this is a great game (simulation =)). like most free games out there, the biggest issue is usability. i'm writing this now, because i start to get used to all these little things, but i think they are important to improve if you want to attract new players. just keep in mind, you saw the game growing up. it's alot easier to take all this if you get little bits added every now and then. but a new players gets overwhelmed by the amount of options with very little information and very complicated UI.
i am now playing my 3rd game (fortress mode), i've seen megabeasts, vampires etc, but no magma yet and (i assume) none of the really big FUN.
the first game i abadoned, because i thought i had a corrupt savegame. now i know that was not the case, it was a usability issue. when you load a game, it says "load game" as if i had to click a button or do something to make the game load, but it is in fact, already loading. i think once or twice, i actually saw a "loading game" message, but usually i don't. i was seriously considering quitting DF. it's a small thing really, show us when the game is loading.
i wouldn't enjoy this without the wiki and the therapist. i certainly do understand that it makes no sense to integrate the therapist into the program (from a RL point of view), but it should somehow be part of it. and something similar should exist for inventory management. also, please give me a search function that searches through all categories and then tells me in which category it found the item, also in the stockpile menu.
let the same hotkeys do the same in different menus. to zoom somewhere i sometimes need z, in other menues i need c. to define the size of something, 3 different methods are used: umhk, +- and drawing a rectangle. use one method for everything.
defining and equipping military squads is a pain. especially because there is some bug that makes the equipment display vanish when i scroll through the squad members. the whole squad management should be easier.
when a command is not executed i want more information. for example, if something is inaccessible, i want to know what was inaccessible. if a production is cancelled, don't remove the item from the production list, just set it inactive. after a cancelled production i have no idea what was produced and what wasn't. that's annoying. it would also be nice to get information what is needed to produce something that i cannot select due to missing items.
i play a dwarf fortress. i don't want to go chopping trees. i want to mine coal. please let me search for coal in the embark location finder. 3 games and no coal in any of them. it's disappointing.
when placing furniture let the most valuable piece to on top automatically (or let me choose a sorting order). so i don't have to expand and search every time.
i don't understand many points concerning the balancing. i assume these things work as intended, but i would prefer some things to be differently:
- i get so many dwarves so quick and easily due to migrants (yes i could play on an biome that kills them all, but that's not the point). in addition, dwarves are much too productive. it's much too easy to keep these big numbers if immigrants fed and supplied with everything needed - unless some unforseen fun happens of course, but it should take more work to provide enough food, booze etc for a large population. of course it's also too easy to get food from animals. out of my 100 dwarves i need no more than about 20 to keep everything running. 40 are just carrying things around, or - mostly - do nothing, and 40 are soldiers.
- skills raise much too fast, some of them. training soldiers is definitely very slow (probably too slow without using exploits). but many other skills raise so quickly that getting a high skilled dwarf doesn't mean much. i suggest to let skills level slower, especially the higher skills levels (it's easy to get a basic understanding of something, but becoming a legendary +5 master should take dozen of years).
- animal reproduction is too fast, at least for small animals. in a medivial environment, the mortality rates of (especially young) animals should be quite high. (yes i know how to prevent a catsplosion, but it's another very easy food source).
- spam from seeds not being found altough i have more than enough seeds. i understand it's due to them being in bags and just one dwarf can access them at the same time. it sucks. a message filter could fix it, but better solution would be to let me access my seeds more easily.
- it's much too easy to produce sufficient goods for buying everything the trade caravans deliver. of course it's also much too easy to produce everything yourself, so you don't really need much from the caravans.
- it seems the serious FUN comes either from choosing a bad embark location, or from digging too deep. but there is no motivation to dig deep until i have prepared for it sufficiently. i assume it's not correct from a geologic point of view, but it would be much more interesting, if the good stones and ores would only exist deeper. yes i know adamantium is not found in the upper layers, but i never had any reason to use anything worse than iron. it would be more exciting if getting iron or bronze ore would include some risk fun. or the more valuable stones. as is, i don't care much what stone i'm using because the difference is not that much. but marble is easily available anyways.
- when 3 megabeasts suddenly emerged from the newly found underground cavern i thought it would be too much fun for my fortress to take. but actually 10 soldiers equipped with iron items had no troubles dealing with them (some died or got wounded). my first megabeast was roc, and my hunter (with some crossbow) would have probably finished it alone, if i didn't activate a civilian alert. (only after that did i see the hunters combat report that had already taken out both its wings from distance)
- i don't know how common vampires are in general. i had 2 so far. i would prefer less. one is exciting, but when it happens so often that i start checking all immigrants for signs of vampirism it becomes boring. i don't have to see every feature in every game.
i assume some of the things i mentioned, do actually exist. if so, please tell me =) this is a great game with an overwhelming number of features. but when i look in the wiki i find bugs mentioned on every page. of course that's easy to say since i didn't even see everything the game has to offer yet, but it would benefit the game more to fix bugs and improve usability instead of adding even more features.
anyways, this is not meant to be a rant, the game is good as it is. it is a feedback from a new player with the intention of helping you improve the game, especially concerning matters that might scare of newbies.
dance!
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Topic: early feedback (Read 1625 times)