I have to disagree on this observation in regards to stone, while I might agree in the case of edible plants like potatoes and chickpeas. Very important materials are hidden in certain kinds of stone, for example, kimberlite is where you find diamonds. Flux materials tend to be white. The appearances of these stones are major clues to what lies out of view.
Good. There are still ways to retain these types of functions without the fort itself getting color-coded.
Also, stone is a very common building/decoration material, and what things are made of tie in to the place where they were made. I actually think that this part of the game is very well done. When you see a microcline throne with hanging rings of malachite and jet, you can almost look it up to see what that might look like. My main goal in my forts is to set up access to mats that I think would go great together in an artifact. In my last big fort I purposely put petrified wood and precious gems near the mason shops, and I got an awesome artifact throne for my queen!
And this is another example of functionality that is not locked to the UI display.
So, let's put all this in reverse:
what if instead of removing stone types, or removing the display of stone types, you get instead functions/tasks that make the dwarfs recolor things?
This means that when you dig you recognize all the different types, but when you actually build colors on screen depend either on choice, or actual functionality.
In any case, I brought this up more as a case of "if the variety exists, then make it relevant", rather than, "remove all these useless types".
That's why the example of cave-ins. If Toady gave these stone types stats like "density", then why it doesn't play a role in the mechanics like cave-ins, resistance to attack and whatnot?
I'll make another example on this general game design philosophy, but please not nitpick on the fact I could be imprecise with the description. It's just an example intended as a general case.
Here:
So we have big trees now. The first thing I noticed when starting a game was that in the time it previously took to fall one tree and obtain one log, now you fall this big tree and produce like 20 logs.
This alters the game. Same as when hauling rocks depending on weight became a factor and slowed everything down.
Two aspects I was considering:
1- Are the dwarfs able to avoid the tree falls reliably? Do they develop such skill or it's down to randomness?
2- Was it considered the possibility to increase the number of logs needed to produce the various objects, now that one tree produces many more?
It's an example showing that if features aren't planned along their full implications, then they slowly produce a game that just cannot be controlled anymore. Because you constantly get bugs, side-effects and all sort of randomness that isn't consistent with the actual rules.
So, when you plan to add a feature you also need to know the implications it has, and be ready to work it out before it is included. Otherwise you produce a mess of incomplete features that only get worse. And this is the aspect of Dwarf Fortress feature creep, that seemed to be more concerned of just adding things, more than adding things elegantly, or consistently, or so that all implications are covered.
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Topic: Toady, a little rant on modern Dwarf Fortress (Read 50628 times)