tutorial would help a lot for new players. Old ones are already used to this game after all.

I don't understand the complaints.

The one you mention, you're not forced to burn it via a flare at all. Connect it all up properly to a gas boiler, prime the system with a coal boiler for the initial steam, and then the light and heavy oil are produced enough after a couple of cycles to keep the system full of steam on it's own.

Then you can just attach a couple of flares and burn the stuff off to complete the task. Job done.

So people just love to be miserable though I guess.

[Eruannon]

Originally posted by Seri:

Originally posted by Almaravarion:

Rather than insanely early goal, why not take a look at DIFFERENT goal, such as, for example Advanced Oil Processing where You are FORCED to burn Light and Heavy oil in a flare, and You cannot use it anyway else, such as through a gas boiler?

And it quite literally locks some goals behind it.

Let us be honest - quite a few goals are rather specific in what and how You want to do, rather than generic result based goals.

And by the way - lack of tutorial or quality of goals as tutorial is another can of worms, as those goals may be slightly annoying due to how exact they are in ways to achieve goals, and how BAD they are at explaining game.

Getting actual tutorial would help a lot for new players. Old ones are already used to this game after all.

I don't understand the complaints.

The one you mention, you're not forced to burn it via a flare at all. Connect it all up properly to a gas boiler, prime the system with a coal boiler for the initial steam, and then the light and heavy oil are produced enough after a couple of cycles to keep the system full of steam on it's own.

Then you can just attach a couple of flares and burn the stuff off to complete the task. Job done.

So people just love to be miserable though I guess.

Which is literally what You just said - You attach a couple of flares to burn the stuff off to complete the task.

This is LITERALLY BEING FORCED TO BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK. Burn a lot of it? Not that much. But fact stays.

[Ion Halo]

Originally posted by Almaravarion:

Originally posted by Seri:

I don't understand the complaints.

The one you mention, you're not forced to burn it via a flare at all. Connect it all up properly to a gas boiler, prime the system with a coal boiler for the initial steam, and then the light and heavy oil are produced enough after a couple of cycles to keep the system full of steam on it's own.

Then you can just attach a couple of flares and burn the stuff off to complete the task. Job done.

So people just love to be miserable though I guess.

Which is literally what You just said - You attach a couple of flares to burn the stuff off to complete the task.

This is LITERALLY BEING FORCED TO BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK. Burn a lot of it? Not that much. But fact stays.

HOW DARE THIS DEV TEAM MAKE YOU LITERALLY BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK.

The gall. The moral bankruptcy. The absolute audacity to add a task inside of a video game. Call CNN and help us make the world a better place by banning devs from adding tasks to a video game.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by Seri:

I don't understand the complaints.

The one you mention, you're not forced to burn it via a flare at all.

There are people that build refineries without flares and just accept having to keep a very close eye on everything to make sure things don't stop up because one product or another has nowhere to go.
There are people that hate wasting even the tiniest drop of materials.
These are the people complaining that the task needs stuff burned to progress.

And yes, it does force you to burn it via the flare. Burning it in the gas boiler does not count to solve the step 'burn light oil in the flare'. Same with heavy oil.

I personally build a gas boiler, a balancer with a flare, and route exactly the amount needed into the flare so the task is done. If I can't spare a single digit amount of materials to get a task finished, I have many other problems already.

Edit: Reading that ending back, it sounds weirdly confrontational. That is not the intention, you play the game how you like.

[[UniR] SillyShibby]

Originally posted by Captain Zuff:

Goals are not so much a tutorial as they are a resource injection we balance the game around. They are all things you would do anyways in a normal playthrough but now you get a nice bonus stash of supplies for completing them.

If you want to disable them once in game, you can open the console with "tilde" (~) and input 'clear_all_goals_permanently' to disable current and future goals.

I totally like the goals with injections.

I see it for new players as tutorial tasks with helping resources if the misbuild something for correcting to a degree.

For advanced players the resources can help to accelerate the chewy early game by fulfilling goals with stuff they were building anyways or as a reminder for essentials.

And pros, who think they need the challenge and want to test if they always think of everything and want to take it slow, they can just disable it. I really do like it as it is right now :)

[sortulf]

The goals are fine on a normal playthrough, but on hard/impossible starts they can be a bit more tricky. Had a start where there wasn't enough space to build a trade dock - that would have been fine if not for the goal being a barrier to getting all the other goals... On some maps rain collectors take up too much space to be useful.

[Eruannon]

Originally posted by UniR SillyShibby:

Originally posted by Captain Zuff:

Goals are not so much a tutorial as they are a resource injection we balance the game around. They are all things you would do anyways in a normal playthrough but now you get a nice bonus stash of supplies for completing them.

If you want to disable them once in game, you can open the console with "tilde" (~) and input 'clear_all_goals_permanently' to disable current and future goals.

I totally like the goals with injections.

I see it for new players as tutorial tasks with helping resources if the misbuild something for correcting to a degree.

For advanced players the resources can help to accelerate the chewy early game by fulfilling goals with stuff they were building anyways or as a reminder for essentials.

And pros, who think they need the challenge and want to test if they always think of everything and want to take it slow, they can just disable it. I really do like it as it is right now :)

Honestly I don't mind the idea by of the goals itself (despite what The (John) Candy would like you to believe), though the method of analysis of goal completion is one that I have some issues with. Rather than check specific layouts of planning, results would be IMHO much better idea, for example 'acquire XXX units of YYY', where the amount is high enough to force player to deal in some way with byproducts (if present), either by storage, processing or dumping/burning, rather than forcing few runs of specific method or way to get it. You can think of task as of a puzzle - give a puzzle and give player ways to solve it. Was it not the method You envisioned but fulfilled the puzzle solution conditions? Great.
Forcing exact method of solving it may be detrimental to enjoying the 'puzzle' itself, and while it is understandable early on to show the method of working with puzzle, later on hand-holding might be detrimental. Option to enable smaller steps with the same output might be a good idea as well, to act as guidance similar to what it is now, though I don't think it should be the 'default' variant outside of either start with low difficulty or 'tutorial goals' option when starting new game. This would keep the function and balance of the goals (more-less), while at the same time allow player to find their playstyle. Player wants to rely on trade? Why shouldn't he be rewarded for acquisition of required resources by trade? Ironically if Your goal is to encourage different playstyles variant goals might be interesting idea - where player gets a goal of acquisition and list of few methods how to perform it, and let player decide which one to pursue.

Originally posted by The (John) Candy:

Originally posted by Almaravarion:

Which is literally what You just said - You attach a couple of flares to burn the stuff off to complete the task.

This is LITERALLY BEING FORCED TO BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK. Burn a lot of it? Not that much. But fact stays.

HOW DARE THIS DEV TEAM MAKE YOU LITERALLY BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK.

The gall. The moral bankruptcy. The absolute audacity to add a task inside of a video game. Call CNN and help us make the world a better place by banning devs from adding tasks to a video game.

Kid, if You want to be taken seriously in any conversation, it would help if You avoided strawmanning the other side's position and then ridiculing the strawman. It does nothing for discussion and in fact shows only either Your lack of comprehension of the other side's viewpoint, or it shows Your insincerity in discussion.

Honestly speaking Your prior version of this comment {"shut up nerd") was better. Certainly not 'good' but at least it has conveyed Your intention, while at the same time avoided the pitfall of use of strawman when doing that.

Now to elaborate on it and correct Your strawman - My issue with the current task system is it that it is not goal-focused but method-focused, which for a game which is built around the issue of logistics and production chains is quite literally - against the fundamental element of the game's design. In fact in some cases it discourages creation of blueprints and expansion of industry before a task is revealed, as the completion of the task may require varying degrees of redesign of what You build to do what You envisioned the design to do (e.g. Diesel production), due to e.g. no space to redirect connectors, no space to add components that are unnecessary in design but necessary for one-off small volume goal, or ironically - break the balance to the point where it is literally better to create off-site construction specifically to finish the goal and unlock goals further down the line.

As sortulf mentioned - they are fine in this form for easy areas/starts, but may be heavily detrimental to hard/impossible start areas, which diminishes their function as resource injection method. Method mind You that the game is balanced to include.

Now, to put this into simpler words - 'Goals' by themselves are not something I have problem with. HOW the Goals are implemented is what I have some issues with.

[Ion Halo]

Originally posted by Almaravarion:

Originally posted by UniR SillyShibby:

I totally like the goals with injections.

I see it for new players as tutorial tasks with helping resources if the misbuild something for correcting to a degree.

For advanced players the resources can help to accelerate the chewy early game by fulfilling goals with stuff they were building anyways or as a reminder for essentials.

And pros, who think they need the challenge and want to test if they always think of everything and want to take it slow, they can just disable it. I really do like it as it is right now :)

Honestly I don't mind the idea by of the goals itself (despite what The (John) Candy would like you to believe), though the method of analysis of goal completion is one that I have some issues with. Rather than check specific layouts of planning, results would be IMHO much better idea, for example 'acquire XXX units of YYY', where the amount is high enough to force player to deal in some way with byproducts (if present), either by storage, processing or dumping/burning, rather than forcing few runs of specific method or way to get it. You can think of task as of a puzzle - give a puzzle and give player ways to solve it. Was it not the method You envisioned but fulfilled the puzzle solution conditions? Great.
Forcing exact method of solving it may be detrimental to enjoying the 'puzzle' itself, and while it is understandable early on to show the method of working with puzzle, later on hand-holding might be detrimental. Option to enable smaller steps with the same output might be a good idea as well, to act as guidance similar to what it is now, though I don't think it should be the 'default' variant outside of either start with low difficulty or 'tutorial goals' option when starting new game. This would keep the function and balance of the goals (more-less), while at the same time allow player to find their playstyle. Player wants to rely on trade? Why shouldn't he be rewarded for acquisition of required resources by trade? Ironically if Your goal is to encourage different playstyles variant goals might be interesting idea - where player gets a goal of acquisition and list of few methods how to perform it, and let player decide which one to pursue.

Originally posted by The (John) Candy:

HOW DARE THIS DEV TEAM MAKE YOU LITERALLY BURN VIA FLARE TO COMPLETE THE TASK.

The gall. The moral bankruptcy. The absolute audacity to add a task inside of a video game. Call CNN and help us make the world a better place by banning devs from adding tasks to a video game.

Kid, if You want to be taken seriously in any conversation, it would help if You avoided strawmanning the other side's position and then ridiculing the strawman. It does nothing for discussion and in fact shows only either Your lack of comprehension of the other side's viewpoint, or it shows Your insincerity in discussion.

Honestly speaking Your prior version of this comment {"shut up nerd") was better. Certainly not 'good' but at least it has conveyed Your intention, while at the same time avoided the pitfall of use of strawman when doing that.

Now to elaborate on it and correct Your strawman - My issue with the current task system is it that it is not goal-focused but method-focused, which for a game which is built around the issue of logistics and production chains is quite literally - against the fundamental element of the game's design. In fact in some cases it discourages creation of blueprints and expansion of industry before a task is revealed, as the completion of the task may require varying degrees of redesign of what You build to do what You envisioned the design to do (e.g. Diesel production), due to e.g. no space to redirect connectors, no space to add components that are unnecessary in design but necessary for one-off small volume goal, or ironically - break the balance to the point where it is literally better to create off-site construction specifically to finish the goal and unlock goals further down the line.

As sortulf mentioned - they are fine in this form for easy areas/starts, but may be heavily detrimental to hard/impossible start areas, which diminishes their function as resource injection method. Method mind You that the game is balanced to include.

Now, to put this into simpler words - 'Goals' by themselves are not something I have problem with. HOW the Goals are implemented is what I have some issues with.

Lol, not reading all that.

[Kaery]

Originally posted by The (John) Candy:

Lol, not reading all that.

Tl:dr, Flexibility in how to solve tasks is king with goals.
Your retaliation was weak.
Explanation why your retaliation was weak.
Goals are not bad. Implementation of goals could be better.