My frustration with Facilities

[Zombiesbum]

As a solo player, there are so many things locked behind facilities, so I decided to build a small unreserved facility close the the refinery in Great March, along with a small gauge track going to and from the refinery/local scrap field. There are a few problems that are blatantly clear with public facilities.

1: Theft
Firstly, because the facility is unreserved, anyone can take anything, which is perfectly fine if those things are being used for the front or for infrastructure that makes sense. But a lot of people take things for their own LARPing experience, or yeet the resources into a non-disclosed location forever.
Solution:
-No direct solution; people will forever be selfish, ungrateful, greedy swine. And no fix can be made that doesn't turn the game even further away from solo players.
-Ability to track exactly where the resources you gathered went, what they were made into, and where that product is sitting.
Maybe this opens up another can of worms, but who really cares at this point, right? When you see a guy named "bob" with <1k resources gathered take out thousands of comps that you farmed (ready to be made into pcons), then it's a little frustrating not knowing how much use your time contributed to the front, if at all.

2: Maintenance
I Signposted the facility for public use, but only the occasional passer-by actually seems to help maintain the facility, which means the gsups run out by the time I re-log, and every time I log in I have to spend an hour repairing decaying structures (It is not a big facility).

The issue is the supply consumption modifier seems to have no rhyme or reason to it, thus any supplied gsups disappear nearly instantly. And building a public facility far away means nobody will ever help to maintain it as it's too far out of the way.

Solution:
-There needs to be a better way to judge how many hours of gsups you need, the current method updates far too slowly and doesn't account for things coming out of the supply grace period.
-Decay damage needs to be separate from "regular" damage, and repairing decay should be much faster. Outside of coding, there is no reason to make repairing decay take so much time, it already costs resources. Instead of repairing 1% every swing, maybe you should be repairing 10-20% per swing (obviously only from decay damage).

3: Larpers
The other big issue is people will often build things nearby and abandon their facilities or not supply them enough, they build their solo reserved base and leave it to rot. The tunnels you've already placed now supply even more foundations/buildings, which contributes to the second problem. And while we can "flag" structures, this does not really help a solo player (this is more for clans imo), you need 4 other players with you, which may (or may not) go against many reasons for playing solo in the first place.

Solution:
-Players should be able to select specifically what structure gets supplied by a tunnel, not just an indiscriminate category.

4. Solo Solution
One thing you can do as a solo player is ask to use facilities built by regiments. Of course this requires co-operation as well as understanding that a solo player can't just turn up with all the materials in one sitting.
This also runs into the problem that too many solo players requesting facility-use is going to bottleneck their facilities. Thus we are back to square one.

There is also the issue that some clan man bad. And you don't know until you know.

5. Conclusion
Theses problems all stem from one thing, facilities are mandatory for everyone. You can argue "you don't need harvesters/heavy trucks/towables/trains/etc". But at that point you may as well argue "you don't need to play the game". The heavy reliance on facilities has created a need for public facilities, but very few players want to maintain or build public facilities for the above reasons.

The devs need to update factories, refineries, and MPFs to include facility-made goods, or make building and maintaining a public facility be either non-mandatory or a lot better to facilitate.

6. Last Notes
-One thing that bothers me is why there is a time-limit on destruction for buildings. What is the reason for this? Why not just remove the resource refund after said time limit?
-Why are stolon tankers so bad now? the towables can hold the same amount. Why? At least allow stolon tankers to tow too. Stolon tankers really need an update for their use.
-Why do power generators drain fuel while no power is being used? From a gameplay perspective this is just a huge QoL issue that doesn't need to exist.

[Zombiesbum]

Originally posted by Rigben:

Originally posted by Zombiesbum:

Those were off the top of my head examples. There are a lot of things within the game that you do not know how to do, how they work, or are simplified for a game setting. Your argument is just ridiculous at this point, almost as if you're being a contrarian out of boredom.

Actually my argument had nothing to do with any of the actually gameplay originally. My point was big clans are basically big corporations and if you want access to what they have you need to trade with or join them. It works the same in Eve Online and was the same in Star Wars Galaxies also.

Your argument is you want to be big corpo as just the CEO with no employees.

So your argument was just one big strawman? Gotcha.

[Rigben]

Originally posted by Zombiesbum:

Originally posted by Rigben:

Actually my argument had nothing to do with any of the actually gameplay originally. My point was big clans are basically big corporations and if you want access to what they have you need to trade with or join them. It works the same in Eve Online and was the same in Star Wars Galaxies also.

Your argument is you want to be big corpo as just the CEO with no employees.

So your argument was just one big strawman? Gotcha.

What? All my points were valid. I see you have fallen to the level of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks so i'm done.

[Zombiesbum]

Originally posted by Rigben:

Originally posted by Zombiesbum:

So your argument was just one big strawman? Gotcha.

What? All my points were valid. I see you have fallen to the level of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks so i'm done.

Yeah I think I'm done responding to the forum troll.

[GooberLemon]

Originally posted by Rigben:

It is a community driven game, you are supposed to interact with the community. Lots of clans out there will do trades for stuff.

This may be our solution here. An in-game actual mechanic form of trading (not just loose agreements; something binding that the game itself enforces) where dedicated clans can trade vehicles etc. with smaller groups of players of solos might be the way to bridge the gap here.

[Kuma]

It's funny when they say it's a community driven game when a lot of clan close resources to the "community" and you can access them only if you pledge your soul and hours to their regiment.
It's funny to have all this features in game that you will never see or use them unless, again, you submit to clan slavery and given orders by other players that by all means they are just the same as you but since they have bigger regi they decide your life in a videogame.
Don't get me wrong i own a regi too, and i support all the work my members and other logi do.
But this is no way a community driven game, at all, it is a 50% at most on paper it should be 100% but clans hoard, lock, and generally just provide the least they can. Things are locked to you that are a solo, you have to deal with it either by giving up solo facilities or just join a bigger group.

Tho i will never believe anyone who says that you cannot pretend certain things or mock you for being solo, most of the times they are the ones who produces tanks, gather components and they just privatize them all.

[Nipply]

I see and commiserate with your sentiment about the hardships of trying to run solo. As the saying goes "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

But what exactly is turning you off of working with a clan/regiment? There are some cool clans to join, i'm sure. Plus you'd get a lot more done yourself.

There's lots of facets to every part of the game. You can deliver materials as a logi, or partisan, or stock vehicles etc. It's like raids in an mmo. It's reserved for cohesive clans.

[HoofHearted]

Solution to #1 is that inventory is locked just like the facilities when you squad lock the buildings


Not sure why that hasn't been done already

[AmesNFire]

Originally posted by MarkFranz:

Originally posted by Zombiesbum:

OP post

Sadly all true, and sadly devs will never fix any of those issue. All you can is do your best in running public facility, like Dozer in war 107 or me in war 100, until you burnout and become completely disslusional with state of game and people who play it, just leave for better game with better people, or become selfish bastard yourself and join some clan.

With every upgrade devs catter more and more to clans wishes, and the clans become more arrogant and impudent in they acts, if in war 100 when person asked what to do with some who want to build private facility on resource field - he was told to burn it to ground, in war 108, people will just laugh, and tell him to cope with it.

Closest analogue to clans in foxhole is corrupt olygarchy government, who hold all power, and can silence and eliminate all critiquecs, by downvoting posts in global to disable chat, or outright mass report people.

They care not for the faction but for themselves and they cronies from they coalition or discord server. They do and will continue to abuse any public effort to increase they hoard, while killing or insulting anyone who even try go close to they "private" facility.

They will continue to lie that they intention is for good of the faction, but even those reserved stockpile they not maked hidden will show what reallity is, when they full of hoarded goods, while fronlines is barely supplied.

No good change will come to this game, eventually it's will become just clanscirclejerk, until there no randoms left to abuse, and then they call it "forever break war", and left for a new game.

The best part about your analogy? The clanarchy advocated for the removal of public factories that existed before.

Make of that what you will.

[Zombiesbum]

Originally posted by Nipply:

I see and commiserate with your sentiment about the hardships of trying to run solo. As the saying goes "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

But what exactly is turning you off of working with a clan/regiment? There are some cool clans to join, i'm sure. Plus you'd get a lot more done yourself.

There's lots of facets to every part of the game. You can deliver materials as a logi, or partisan, or stock vehicles etc. It's like raids in an mmo. It's reserved for cohesive clans.

For me personally, I really don't want to deal with the clan politics as I experienced the last time I played. This was not one singular instance either. I tried both small and large regiments and while many of the people are a pleasure to play with, a few players in a bad mood (or not fit for their position) really ruin the entire experience.

I was in one regiment and they brought one of their most loyal logistics players to tears. It was honestly hard to hear.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

It is very often like that in my experience. And almost all the time it has to do with people biting more than they can chew, thinking they're the single one player in that regiment who has to do everything in a particular field.

In reality Foxhole is a game. And one which is designed to be experienced as a group. So if you become the lead builder of a clan who need a base to be done... Well most of the time you're going to initially get some help but since most people prefer not to play at all rather than to sit somewhere and hold their mouse button for a full hours then they end up having to do everything by themselves. I'm a main logi player who can easily provide all a medium size regiment would ever need as far as supplies go, but most players would rather not play than have to ferry resources to a base for even an hour.

You need to do what you can do and stop there, or you're just going to burn yourself out.

[foxtap99]

Here is my input, the game as it currently is undoubtedly is not geared towards solo players and even small clans. I have hundreds of hours in foxhole, I have been playing for around 20-30 wars at this point and the game has changed drastically over that time. Being someone who plays very casually and usually the guy who will do logistics and all the back line stuff to get things ready for my friends and I to get together and do larger
operations every once in a while. Here is my perspective on the state of the game.
It used to be a fairly simple thing to get ready for operations where all I would have to do was amass scrap or components to build a few tanks and some ammo. It was fairly straight forward I'd set a side a few hours to actually log on and go to the fields and hammer away to get that stuff. Back then I did not necessarily have a bad relationship with the clans. Hell even my friends and I would make our own small regiment. We would never do anything as elaborate as create bases because it wasn't anything we had an interest in and frankly it was probably more than we could have maintained. But other clans did and they provided things which we could still benefit from like spawn points and harvesters at scrap fields in the back lines. So I felt like even thought I was not apart of those clans they still existed for the benefit of the war overall. But with the introduction of Inferno and now the Naval Warfare update things have changed.
Admittedly, I am speaking from a position of ignorance when it comes to the buildings introduced in inferno specially because I haven't spent the time learning what buildings do what and what materials they produce and so on. But with the introduction of inferno the cracks between solo players/small clans begins to form in my mind. While you could still operate as a solo player/small clans building vehicles, guns, and ammunition. However without facilities you were barred from upgraded variants, such as the "Spatha" for the Colonials and the "Ironhide" for the wardens. Additionally, if you did not have the proper facilities to construct the new special materials, fuels, and shells you could not build some tanks, trains, and push guns. So what were smaller groups to do without the means to acquire these shiny new toys? They stole materials, they used facilities that weren't theirs, or even just stole the vehicles themselves. Actions such as these created a rift between these groups. But for the most part this came down to people fighting over VC and maybe a person getting team killed. All of which while annoying did not necessarily take attention away from the wider conflict of Wardens vs. Colonials.
But this brings us to today with the addition of the Naval Warfare update. that rift which was a mere annoyance has now become a chasm between clans and the small groups/ solo players. The clans upset that their things were being taken but on the other hand small groups, like mine, looking at countless facilities rooting away with all of the materials that went into them going to waste. With rows of tanks sitting in the back lines never to be used. And resource fields being essentially being dominated by clans. And that last point is something which I would like to draw a lot more attention to because it is something which I feel nearly all logistic/back line players are fed up with. Back when I first began playing the research of harvesters was a great thing for everyone. Finally enough components to go around for everyone, with clans providing a valuable service by placing two at pretty much every resource field with a base nearby for everyone to use. The whole idea of high tides raise all boats working for clans and solos alike. Fast forward to today, the harvesters are now locked behind facilities. And especially during this war in my experience they are being kept under lock and key by clans. So when I go to a component field with my sledge to fill up my basic hauler. Where i Having to compete with someone from whatever clan set up next to this particular field who is running me over in a harvester because I refused to share a single node with him to fill his 2nd recourse transfer station excuse me if I get frustrated (true story by the way). Part of that frustration is at the devs for making components the backbone of all the advanced vehicles, ships, and facilities. But when I am trying to get some components to make a tank so I can have some fun with my irl friends who I enjoy playing the game with and I am upset I cannot take it out on the devs. The clan players are the ones I am seeing so they're the ones I direct that anger towards. That is why that rift has become a chasm to where a distinct group of people are not having fun with foxhole right now. And from what I am hearing a lot of people are upset with the economy right now not only because their stuff is getting stolen or destroyed by solo players but also by other clans because it seems like there are not enough resources to go around. With every component field being overcrowded and everyone wanted the rare metals to build the new ships there is a lot of inter conflict within the wider factions to where the focus does not seem to be about the war between the Wardens and Colonials but competition between the clans for resources.
So in conclusion to a very long thread which wasn't intended to be this long unless the devs make serious changes to the way recourse gathering occurs players, like me, are going to set down the game for good. Which I don't think anyone wants because solo players especially on the logistic side of things are invaluable. We all enjoy this game for a variety of reasons, but in its current state the only people who are winning are the large clans. Which while clans are fine, currently they are taking away focus from the war as a whole. It shouldn't be solos vs clan or clans vs clans it should be Wardens vs Colonials that's what the whole game is about.

[Kuma]

Originally posted by foxtap99:

Here is my input, the game as it currently is undoubtedly is not geared towards solo players and even small clans. I have hundreds of hours in foxhole, I have been playing for around 20-30 wars at this point and the game has changed drastically over that time. Being someone who plays very casually and usually the guy who will do logistics and all the back line stuff to get things ready for my friends and I to get together and do larger
operations every once in a while. Here is my perspective on the state of the game.
It used to be a fairly simple thing to get ready for operations where all I would have to do was amass scrap or components to build a few tanks and some ammo. It was fairly straight forward I'd set a side a few hours to actually log on and go to the fields and hammer away to get that stuff. Back then I did not necessarily have a bad relationship with the clans. Hell even my friends and I would make our own small regiment. We would never do anything as elaborate as create bases because it wasn't anything we had an interest in and frankly it was probably more than we could have maintained. But other clans did and they provided things which we could still benefit from like spawn points and harvesters at scrap fields in the back lines. So I felt like even thought I was not apart of those clans they still existed for the benefit of the war overall. But with the introduction of Inferno and now the Naval Warfare update things have changed.
Admittedly, I am speaking from a position of ignorance when it comes to the buildings introduced in inferno specially because I haven't spent the time learning what buildings do what and what materials they produce and so on. But with the introduction of inferno the cracks between solo players/small clans begins to form in my mind. While you could still operate as a solo player/small clans building vehicles, guns, and ammunition. However without facilities you were barred from upgraded variants, such as the "Spatha" for the Colonials and the "Ironhide" for the wardens. Additionally, if you did not have the proper facilities to construct the new special materials, fuels, and shells you could not build some tanks, trains, and push guns. So what were smaller groups to do without the means to acquire these shiny new toys? They stole materials, they used facilities that weren't theirs, or even just stole the vehicles themselves. Actions such as these created a rift between these groups. But for the most part this came down to people fighting over VC and maybe a person getting team killed. All of which while annoying did not necessarily take attention away from the wider conflict of Wardens vs. Colonials.
But this brings us to today with the addition of the Naval Warfare update. that rift which was a mere annoyance has now become a chasm between clans and the small groups/ solo players. The clans upset that their things were being taken but on the other hand small groups, like mine, looking at countless facilities rooting away with all of the materials that went into them going to waste. With rows of tanks sitting in the back lines never to be used. And resource fields being essentially being dominated by clans. And that last point is something which I would like to draw a lot more attention to because it is something which I feel nearly all logistic/back line players are fed up with. Back when I first began playing the research of harvesters was a great thing for everyone. Finally enough components to go around for everyone, with clans providing a valuable service by placing two at pretty much every resource field with a base nearby for everyone to use. The whole idea of high tides raise all boats working for clans and solos alike. Fast forward to today, the harvesters are now locked behind facilities. And especially during this war in my experience they are being kept under lock and key by clans. So when I go to a component field with my sledge to fill up my basic hauler. Where i Having to compete with someone from whatever clan set up next to this particular field who is running me over in a harvester because I refused to share a single node with him to fill his 2nd recourse transfer station excuse me if I get frustrated (true story by the way). Part of that frustration is at the devs for making components the backbone of all the advanced vehicles, ships, and facilities. But when I am trying to get some components to make a tank so I can have some fun with my irl friends who I enjoy playing the game with and I am upset I cannot take it out on the devs. The clan players are the ones I am seeing so they're the ones I direct that anger towards. That is why that rift has become a chasm to where a distinct group of people are not having fun with foxhole right now. And from what I am hearing a lot of people are upset with the economy right now not only because their stuff is getting stolen or destroyed by solo players but also by other clans because it seems like there are not enough resources to go around. With every component field being overcrowded and everyone wanted the rare metals to build the new ships there is a lot of inter conflict within the wider factions to where the focus does not seem to be about the war between the Wardens and Colonials but competition between the clans for resources.
So in conclusion to a very long thread which wasn't intended to be this long unless the devs make serious changes to the way recourse gathering occurs players, like me, are going to set down the game for good. Which I don't think anyone wants because solo players especially on the logistic side of things are invaluable. We all enjoy this game for a variety of reasons, but in its current state the only people who are winning are the large clans. Which while clans are fine, currently they are taking away focus from the war as a whole. It shouldn't be solos vs clan or clans vs clans it should be Wardens vs Colonials that's what the whole game is about.

Sadly yeah this is true furthermore there is a ton of stuff a solo will never ever use because it's locked behind a 10+ people facility management and resources for them are completely unobtainable in the current state.
While yes some clans provide you some public service they will never provide you the most useful or the most powerful weapon/tool/vehicle.
I've been around since war 95-ish so by all means i'm fairly new, however in all these wars i never ever saw anyone share any sort of vehicle that wasn't already "outdated".
Even now i have to make my own heavy trucks because god help me no one is gonna make them public.
Same with tanks.
And possibly i'll never see or use a feature from this current update ever in my life so for me, while i'm sort of excited about big ships on other side i'm completely void of any sort of hype for them because realistically only bigger regiments will ever play with the better toys.
The whole sense of community in this game is just a facade, even though some regiments are willing to provide facilities for public use, the public use is always very limited to the patience the leaders have.
Many times, especially in this war, i've been stopped when using a complete public facility and inquired in both kind and rude ways.
I have accepted the fact that in foxhole i'll never use anything more than a truck and some basic guns because as small regiment that's what we can afford, we can't even make our own tanks because components are hoarded and depleted instantly, and munitions are almost never ever shared.
So that's mostly why it makes me laugh when someone says "so you are expecting to do everything solo in a community driven game", when i'm up to sharing anything i produce but they are not.

[bad at gaem]

When I found out the reddit community idolizes this game it all made sense, redditors truly are insufferable.

[DisneysFanGirl]

I've made 2 large factories solo, depending on location is perfectly doable. The issue is there is no way to stop thieves at all. If they can't get in something they just get 4 others and flag it. I worked extremely hard and grinded, got most things up and running. Even had 5 assemblies for various vehicle upgrades (Managed to upgrade the recently unlocked light tanks). Was ready to upgrade a bunch of vehicles, mainly tanks for the frontline and what happens. People just flag my material stations and ransack me, several days of work gone.

Fun stuff. Your own team is more of a hindrance and issue than the enemy in this game, its highly stupid. I had to gather a lot, components included and people can get aggressive with those. Had to arm myself against my own damn team. Now if I even bother to play the game I will use whatever the ♥♥♥♥ I want, take whatever I want and care not if I kill others or be a hindrance.

(And by large factories I mean several of the same buildings and most, granting the ability to make most things. Only buildings I didn't bother with are large assembly station and field modification station. 2 Ammunition factories, 3 material factories, 2 power stations, water pump, piping, oil refinery, coal refinery, 2 metal working stations, 5 light vehicle assemblies, 2 of each transfer station, many cranes and much foundations.)

[Eryan]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

Here is a wild thought: facilities are not meant with solo players in mind.

Solution: don't work solo on a facility... Which is pretty much how many groups form in the first place.

No, screw your way of thinking. It's dumb.

The game didn't start off with pre-established clans that everyone had to join.
It started with a random player doing random things and other random players asking if they could help/join up.

Then:
You want to join my scouting/raiding/scrooping/base building operation? Sure!

Hey! Guys! The goblins are massing up around X!. There's a bunch of artillery guns in Y and thousands of shells scattered around the region. I'll bring some of the guns to X.
30 minutes alter you have 3 guns, thousands of shells and several people helping you shell green out of the goblins.

Now:
You must be online 24/7 to gather resources in order to maintain a base/facility as a random player. You want to help other poeple maintain their base without being in the same group? nah, too risky. You might be a thief/spy/alt.

Want to join my boat? ♥♥♥♥ off, members only!



Yes, game should promote teamwork to make better use of your tools.
It should not however lock you out of content because you didn't bring enough friends.