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[dizzyelk]

I think its awesome that this game has so much complexity, but I'd really like to see sorted menus and searches. When you're adding a new job you can just type in what you want and the game sifts through everything until you get a match. Its fast and efficient. With the huge size of most of the menus a lot of time is spent searching for what you want just because everything is unsorted.

This. The controls make sense to me. D for designate, b for build. Its easy, but the worst part is looking for individual stuffs. I hate having to scroll through pages upon pages of crap. The bring stuff to the depot page has a search, and the manager new job page, as well as the embarking page. I just want to be able to search my stock page, the names on my military positions page, and the units page.

[JackOSpades]

hey DF's interface isn't THAT bad, I mean it at least TELLS you what each button does. I've personally Played MUCH worse.

[Babylon]

There are some things that are completely unintuitive, like wood burning being under farming labor

Wood burning is part of the ash-potash and ash-lye-soap cycle, all the other steps of which are agricultural in nature. Although charcoal was once widely used in iron-making, the charcoal-burner was not a skilled laborer the way that premodern smelters were. No special equipment is needed to make charcoal and it has traditionally been made outdoors in big smouldering piles; the charcoal-burner was perceived as a rural rustic, as in A. A. Milne's "The Charcoal-Burner":

"The charcoal burner has tales to tell.
He lives in the forest, alone in the forest,
He sits in the forest, alone in the forest,
And rabbits come up and they give him good morning,
And rabbits come up and say, 'Beautiful morning',
And the moon swings clear of the tall black trees,
And owls fly over and wish him good night.
Quietly over to wish him good night"

In areas of the world where charcoal is still made by hand in large quantities, like India and Haiti, charcoal is mostly used as cooking fuel. As many DF vets can attest the demand for charcoal invariably outstrips local tree supply, as seen in this picture of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border:



What DF doesn't model is the other detrimental effects of charcoal production, namely erosion, air pollution, and habitat destruction. DomRep has its own problems but its land has been marginally better managed than Haiti's, which is one reason that illegal charcoaling and charcoal smuggling from DomRep to Haiti is such a big problem- Haiti's ability to produce charcoal has been ruined by its uncontrolled production. I live in a US state that was almost entirely clear-cut for iron production 100 years ago and it has taken that long for the forests to partially recover, even with aggressive forest management programs. I suspect that Haiti is already in a much worse shape than my state was and it lacks the effective government or affluent population needed to make any reforestation effort work, and will therefore continue to erode to the point that the entire country is naked slope, cholera marsh and inhospitable desert

TL;DR charcoal burning is by nature substantially different than other metalworking jobs and has been correctly placed in agriculture (or at a stretch with woodworking)

All well and good, but the primary use of it in game is as fuel now that there isn't coal most places, and it is processed in a furnace.  You'd think it would be in the same place as furnace operating.

[Starver]

All well and good, but the primary use of it in game is as fuel now that there isn't coal most places, and it is processed in a furnace.  You'd think it would be in the same place as furnace operating.

My view is that it's all about plants, making trees into charcoal.  What you do with the charcoal is another matter.  (Of course, it doesn't go towards much other than the metal industry, but I don't see that as a reason.)


I suppose one could go further and demand (Settlers-like) that there was an equivalent 'forester' job, but I've a feeling certain comments about elvishness would come forth from some.

[Babylon]

All well and good, but the primary use of it in game is as fuel now that there isn't coal most places, and it is processed in a furnace.  You'd think it would be in the same place as furnace operating.

My view is that it's all about plants, making trees into charcoal.  What you do with the charcoal is another matter.  (Of course, it doesn't go towards much other than the metal industry, but I don't see that as a reason.)


I suppose one could go further and demand (Settlers-like) that there was an equivalent 'forester' job, but I've a feeling certain comments about elvishness would come forth from some.

Woodworking would be the category for it then.  I'd still prefer it be in the same place as furnace operating.

[Starver]

Woodworking is a funny old salt.

Composed of:

• Woodcutting - which is theoretically a beige/dull-yellow farming activity, perhaps mixed with a bit of military handiness with the sharp-edge
• Carpentry - A combo of a the blue crafts skills area, in some ways, and a creation/construction skill more akin to the pure white masonry skill only with wood
• Crossbowmaking - A craft, maybe, although if you're not making crossbows of wood you're using a not-crossbow-specific skill to make the same item...  And I forget what's used if you're making them out of bone.

But is this really the time to re-suggest the skills mix-up that I've mentioned before (as an idea, only, I'm not emphatic about it like some people are with "This must change!")...?

Spoiler: If it is, read on... (click to show/hide)

 So, let there be material skills (wood, metal, rock, bone, cloth), scale-skills (large items, small items, delicate items, with perhaps "constructions" inserted at the beginning of the link) and maybe refined with another skill-set or so appropriate to "items of a form".

Thus to make a wooden chest means assessing the manufacturer's familiarity with wood as a material, medium-sized furniture as a scale and perhaps enclosures as a concept.  If he gets pretty good in all three of these, he'd still get an advantage towards making a stone coffer (even without so much stone-material knowledge, he could... ahem... 'cobble' something together), or a wooden wardrobe (the scale might perplex him, as it might with making a jewellery box), and making a wooden chair would mean embracing a new experience when it comes to "weight-bearing platform" design.

Another dwarf who was good at wooden chairs might only have a scale-issue when it comes to trying to make a decent table, a stone coffer might be made by a dwarf with the requisite skills for making stone doors (only scale-adjusted and conceptually a little different), the wooden wardrobe being made by the habitual maker of small-metal-rings would probably be a bit poor in quality, who would get better bonuses when switched to making loops of plant-fibre rope, but only just.

Masons might be those with a stone primary with various different size and concept primaries (large-construction for wall, medium-shaping for block), Engravers have stone-construction/bedrock-shaping, woodcutters would be wood-huge-extractor people, plant gatherers would be plant-samples-harvesting guys and gals, brewers with plants-handfuls-brewing  and various haulers may well develop <material>-<size>-hauling specialities.

But it needn't be so neatly such a triumvirate of dependant skills.  Perhaps encrusting with a gem would require gem-skills[1], small-scale and that of mounting/setting the item, but there'd also be a dependency regarding the material the gem is being set into?  But for now the simple triple of independent-yet-ever-present separate axes of skill-base serves as a place-holder for this idea.


[1] And there's nothing to say, by the way, that someone well-versed in gem-skills, or wood-skills, or whatever material, should not get speciality skill-levels in particularly familiar types of gem.  A bit like prior to a certain skill-level the wood-worker who might yet be destined to specialise in chests/cupboards or tables/chairs (these items themselves to branch out) is first dabbling in "furniture" in general, before being able to distinguish a preference, or habituation...

All in all, I don't think charcoal making is anywhere like as misplaced as you think, but obviously our opinions vary here.  There's one arbiter in all of this, though, and I'm pretty sure he's got his own ideas about it all, anyway.

[Taffer]

...

[Jake]

The other problem with an interface overhaul is that so many features have yet to be added, and still more are scheduled to change beyond recognition. Workshops in their current form, for example, are allegedly going to be scrapped completely in favour of something more like the hospital zone. A comprehensive overhaul of the interface is simply not practical until the game is in the beta phase at least.

[Escapism]

I think the UI is pretty fine (it's very fast once you get used to it), actually, except for some obvious things such as some ridiculously long lists not being searchable and the scrollling sometimes using +-/* and sometimes the arrowpad/number (WHY). The unit list overhaul was great, as scrolling through countless dead wildlife/animals in order to get a look at how many invaders you have to deal with, was just painful.

What I think people mean with "bad interface" is just that it's very complex, and thus not early to learn. The first time I played DF, it felt like a major achievment figuring out that you had to go through the designation menu to cut down some trees. Never mind actually building a workshop... It could be made a bit more intuitive, of course. For instance, instead of having workshops last (?) in the building list, you could let the (b) lead you to a submenu where you get choose what kind of building you want to construct, i.e. Workshops/furniture/Walls etc.

[BirdofPrey]

I think the interface could be cleaned up a bit.  Hotkeys for things should be the same across the board (for instance, building a staircase should use the same key as digging it.)  The other major annoyance is there are 3 or 4 sets of cursor control keys.  I got lost in the military menu, not because of any complexity, but because it uses the whole damn number pad to navigate various things.  Everything needs streamlined so every key has a predictable behavior across menus.  I am no stranger to Textual user interfaces; the one DF has is very haphazard.

Beyond that, I don't expect toady to come up with a GUI or anything.  Similarly I don't expect him to integrate 3d graphics or an isometric view.  I think it would be better if he writes an I/O interface that other programs connect to.  That would let other users do things like give stonesense a GUI and let it give commands to DF in addition to reading screen state and displaying your fort.

[Starver]

The other major annoyance is there are 3 or 4 sets of cursor control keys.

This keeps being repeated.

There are several different cursoring methods, but there are several different cursoring requirements.

When you have the map visible and cursorable, general square-by-square map navigation is always the cursors.  It's your choice of the dedicated 'inverted-T' set or the cursors (and diagonals, and Z-scroll in the centre) on the Numpad, with or without NumLock active, although NumLock's toggling does in my experience change whether shift-cursor jumps by ten units, or not.

Construction area adjustment is always the alphabetic axis increaser/decreaser keys.

Most (if not all..? can't think of an exception, right now) menus that sit alongside the map use +:- for up/down and /:* for page-up/down.  (They can't at all use the Number Pad Paging keys, because that would clash with up/down-right movements on the map itself, which is something you're allowed to do at the same time, whether or not that changes the focus and resets the side-menu's context to the new focus.)

The units/jobs/job manager screen are pretty simple.  Being full-screen and no-map, they can use the cursors.  Would you prefer they be controlled by the perhaps less handy +-*/ symbols?


The most complex cursor-usages, and the ones with the most hint of discrepancy are the full-screen (no map shown!) menus which have more than two dimensions of movement (not counting page-ups/downs).  From memory, these are the trade-goods management screen, (the actual trading screen has two separate up/down axes, but for now I'll ignore this), the trade-request screen, the stockpile permit/forbid screen and the embark screen (ignoring the tab-to-goods/animals management, and for now just looking at the pre-embark skills-assignment one).  All of these are cursor controlled in the first degree, but with slightly different way of both representing the sub-level data, so of course this rather conveys itself into the control method.

On the pre-embark preparation screen, giving skills to each of the seven means (if I emember it correctly, and I may not!) cursoring up and down on the LHS list of dwarves, then right-cursoring into the skills list and now cursoring up and down the list of skills (and doing something... can't remember what, to page-up/down), then (maybe..? darn my memory, I'm not actually sure, but it's obvious when you're there) using +/- to increment and decrement the number of skill levels.

The stockpile screen is multi-level and (I'm pretty sure) also uses cursor in/out of levels.  The complexity that arises being the different levels for which the Block/Allow and Forbid/Permit pairings (or whichever way round they are... again it's obvious when you're there), and the toggle on/off by the Enter key on the end-leaves.  Oh, and the toggle on/off of the 'special case' items like empty cages/animals-traps, and prepared food.  Which I can see why the former are separate, but the latter might well be integrated into the (already multitudinous) foodstuffs penultimate layer of menus, perhaps.

The trade-request menu uses a slightly different method.  Two up/down controls are used, the one to move up and down the categories, and the one to move up and down the sub-category lists.  Then left-right (IIRC) is used to nudge the priorities from left (zero priority) to right (max priority) in stages.  It does have similarities to pre-embark skill-assignments, so would a re-write (of this, and or the other) be able to make both consistent with each other?  Maybe.

The trade-movement menu has a primary-up/down for categories (sounds familiar) and then a secondary up/down for goods within that category (where any exist so that the category itself exists, after any filters are applied).  I forget now how it works, but I recall that it's also totally obvious and foolproof (YMMV?).  Even if I can't remember which of the prior methods (if any) it exactly matches.


So, out of the countless cursoring opportunities that you have, I can come up with just four (or five, including the actual trading screen) examples where the most complex movements around the most individualistic hierarchies of control also manage, surprise surprise, to have their own takes upon how to convey control to the user.

But the last time I argued this point I had DF in front of me and I could go through the whole gamut of the various interface and be definite about the amount of consistency that you actually do get.  This time, I'm just rather riled up by the continual "cursors are different" comments and relying upon memory (and muscle-memory) to catalogue both the exceptions and the rules...  But I still know I have a case against this steady hum of (IMO) erroneous nay-saying, because things haven't changed since the last time I did the full research about it.  And that's without even considering the frequency of use:  embark menus are used... once per embark; trading request screens are used three times a game-year at the maximum; actual trading and trading management screens are used maybe slightly more; admitedly stockpile management menus are either something that you don't use at all or use a lot; but all the other menus that are likely the vast majority of your major and continual usage are... standardised...


Darnit, I've rambled.  BYGTI.

[greenskye]

As far as the UI goes I don't think it's THAT difficult to learn. But that's just me.

I know there are some strong arguments towards putting off a UI design until more of the game is in place, but lets all be honest, that is years away. It might go a long way if he threw in a UI update alongside his old bug fixing updates as well. Just a release that goes through and fixes a few nagging issues, perhaps decided in a similar vein to ESV and the worst bug polls. These releases could serve to bring older areas of DF up to the current UI paradigm. Things like adding search to the various lists in the game would be a good place to start. As would some way to better manage stockpiles.

When you are working on a game that is literally going to take you 20 years to complete there is a valid need implement certain changes even if you know you are going to throw out that code later. You just can't account for everything on a timescale of this size.

Of course after the recent hauling changes I'm just so happy that I find it difficult to be passionate about really any other change. I mean when I have dwarves riding minecarts, what are a few UI issues compared to that??

[Kinasin]

I made a forum account here just to inquire on some things related to the interface.

Everywhere I go on the internet where I see people talking about Dwarf Fortress(forums mostly), the first thing that gets said is something along the lines of "I'd love to play it if the interface was easier to figure out". Yeah, I spent an entire month of my life watching youtube videos and eventually got the game down and playable myself. I havn't played in a couple of months now and was just about to start playing again when I realized that I have forgotten how to manipulate the UI.

All of the work in progress information I gather seems to be related to adding new features and stomping out bugs.

My question is, when does the new features and bug stomping stop and a re-work of the interface begin? It is my belief that this game could go mainstream easily if the interface was changed to something more point and click friendly.(as in, end up on Steam, make lots of money etc...)  Before I thought this was kind of a waste, but now after not playing for a long time I don't want to have to re-learn and memorize all the commands again.

I'm sorry if this is some kind of repost. I quickly glanced through the major forum section and didn't notice anything related to this.

I totally agree Op. It would be so much easier if a interface like the one used in gnomoria was implemented. I was playing DF for awhile after learning the controls from numerous repeated watchings of tutorials on youtube and then quit for awhile only to find I had completely forgotten how to play, A better interface would be nice.

[Fortress Calling]

IMO an interface overhaul would lesser the learning curve which would attract more players which is always a good thing so making that first would pay off in the long run although i agree with the assessment that for any future additions Toady would have to think of the interface for those too. For right now however i would like full screen option on all screens (we got full screen world generation recently i think?) and the ability to use mouse scroll on stocks/military/etc screens because before full screen a single page up/down would jump like 10 lines now it jumps the whole screen so i need to use arrows for scrolling all the way to the middle, at least let us use the mouse to select individual things.

It would be so much easier if a interface like the one used in gnomoria was implemented.

This. Gnomoria interface is fantastic you can build anything with a right mouse click, i hope Toady isn't above copying from a game that copies DF.

[Wellincolin]

IMO an interface overhaul would lesser the learning curve which would attract more players which is always a good thing so making that first would pay off in the long run although i agree with the assessment that for any future additions Toady would have to think of the interface for those too. For right now however i would like full screen option on all screens (we got full screen world generation recently i think?) and the ability to use mouse scroll on stocks/military/etc screens because before full screen a single page up/down would jump like 10 lines now it jumps the whole screen so i need to use arrows for scrolling all the way to the middle, at least let us use the mouse to select individual things.

It would be so much easier if a interface like the one used in gnomoria was implemented.

This. Gnomoria interface is fantastic you can build anything with a right mouse click, i hope Toady isn't above copying from a game that copies DF.

Gnomoria interface is bad. HAVING to click is a pain in the ass and most of the time, it's really hard to scroll without the options disappearing to fast for whatever reason. You have to go back and wait until the options reappear and pray that they keep there this time. Dragging doesn't work too, the very first fortress I tried (IDK if they are called fortresses or whatever it is at Gnomoria) ended up completely unsimetrical, even in a funny way, due to the interface.

DF interface is not bad at all. It shouldn't have an overhaul soon because it could conflict with other updates, but for sure it would delay them. What makes it unplayable for most people is the appearance and the appearance only. It is intimidating. Even with graphic tilesets, the interface keeps that "roguelike" atmosphere which scares many.

The main real problem with the game are some of the mechanics mimicking perfectly the real life physics laws while others are blatantly different.

When you see a FB or anything else occupy 1 tile it's hard for your brain to figure that creature can be 20-z levels tall (which can matter thousands of feet) and much bigger than your dwarves that occupy the very same tile. Also how literally infinite objects can occupy the same tile or container.

Dimensioning is really complicated in DF.

Dwarves can also get crippled or even die by a simple sock falling up from 2z above. Even with steel helmets. Falling damage is COMPLETELY broken as it is.

Noise is a problem too because a lot of people don't take it into consideration when planning bedrooms, making their dwarves' lives a living hell.