Add Game Difficulty setting in Vanilla - Easy/Normal/Difficult

[Trblz]

TL;DR

Add Game Difficulty setting in Vanilla - easy, normal, difficult

What ?

In the recent FFFs, there have been a lot of improvements suggested/implemented in the game to make the learning curve less steep for new players. Examples are the anti-fluid mixing changes (FFF-312 and before), the Oil Changes (FFF-305) and others.

My suggestion is to difficulty levels in the vanilla game:

• Easy: No Fluid mixing, Easy Oil Recipe, Easy Biter settings (not hard)
• Normal: No Fluid mixing, Normal Oil Recipe (0.16 / pre-305), Biter settings (easy, normal, hard)
• Hard: Fluid mixing, Normal Oil recipe, Biter settings (not easy)
• hardcore: Fluid mixing, Expensive Recipes, Normal Oil Recipe, Bitter settings hard etc.....

With "Fluid mixing" you have either the 0.16 behavior or the 0.16 behavior plus waste products and treatment (many mods have waste products) added to the game.

Why ?

Some of these changes can be implemented through mods but that defeats the vanilla experience and the achievements.

Many of these recent changes in 0.17 are driven as an important group of new or less experienced players are getting confused/frustrated with the dynamics of the game. Especially the fluid dynamics or oil recipes can be tough for some.

However the opposite can be said about more experienced players, like myself, who don't mind to have those dynamics. They have found ways around it, built all kinds of awesome factories with fluid mixing, old oil recipe. But with these changes, there is no Vanilla way to do so.

[Xelephant]

I like the current Setting for the reason i can choose what i want for my game experience.

There is always a learning curve in every game and i fail to see how easier recepies would change that. The extended tutorial (campaign) for new players isn't even done yet, it might help a ton understanding the game better. But I would be my favor for beeing able to make my own preset in game so i don't have to adjust them every time.

[Trblz]

I like the current Setting for the reason i can choose what i want for my game experience.

There is always a learning curve in every game and i fail to see how easier recipes would change that.

For me an easy recipe like basic oil processing (crude in, petroleum out) means I don't have to think about the unwanted by-products, things i don't need right now. However for my game experience i do like it.
In fact, this was one of the few recipes that produced "unwanted" by-products that could easily stop production.

Same for fluid mixing prevention, before it was tough when you flood water into oil lines but you learn to be careful. Now there's no sweat, its fool proof.
Adding waste fluid treatment to Vanilla would solve the mixing by-products with only a handful of minor changes.

For your vanilla experience, I can get your view on it and i think it's needed for some.
But also look at it from the view of people who like the challenge within Vanilla

But I would be my favor for being able to make my own preset in game so i don't have to adjust them every time.

Agreed, but i would like to have my own vanilla preset in game too where i can up the difficulty (not just biters).

Keep in mind: I am asking for Vanilla experience changes; some of it can be done via the many mod-packs.

[GluAp]

In general I believe that you have enough switches to change difficulty already. They allow for precise tuning and correspond well with the game mechanics:

* Resource and landscape (island) settings: Wide range from "focus on what you really have to do" to "build a megabase"
* Biter and pollution settings: Focus on building a factory, focus on defending and accounting for pollution, or anything in between
* Recipe and technology settings: How big to build your factory, how long to play and the possibility for new experience where you can't use existing blueprints.

The idea is: You learn by doing (and by failing) - that's where the tutorial and the "no pollution / biters" settings come in handy. And from this point on you can choose what playstyle fits you the most and will provide a challenge for you.

What you want is a set of presets which to choose frome. But this set is already existing. When starting freeplay there you have railworld, deathworld, marathon, island and further settings which provide a very specialized gameplay experience.

So the only point left to your suggestions are those about fluid mixing and oil recipes. Well - that's not a good idea in my opinion. First of all - the devs would have to maintain different branches for those mechanics with bugs and all included.
Maybe Mods would be affected to?
Furthermore you couldn't combine the freeplay presets freely anymore or at least it wouldn't make much sense in some cases.
And you have to ask the question: What experience is an all normal user supposed to have?
I think the Devs answered this question with their decision to simplify oil processing. So let's believe they know why they came to that conclusion.

And personally I'd never want to go back to fluid mixing. If you ever have played a big mod pack or built a megabase and had to spent 10 minutes to repair a system just because you misplaced a sinlge pipe .. that has nothing to do with 'paying attention' or 'being carful' in my opinion.

Btw - I like the "old" oil processing more. I honestly don't need those simplifications and can't see why players wouldn't manage to get past this point. But nonetheless I understand why the Devs decided to do this.

[steinio]

Still missing recipe cost = easy. All recipes cost the half.

[conn11]

Most of the suggested difficult options would be quite incompatible with the lower tiers and therefore make multiplayer matchmaking harder and more exclusive.
I even think, that newer players would be more hinderd by such changes, too get in touch or learn from more expirienced players.
Although having the option for harder = more intelligent biters, would certainly be much appreciated...

[Trblz]

Most of the suggested difficult options would be quite incompatible with the lower tiers and therefore make multiplayer matchmaking harder and more exclusive.
I even think, that newer players would be more hinderd by such changes, too get in touch or learn from more expirienced players.
Although having the option for harder = more intelligent biters, would certainly be much appreciated...

For lower tiers/inexperienced players you could also "unlock" difficulty settings. Similar to how the blueprint functionality works in 0.17

[Koub]

For lower tiers/inexperienced players you could also "unlock" difficulty settings. Similar to how the blueprint functionality works in 0.17

Please no more "unlocking" features. I hate when a game decides by itself I'm not good enough to use a feature, that I haven't played enough to understand a feature, or even I don't deserve the feature yet.
The only place I can understand and appreciate such progressive unlocking is within a tutorial, if it's well done.

[BlueTemplar]

Aside for a checkbox for allowing fluid mixing touching, this seems to be a duplicate of :
New "Complex" difficulty

But where difficulty modes are concerned, IMHO there should be a "Peaceful" preset, combining the "Peaceful mode" and no "Enemy expansion" settings, for the new players that might be scared by the biters.
(Rail World doesn't actually have "Peaceful mode" on, unlike I had assumed, and the large distances involved would be off-putting for new players.)