i dont really know where to begin with, i have been following the game since 34.11 and mostly playing in fortress mode, adventure mode right now is my main source of FUN since fortress mode has become more FPS heavy. i dont mind spending extra time traveling around the world and along sites, and im looking for what the next patch brings.
but there's still something that i think Toady should revise in the next updates, and its site generation. it is evident that adventure mode focuses mostly on its roguelike gameplay and that the player atm can only focus in combat. this may change in the future i guess. but in order to strive for that fantasy simulation, the way settlements and other structures are built need to be changed too.
the current suggestions regarding to them are the following:
1. camps that look like camps: these are the first structures the player usually attacks when starting its adventure, right now they're basically loot put in a central point and surrounded by bandits, it could get a facelift, adding stuff like a small palizade, heck, it could be like a mini fort sometimes.
2. houses need to be revamped: a rectangular dwelling with a roof doesnt really gives the vibe of a house, it looks more like an excuse to hide from bogeymen. even a dwarven room of the most basic type done by a player has some sense of function, be it a 1x3 room with cluttered stuff or a real 2x2 room with actual space to move and a door, and that's covering just the bedroom. humans are more sofisticated than that, yeah, medieval houses are usually depicted as being one or two stories high and with little to no separation between rooms. but there's not even furniture in these dwellings. and the place is usually cluttered with civilians, there' should be some sort of organization in which stays on the house. same happens with Hillocks, same happens with Tree Houses and even goblin towers.
the generator should have at least the sense of asigning each house to a fixed number of NPCs of the same family and give proper furniture for it, maybe adding more rooms and organize the houses in regards to the location (so houses dont overlap for example). it would give more sense then to go to any place and look what do the NPCs have that you can steal or even buy if that's the case.
3. hamlets/forest retreats/hillocks/dark pits need more urbanization and less unnecessary terrain: basically 90% of the location is composed of farmplots, trees without use or annoying terrain which makes travelling around the site more stressfull. even taking in account that most of the buildings are cluttered in one place. DF worlds are huge even in the smallest of locations, there's no need to get so much terrain for a place that doesnt even produce anything, dark pits cover a large part of map and more than 90% of it are the trenches with a few towers and the hundreds of underground rooms which arent really inhabited by the goblins. same happens with hamlets, the fields are inmense and all the houses are crammed in a central part where there's nothing interesting about it. no sense of organization.
the idea would be to take less terrain and distribute better the structures around the site, noble structures should be less distanced from the main settlement and now with a better housing generator there should be actual houses put near the farmplots, maybe have both separated farms and a central commercial center, with an all rounder shop or the like. maybe an inn too.
4. mead halls and castles need to be bigger: the same issue with houses with the issue of procedural rooms, many starts have mead halls which are basically the lobby room, and all the NPCs seem to live there without any actual furniture being put to use. same happens with castles, in rare cases you see a castle with more rooms, it is usually a main lobby with the dungeons put basically one story under. these doesnt look like noble housing.
mead halls should well, be worth of the name, with a large dinning room where the guardsmen and the nobles eat and rooms for every inhabitant along with the kitchen and other utility rooms. same happens with keeps, in order to do this the game should again, distribute the buildings around in the town or hamlet in order to make sure the space doesnt become crowded and allows to move around easy while looking for certain locations.
5. less unnecessary space: you have seen it, the entrance to dwarven fortresses are gigantic when the inside is basically compose of a central stair(composed of ramps) and all the dwarven market as a small spot. in that case the entrance should be smaller. most dungeons, catacombs and sewers and other underground buildings have unnecessary places that make going out of them or explore them annoyingly long. im not saying that each place should have the same layout, but at least there should be more sense in how large are the connecting rooms, or where are the stair connection placed. specially when the site itself doesnt really have anything interesting inside, save for a few rooms with loot or danger.
6. more types of cities/settlements: all the current settlements are placed around a river. this wasnt the case if you look at history. many fortresses were done at the side of a cliff or built over a hill usually with a river passing on the side, or even the river was far from them. they usually had a canal system in order to transfer water to the city.
7. megabeast lairs/nests should look more fitting according to the creature: pretty explanatory, Roc nests for example could be made with logs scattered in a circular perimeter and the creature and treasure sitting in the center. it doesnt need to be very complex.
8. industrial buildings: and this could be good for the addition of player crafting in adventure mode, having certain buildings to have workshops related to the owner's job, this would allow the player to not only gather resources but also to craft equipment from the nearby settlements.
9. parks, gardens and other cultural oddities: hamlets have colorfull flowers and bushes grown around houses, towns right now dont really have any decoration, adding things like the ones listed in the title would give more feel that you are traversing a city instead of what seem to be slums.
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Topic: Structure Generation Revamp (Read 658 times)