Tutorial experience - unfortunately not good

[Dawydov]

I just want to share my experience with the new tutorial. In one word, it’s annoying. Unfortunately, I have to put it like this. In comparison with the old one, it’s not fun to play. The atmosphere of the game is completely different. There is not enough discovery, experiment, self-learning. Too much guidance, fulfilling too specific goals. Instead of watching compilatron building mining structures, I should be doing that. Let the player try and discover things for himself, it’s much more engaging. Instead of repairing broken assemblers pre-placed in specific spot, I should be building them where I want. There should be NOTHING build on the planet when I arrive. That’s the whole point of the setting (being alone on the alien planet; this mindset should never be broken, even if it is only tutorial, it should still be fun and immersing to play). When I was playing factorio years ago for the first time, I was so amazed with the game I didn’t want to stop playing. With the new tutorial I was annoyed after few minutes. And I like tutorial generally, in other games.
And btw, I completely agree that in the tutorial there should be only those things that are in the game itself, so no loader/feeder etc. It causes misunderstanding how the things really work in the game.
Bottom line: the game is great, but the new tutorial is not. If I had to choose between the old one and the new one, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment.

[PhilZero]

Thanks for your post, I feel less alone. Also, "Immersion", a word I haven't thought about, is important for a campaign in my opinion. I felt that was present in the old tutorial, not in the new one.
If you got the patience, you can read that: viewtopic.php?f=227&t=66406. I used the words discovery and expirement quite often so I completly understand your point of view.

And this:

There is not enough [...] self-learning. Too much guidance

That look contradictory but I understand exactly what you mean. Its like the scenario hold our hand when it should not and doesn't when it should.

[zOldBulldog]

I totally agree. The old tutorial / campaign, as flawed as it was was much better.

I think the key problem is that they are trying to do two completely opposite things in one: a tutorial and a campaign. And it is obvious that the developers know too much about Factorio to successfully put themselves in a new player's perspective.

A tutorial should be all about learning and being introduced to the game gradually and in an enjoyable way. You should be able to learn the mechanics, build a few spaghetti messes as you do so but then be free to disassemble and recreate them better with no time pressure from biters or running out of resources. You might not have splitters and assemblers at first but you should be free to research them. You should learn some of the basic designs like smelters, busses, rail, special purpose factories, X rocket per minute science calculations. And yes, there should be one portion where you learn all about biter defense, from how to do early defenses to automated and auto-fed defense walls with supplies delivered by trains.

A campaign on the other hand can be about a series of scenarios/goals - from early arrival to post white science tasks, all while under biter pressure. And of course it should be possible to play it with multiple levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, Insane.

[Mike5000]

Agreed. I just replayed the 0.16 tutorial/demo to verify. It is almost as good as my fond memories and certainly much much better than the new attempt.

The 0.17 tutorial/demo is a tedious and confusing grind. I've tried to play through it four times in order to find and report bugs but only succeeded in completing it twice - not because I was killed but because it was just too painfully tedious.

And of course anyone who liked the 0.17 tutorial/demo would be disappointed after paying their money and finding that Factorio is in fact a completely different game than the demo.

The tail end of the 0.17 tutorial/demo can be repurposed as a stand alone scenario. The preceding scenes should be placed in a chest with Compy and shot.

Please bring back the much much better 0.16 tutorial/demo!

[ManaUser]

I think the key problem is that they are trying to do two completely opposite things in one: a tutorial and a campaign.

Yep, that's it right there. Making a tutorial that feels like a natural part of gameplay is something that sounds good, and has often been attempted, but it very rarely turns out well. Usually you get a confusing tutorial, boring gameplay, or both.

I do want to give the devs a chance on this; I know the "NPE" isn't done. But in this initial iteration, I don't feel like it achieves either goal very well.

[brunzenstein]

I think the tutorial is not bad at all and the idea quite clever - a adaption is needed - its as it stands already quite useful and funny altogether.
A litten hard for a beginner - but that's life as well-
Where ist fails is missing explanations or to communicate clearly what and how to do to survive more clearly - or even better show it and delete it. So that the newbie can copy the instruction (different ways to get to a goal) and learn by copying - like it was in school. Learning by copying

[zOldBulldog]

After a lot of thinking I got inspired and I believe I figured out how to make a better tutorial, a better campaign, and give players something interesting to do once they tried everything else in Factorio: Provide the basic tools, let players create the tutorial and campaigns, and let us vote and search for the best ones.

I describe it in detail at the following thread: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic. ... 27&t=68585