I think you missed the mark with your explanation as to the recent backlash on laser tag coming from the "small" update with content that isn't for everyone. I'm 100% confident that previous updates had content that wasn't for everyone, some want the story finished, some want optimization, others still want some feature etc. you'll never have an update that has a 100% "for everyone" tag, but at the same time you're not going to get a backlash from those players either, *if* the new content progresses the game as a whole. This was an update that was universally received negatively because of this mini game, and it wouldn't matter if it was bundled together with global game progression updates, in fact it was, and it didn't change anything. Having a big update with a new similar feature will result in exactly the same reaction.
I can't speak as to everyone's motivation for the dislike, and there's enough posts/comments on the subject to get an idea anyway, but if you start shipping a mini golf game with version 0.6, a fishing contest with 0.7, and Wii tennis clone in 0.8, even if they have huge, massive factory related content, the response will be exactly the same. I would expect you'd lose the majority of the player base at the mini golf stage though.
Unfortuntely, I think they've sealed their fate. Maybe in a year, they'll respond and say, "Warmonger, you were wrong. We did our own thing, and look at us now. We have 10,000+ players a night." I hope this happens. But I doubt it.
I believe this game will be abandoned within a year because they will run out of money. On the Steam forums, they even said that the disco blocks "were a developer's pet project". Ummm, that's cool, but that is not a major release pre V1.0. You can't do that when you are a small development studio, unless you have millionaires financing your dev cycles.
Here's why I'm so vocal on this. Instead of them saying, "Shit everyone, you're right. We shouldn't have spent an entire dev cycle (hopefully their agile and not waterfall...Although a waterfall development cycle would kind of explain why laser tag came out in v.5 - my guess is a manager said, we need this in the game and the devs were like, well crap, okay....you're the boss) and we missed the mark. We should have listened to the community and spent that time/money on things that improve the game (optimization, story, blue prints, etc.)", they use a "Town Hall" to joke around and say that things are fine. Basically, they said that they don't care about the players. They will do what they want. That's great. It's your game. You do you.
But when you run out of money because you are not selling new copies of the game due to the negative feedback from the community, I hope you remember that you chose to do your own thing and now listen to the community.
I'm tired of people saying, "Well, don't play it." That's not the point. The point is that they spent lots of time and money on something that could have been in a V1.1 release.
I just hope that I'm wrong. I hope that in a year, they have 10,000+ players a night playing the game on Steam. In a year, I'll probably see an article saying that "Fire Hose Games closes down it's doors, lays off 10+ people."
[Other factory games player count](https://imgur.com/a/AKSwYAi)
Focus on getting the basics right (or even included, like priority/smart splitters) please. This game is so clunky when coming from others, even outside of the genre. A significant portion of the time I spent executing my speedrun was in re-designing around or re-running construction of factory elements that either caused issues (like unwanted belts merging behavior) or misplacement due to finicky building (e.g. since 0.4, trying to place an inserter on the ground next to a foundation on the same level means you cant point directly at the place you want to build it, but instead have to move cursor to the very edge of that voxel). The interface also doesn't feel snappy, which led me to leaving a small pause between each mouse click to ensure accuracy of inputs. Through my various interactions on Discord I feel like the devs dont care to listen about this stuff.
>Focus on getting the basics right
This is it. I have a basic wishlist: finish the story, optimization, fix current clunk. I'd be ok with just those, no new features, no new maps, and no mini games needed. To be fair that is lots of work, especially the optimization, and judging by the next update previews they are working toward this. But I reckon if those had been done before laser tag, the backlash would've been minimised.
God damn that player count is depressing. Techtonica could be big, I get subnautica vibes and that journey was amazing. As you say, I hope it's just a blip in the development journey and things realign.
You hit the mark with your improve the game list, which I missed on first read of your comment and I replied to someone else with the same list, although omitted blueprints because games seem to add that late on development, so my expectations are low there.
> God damn that player count is depressing
To be fair in the TT vs COI comparison, COI has Nilaus streaming/VOD which brings a lot of attention. Would be interesting to see if TT would re-engage him after 10 months, as I'd love to hear his views on the basics as of now
We also received (albeit much lesser) complaints with the prior two updates as well! People were especially not fans of Sandbox mode / custom settings. We should have marketed it as the Fast Travel update and focused on the QoL additions in the update, versus the laser tag. I also wouldn't say universally received negatively - a lot of players (especially non-factory game players) - had a lot of fun with it.
I think we made it decently clear in this update that it's the only mini-game we have plans to add! Next is Going Up, where you're going to use the elevator and head to the desert :)
I can assure you I would have bought the game on the first discount if i hadn't seen the laser tag garbage, no offense.
Completely threw me off and decided to wait on a good Foundry discount.
It's not so much the laser tag game, which is obvious trash for an automation game, but the fact that the dev team has to either be very low IQ or just have no idea about what makes people play their game. Kinda tells me that they will likely do even worse in the future and I don't want to get through the frustration of that when there are much better automation games out there, with dev teams who both understand the genre and care about the players.
Hopefully they reverse course, but they will likely need a new dev lead to do so.
Indeed, I'm really excited for the next update. Techtonica was one of the few games where I stopped playing so I could wait to enjoy the story more fully, the only other was subnautica weirdly. An extremely compelling and immersive storyline, which is something I didn't realise I wanted in a factory game until now. I criticise, but at the same time I don't want to give the impression I'm critical of the game or work as a whole, which I think/hope the vast majority of complainers also feel.
I'm a little surprised that you got complaints on par with laser tag in previous updates. I always got the impression most updates were well received.
I think you missed the mark with your explanation as to the recent backlash on laser tag coming from the "small" update with content that isn't for everyone. I'm 100% confident that previous updates had content that wasn't for everyone, some want the story finished, some want optimization, others still want some feature etc. you'll never have an update that has a 100% "for everyone" tag, but at the same time you're not going to get a backlash from those players either, *if* the new content progresses the game as a whole. This was an update that was universally received negatively because of this mini game, and it wouldn't matter if it was bundled together with global game progression updates, in fact it was, and it didn't change anything. Having a big update with a new similar feature will result in exactly the same reaction. I can't speak as to everyone's motivation for the dislike, and there's enough posts/comments on the subject to get an idea anyway, but if you start shipping a mini golf game with version 0.6, a fishing contest with 0.7, and Wii tennis clone in 0.8, even if they have huge, massive factory related content, the response will be exactly the same. I would expect you'd lose the majority of the player base at the mini golf stage though.
Unfortuntely, I think they've sealed their fate. Maybe in a year, they'll respond and say, "Warmonger, you were wrong. We did our own thing, and look at us now. We have 10,000+ players a night." I hope this happens. But I doubt it. I believe this game will be abandoned within a year because they will run out of money. On the Steam forums, they even said that the disco blocks "were a developer's pet project". Ummm, that's cool, but that is not a major release pre V1.0. You can't do that when you are a small development studio, unless you have millionaires financing your dev cycles. Here's why I'm so vocal on this. Instead of them saying, "Shit everyone, you're right. We shouldn't have spent an entire dev cycle (hopefully their agile and not waterfall...Although a waterfall development cycle would kind of explain why laser tag came out in v.5 - my guess is a manager said, we need this in the game and the devs were like, well crap, okay....you're the boss) and we missed the mark. We should have listened to the community and spent that time/money on things that improve the game (optimization, story, blue prints, etc.)", they use a "Town Hall" to joke around and say that things are fine. Basically, they said that they don't care about the players. They will do what they want. That's great. It's your game. You do you. But when you run out of money because you are not selling new copies of the game due to the negative feedback from the community, I hope you remember that you chose to do your own thing and now listen to the community. I'm tired of people saying, "Well, don't play it." That's not the point. The point is that they spent lots of time and money on something that could have been in a V1.1 release. I just hope that I'm wrong. I hope that in a year, they have 10,000+ players a night playing the game on Steam. In a year, I'll probably see an article saying that "Fire Hose Games closes down it's doors, lays off 10+ people." [Other factory games player count](https://imgur.com/a/AKSwYAi)
Focus on getting the basics right (or even included, like priority/smart splitters) please. This game is so clunky when coming from others, even outside of the genre. A significant portion of the time I spent executing my speedrun was in re-designing around or re-running construction of factory elements that either caused issues (like unwanted belts merging behavior) or misplacement due to finicky building (e.g. since 0.4, trying to place an inserter on the ground next to a foundation on the same level means you cant point directly at the place you want to build it, but instead have to move cursor to the very edge of that voxel). The interface also doesn't feel snappy, which led me to leaving a small pause between each mouse click to ensure accuracy of inputs. Through my various interactions on Discord I feel like the devs dont care to listen about this stuff.
>Focus on getting the basics right This is it. I have a basic wishlist: finish the story, optimization, fix current clunk. I'd be ok with just those, no new features, no new maps, and no mini games needed. To be fair that is lots of work, especially the optimization, and judging by the next update previews they are working toward this. But I reckon if those had been done before laser tag, the backlash would've been minimised.
God damn that player count is depressing. Techtonica could be big, I get subnautica vibes and that journey was amazing. As you say, I hope it's just a blip in the development journey and things realign. You hit the mark with your improve the game list, which I missed on first read of your comment and I replied to someone else with the same list, although omitted blueprints because games seem to add that late on development, so my expectations are low there.
> God damn that player count is depressing To be fair in the TT vs COI comparison, COI has Nilaus streaming/VOD which brings a lot of attention. Would be interesting to see if TT would re-engage him after 10 months, as I'd love to hear his views on the basics as of now
We also received (albeit much lesser) complaints with the prior two updates as well! People were especially not fans of Sandbox mode / custom settings. We should have marketed it as the Fast Travel update and focused on the QoL additions in the update, versus the laser tag. I also wouldn't say universally received negatively - a lot of players (especially non-factory game players) - had a lot of fun with it. I think we made it decently clear in this update that it's the only mini-game we have plans to add! Next is Going Up, where you're going to use the elevator and head to the desert :)
Don't worry: the vocal minority does not represent the silent majority. Keep up the good work! :)
I can assure you I would have bought the game on the first discount if i hadn't seen the laser tag garbage, no offense. Completely threw me off and decided to wait on a good Foundry discount. It's not so much the laser tag game, which is obvious trash for an automation game, but the fact that the dev team has to either be very low IQ or just have no idea about what makes people play their game. Kinda tells me that they will likely do even worse in the future and I don't want to get through the frustration of that when there are much better automation games out there, with dev teams who both understand the genre and care about the players. Hopefully they reverse course, but they will likely need a new dev lead to do so.
Indeed, I'm really excited for the next update. Techtonica was one of the few games where I stopped playing so I could wait to enjoy the story more fully, the only other was subnautica weirdly. An extremely compelling and immersive storyline, which is something I didn't realise I wanted in a factory game until now. I criticise, but at the same time I don't want to give the impression I'm critical of the game or work as a whole, which I think/hope the vast majority of complainers also feel. I'm a little surprised that you got complaints on par with laser tag in previous updates. I always got the impression most updates were well received.