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[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I'm developing an idea for reducing eyeglaze in those giant screens, mostly Thoughts&Prefs.

It's still being worked on, but the basic idea is that the "he sticks his tongue out when he is thinking. he is sarcastic" would not be visible by default, and that you would normally only see the important parts of the T&P screen.

So instead of

"Urist has been stressed lately. He saw Goblin Mc1 die.....  He saw Goblin McThousand die,"

it would have

"Urist has been stressed lately. He saw a thousand goblins die."

In addition, the "civ ethics" would be by default not visible, and "attributes" like lying tendencies or gratitude would only be visible if they are important, they are very different from the average dwarf, or at random for a small amount of flavor. Right now the flavor just gets eyeglazed - everything in moderation, but not everything in great amounts, is good for the reader.

The reader could select portions of the T&P screen in order to expand them, which could have differing levels of expansion - include flavor or do not include flavor, only include bad thoughts, etc.

The same concept could be applied to, for instance, the "year's rumours" screen the diplomat gives you. Say that a wave of marauding goblins has swept through the land, forcing peasants out of their farms into refugee camps. Don't list the name of every town, village, and running peasant - unless the player selects that option.

Thoughts?

[NW_Kohaku]

Honestly, my first thought is that you might want to link that one screenshot where there were several pages of thoughts in a description literally listing off seeing hundreds of dead goblins just so Toady realizes that isn't hyperbole...

I think there could also be a "shortened" list for many traits.  Yeah, it's nice that traits can be given specific language, but it hits "eyeglaze levels" when you see a dozen traits listed that way in a row, and players just can't deal with it.

In fact, this is one of the major reasons I prefer using Dwarf Therapist - instead of some insidiously bland longform text readout, it just represents personality traits as large or small squares in a spreadsheet, which is instantly, visibly recognizable.  (Anger propensity- big square, love prop- little square, violence- little square. OK, so, cranky but not violent, got it!)

If Toady is absolutely dead-set against iconographic information readouts (which he shouldn't be, as it is scientifically proven to be a better mode of communicating basic ideas) then at least use something like shortened and preferably color-coded personality traits.  I.E. Urist mcCranky has an explosive temper, is not romantic, is rarely violent.

A better use would be to use symbols to express this sort of information rapidly without having to worry about the bland long-form prose that causes eyeglaze. Maybe there could be an "expand" button that reads it all out for you, but what players really need when managing a hundred dwarves is the ability to search for dwarves that have courage or have anger issues.  (Again, this is why I play with Dwarf Therapist, since it lets me understand all my dwarves at once, rather than having to manually go through every goddamn dwarf one-by-one and having to write it all out on paper what their personalities mean.)

For an example, you might then have -
*Anger Propensity*
xLove Propensityx
XXViolenceXX

(Obviously, this is reusing existing symbols, but there would be reason to do so, since it means less to learn, which is the point of using symbols in the first place.)

This would at least give you a list of notable traits and their general values, which is what you actually need to know, especially going forward with dwarf personalities mattering more and more. 

[helmacon]

If Toady is absolutely dead-set against iconographic information readouts (which he shouldn't be, as it is scientifically proven to be a better mode of communicating basic ideas) then at least use something like shortened and preferably color-coded personality traits.  I.E. Urist mcCranky has an explosive temper, is not romantic, is rarely violent.

It already uses color to highlight things like non-standard values. You have to use some discretion here because everything being a different color is just as useless as everything being the same color.

That being said, i am 100% in agreement with this idea. Maybe a similar system to legends mode where you can toggle seeing all events and only significant events, except its all traits and only significant or aberrant traits.

[Dirst]

I like the idea, though it might be easier to implement as hyperlinks/spoilers inside the thoughts screen.  The thoughts screen uses the same renderer as the help pages, and those already have primitive hyperlinks.

So the top-level test might be (using underlines because I forget what color indicates a link):

"Death.  It's everywhere!"

Urist has been stressed lately.

Which expands to:

"Death.  It's everywhere!"

Urist has been stressed lately.  She was disturbed seeing 107 sentients die.  She was disgusted seeing 812 animals die.  She was disturbed seeing 99 animals die.  She felt nothing seeing 5 animals die.

The the final link expanding to:

"Death.  It's everywhere!"

Urist has been stressed lately.  She was disturbed seeing 107 sentients die.  She was disgusted seeing 812 animals die.  She was disturbed seeing 99 animals die.  She felt nothing seeing a bull die.  She felt nothing seeing a mare die.  She felt nothing seeing a peahen die.  She felt nothing seeing a peacock die.  She felt nothing seeing a peacock die.