Factorio should have DLC.

[Peter34]

If anything, CK2 DLC is hard to understand because in additoin to the content packs, fairly large and expensive, there are scores of smaller packs that add unit graphics, heraldics and so forth. I can't navigate that shit. I don't know which ones are relevant for me, for my preferred focus area. So I ignore those, and look only on the actual content DLCs, which are talked about at length in dev diaries before release.

It's also worth noting that CK2 did have two DLCs that I felt forced to buy. The Nomads one to a limtied extent, because it added a new Tributary system where you could war dec another realm and then make them pay you regular Tribute, until they rebelled against you. I was kinda OK with that, since Steppe Nomads aren't so far away from my focus area, Scandinavia.

Jade Dragon is worse. That's all about China and Asia, something I'm not interested in. But the Jade Dragon DLC also added several new war dec mechanis that were important to me, so I felt forced, more to than for Nomads, to buy a DLC just to get a few new mechanics.

I can't speak about the India DLC. It was a part of the package I bought, so I don't really know if it adds any mechanics that enhance the larger game.



Stellaris *doesn't* have this problem, since there's no fixed geography, and therefore playes cannot have physical regions of intersted and non-interest. The worst offender, in relative terms, is Synthetic Dawn, which may not interest players who never want to try playing Machine Empires, but even then it's one of the cheap DLC packs, a "story pack", not a large pack like Utopia or Apocalypse, and it also added some highly relevant content, 8 Advisor Voices, as well as enabling Advisor Voices from mods. To my mind, Advisor Voices adds a lot to the game.

[MeduSalem]

[...]

Honestly I absolutely dislike Paradox for their marketing.

They never really deliver full games any more. Instead they hack and slash their games into bits and pieces to be sold one by one, just like all the other big game studios/publishers do nowadays.

For example Stellaris... they charge 40 bucks for the main game, and an additional 130 bucks for all the damn DLCs, and looking at what each update brought it makes it relatively obvious that literally NONE of them are worth their money at all.

At this point they could have brought Stellaris 3 already integrating everything they made up to that point just by looking how much the DLC crap costs.

Their other games like EU and HoI aren't much better. Europa Universalis 4 demands 40 bucks for the base and yet has another 240 bucks worth of DLC. That is the worth of 6 full price titles. Absolutely ridiculous. Hearts of Iron demands 40 bucks for the base and an additional 60 bucks for DLCs.

Those bloodsuckers can go to hell for all that I care, which is sad because Stellaris would really have interested me if it wasn't for their DLC policy. If at all I would only buy the game in 5 years from now when they abandoned it entirely and sell it off in one complete pack in a -75% deal for 20 bucks and that's about it. They don't deserve more of my money just because.

[darkfrei]

It would be nice to try base-mod-2, with new graphics, new items and recipes.
Turn off the base-mod, enable the new one and get this feeling again.

[steinio]

It would be nice to try base-mod-2, with new graphics, new items and recipes.
Turn off the base-mod, enable the new one and get this feeling again.

Should "this feeling" be a link?

[Aeternus]

I actually like the fact that factorio does not have DLC, the price is right and its a selling point in my opinion.
Hearts of Iron 4 has 3 DLC packs, 1 recently released. Last week I bought the core plus the 2 older DLC at a -56% discount, and then I also bought the new DLC at full price, on Steam. This enabled me to "buy into" the game at what I think may be a reasonable price.

Likewise with Crusader Kings 2, about 2 or 2.5 years ago, I bought the core game at a -75% discount as well as a DLC pack also at a -75% discount, at a key reseller site (this was before I realized that keys resellers were evil). This got me everything I wanted, including all the content DLC except possibly the latest (which I then bought seperately IIRC - it was a while ago), including the one DLC I didn't want, Sunset Invasion which is just far too AH for my tastes (but which is easy to disable).

And cynically, I have to remark that this DLC is usually sold at double to quadruple the value it actually has, thus. Since if you can put it on sale for 75% off, it must still have value at that price.

It's also interesting to note that for the last many, many months, probably over a year, the only computer games I've spent any time on have been EA ones: Factorio, They are Billions, Subnautica, 7 Days to Die, Stellaris and HoI4. Games that remain in a state of continous change (or continous forward motion) as the developers add new content and features, and fix bugs, and add new bugs and then fix those.

How is that different from Factorio? New features and content come with each patch, some offering completely new ways to play.
And if you add the talented modders (not naming any, just look at mod popularity to see a few names pop up) to the "developers" of Factorio, you've got that new content more then doubled.

It's just sad that only the Factorio devs have the total *banzai* attitude of "All Bugs Must Die Now!".

It's called motivation. Not having your head on the studio choppingblock if your product doesn't make the target profits, not being held to arbitrary and unrealistic deadlines... No. Factorio is coming together at the pace the developers can handle. No more, no less. Actual knowledable game designers are setting the targets instead of suits directed by investors.

It's really spoiled me. Stellaris 2.0 came out 19 days ago, and there are *still* bugs from the 2.0 release that haven't been fixed, possibly haven't even been acknowledged.

Heh. Play some of the Skyrim ports for an even more outrageous example. Bugs from as far back as the old original PC releases have not been fixed for the re-releases on any platform, including the new Switch one.

[psihius]

But Factorio has DLC!

It's called "T-Shirts in their store" We wiped out the 3k supply in less than a month. And I have to say - those are damn high quality t-shirts, will buy again

[darkfrei]

But Factorio has DLC!

It's called "T-Shirts in their store" We wiped out the 3k supply in less than a month. And I have to say - those are damn high quality t-shirts, will buy again

Downloadable content?

[psihius]

But Factorio has DLC!

It's called "T-Shirts in their store" We wiped out the 3k supply in less than a month. And I have to say - those are damn high quality t-shirts, will buy again

Downloadable content?

Don't be picky

[steinio]

It's dressable content.

[MinotaurBlack]

But Factorio has DLC!

It's called "T-Shirts in their store" We wiped out the 3k supply in less than a month. And I have to say - those are damn high quality t-shirts, will buy again

Downloadable content?

Sure, you download it via a truck from their storage (box?) to your home

[Aeternus]

Y'know... next to T-shirts, they should sell hard hats with the Factorio logo on it. Would buy one of those

[darkfrei]

Y'know... next to T-shirts, they should sell hard hats with the Factorio logo on it. Would buy one of those

What is hard hat? Helmet?

[Nel]

Y'know... next to T-shirts, they should sell hard hats with the Factorio logo on it. Would buy one of those

What is hard hat? Helmet?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_hat
Basically, the mandatory head protection to wear on a construction site.

[Hellatze]

[...]

Honestly I absolutely dislike Paradox for their marketing.

They never really deliver full games any more. Instead they hack and slash their games into bits and pieces to be sold one by one, just like all the other big game studios/publishers do nowadays.

For example Stellaris... they charge 40 bucks for the main game, and an additional 130 bucks for all the damn DLCs, and looking at what each update brought it makes it relatively obvious that literally NONE of them are worth their money at all.

At this point they could have brought Stellaris 3 already integrating everything they made up to that point just by looking how much the DLC crap costs.

Their other games like EU and HoI aren't much better. Europa Universalis 4 demands 40 bucks for the base and yet has another 240 bucks worth of DLC. That is the worth of 6 full price titles. Absolutely ridiculous. Hearts of Iron demands 40 bucks for the base and an additional 60 bucks for DLCs.

Those bloodsuckers can go to hell for all that I care, which is sad because Stellaris would really have interested me if it wasn't for their DLC policy. If at all I would only buy the game in 5 years from now when they abandoned it entirely and sell it off in one complete pack in a -75% deal for 20 bucks and that's about it. They don't deserve more of my money just because.

Hi

Hi. We meet again. so about stellaris. That 40 bucks are complete game, that dlc are not nessesary but adding them will give more rich gameplay and feature. Also supporting dev to make them add more feature (and free feature too)

In this world there is a reason to work, Mostly money. No money : low quality work. Low quality work : not getting feature you wanted to. Game industry are not charity where people making updates for free. Even if they want to make it for free, the update are slow, and unsastifactory.

If the fame cause no more profit. The development could be stopped forever.

I dont like that.

Well i support DLC as long the content are worthy.

I hate it when people underestimate the true use of money.

[MeduSalem]

Hi. We meet again. so about stellaris. That 40 bucks are complete game, that dlc are not nessesary but adding them will give more rich gameplay and feature. Also supporting dev to make them add more feature (and free feature too)

In this world there is a reason to work, Mostly money. No money : low quality work. Low quality work : not getting feature you wanted to. Game industry are not charity where people making updates for free. Even if they want to make it for free, the update are slow, and unsastifactory.

If the fame cause no more profit. The development could be stopped forever.

I dont like that.

Well i support DLC as long the content are worthy.

I hate it when people underestimate the true use of money.

Well I rather want the development of a game to stop if the only other option means having to pay 3 times the price of the base game in DLCs ontop of the base game to see the game being badly patched up with bandaids twice a year, with most of the "new" content being just reworked existing game mechanics because of how the base game has been suffering from severe issues in its very foundations from the very first release.

Most of the DLCs of Stellaris, but also from the other Paradox games, should have been part of the base game from the release on, instead of always aiming for a low quality quick release and fixing up their shit on-the-go after the release.

This constant "work in progress" stuff where they use new DLCs to finance the correction of their previous mistakes is annoying.

In my opininon that kind of development is either highly incompetent or they are very smart in creating issues so they can later fix them up with additional revenue all while people are naive enough to finance it.



I have been reading up on the Paradox forums for several years now and it was always like this... people expressed various problems with the base game, the devs ignored to address them and only once they found a way to also monetarize it they reworked the entire game mechanic and sold it as a new DLC.

Of course some of the changes also go into the base game as well, because if they wouldn't people would have been complaining about those marketing tactics already years ago.

Can't help about it, but I think that this kind of "paid life support" financed by exploiting the wallets of hardcore fans is just ugly.

In my opinion it has too much F2P character (slapped ontop of full-prize) and I can't stand F2P games at all.



But then again I am from an entirely different player generation back in the 90s when they sold a game for 50 bucks, where they packed as much content into the game as fit into the limited memory of a NES/SEGA game cartridge and that is what you got. No DLCs, nothing. Wanting more meant having to wait for a sequel game or even a new console/computer.

Then you had to play the game 10000 times over and be grateful that you even got that, unlike nowadays where games are 1000 times as deep as they were back then and yet still people play a game for 10 hours and already start to complain how boring and repetitive everything is, evergrowingly impatient and demanding.

[Hellatze]

do you know the diffrence between finished game and additional feature ?

[JimBarracus]

do you know the diffrence between finished game and additional feature ?

Pretty much this:

Most of the DLCs of Stellaris, but also from the other Paradox games, should have been part of the base game from the release on, instead of always aiming for a low quality quick release and fixing up their shit on-the-go after the release.

You can call a game finished, but you have tons of ideas that you sell for extra cash.
They milk the base game to an extend, that is almost EA-level.
The dlc's include minor changes and add some ingame stuff that is almost on a modding level.

If they were a legit publisher they would add that as free content to the game and not as monetized dlc.
They are either capable of financing more development by base game sales or they move on to the next project.

[rldml]

Most of the DLCs of Stellaris, but also from the other Paradox games, should have been part of the base game from the release on, instead of always aiming for a low quality quick release and fixing up their shit on-the-go after the release.

This constant "work in progress" stuff where they use new DLCs to finance the correction of their previous mistakes is annoying.

In my opininon that kind of development is either highly incompetent or they are very smart in creating issues so they can later fix them up with additional revenue all while people are naive enough to finance it.

Don't forget, which audience is targeted through Paradox entertainment and how small this audience is.

If the make EUIV (and other games similar to it) like "We code until we are feature complete, remove bugs and sell the shit for one price", paradox has to close his doors, because the sales would't be enough to finance the development costs. So at least, the way to make a continuous development and sell new game mechanics as DLC for money is a good way to serve a small player base (compared with a typical AAA-playerbase). If they would'nt do it this way, games like EUIV or Stellaris had never be a realistic chance to be released, because nobody would try to code a complex game with this risk not to get enough sales.

Now to factorio: At this moment, this game hasn't reached 1.0 yet and the devs say there are some things to be done first before it reaches 1.0.

But there are some things i miss at the moment, that aren't modable (partly) and the devs have not on their list (anymore):
- more different (and more dangerous) alien types for late game and different alien behavior (at the moment, they just run to you and attack you)
- a more programmable train system (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53792)
- bridges instead of land filling
- car with an own modular grid (this is afaik moddable, indeed)
- remove of transportable fusion reactor for personal armor (instead give as a nuclear based reactor which use nuclear fuel to keep running)
- modules should get damaged ur used up also, so there should be a need to replace stuff in the armour sometimes.

Specially the mk2-personal armour with its big grid is in late game far too easy produce and maintain with modules and none of the modules have to be built more than once. That's a little bit annoying and (to be honest) it is a little bit a break in game design, because there is no need to automate the production of this stuff (you really need this stuff only once)

"There's a mod for that!" doesn't cure the lack of a feature in factorio, because i can't pay a mod-developer for the support of a feature. So it's luck based, if the magical feature i wanna have in my game will be supported with a new version of factorio.

Back to Topic: There are some things that don't come until 1.0 and that are hard to be modded or at least should be in the base game. This is the stuff, that could come with DLCs for a price

[Aeternus]

To call your stuff you deem unmoddable:
- Different aliens: Several mods out there that change what the aliens do, in terms of defenses and attack patterns. The basic "group up, move to source of pollution, blindly charge whatever is in range" mentality of aliens cannot be helped, it's part of the core game and done that way for performance reasons.
- Programmable train system: LTN, Fat Controller mods?
- Bridges: Not really moddable, requires some core game changes. Same with tunnels. These have been requested often.
- Vehicle modular grids: Mods can add these. I've had them. Works on both cars and trains.
- Fuel based reactor for personal use: Not sure if this is possible, but if it is, it'd be able to guzzle any type of burner fuel. Which suits me fine. Chop those trees, and recharge the batteries by burning them!
- Module damage: No. Just no. Factories don't suffer wear and tear either from normal use, so player modules should not either. Nothing is more frustrating then being in the middle of a biter base and suddenly your damn armor falls apart, or shield mods kapoof. If you're that much into equipment breakage, go play Breath of the Wild.

The devs have stated that they do look at mods and can incorporate ones that offer good gameplay advantages into the vanilla game - thus making those "mods" part of the core and supported. One example that comes to mind is the Nuclear chain - which looks heavily inspired on the old Nukular mod. But I don't see what your gripe is towards overmonetization is all about - are you trying to tank Factorio's popularity for some reason? Because I can guarantee you - chopping up a game into features and selling them piece by piece, is going to piss a lot of people off.

[aka13]

To call your stuff you deem unmoddable:
- Different aliens: Several mods out there that change what the aliens do, in terms of defenses and attack patterns. The basic "group up, move to source of pollution, blindly charge whatever is in range" mentality of aliens cannot be helped, it's part of the core game and done that way for performance reasons.
- Programmable train system: LTN, Fat Controller mods?
- Bridges: Not really moddable, requires some core game changes. Same with tunnels. These have been requested often.
- Vehicle modular grids: Mods can add these. I've had them. Works on both cars and trains.
- Fuel based reactor for personal use: Not sure if this is possible, but if it is, it'd be able to guzzle any type of burner fuel. Which suits me fine. Chop those trees, and recharge the batteries by burning them!
- Module damage: No. Just no. Factories don't suffer wear and tear either from normal use, so player modules should not either. Nothing is more frustrating then being in the middle of a biter base and suddenly your damn armor falls apart, or shield mods kapoof. If you're that much into equipment breakage, go play Breath of the Wild.

The devs have stated that they do look at mods and can incorporate ones that offer good gameplay advantages into the vanilla game - thus making those "mods" part of the core and supported. One example that comes to mind is the Nuclear chain - which looks heavily inspired on the old Nukular mod. But I don't see what your gripe is towards overmonetization is all about - are you trying to tank Factorio's popularity for some reason? Because I can guarantee you - chopping up a game into features and selling them piece by piece, is going to piss a lot of people off.

You can check his post history. Don't try to reason with him, he is not here to have a meaningful discussion.
Also, agreed on wear and tear. I hate high-maintenance non-automatable crafting games.