Will it be 4 maps only staying put?

[Steve]

A quick question. How hard would a random map generator to produce for the worlds instead of 4 "set maps" only? Once you have all 4 maps and built everything in the game to the nth degree, theres no real "end game" content.. so how will it keep interest going past the 50-80 or so hours to build everything per map?

[Capt. W. Schwartz]

There is 1 map with 4 starting regions.

Random Gen will never happen.

[Taco Cat]

unless you speedrun the game there is no way you have done everything on your first playthrough in 50 hours.
I also prefer one handcrafted map over hundreds of random maps that have no soul. The map is bigger than you think and seeing everything will take up way more time than you think. On a side note in this game you have to set and find goals for yourself. The "end game" at the moment is more or less you challenging yourself to improve as good as you can.

[EntreNous]

There is only one map, not four. The map is beautifully hand crafted and I am glad they chose to do this instead of something that is randomly generated. I am at over 700 hours, now on my second full play through. The map is large enough and varied enough to allow for hundreds of hours of game play without becoming boring.

[Grandaddypurple]

If you still think there's 4 different maps after 50-80 hours you still have plenty of playtime ahead of you

[Aven]

If you were able to build everything in 50-80 hours, I applaud you. I have just over 200 hours in the game, and while I have visited each of the biomes of the map, I have yet to actually explore all of them. I have also not yet opened Tiers 7 and 8 or completed all the Tier 5 and 6 unlocks. Someday I will actually "finish" the game, but it is not this day, this week, or even this month. This month is dedicated to planning out, sourcing, and building my new ACU factory.

In my opinion, a dynamic map doesn't even crack the top 5 of things important to this game. Static or random, the map itself has little affect on actual gameplay in the current version. Exploring is important, but the majority of your time will be spent planning and building, and while a new unknown environment might be nice, I would much rather see more dynamic order requirements and/or emergent gameplay related to efficiency and production.

[Diviance]

Originally posted by EntreNous:

There is only one map, not four. The map is beautifully hand crafted and I am glad they chose to do this instead of something that is randomly generated. I am at over 700 hours, now on my second full play through. The map is large enough and varied enough to allow for hundreds of hours of game play without becoming boring.

I think they should build the handmade map... but then offer a procedurally generated map roughly based on that handcrafted map. Because playing on the same map over and over... will get old very quickly. It kills replayability.

[NoShotz]

Originally posted by Diviance:

Originally posted by EntreNous:

There is only one map, not four. The map is beautifully hand crafted and I am glad they chose to do this instead of something that is randomly generated. I am at over 700 hours, now on my second full play through. The map is large enough and varied enough to allow for hundreds of hours of game play without becoming boring.

I think they should build the handmade map... but then offer a procedurally generated map roughly based on that handcrafted map. Because playing on the same map over and over... will get old very quickly. It kills replayability.

I wouldn't really say it kills replayability, because exploration isn't the only reason to replay a game like this.

Pretty well each time I've started a new game, I've set up my factories differently, my first game I had one giant factory which all resources were fed to, and my second games factory was an improvement upon that style. My third game which I just started yesterday is taking a different approach where I have multiple factories dedicated to making stuff from specific resources.

Note I originally had the game on Epic, and bought the steam version yesterday, so that would be why my hours are so low on steam, I've actually got 239 hours on Epic.

[Steve]

ok, disclaimer *i am not abusing anyone and cbf with continuously rewording what I say and I know from what I said "4 maps" sounds that i do not know that is is the single map with 4 starting points its a brief overview rather than needing to waste 30 minutes of my time to say the literal same thing but needing to explain details other than the premise of the conversation starter which was 1. Random maps and 2. end game/competitiveness which would both add replayability. But as I stated in a not-so-clear way obviously, the problem is jsut that.... replayability. Originally played single player on epic for a few hundred hours, and got it on sale on steam so I could enjoy the multiplayer aspect with mates who dont like epic, so yes....50-80 hours in a multiplayer game gets you to tier 8 with everything built (maybe not as neat/individual building/factory units but built). Single player it takes about 100 -110 hours to do it. The problem being, that the simple challenge of building a very efficient "Factory" loses its appeal as what I was saying is that there is no "end game content".. no real reason besides farming materials to get to the next tier to continue building (once optimised) and once you have found all the hard drives, and explored the whole map that is explorable without dying in the end of map drop, then theres no reason to explore. So once you have no reason to explore, and once you have built a factory with complete redundancy and efficient enough to funnel everything into your ficsit shop, had your christmas tree up wasting energy and time, and have no coupons left to spend... the only thing left to do is similar to Josh from LetsGameItOut and destroy your graphics card. So Randomised maps (which would be HARD to implement but not impossible) aand some sort of competitiveness involved (even if its a timer to reach Tier 10 if/when they get to it on some sort of scoreboard) it stalls, when you wait for the next content release.

[Diviance]

Originally posted by NoShotz:

Originally posted by Diviance:

I think they should build the handmade map... but then offer a procedurally generated map roughly based on that handcrafted map. Because playing on the same map over and over... will get old very quickly. It kills replayability.

I wouldn't really say it kills replayability, because exploration isn't the only reason to replay a game like this.

Pretty well each time I've started a new game, I've set up my factories differently, my first game I had one giant factory which all resources were fed to, and my second games factory was an improvement upon that style. My third game which I just started yesterday is taking a different approach where I have multiple factories dedicated to making stuff from specific resources.

Note I originally had the game on Epic, and bought the steam version yesterday, so that would be why my hours are so low on steam, I've actually got 239 hours on Epic.

But exploring is an important part of these kinds of games. Finding new resources, figuring the best way to get them back to base and all of that.

Factorio playerbase would have already died if it didn't have a new map every game.

[an entire Roman legion]

Originally posted by Steve:

ok, disclaimer *i am not abusing anyone and cbf with continuously rewording what I say and I know from what I said "4 maps" sounds that i do not know that is is the single map with 4 starting points its a brief overview rather than needing to waste 30 minutes of my time to say the literal same thing but needing to explain details other than the premise of the conversation starter which was 1. Random maps and 2. end game/competitiveness which would both add replayability. But as I stated in a not-so-clear way obviously, the problem is jsut that.... replayability. Originally played single player on epic for a few hundred hours, and got it on sale on steam so I could enjoy the multiplayer aspect with mates who dont like epic, so yes....50-80 hours in a multiplayer game gets you to tier 8 with everything built (maybe not as neat/individual building/factory units but built). Single player it takes about 100 -110 hours to do it. The problem being, that the simple challenge of building a very efficient "Factory" loses its appeal as what I was saying is that there is no "end game content".. no real reason besides farming materials to get to the next tier to continue building (once optimised) and once you have found all the hard drives, and explored the whole map that is explorable without dying in the end of map drop, then theres no reason to explore. So once you have no reason to explore, and once you have built a factory with complete redundancy and efficient enough to funnel everything into your ficsit shop, had your christmas tree up wasting energy and time, and have no coupons left to spend... the only thing left to do is similar to Josh from LetsGameItOut and destroy your graphics card. So Randomised maps (which would be HARD to implement but not impossible) aand some sort of competitiveness involved (even if its a timer to reach Tier 10 if/when they get to it on some sort of scoreboard) it stalls, when you wait for the next content release.

I like paragraphs

[an entire Roman legion]

Originally posted by Diviance:

Factorio playerbase would have already died if it didn't have a new map every game.

2D game not comparable to 3D game in this context

[NoShotz]

Originally posted by Albob:

Originally posted by Diviance:

Factorio playerbase would have already died if it didn't have a new map every game.

2D game not comparable to 3D game in this context

Yeah, it really isn't comparable, I don't think I've even seen the whole map in my combined ~250 hours of playing.

[Diviance]

Originally posted by Albob:

Originally posted by Diviance:

Factorio playerbase would have already died if it didn't have a new map every game.

2D game not comparable to 3D game in this context

Disagree.

[Steve]

Originally posted by Diviance:

Originally posted by Albob:

2D game not comparable to 3D game in this context

Disagree.

Agree

[marcusaddamsson]

For those of us who are clueless, there's only one map? (Altho that does explain why the oddities I've found on this map are so 'curated')

I've only just restarted once (seriously), and I've very much enjoyed the situation I find myself in now (compared to my initial start). My first game was on the basic starting map; my second game on the almost-Desert map. So you're tellin' me that if I explore hard enough I'll find my first first starting location somewhere on my current map...?