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Author Topic: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?  (Read 4979 times)

AceSV

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Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« on: July 10, 2017, 10:52:47 pm »

Just wanted to chat about the coming update. 

I'm honestly a bit disappointed with some of the directions he's taken lately.  I was looking forward to further fleshing out industries and racial pluralism and combat mechanics and things like siege machines and sappers, but instead it's a lot of this world-building historical stuff.  I wouldn't mind reading a few history lessons about the generated worlds, but Legends mode is so poorly presented and it doesn't really matter in Fortress mode, so it's a lot of time and work that doesn't add much to the game.   There has also been a lot of stuff aimed at Adventure mode, which I also don't get.  Aside from thinking "It's Dwarf Fortress, I wanna build a fortress," it feels like there's nothing to do.  Anything worth killing, like bandits or alligators, will slaughter the shit out of you and easier animals will run away, so the only way to increase your combat skill is to murder civilians somewhere, and even if you do eventually kill a bandit or alligator, nobody really cares, and there's no EXP or item upgrades. 

The new artifact stuff has me on the fence.  In the progress reports, some of the updates sound like more behind-the-scenes historical dribble, like passing on the bronze helmet to the next generation of dukes, but there's also this thread of hiding artifacts from thieves and going to war over Holy Grails, which could be interesting depending on how it works.  I'm a little worried that the rumor system is going to be too under-the-hood to notice.  It sounds like a lot of this is aimed at Adventure Mode, which I don't care for, but then it also might give me more of a reason to play Adventure Mode.  It should also be nice to have more of a reason for Artifacts, especially clothing and crafts that are otherwise almost useless right now. 

So I don't know, I'm curious to know what people are expecting out of this. 
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2017, 11:16:08 pm »

If there's no outside world, there's no reason for anything to happen. And the vision is to simulate the world in a way that lots of stuff happens for a reason. It'll take time before that filters down into site mode focussed gameplay (and adventurer focussed actual stuff to do) but the groundwork has to be done sometime.

Excited for magic in the next, next release. Excited for the additional reasons for people to come and attack you in this one (and working weapon traps).

Squads are OK but more in a 'potential for the future' way than anything exciting in the next release.

Oh, and looking forward to assigning my minotaurs with giant ostriches as their exclusive mount type (think they're big enough...).
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 01:19:22 am by Shonai_Dweller »
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peasant cretin

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2017, 01:18:15 am »

From an adventure mode perspective, I'd prefer a mechanics upgrade that'd create a more interactive combat environment where NPC AIs structure their combats "around something." Currently, player adventurers can fight exploitive pressure games or what at this point constitutes the out-fighter game—so there's choice in playing to one's advantages versus a given opponent. This doesn't really have layers of detail, but it's good enough. On the other hand, NPCs fight a less sentient, armor-level targeting, menu-based, multiple choice options type of game. IMO, combat stances aren't the solution to fixing this as they feel like a bit like rock-paper-scissors.

Now despite this personal preference, which is quite likely well out of step with where DF is going, the artifact update seems like it'll give more life to the world. Sometimes it's deep mechanics that'll sustain you, but most other times it's features that help to build a better narrative. I don't have a prediction beyond that hope—as how I'll feel, well that's a thing that'll evolve once I'm playing. And this sense of it will change, too, as the forum learns about it. Toady and ThreeToe seem to have this great sense of how powerful ancillary minutiae really is. You see it in book reading and in body positioning, so I wonder how it'll translate to artifacts and the news they bring.
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Fleeting Frames

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2017, 02:32:39 am »

Well, going by devlog notes with dwarves attacking, I expect we will be able to provoke a siege from multiple goblin civilizations at once, and perhaps ones from dark fortress instead of a pit from same civ even. Maybe even over ocean?

Humans are also more likely to go to war with you without you going out of your way to offend them (I've seen both them and elves get a war due offscreen events at the same time, but they usually get along with dwarves), what's with you making artifacts.

Mostly those helping with getting more sieges if their embark is peaceful.

Coming display cabinets will help counter coming thieves, as they won't deconstruct buildings. Though books being artifacts...Well, they could definitely be supremely annoying. Maybe the "vampire visitor" announcement will get patched as well.

As for kobolds. Maybe they'll serve as source of exotic animals, and pre-poisoned weapons. Though any weapon traps will likely be seen by initial thieves.

Artifacts themselves, well...I quite like artifacts. Not sure if there will be some changes beyond worldgen mooding. Maybe the queen will arrive with her favoured one?

Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2017, 03:43:00 am »

I think it's possible that we're going to end up causing wars but still not getting sieged much because the goblins will be busy attacking closer sites than yours. So some thought will still have to go into embark location (at least until you're the closest surviving site). It'll help that you can quickly make enemies of humans, elves and other dwarves though.

Hopefully artifact claims will cause extra sieges too (since entities can lay claim to your artifacts just based on spy reports apparently) but it's still a little unclear how an entity decides between sending a thief and sending an army (and whether they'll escalate appropriately when the thieves inevitably fail).
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 03:50:14 am by Shonai_Dweller »
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AceSV

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2017, 08:57:24 am »

My current problem with interactions in the outside world is that it is almost completely hidden from you.  I would love something that randomly generates a wikipedia article history about fantasy civilizations, but that's not what it is.  Even if you try to read Legends mode, important events are hard to find and hard to make sense of.  So he might as well have made everything random instead of writing history, because it feels completely random when playing (at least when playing Fortress Mode).  And I'm annoyed and disappointed that Toady doesn't seem to acknowledge that. 

But yes, the ability to start wars and higher ratio of wars with non-goblins is a plus.  I usually mod the game into Furry Fortress, mainstay is fox-people, rabbit-people and goanna-people, but they rarely go to war with each other, even though you would expect them to be at each other's throats.  It'll be nice to see them getting more medieval on each other. 

The other modding thing that has me interested is assigning specific animals to specific civs.  This was something I wanted to do ages ago, but I found it to be too complicated. 
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FantasticDorf

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2017, 09:25:37 am »

I think its mostly going to be bugfixes that are going to be the biggest thing really but i am looking forward to the squad system as its the first way to really interact with the world individually even if you're roaming around looking for fights.

I don't really have my hopes up amazingly high for groundbreaking features otherwise as most of the additions are relatively minor (just below as large as the tavern update), but i will definitely be keeping a eye out for the shady peddlers and agents mentioned a long while ago and whether they are noticable.

Saying that, Toady might have something kept under wraps somewhere, uncertain what to think but maybe holy relics might have a tiny bit of magic given that temple statues do curse people as a prototype/prelude full magic arc but that's speculation
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2017, 04:38:18 pm »

My current problem with interactions in the outside world is that it is almost completely hidden from you.  I would love something that randomly generates a wikipedia article history about fantasy civilizations, but that's not what it is.  Even if you try to read Legends mode, important events are hard to find and hard to make sense of.  So he might as well have made everything random instead of writing history, because it feels completely random when playing (at least when playing Fortress Mode).  And I'm annoyed and disappointed that Toady doesn't seem to acknowledge that. 
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but vanilla DF includes an export button so you can export Legends into an external wikipedia style viewer (several exist, Toady might even make his own one day if you don't mind development of the game stopping for a while). In fact the available xml for exporting is increasing specifically as part of this release. Not sure how that counts as Toady "not acknowledging" that the history is hard to access as it is. You've been doing some seriously selective reading if you think that.
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Thatotherguy23

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2017, 07:08:52 pm »

...I usually mod the game into Furry Fortress, mainstay is fox-people, rabbit-people and goanna-people, but they rarely go to war with each other, even though you would expect them to be at each other's throats.  It'll be nice to see them getting more medieval on each other. 

I'm not a modding aficionado, but can't you just change their moral values to be opposites or far apart so they're basically always at war with eachother? That's the impression I was under anyway
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2017, 07:21:00 pm »

My current problem with interactions in the outside world is that it is almost completely hidden from you.  I would love something that randomly generates a wikipedia article history about fantasy civilizations, but that's not what it is.  Even if you try to read Legends mode, important events are hard to find and hard to make sense of.  So he might as well have made everything random instead of writing history, because it feels completely random when playing (at least when playing Fortress Mode).  And I'm annoyed and disappointed that Toady doesn't seem to acknowledge that. 
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but vanilla DF includes an export button so you can export Legends into an external wikipedia style viewer (several exist, Toady might even make his own one day if you don't mind development of the game stopping for a while). In fact the available xml for exporting is increasing specifically as part of this release. Not sure how that counts as Toady "not acknowledging" that the history is hard to access as it is. You've been doing some seriously selective reading if you think that.

I love legends viewer programs, but any interestingly large world has so much useless, hideously boring guff that it takes hours of poring through a medium+ world to find the good stuff, even with a GUI worth a damn.

Also festivals serve no purpose whatsoever in legends other than to make a site/group history utterly unreadable due to the spam of "in the year X plus 1 the books of sadness held yet another festival about cats" obscuring critical site events.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2017, 08:35:03 pm »

Quote
I love legends viewer programs, but any interestingly large world has so much useless, hideously boring guff that it takes hours of poring through a medium+ world to find the good stuff, even with a GUI worth a damn.

Also festivals serve no purpose whatsoever in legends other than to make a site/group history utterly unreadable due to the spam of "in the year X plus 1 the books of sadness held yet another festival about cats" obscuring critical site events.
Except that it's not at all unreadable in an external viewer, you can just filter it out. You realise this is an unfinished game right? Just because festivals and vampire purges don't exist right now except to mess up your search for 'critical site events' doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. At the very least the hypertext-like interface for mythgen will surely find it's way to Legends Mode eventually making it much easier to navigate.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 08:36:55 pm by Shonai_Dweller »
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KittyTac

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #11 on: July 12, 2017, 02:54:07 am »

Legends is hard to read? Download Legends Viewer.
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mikekchar

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #12 on: July 12, 2017, 11:38:56 pm »

Disclaimer: For those that are feeling disappointed in development direction, the following is not meant to argue whether you are "correct" in your feelings or not.  It's not up to me or anybody else to say what you should or should not want the game to do.  It's just a counterpoint that I hope will be interesting.

One of the things that I think works against DF is that fortress mode, as it was originally implemented, is not (AFAICT) the game that Toady wants to write in the end.  It's the game that he started with (because you have to start somewhere).  So there are a lot of people who view DF as a sandbox combat simulator, because that's what he wrote first.  From that perspective, a lot of the the things that are being developed now don't make any sense.

Adventure mode is even more susceptible to this issue because from the beginning the only thing you could sensibly do is wander around and kill random things.  When you read the adventure threads in the forum, many of the most active contributors play it as more of a horror simulator than anything else -- what is the nastiest thing you can do in the game?  The vast majority of experienced players who are trying to do something else, mod adventure mode *heavily*.

But when I read descriptions of the game that Toady wants to write -- from Toady himself -- what I understand is that he wants a game where you can explore a fantasy world.  He wants that world to be rich in history and he wants the actions in the past to affect the state of the future.  Fortress mode is one way of affecting the future, by constructing a site and influencing an area.  Adventure mode is a way of interacting with the world on a more detailed level.  Legends mode is a way of researching the past the way a scholar would.

DF needs all the components that Toady has written as well as more that he has not written in order to be complete.  But the game he has written up to this point is *not* the game that he is building.  I think this, more than anything else, is the source of the disappointment.  People, excited by the game that already exists, want bugs fixed, new features and enhancements for that game.  Toady is not interested because he's building a different game -- or at least that is my impression.

When I first started looking at DF, I was not particularly interested.  It wasn't until I started to see a few let's plays that showed people integrating fortress mode with adventure mode and legends mode did I start to think, "Hey, this is a pretty cool game".  I'll be the first one to say that legends mode is too difficult to use (even with an external tool).  It's also not available when you are playing fortress mode or adventure mode.  And in both modes, it's hugely disappointing that actions you do seem to have very little (if any) effect on the legends of the world.

The artifact arc is exciting to me because it gives you some reason to interact with the world.  From a sandbox combat simulator perspective, it's meaningless apart from being a tool to incite wars.  From a "let's wander the world thinking of horrible ways to kill things" point of view, it's doubly meaningless.  But from the perspective of creating some kind of logic and setting for what I'm doing, it's an enormous step forward.  You can finally see a map in fortress mode!  You can finally have some kind of sensible diplomatic interactions with other civs (compared to some random elves coming from who-knows-where telling you that you've cut too many trees down -- or your outpost liason, also coming from who-knows-where, telling you that the world is the same as always).  And finally, I'm hopeful that the ability for artifacts to move around and be tracked, will move us closer to a world that is not just about killing things in inventive and macabre ways.  I'm hoping that it will provide more focus for being able to relate to the world and to think about interesting things to explore/do (as opposed to yet-another-mega-project, or spending hours wandering to the other side of the world to kill some random creature/bandit group that really isn't doing anything to the person who asked you to kill it).

Like I said, this is not to detract from how others want to play the game.  It sucks when the game that you want to play is not the focus of development.  Having said that, there are some (me at least) that are excited to see some of the really important building blocks go in for the game that we want to play.
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pikachu17

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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2017, 02:30:59 pm »

The next update allows you to have over 20 civs each have their own unique pets.
It adds Artifacts in world-gen, so your adventurers can seek the Holy Sock of Urist, without needing to start a fort. They can be found in many places, including dragon lairs and kobold caves.
You can name your weapons.
You can send your fort dwarves to pillage other civs, recover artifacts, and recover kidnap victims.
Your adventurer can pretend to be a prophet, and various other fake identities. So can goblins.
Kobolds now have sites  your adventurer can pillage. Find their loot to claim it.
Display cases, and pedestals. They can hold any non-large object, and can become museums.
World gem forts are supposedly better  made, and you can more easily get to the staircase.
Nonplayer adventurer parties can seek Artifacts, including Holy cups. They can even find Artifacts lost in the wild, though I'm not sure if kea-stolen artifacts can be found like that.
Reworking of criminals, supposedly.
You can see the world map in fort mode.
Probably some bug fixing.

All I want is it to be released soon.
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Re: Thoughts/Predictions about next DF Update?
« Reply #14 on: July 14, 2017, 10:39:08 am »

Quote
I love legends viewer programs, but any interestingly large world has so much useless, hideously boring guff that it takes hours of poring through a medium+ world to find the good stuff, even with a GUI worth a damn.

Also festivals serve no purpose whatsoever in legends other than to make a site/group history utterly unreadable due to the spam of "in the year X plus 1 the books of sadness held yet another festival about cats" obscuring critical site events.
Except that it's not at all unreadable in an external viewer, you can just filter it out. You realise this is an unfinished game right? Just because festivals and vampire purges don't exist right now except to mess up your search for 'critical site events' doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. At the very least the hypertext-like interface for mythgen will surely find it's way to Legends Mode eventually making it much easier to navigate.
Personally, I think masterwork spam is more an issue. Legends Viewer will only show a certain number of events at a site, and the filter process can become slow. If the xml file becomes too large, you can't even load it anymore.
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