Feedback On State Of Game (Alpha Test Weekend)

Question

Yes the game is in an earlier stage and is just starting off with a lack of content, but they can't improve it unless we give criticism or feedback, negative or not. These are crucial things they need to know going forward. To anyone reading this going "but it's alpha", they can't improve or learn from anyone if the only feedback you give them is "we know it's alpha we hope you make it better". I know a lot of people compare this game to Factorio, but it's clearly been inspired by it, and Factorio really does a lot of things right, it obviously shouldn't be used as a bible to making this game succeed, but there is no problem looking towards it to get ideas for this game.

For my first point, to put it simply, the game has too much "set it and forget it" moments. You're not constantly struggling with ratios and trying to perfect the factory, which is a challenging aspect of Factorio that extends its playtime in a fun way.

It's way too easy to make everything, and when I played with a group of 3 other people, we actually found it easier to set up basic production lines and just hand craft the more complex stuff to complete milestones. It was faster for all 4 of us to handcraft than it was to wait for machines. That's a huge problem.

I think you shouldn't be able to handcraft complex recipes or combination items (except for maybe reinforced plates), and research should take more time and effort. At the very least, handcrafting shouldn't be as fast as it is.

The game up to tier 3 felt far too easy, and between me and my group, we researched everything within the first 4 hours (it was mostly me building everything while they explored) and felt no reason to continue playing after that.

What's the point of continuing playing and building if there's nothing left to build towards? There's nothing left to sink resources into, so our factory just sits there never moving. They need to focus on extending the playtime, because the building aspect, while nice, doesn't save the game. There's currently only floors, ramps, catwalks, and pretty plain walls, it's not like you can really do any creative building yet utilizing those.

There is also no threat to you really, no pressure to set up defenses from enemies. Expanding your factory doesn't consist of tower defense, so it feels too carefree.

Exploration also falls flat. The map is definitely nice, but there's not much to really find or do in it currently. You can go slug hunting and exploring caves, but what else? I'm sure they will add a greater purpose to exploration later.

Going back to factory logistics, and taking Factorio as inspiration, Satisfactory is too easy. Most research is done by hand, and it's faster to hand craft most things by hand. Whenever you get to the next research tier, you usually don't require items from the previous tier, which means areas of your production line become obsolete. Most of the time, by the time I set up a line for the next research tier, my friends already hand crafted enough, making the factory line I just made pointless.

We ran out of things to produce in the alpha, and our factory was halted. The only thing we could do was shove things into storage containers. Factorio had you dump resources into science packs, also creating a need for past and future lines to exist, constantly feeding resources into slow and consuming research.

Another issue I had was the power situation. Once you get to coal, it feels like there's little need to upkeep energy. I spent an hour creating a massive coal plant consisting of more than 8 coal generators being fed from coal far away. After that, there was no need to worry about energy. When you needed more energy in Factorio, you had to rethink your energy line, and build out a new area to expand it. After that, you needed to meticulously set up defences to guard the new area you just claimed for energy. In this game, there isn't really a threat, so you can kind of just build wherever you want without worries.

Regarding the UI, it's a little unresponsive at times. Sometimes it takes multiple shift clicks to register, and I noticed the more complex the factory gets, the longer it takes to open certain menus. Besides that, I think the UI is finished, whoever worked on that did a great job. It's not bootleg and default feeling or looking.

I really like the game, and I feel Coffee Stain has the capacity to finish it and make it something better, but I just hope they don't make the game too easy as it stands currently.

Comments

In factorio you have 2 factors that conflict with each other: bigger production & bigger pollution - this is forcing player to make smart bases where production is efficient with little pollution. In satisfactory 100% efficient production or chaotic production makes no difference. Only difference is time and how fast you'll complete the game.

Answer 1

most of your issues are due to the tier 3 limitation, you're unable to see / feel the need for resources / power / complexity and adjustments beyond the introductory level.

the early tiers have to be easy and fast and cheap compared to what will come as a tutorial and new player 'hook'

I'll assume if exploring the map was 'falling flat' that you didn't find any / many / all of the hidden gems out there like the crashed landing pods that can open up new recipes for you for instance?

Comments

No, I did explore the map. I wandered for a few hours finding crashed pods, most of which I couldn't open because we don't have steel processing. I searched for slugs for awhile and got maybe 10-25 overclock packs. When it comes to the map, yeah it can look nice and a have a couple things to do, but it's not like there's leveled dungeons, lore, and questing to give you any incentive to explore.

If you look past tier 3, you will see that the game doesn't offer much more past what currently exists, and a huge issue with factory building is future research deprecates older parts of your factory.

Even though the game was capped at tier 3, the factory completely halted after we finished research, which was mostly done entirely by hand anyways. There wasn't really any reason or incentive to add on to the factory, or keep it running.

It also doesn't change the fact there's no maintenance or upkeep required after coal power.  I'm sure you would need to occasionally tack on another generator, and later game structures will require more power, providing a necessity for nuclear energy, but as it stands currently, that's another thing that falls flat.

Answer 2

I kinda have to disagree here. Satisfactory totally has a different focus like the games we know (factorio for example). It took a friend of mine and myself like 7 hours to beat the Aplha weekend content and thats totally fine, ofc theres much to improve and alot to be added, But if we stand by your comparerison to Factorio, those 7 hours felt like the first 4 hours of factorio.

Though you are completly right that it does not have the time consuming and tricky part of being as efficient as possible, this is not what i see in this game. This game is more about chillin and apreciateing the beautifull enviorment you are given.

As I noticed Upgrades will start to get very expensive with T4,5 etc. And I think thats great (easy to learn, hard to master etc.).

Please consider exploring the enviorment, its a real blast and the Biomes we found were just georgeous.

Adding to your point of "Its not wrong to look at games like factorio", you are totally right with that, but when people start calling Satisfactory a "factorio in 3d" the game dies. Satisfactory is so much more unique and I think It should stay like that (But they defenetly should consider implementing, to alter the difficulty, so we both get satisfied) ^^.

Greetings

HeroxHeruxum

Comments

One of the only things I can disagree with here is that if the game is about chilling and appreciating the environment, it shouldn't advertise itself as a logistical factory building game.

While I do appreciate the biomes, and I did explore most of the map, It doesn't awe strike me after playing games for over 20 years.

Answer 3

"It's way too easy to make everything, and when I played with a group of 3 other people, we actually found it easier to set up basic production lines and just hand craft the more complex stuff to complete milestones"

What he's saying is.
I can craft 500 coil 100 rods by hand in 5 minutes and it takes you an hour to setup each factory line.
I can get to tier 3 faster by hand than you can setup the line.
On top of that it's going to take you even more time to plan for expansion and optimize longer than it is for me to craft some things by hand.
Smelting mining and plates (Simple thing) by machine.
Screws coils and cables rotors (advanced items) by hand.

He's right about that. I shouldn't be able to make plates rods or basically anything by hand.
You know the amount of pressure and cutting force it takes to go from a steal coil to a sheet.
How about 500C+ to take a bar and make smaller rods, screws etc.

Of course this is a game and you have to do a few things by hand to get you started.
However screws and cable up. Should not be allowed.
Maybe at the rotor parts and up. Don't know where the optimized point would be.
Maybe anything requiring multiple items to craft together.

As far as the milestones.
1 100 plates.
2 100 plates 100 rods
3 100 plates 100 rods 100 screws
4 100 plates 100 rods 100 screws 100 coils
5 100 plates 100 rods 100 screws 100 coils 100 cable.

Each step becomes increasingly difficult.
Not the same thing over and over.

but yes. We haven't seen all milestones
and I believe it took a dev a little over 100 hours to complete the game.
SOLO.
This being multiplayer. This game is going to be over in a weekend.

Answer 4

Sounds like you should just go play Factorio then. Not trying to offend or sound snide, just my honest opinion based on what you've said. Even though Battlefield and Call of Duty are basically the same game, it's not like they play even remotely close to one another. And that's fine. And it's also fine for you to prefer one over the other. This is a totally different game from Factorio, with totally different mechanics and balancing.

I for one am looking forward to what challenges the higher tiers will bring to force me to optimize my factory. I didn't feel that the automation available so far was pointless, purely because setting it up in itself was Satisfactory (heh). And this is purely my opinion. It's clearly different from yours, but that's what makes video games great, different strokes for different folks.

Answer 5

I mostly agree with your feedback.

The game atm is way to easy to play in multiplayer thats true. I did the same, while my mate was building our factory i handcrafted the most items for research and i was done before he could set up the assembler for Reinforced Iron Plates or Rotor. I handcrafterd the Reinforced Iron Plates and Rotor by myself faster than my mate. Ok maybe my mate isnt that fast as i would building the production lines with assembler but it was annyoing that i dont need the production lines.

For me i would love to have a challenge with production lines not only 2 materials for 1 new material like the assembler work and also the research.... it is so easy to research because from Tier 1-3 the research nearly need the same items and amount of it... feel boring no need to explore the world for research like every Tier research need an alien material or more complex crafted items.

Satisfactory is easy, yes. Maybe on later Tiers the challange will come for us and we have to make production lines with more than one assambler in the line and also the exploration part should be more integrated into the research. Atm i dont need to leave my Factory for research Tiers.