is the tutorial for this game terrible?

[Steve10393]

it doesn't even explain how to remove a placed structure but it's already skipped to conveyor belts and stuff - i'm already alt-tabbing just to figure out the delete button for a building

[Fel]

It explained how to "mine" things, which is how entities are removed.
It doesn't matter if it's a tree or a machine, that is how you remove anything.
For ores it only removes the ore from the tile if there is none of it left but that's the only difference.

The tutorial is definitely not the best there is (especially for the later parts of it), but it is not a game where it will hold your hand through every single step.

[Alshain]

Yes. It's useful for the first handful of missions if you e never played but then it gets annoying.

[Cabal]

If it gets annoying, its not your game since the difficulty will rise even more later on. You need to be into something like this, automatization, rations/efficiency... if unlike others during all these years, you can't come past the tutorial or helping out yourself (will be the case especially later): this game is not for you.

[Fel]

The missions can get annoying even for people that like the game, the last few focus heavily on combat.
Many people do not enjoy having to defend all over the place but like the rest, and the game (outside of the demo/missions) allows you to disable them.

When I wanted to play the missions again, I ended up cheesing the last maps because they were annoying me more than anything else.
They don't really teach all that much outside of how to setup a very basic train.
The "ruins" in the last mission are supposedly teaching you some decent layouts but anyone with a bit of experience with the game will notice how bad those are too.

Outside of the last map, you have very little space to make your factory, and very limited resource deposits as well, which is not really representative of the default game mode either.

[DaBa]

It's a good tutorial, tells you what you need to know to be able to start playing the game and learn all the other things while you do that.

I also don't remember having the problems you're describing when I was starting out. The first time I had to look anything up on the internet was how the fluid system works exactly. But basic things like how to deconstruct buildings? If the game doesn't tell you about those they are clearly extremely easy to figure out because I've literally never seen anybody else get stuck on that (and I've seen plenty of people try Factorio out) or complain the game doesn't explain it. Sounds like a skill issue not gonna lie.

[puschit]

Only problem I had with the tutorial was that you had to deal with biter pressure while trying to figure out the controls and how to set up things.

[Khaylain]

Yeah, the biters often just add too much extra stress without actually helping teach what a new player needs to learn to get to enjoy playing the game, IMO.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

Yeah, the biters often just add too much extra stress without actually helping teach what a new player needs to learn to get to enjoy playing the game, IMO.

yeah - i think that once they had been introduced it would have been good to flash up a sign saying something like:

We are going to set the game to "Peaceful" now so that the biters will not attack you unless you attack them first

and then re-enable them in a later level - maybe with some tutorial tips on defences etc

but i think the issue was that the tutorial was framed as the beginning of a campaign story - and so what i suggested would be too 4th wall breaking

it wasn't too much of a problem for me, since i was hooked on the game within 5 minutes of starting the demo - especially since back then (2016) there was nothing like Factorio

and these days if i go back and play the tutorial it is easy to wipe the biter nests out on the levels before level 5 - and then that level is still easy because the biters are set to not expand - so you can actually drive around the whole level collecting everything - and just staying out of range of the nests - and after a while you have equipment that allows you to systematically wipe out all the nests

but i do think that being able to play the first levels (or the whole thing) in peaceful mode would probably help a lot of new players

also - while the designs of the ruins in level 5 are not great from a functional point of view - i love them from an aesthetic point of view - as well as there being lots of little "easter egg" bases as rewards for exploring

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Khaylain:

Yeah, the biters often just add too much extra stress without actually helping teach what a new player needs to learn to get to enjoy playing the game, IMO.

It all depends on what type of game you want to play. If you want to play the game with biters, then you're going to learn that only by playing with them. Learning to deal with the pressure that they create is part of the experience. I would recommend not using peaceful mode either since that is one step away from playing with zero biters. But if somebody is struggling for some reason even on default world settings, they can nerf the biters a bit in the settings so there is less pressure.

[Doom Sayer]

So your not capable of figuring out what basic mouse buttons do? I imagine you have trouble figuring out how to move and jump in video games then. I guess you need a gaming journalist mode.

[Alshain]

Originally posted by Cabal:

If it gets annoying, its not your game since the difficulty will rise even more later on. You need to be into something like this, automatization, rations/efficiency... if unlike others during all these years, you can't come past the tutorial or helping out yourself (will be the case especially later): this game is not for you.

Lol, been playing the game since beta. I love the game. The missions being annoying have nothing to do with the normal gameplay. It's because of the way they start you off, you basically have to dismantle everything so you can rebuild it well. Or suffer with terrible designs. It's one thing to rebuild your own factory but when you start the game with a bad factory, that's just irritating. Once you figured out enough of the game controls, abandon the missions.

[Ser Pounce]

Originally posted by Steve10393:

it doesn't even explain how to remove a placed structure but it's already skipped to conveyor belts and stuff - i'm already alt-tabbing just to figure out the delete button for a building

Maybe it's just me but here are the first things anyone should really do when launching a game :

- Check the options
- Check the keybinds
- Check the tutorial

if it's not in the tutorial, it's in the keybinds.

Even without that, I'd expect people, and especially people who play video games in general, to easily figure basic things out just by curiosity as well as trial and error.

[Taehl]

OP forgot about the right mouse button in record-breaking time. But surely it's all the terrible game's fault, of course - WHY YOU SO TERRIBLE, GAME?! /s

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Fel:

It explained how to "mine" things, which is how entities are removed.
It doesn't matter if it's a tree or a machine, that is how you remove anything.
For ores it only removes the ore from the tile if there is none of it left but that's the only difference.

The tutorial is definitely not the best there is (especially for the later parts of it), but it is not a game where it will hold your hand through every single step.

ironically, the OP almost has a point

i just tried the the tutorial again, and it actually does not explain that mining a resource patch and removing an entity are the same action (i followed it through to the point on level 2 where it leaves you to collect a certain amount of resources)

and even looking in the controls would not tell you, since the action is "Mine"

obviously i doubt most people had a problem with it because it was likely just instinctive to try both buttons on the first smelter or miner we built - or that the mine button would remove entities (since what would that button do on an entity if the left button opens it?)


also


the OP is showing as owning the game

so that must mean that they did not try the demo before dropping $35 on the game

which seems pretty odd

since if they had tried the demo they would likely have run into the "problem" then, and maybe made the (quite possibly sensible) decision that this was not the game for them

or simply overcome the "problem" and then found that there were no similar "issues" once that fundamental control was known


so


fair point that the tutorial (and the controls page) does not explicitly explain that mining is a composite control that just collects whatever entity it is used on

but this is the first time i have ever heard of anyone having this particular confusion - so i assume everyone else worked it out by inference or trial and error

and as mentioned, it is probably a good signpost that this is a game that does not hold your hand, and requires players to be willing to learn by trial and error - and so the OP would likely have served themself better by playing the demo before buying it

[Jack Sparrow]

Originally posted by Alshain:

Yes. It's useful for the first handful of missions if you e never played but then it gets annoying.

Missions?