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Author Topic: Future of the Fortress  (Read 1880766 times)

Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3975 on: April 10, 2016, 03:36:19 pm »

How do you plan on dealing with introducing a variety of magical abilities as the development progresses? I mean, I imagine you wouldn't be able to make one big fancy magic release with all the types of magic possible, as probably a lot of these things need to be programmed in and have a modicum of balancing, on the other hand, I can imagine that you might want to keep people on their toes when it comes to new features in magic. Is it going to be handled like hidden fun stuff? Or are you going to nicely put into the release notes 'transfiguration into aquatic animals is now possible'?

If hes doing the planes of existence alongside, it will probably be another 9 month/year long release cycle, which should be enough time to get many of his ideas in (definetly not all of them though), but he will get to it, He already has the prototype so some of the code (or at least the algorithms are there) of course the actual magic isn't, though many of these could be accomplished using a more fleshed out interaction/syndrome system (which we have already, its what everything magic uses right now (necros,vampires,werebeasts, and you can mod in ice shooting/blizzard shooting people and such already).
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 03:44:31 pm by Untrustedlife »
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3976 on: April 10, 2016, 04:05:01 pm »

How do you plan on dealing with introducing a variety of magical abilities as the development progresses? I mean, I imagine you wouldn't be able to make one big fancy magic release with all the types of magic possible, as probably a lot of these things need to be programmed in and have a modicum of balancing, on the other hand, I can imagine that you might want to keep people on their toes when it comes to new features in magic. Is it going to be handled like hidden fun stuff? Or are you going to nicely put into the release notes 'transfiguration into aquatic animals is now possible'?

I'm trying to answer my way through this in the Xenosynthesis thread, but I really have to repeat over here that by far the biggest hurdle in introducing new magic is not making a system for its generation or results of its effects, but the AI required not to make it "suicidal dipshit magic".

Consider that there used to be wizards in the game about a decade ago, but they were taken out because, like all creatures that are not immune to their own power, they inevitably killed themselves more often than any enemy.  In that case, because their fireballs started grassfires that burned them alive since they were not fire-proof.  The same situation still occurs with FBs that have deadly dust clouds - they are easily dispatched by throwing your most expendable livestock in their way and waiting for them to activate their power, which they do reflexively in the face of any enemy, and inevitably blows their own limbs off.

This is precisely why all the syndromes that exist are the "bad stuff" like poisons, diseases, and magical full-body blistering death by your brain literally drowning in its own puss plauges by FBs and clowns.  The AIs for figuring out how to use anything as "complicated" as "use this pain-reducing salve when you're in pain" do not really exist, leading to the problem I asked Toady a question about a few years ago:

Spoiler: Long Toady Quote (click to show/hide)

The magic that is name-dropped in the Myth Generator shown off at GDC, for example, involves magic like "the ability to turn themselves into a plant", which would be Suicidal Dipshit Magic (SDM for short) under virtually any circumstance even when controlled by a player, but in the hands of the AI, it would result in situations like this:

A player-controlled adventurer marches up to a wizard's tower, and challenges the "evil" wizard of fresh produce.
Wizard: "FOOL! You shall now taste my fell magics!"
The wizard raises his hands and fell magics spring forth!
The wizard has transformed into a kumquat!
You pick up a kumquat.
You eat a kumquat - you are now full.

Maybe after the player finishes looting the wizard's tower, they'll start getting hungry enough again to go try and taste some more fell magic from SDM plantomancers.

Likewise, Armok help you if your civ race is randomly assigned the "turn into a plant" magic, and your elite axedwarf squads all start transforming themselves into turnips at the mere sight of the enemy because they use the same AI script as the "deadly dust" FBs have right now. 

Now, "turn yourself into a plant" is a pretty universally stupid spell, but even if you had something hypothetically very useful, like that "power to control water", will inevitably turn into the "drown yourself" power for anyone but a player-controlled adventurer. Even if all dwarves suddenly became amphibious and as useful as Aquaman, it would still become the "screw up the pathfinding and grind your FPS to a total halt" spell for as long as pathfinding doesn't get a total rewrite to get around that whole problem of water blocking pathing and requiring a connectivity map redraw.  Don't hold your breath (literally or figuratively).

Basically, even completely non-random magic, in the hands of an AI that doesn't have explicit scripting that would take orders of magnitude more time and effort than adding the magic itself, which would force a much, much slower release schedule.

This is also exactly why what magic has been introduced has not only been tiny increments of just one or two creatures at a time, but even those were notoriously buggy.  Remember when werecreatures were first introduced, and they reproduced so explosively the world became a carpet of werecritter lairs surrounding completely depopulated city ruins? Remember how it took years of tweaking to get them to be any kind of thread to your fortress instead of a werewhatever attack producing a single angry naked peasant at your gates? What about vampires, which originally would stroll in with 10,000 humanoid skull trophies and would brag in Adventurer Mode about their many thousands of humanoid kills they got when they "spent five years as a cheesemaker"?

Even if we're charitable, and say that Toady focuses pretty heavily on adding AI scripts for each thing and tests them well and does so fairly quickly, we're talking about setting aside a few weeks per every unique magical action the game can have just on the AI scripting alone to prevent it from being SDM. 

And again, that's NON-random magic.  Armok again help us if we get dwarves with fireballs that might randomly be three times as big as they thought it would be, or you'll have dwarves - which you have NO capacity to stop from using their fireballs - essentially in the "there is a 20% chance per tick where they see a monster of flash-frying themselves" category where ALL magic is inherently SDM. 
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Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3977 on: April 10, 2016, 04:27:23 pm »

snip

Tis a prototype friend, I have a feeling it will make more sense later on. Also as stated many times before people like magic that doesn't always work the way you expect it (including toady).

Also what if by "turn into plant" it means to turn into an ent type creature.

I think you are coming up with the worst possibilities and assuming that's what it means. IM sure toady won't "RUIN!!!" the game he has had this stuff planned for  a long time. Give him the benefit of the doubt. What he has put out so far in this game in general hasnt ruined it.

The "control water" probably means something more like "shoot steam" and "water-bending" type attack actions.


Also there will be a slider for how magical you want your world to be, so if you hate magic, then you can put it on the "low " setting.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 04:49:09 pm by Untrustedlife »
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TheFlame52

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3978 on: April 10, 2016, 04:42:32 pm »

All I want is to get a few dwarves to practice their <magic projectile> throwing for three years until they become unstoppable engines of destruction, is that too much to ask?

NW_Kohaku

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3979 on: April 10, 2016, 04:45:42 pm »

Tis a prototype friend, I have a feeling it will make more sense later on. Also as stated many times before people like magic that doesn't always work the way you expect it (including toady).

Also what if by "turn into plant" it means to turn into an ent type creature.

I think you are coming up with the worst possibilities and assuming that's what it means.

Yes, I am thinking things through to their worst possibilities, and considering their implications.  That's called "forethought".  It's clear I need to share it with some of you, because without considering and answering those implications, they will come to pass.

The thing I'm repeating again and again is that "magic that doesn't always work the way you expect it" almost invariably means "kills anyone who uses it" in this game.  See my previous arguments on that subject. 

And yes, it's a prototype, but only a prototype of throwing text strings together, not of an actual magic system.  None of this nullifies my main point, which is that any sort of magical effect that requires anything more than "shoots a projectile at the bad guys that does bad stuff to them" requires orders of magnitude more time making the AI not kill itself with it than it takes to actually come up with the effect, itself. 

Toady cannot introduce full-fledged doesn't-kill-anyone-who-uses-it magical effects at anything more than a once-a-month trickle for as long as he needs to write whole new chunks of AI to actually handle creatures using it even remotely intelligently.  During which time, we as players will inevitably come up with more ways to abuse that magic safely than it will actually threaten us with it's so-called "unpredictability".
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3980 on: April 10, 2016, 04:46:56 pm »

All I want is to get a few dwarves to practice their <magic projectile> throwing for three years until they become unstoppable engines of destruction, is that too much to ask?

No, provided those are treated the same as globs or crossbows in the code, that's pretty much the one thing the game would handle quite well without needing to write new AI.

... PROVIDED it doesn't do something like "add nausea".  Right now, "charge" attacks, like the ones that trolls or elephants use are suicidal specifically because the AI is not smart enough not to keep charging (which adds exhaustion) until they pass out, which is why it's currently possible for a naked adventurer to punch an elephant to death.  Any dwarf that has a projectile attack that takes up blood or becomes nauseous will invariably start vomiting and exsanguinating themselves blithely when they have perfectly good crossbows and axes with which to attack before they vomit and bleed themselves to death.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 04:52:09 pm by NW_Kohaku »
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
"And no Frankenstein-esque body part stitching?"
"Not yet"

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Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3981 on: April 10, 2016, 04:48:32 pm »

Tis a prototype friend, I have a feeling it will make more sense later on. Also as stated many times before people like magic that doesn't always work the way you expect it (including toady).

Also what if by "turn into plant" it means to turn into an ent type creature.

I think you are coming up with the worst possibilities and assuming that's what it means.

Yes, I am thinking things through to their worst possibilities, and considering their implications.  That's called "forethought".  It's clear I need to share it with some of you, because without considering and answering those implications, they will come to pass.

The thing I'm repeating again and again is that "magic that doesn't always work the way you expect it" almost invariably means "kills anyone who uses it" in this game.  See my previous arguments on that subject. 

And yes, it's a prototype, but only a prototype of throwing text strings together, not of an actual magic system.  None of this nullifies my main point, which is that any sort of magical effect that requires anything more than "shoots a projectile at the bad guys that does bad stuff to them" requires orders of magnitude more time making the AI not kill itself with it than it takes to actually come up with the effect, itself. 

Toady cannot introduce full-fledged doesn't-kill-anyone-who-uses-it magical effects at anything more than a once-a-month trickle for as long as he needs to write whole new chunks of AI to actually handle creatures using it even remotely intelligently.  During which time, we as players will inevitably come up with more ways to abuse that magic safely than it will actually threaten us with it's so-called "unpredictability".
also about the plant.

Its turn into plant not "turn into fruit" aswell
It could be good for hiding in a forest.(so good for nature spirits) (im sure you could turn back whenever, And it will most definitely not be a single piece of fruit it will be an entire plant, it isn't called "turn into fruit" it is called "turn into plant"

Toady has done 2 year long release cycles before, just because it requires work doesnt mean its "unfeasible" If everyone used that as an argument adding alternate planes would never happen since that requires several months of work (and its in the plans), if toady thought this way the game wouldnt be as awesome as it is.Luckily he IS willing to do the work and the community has been shown to be willing to wait for it. Toady was able to add werebeasts (almost fully featured, with transformations, moon cycles etc) in one week, I doubt it would take months per effect, that is a very amusing exaggeration. (see df talks on the subject while he was working on it)


I'm fine with players learning how to abuse the system, thats part of dwarf fortress. aswell.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 05:02:44 pm by Untrustedlife »
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Random_Dragon

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3982 on: April 10, 2016, 05:18:24 pm »

Yes, have your wizards turn themselves into food. And I thought drinking people in cages in mugs was enough. o3o
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Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3983 on: April 10, 2016, 05:19:59 pm »

Yes, have your wizards turn themselves into food. And I thought drinking people in cages in mugs was enough. o3o

Thing is, that isnt what the spell was it was "turn into plant", which can be interpreted to mean many things. But it would be silly.
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Random_Dragon

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3984 on: April 10, 2016, 06:02:18 pm »

So it could also mean turning elves into plants so we can brew them. :V
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Spish

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3985 on: April 10, 2016, 06:28:55 pm »

Was trying to find out who the dwarf king/queen of a civilization was at any given year between 200 and 400, and the legends entry for the entities were so clogged with festivals and other junk that finding any other information was virtually impossible. Shouldn't that kind of information be kept to the sites where they're held? I don't read up on a civilization's history to learn about their partying habits.
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3986 on: April 10, 2016, 07:23:57 pm »


Anyway, I'm not going to respond to the rest of your arguments for at least a day or two so that I actually have time to respond to other people. Please stop posting the same things repeatedly to get my attention, I saw them the first time.  It takes more time to respond to a one-sentence statement with no thought put into the consequence than it takes to write the novella of consequences that one-sentence statement would bring with it.  If you want more overwrought responses to simple questions in the meantime, avail yourself of Randall Munroe's collection.  His way of thinking is a good way of thinking if you want to understand the consequences of adding bizarre, arbitrary changes into the world.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 07:33:36 pm by NW_Kohaku »
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Personally, I like [DF] because after climbing the damned learning cliff, I'm too elitist to consider not liking it.
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Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3987 on: April 10, 2016, 07:57:09 pm »


Anyway, I'm not going to respond to the rest of your arguments for at least a day or two so that I actually have time to respond to other people. Please stop posting the same things repeatedly to get my attention, I saw them the first time.  It takes more time to respond to a one-sentence statement with no thought put into the consequence than it takes to write the novella of consequences that one-sentence statement would bring with it.  If you want more overwrought responses to simple questions in the meantime, avail yourself of Randall Munroe's collection.  His way of thinking is a good way of thinking if you want to understand the consequences of adding bizarre, arbitrary changes into the world.
Didnt I already agree that transforming into a plant is silly a few posts ago?

I really don't appreciate you painting me as a loon for something I never even said and in fact explained why that wasn't what I meant already in great detail on the other thread .

Toady keep doing what you do! Everyone loves this myth generator i'm excited to see it in game.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 10:13:28 pm by Untrustedlife »
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Untrustedlife

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3988 on: April 10, 2016, 09:14:12 pm »

So toady, will the artifact release be the release with the first iteration of the myth/magic system generator?  And will you ever release the prototype so we can play with it?
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 09:50:56 pm by Untrustedlife »
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Future of the Fortress
« Reply #3989 on: April 10, 2016, 10:24:26 pm »

I actually think having my fishermen, hunters, herbalists and woodcutters be able to turn into trees when 300 goblins suddenly turn up might improve their life expectancy considerably.

-- Sudden image of projectile vomit hitting goblins as they pass through a seemingly ordinary grove of trees...
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 10:27:06 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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