Speed and progress

[Mogges]

Having read and followed several threads here in the forum I figured out, that there are several players here ( no offense ), who have the opinion, the game could be faster and progress more constant. Belts are too slow, mods with Mk10 are used, dismantle and / or construction of building could be faster, blueprints aren´t big enough, Mk3 miners aren´t sufficient for their needs etc.
Why is that so? I mean: even now the game can give you hundreds of hours of joy and fun, keeping you busy even when only building the necessary stuff for the elevator, not talking about aesthetics and functionality.
You can "finish" the game in less than 100 hours, which means phase 4. Then you have to deinstall it or think about anything else that can be done in the game. Is it really important, if your turbomotors for the next milestone are done in 1 hour or in 2?
Who needs 25 nuclear pasta / min? What´s the meaning of the golden nut statue? Well, I know, there are players "outside" that need those kind of rewards, maybe including also achievements ( I never understood this ).
I played a lot of "Snowrunner" as well, and those 2 games are the most "boring" ( in the meaning of speed and non existing hectic ) I have ever played. They are simply relaxing and anti-stress. I always have a Jazz or Blues playlist running in the background switching off the game music entirely. This is great for coming down after stressful work day.
We come to the point where phase 4 is done anyway; so what´s the plan after that?
Why do several players want to have "something" finished as fast as possible?

[Samseng Yik]

Different player play different way and style.
Not all products design for everyone.

Durian is the king of fruit, doesn't mean everyone appreciate it the same way.
People who enjoy durian, won't care any complaints of any nay-sayer

[NZ.Zero]

The slow belts are an issue because current belt speeds are slower than the fastest miner.

Bigger blueprints reduces repetitive building work. In fact a lot of suggestions people make which might seem to be 'speed' improvements are actually 'quality of life' improvements because they reduce repetitive work.

[Veeshan]

It's an interesting topic for sure, but for a little perspective just remember that they outnumber us a dozen to one. See any popular game; they're spazz-fests of dopamine dumping grab bags. Books and movies are this way as well. TikTok/Twitter, etc.

Immersion, depth, high risk/reward, high investment, internal consistency, build up, etc. These things sell... to a tiny fraction of most audiences.

[Stress Tensor]

It's important to distinguish between the first playthrough and subsequent ones. If everything were made faster/easier right off the bat (or too quickly), IMO the first playthrough wouldn't be as fun. The reason is, when you unlock tech the first time, you get that dopamine thrill when you realize how you can improve your efficiency and designs, precisely because the prior tech was so "slow" (or whatever). At least this was the case for me all the way through to tier 8 on my first playthrough.

I think most of the complaints of tech being not powerful enough or unlocked "too slowly" are coming from people on their subsequent playthroughs. Unfortunately I'm not sure how the developers could satisfy some of these complaints without thereby sacrificing some of that experience for new players, who I think must be their higher priority. More experienced players can always use creative mode and the many available mods.

[Stress Tensor]

Originally posted by Stress Tensor:

...new players, who I think must be their higher priority...

Just to clarify - the only reason I say that is that most experienced players who play multiple times are players who had a greatly satisfying experience on their first playthrough, otherwise they would have just quit. But obviously I want the developers to keep both types of players in mind.

[Ragnaman]

Ahh yes, lets make another BOX manually for a few hours, because i haven't done that 12 times already.
What a great sense of achievement.

Its not about FASTER,
Its about being sane.

[Mogges]

Yes, sounds logic with the 2nd or 3rd playthrough. Leaving the spaghetti phase behind you, some players want to improve and make it better in their second attempt. Beside more effective production lines, probably higher throughput is also part of this optimization process. Although I have already 3.500 hours in the game, this has never been my way to play it; I was simply curious, because there are really quiet a lot of people "complaining" about some mechanics of the game ( small blueprints and tedious and repetitive construction, slow conveyors etc. )

[TheRealClown]

Where there are people who love a game for what it is and offers, there will be others that wish to "improve" said game to their specifications. Such is life

[YetiChow]

Originally posted by Veeshan:

It's an interesting topic for sure, but for a little perspective just remember that they outnumber us a dozen to one. See any popular game; they're spazz-fests of dopamine dumping grab bags. Books and movies are this way as well. TikTok/Twitter, etc.

Immersion, depth, high risk/reward, high investment, internal consistency, build up, etc. These things sell... to a tiny fraction of most audiences.

And yet, as a fan of those things, they're exactly what I find Satisfactory to be lacking

Satisfactory has a veneer of depth, but it really is the most "you stack the things endlessly and pretend that makes it deep" veneer I've ever seen. Every single machine is an X-in-Y-out magic box -- there's no processes to learn, no significant mechanics to understand; you just put the thing into the machine and it spits out another thing.

Head lift for water pumps is the closest thing to a creative challenge that this game has, and it's very easy to either bypass entirely (use the highest water sources on the map, boom you've just eliminated head lift!) or to brute-force your way around with pumps. Moreover, because the machines "delete and recreate" water rather than preserving system pressure, you can use byproduct water and the natural head lift it comes with as "free" height gain once you get into the tiers where head lift is really going to start to matter.

There is no risk vs reward because there's no risk -- if you die, you go collect your loot bag. If you build poorly, the only thing you're wasting is time. Hell, even if you intentionally try to sequence break (my "favourite" starting plan is to dismantle the pod and then sprint directly to the crater) with a "high risk" strategy that runs you past enemies, the worst that happens is... you have to try again.

Internal consistency? Laughable! The game hammers on about "being efficient!" and then encourages the most wasteful production strategies I've ever seen. The only thing that Satisfactory is consistent about is invalidating your previous work to make you build more stuff.

And that flows directly into why the "build up" isn't satisfying at all -- because it's not a ramping up of abilities and production; it's a jerky stop-start "ok you did your chores, and the reward is... new chores!" festival of grinding, where the few moments where it genuinely feels like you've made some progress (which mostly stem from unlocking new kit -- blade runners, hoverpack or gas masks etc) turn out to be detours from the main path, meaning that you have to balance the investment into those upgrades vs getting on with your actual mission.

I wanted things like immersion, investment and a sense of achievement from Satisfactory; but all I see is Number Goes Up. And that's not a meaningful achievement -- I can make the number go up in just about any game. Most other games at least make it a bit challenging though... in Satisfactory, the number going up is basically predetermined; it's just a linear function of how much time you're prepared to waste in watching it go up.

[Huren Ogeko]

Originally posted by Mogges:

Having read and followed several threads here in the forum I figured out, that there are several players here ( no offense ), who have the opinion, the game could be faster

You should see the speed run community. They go from nothing to final space elevator delivery in a matter of hours. I think they need to make the game a little more challenging to be honest. But I dont play the game for space elevator I play for the sand box. I can unlock most all tiers quick enough but the real fun begins after that when I take every unlocked thing and see how far I can push things.

[Mogges]

I think we should not forget, that many of us played the game for so many hours, with so many repeats, that it really seems easy.
But simply imagine a first time player being confronted with phase 4 parts. I was so happy when I finished phase 3 the first time; then the imagination to have phase 4 on top of it......I had many many months of trial and error and practicing between those 2 phases, so I was kind of prepared.
And to be honest I do not always need games with "challenge". I think Satisfactory is popular, because it is so chilly and relaxing, only creativity and fantasy, no real challenge ( in the meaning of work ) at all.

[jaye1967]

Originally posted by Huren Ogeko:

Originally posted by Mogges:

Having read and followed several threads here in the forum I figured out, that there are several players here ( no offense ), who have the opinion, the game could be faster

You should see the speed run community. They go from nothing to final space elevator delivery in a matter of hours. I think they need to make the game a little more challenging to be honest. But I dont play the game for space elevator I play for the sand box. I can unlock most all tiers quick enough but the real fun begins after that when I take every unlocked thing and see how far I can push things.

Na, the game doesn't need to be more challenging. That would most likely just add more stuff into pushing stuff for the late game even further out, and the last thing this game needs is something to make a lot of the more fun things take even longer to get to. That would just cause more players to hit a bored and burned out state. There is a reason things that improve movement speed and the addition of blue prints are so popular. They help remove boring from the game. Take people who make up kind of the opposite end of the player spectrum. YouTubers like Kibitz and Josh from Let's game it out come to mind. Hundreds of hours of playing to make a 30 minuet video. A shortage of game play is not a problem for this game. But the speed run records do kind of show about how this game divides up time wise. The four parts of the game sees to be, as a percentage of time spent are 1%, 4%, 20%, and 75%.

[Ragnaman]

"invalidating your previous work to make you build more stuff"
Hate when that happens

Solution could be to design factories with MK# belts in mind, but that only means one has to run around all old factories upgrading every single belt manually, still better than tearing everything down. Still, for large part of the game a lot of machines will sit dormant, waiting for that belt upgrade.

In my opinion the belt tiers have to be reduced in number and introduced earlier, the logistical tools have to be introduced earlier (trains/trucks), otherwise what happens is that its completely meaningless to start designing something unless you have all the tools at your disposal, and dont even get me started on how so many alternate recipes are superior.

The difficulty should actually be that creating the better logistical tools COST materials. So yes, you can have your mega-turbo-belts early IF you are able to design a factory that makes those belts in a reasonable time.

[Vyndicu]

In no particular order, here is a list of issues I have with Satisfactory.


Multiple source of repetition activities exists in Satisfactory exists. Some people might like repetition but not all people do.

Having no way to replace production line machines to work with production line mk 2's new machine or recipe. True all the way from milestone 0 to end-game. A good example of what I like to see is replacing an assembler mk1 in Factorio with higher mark assembler and it will continue to work as before.

Logistic is a huge-time sinker above a certain distance and before you unlock oil which is a prerequirement for Train. Afterward, there is no point to using belt long-distance since setting up a Train is much faster and less time consuming.

Certain late-game products are not worth the time it takes to setup a production line while other mid-game alternatives are too good to tear down and replace for a late-game production line.

Particular recipes in the mid-game are way too underutilized and has a dead-end. Those recipe's existence feels janky compared to all other recipes and don't have a purpose or fit within the theme of automation everything in Satisfactory.

Originally posted by Huren Ogeko:

You should see the speed run community. They go from nothing to final space elevator delivery in a matter of hours. I think they need to make the game a little more challenging to be honest. But I dont play the game for space elevator I play for the sand box. I can unlock most all tiers quick enough but the real fun begins after that when I take every unlocked thing and see how far I can push things.

Color me skeptical on the claim that speed runner can finish space elevator deliveries in matter of a few hours. I have done There is No Spoon in Factorio under 5 hours back then when world record used to be 3 and a half.

Nowadays Factorio WR are currently sub-two hours because of quality of life changes (assembler mk 1 used to be limited to a few ingredient which no longer exists).


Do you know of any link or footage of a Satisfactory speedrun?

[Huren Ogeko]

I know I watched one on youtube. I will look for it again
acording to a speed running web site they show one person doing a 4package% run on update 7 in about 19 hours which is a similar time I think the one I seen on youtube probably was.
This style of speed run begins with skipping intro and ends with the 4th space elevator being launched.

I checked update 6 runs and those were slower...more like 23 hours is the best one there.
and the best update 5 run is 25 hours.

those are all solo runs...they also have speed runs that include more then one player.


I managed to find the update 6 run on youtbe but still looking for that single update 7 run that said it was 4 hours faster.

EDIT I found it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AolT2wXuUsA

The first half of this is a 10 hour long youtube video...hope you got some time to spare when watching it,

here is the web site that speed runs are typically tracked and validated on
https://www.speedrun.com/satisfactory?h=4Package-Update_7-Solo&x=02qepjp2-kn0zgoo8.81w0exvl-p8555q58.mln2850l

looking more into this it seems the 3package% runs tend to be near 4 hour mark....that says alot for how larger the final phase is compared to the first 3 phases. That final phase takes nearly 4 times longer then the first 3 phases combined.