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[Obsidian Soul]

I'm biased, given that I actually made a graphics set. But compare the following:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Can you really say that ascii makes it easier to distinguish between stuff?

Ascii relies a lot on mere shades of colors to distinguish between different things which otherwise use the same characters. You don't get context clues either. For example, in ascii, all dwarves of certain related professions are blue. There is no way to distinguish between a potter, a leatherworker, and a glassmaker. Are those ganders and guineacocks, or are those goblins? Your fort's survival becomes dependent on your ability to distinguish between exact shades of colors at a glance (say, the difference between light gray and dark gray; or the ability to pick out a dark character against a black background). Guess wrong and the fun factor suddenly ratchets up. The closest you get to a context clue is guessing what Dwarf Fortress thing starts with a particular letter. Is that W for warthog? Or is it a walrus, water buffalo, werewolf, William Shakespeare, warthog woman, water buffalo woman, werecamel, William Shakespeare's woman?

There's also the way these colors and characters interact with each other which makes it look far more cluttered imo. It's almost impossible to pick out something in ascii quickly from a non-uniform background. Sure it's easy to pick out something specific against the large areas of pluses that make up smoothed floors, but how about against a stockpile which takes in everything?

With graphics sets, even if something is unfamiliar to you, you can guess what they are by their appearance and where they are. With ascii, you pretty much have to 'k' strange new characters all the time. If you can recognize them as new characters, that is.

That said, if you do prefer ascii, then more power really. And sure ascii can be beautifully minimalistic in its look, but the reason why people make new tilesets and graphics sets in the first place is because ascii really IS harder to learn and far more ambiguous. And just because ascii is more difficult, doesn't make it superior either. With that reasoning, we might as well say that the honestly atrocious UI we have now is a "feature".

[itg]

Great work on your graphics set, Obsidian Soul! I've been using it for about a month, and I quite like it.

I prefer tile sets/graphics sets for exactly the reasons Obsidian described. In particular, with ASCII I feel like I'm playing Where's Waldo every time I need to look for a dwarf. It's hell trying to find dwarves of dull yellow, red, and grey when they're surrounded by dull yellow items in a bloody grey room.

[Obsidian Soul]

Great work on your graphics set, Obsidian Soul! I've been using it for about a month, and I quite like it.

I prefer tile sets/graphics sets for exactly the reasons Obsidian described. In particular, with ASCII I feel like I'm playing Where's Waldo every time I need to look for a dwarf. It's hell trying to find dwarves of dull yellow, red, and grey when they're surrounded by dull yellow items in a bloody grey room.

Thanks ^^. And yep, exactly. For example, the dark blue dwarf above in the ascii screenshot (an axedwarf, if you can even find him) might as well be using an invisibility cloak, LOL. He blends in completely with the black background.

[Trollhammaren]

In my opinion, and I did not create ASCII, your dwarves fade in the background lot more. Brown specks on grey. Realistic but harder to spot. Any particular reason why "my fort's survival" should instead depend on my ability to distinguish small shapes in brown?

Since you edited I'll edit: Nothing against tilesets, nor people playing them. But telling others what to do creates antagonism especially when it's a matter of what people are used to and they are comfy as they are. I don't think any of us are comfortable with the UI or consider it very efficient.

[Obsidian Soul]

In my opinion, and I did not create ASCII, your dwarves fade in the background lot more. Brown specks on grey. Realistic but harder to spot. Any particular reason why "my fort's survival" should instead depend on my ability to distinguish small shapes in brown?

Since you edited I'll edit: Nothing against tilesets, nor people playing them. But telling others what to do creates antagonism especially when it's a matter of what people are used to and they are comfy as they are. I don't think any of us are comfortable with the UI or consider it very efficient.

Because you're exaggerating? In case you didn't notice, very little of the things in graphics sets are monochrome, unlike ascii in which everything is. Even the brownest of my dwarves (peasants) have flesh-colored arms and heads.

And even though I edited way before you posted (to correct a spelling error), I agree that telling people what they should use is antagonizing. Only thing is, I didn't tell anyone to use graphics sets, did I? (EDIT: in fact, come to think of it, I've never done that. I don't even advertise my graphics set. And I've helped out ascii sets get more exposure in the Dwarf Fortress Wiki because I believe in people having as much variety to choose from as they want)

I merely reacted to the fact that this entire thread is mostly about how graphics sets are apparently inferior to and more confusing than ascii. Which is demonstrably false for the latter. It's the old purists vs. "noobs" snobbery that imo, serves no purpose than to start fights.

[Haspen]

Personally I use ASCII for two three reasons:

A) Any graphical tileset murders my framerate
B) In my mind, DF is a roguelike, and a true roguelike is in ASCII
C) Graphical tilesets are often large, and my screen resolution is small (1024x768), so most of the tilesets don't even work.

The only thing I always change is color set, because default colors are either dark, quirky or eyeblasting.

[Trollhammaren]

>Which is demonstrably false for the latter.

Then demonstrate that it's equally good for me. If you had an objective measure that said brown shapes are easier distinguished by their colored parts than mostly colored squares are, then you would have no talk back from me. But to me they look more less distinct from the background and toting how your set is objectively better and not just a subjective advantage pretty much is telling people they at least should use it (or are in a way wrong in their choice if they don't). Your set is great and beautiful but that doesn't make you able to claim facts about how other people process things.

[Obsidian Soul]

>Which is demonstrably false for the latter.

Then demonstrate that it's equally good for me. If you had an objective measure that said brown shapes are easier distinguished by their colored parts than mostly colored squares are, then you would have no talk back from me. But to me they look more less distinct from the background and toting how your set is objectively better and not just a subjective advantage pretty much is telling people they at least should use it (or are in a way wrong in their choice if they don't). Your set is great and beautiful but that doesn't make you able to claim facts about how other people process things.

If you say so.

Spot the dwarf:


Which of the following is a goblin:


Point out the glassmaker:


EDIT: Also no, again, I've never claimed graphics sets are superior. I was merely disproving the claims that graphics sets are more confusing than ascii. Because it really is not. That's the reason why it's so great as a starting point for new players in the first place.

[Trollhammaren]

In the 1st one it's obvious the one on the right stands out more. The second one is indeed the weakness of ASCII, but if it's fixed at the cost of legibility then I don't care. The third one is irrelevant, as it would take as long to squint it's a glassmaker in your set as it would to use menus and find the glassmaker.

But that said the argument about shapes I should believe is actually a valid one. If we had started with a basic set of shapes different for every creature with vivid colors, I don't think anyone would be making an "ASCII" tileset to make more of them look the same and that's the real meat argument. However if we then had a mod making many of them mostly the same color I don't think most would want it.

[Obsidian Soul]

1) Eh? Seriously?

2) Answer is the one on the right. This is what I meant by basing your fort's survival on distinguishing the shades of colors on characters. If I wasn't paying attention, what I thought were a flock of geese, could very well have a goblin with them. Not to mention that with ascii, you can't distinguish what kind of goblins are invading you either. Are those a squad of deadly lashers? Or simply a squad of unarmed goblin wrestlers?

3) Now that's subjective. Because nope, it doesn't once you actually get used to what glassmakers look like. Using the menu is irrelevant (and actually far more tedious), as the point here is recognizing what dwarves you are looking at, not what dwarves you are looking for. No matter how much you squint, you can never pick out the glassmaker from all the rest of the blue smiley faces. Much less if they were moving.

[Haspen]

2) Answer is the one on the right. This is what I meant by basing your fort's survival on distinguishing the shades of colors on characters. If I wasn't paying attention, what I thought were a flock of geese, could very well have a goblin with them. Not to mention that with ascii, you can't distinguish what kind of goblins are invading you either. Are those a squad of deadly lashers? Or simply a squad of unarmed goblin wrestlers?

However, there are always buttons like loo'k' or 'v'iew in Dwarf Fortress to quickly determine what is what...

[KingBacon]

ASCII's beauty is in it's simplicity (though one needs to use the square set available to achieve symmetry nirvana.)
The graphic Obsidian Soul posted compares a jumbled cluttered environment from a nonsquare setting to a more palatable jumbled jumbled cluttered environment.

This is just one neckbeards opinion, but crap in stockpiles looks like crap in stockpiles no matter what the graphics are. (Not to mention the OH MY GOD VEINS OF BAUXITE AND MICROLINE ARE MAKING MY EYES BLEED.)

[Obsidian Soul]

However, there are always buttons like loo'k' or 'v'iew in Dwarf Fortress to quickly determine what is what...

Already pointed out. How often do you use 'k' really? Do you 'k' every g in the map every 30 seconds or so to make sure you aren't being ambushed? The problem here is being able to tell what something is at a glance. Meaning, you're not required to pause the game just to 'k' everything and reassure yourself it's just a band of wombats and not a pack of wolves. That ability isn't trivial, it's vital to the survival of your fortress.

[Obsidian Soul]

ASCII's beauty is in it's simplicity (though one needs to use the square set available to achieve symmetry nirvana.)
The graphic Obsidian Soul posted compares a jumbled cluttered environment from a nonsquare setting to a more palatable jumbled jumbled cluttered environment.

This is just one neckbeards opinion, but crap in stockpiles looks like crap in stockpiles no matter what the graphics are. (Not to mention the OH MY GOD VEINS OF BAUXITE AND MICROLINE ARE MAKING MY EYES BLEED.)

Quite true, and veins of bauxite and microcline look like crap no matter what set as well, LOL. And that's even with using the least eye-raping color scheme I can find.

But, yeah don't get me wrong. I do still find ascii (or ascii-like) sets like Jolly Bastion or CLA quite beautiful. But let's not kid ourselves that one is superior to the other. It really is just a matter of what you've been used to.

(And please don't claim it's less confusing. Ascii is beautiful and elegant in a way, that I can agree with, but again, the reason why new players don't use ascii as a rule is because it IS confusing)

[Haspen]

However, there are always buttons like loo'k' or 'v'iew in Dwarf Fortress to quickly determine what is what...

Already pointed out. How often do you use 'k' really? Do you 'k' every g in the map every 30 seconds or so to make sure you aren't being ambushed?

I actually do o:

My games are more often paused than running real-time, really. You can't maintain proper fortress if you just let it run freely without strict supervision