I'd like to weigh in on cata, not to cause drama but just to have a say.
It feels confused as to whether it wants to be a simulation or, well, a game. Let me explain. The basic gameplay loop is collecting junk and turning that junk into useful objects, which allow you to access new areas with new junk. You also collect 'treasure' in the form of immediately useful tools, gear, weapons.
This loop demands that you learn a series of hyper-realistic interactions between objects. These interactions are sometimes straightforward, like boiling water with the interaction menu, yet in many cases they are downright obtuse. Even undiscoverable unless you read forums and tutorials, or use the recipe browser. This can be both rewarding, when you find out a useful new recipe you didn't think existed, or frustrating, when you notice a glaring hole in the 'realism' of the game. It's frustrating to experience such depth in certain areas, and yet a completely shallow interpretation of our physical world in other areas. Some things are too damn difficult, like when an interaction is locked behind the acquisition of ONE PARTICULAR ITEM I CAN NEVER FIND, while other things are too easy, like surviving in the woods which is fairly unrewarding. I wish I had more examples but I don't have access to the game for a while.
All this realistic interaction between objects involves quite a bit of digging through menu options and keybind lists. I find the interface of CDDA to be much less elegant than DF. Painful, even. The game is bogged down by too many unique menu styles. This design choice is explained as necessary due to the complexity of the aformentioned interactions, and also the fact that this game is collaboratively developed. However, navigating through three layers of menu in order to perform a particular action is unrewarding, and sometimes you need to perform that same action multiple times. I believe macros exist but macros are only a patchwork solution to rough interfaces. Menu interaction and inventory management should not take up the majority of gameplay, especially in a game that promises so much action.
I suppose that's my main issue with the game, this mixture of hyper-realistic world interaction with poorly designed interfaces, and a lack of in-game reward for many of these mechanics. When I play CDDA my time is wasted on unfun interactions with some rather tedious survival mechanics, hoping and wishing for a particular object which will grant me the privilege of no longer needing to perform those tedious survival mechanics. That's like throwing the player in a deep hole of suffering where the only reward for progress is less suffering. And when I mean suffering, I don't mean the fun kind, the roguelike kind of 'losing is fun' or the DF !!FUN!!, I just mean tedium.
I can't roleplay in CDDA because the survival systems discourage certain styles of play, and I can't play the game 'straight' because there is almost no fun to be had in simply surviving. Is CDDA a place to explore interesting character concepts, or is it a place to test your knowledge of survival mechanics? There is no clarity here, and the game gets in the way of either playstyle.
This is why I don't think you will never be able to call CDDA 'well-designed'. The incremental, multi-authored nature of development combined with a rather inconsistently applied philosophy of hyper-realistic world interaction will always produce areas of unsatisfying tedium. I don't particularly care to perform the complex inventory shuffling required to build a house if it isn't properly rewarded within the games mechanics. You can just as easily live in someone's shed, and that doesn't take a literal hour of navigating menus.
The game 'felt' better in the past, and while it is true I am free to find and play those older versions, I am also free to comment on the lack of satisfying design in recent game updates. Just because it makes things more 'real' doesn't mean it should be added to the game. Especially when the definition of 'real' is arbitrarily decided by one or two people.
And again, I'm just writing all this to express myself, not to neg on anyone or to stir up drama. If you wish to discuss what I have written just be polite! And try to engage with my ideas and avoid nitpicking these words literally - I don't have the time to edit these kinds of posts and I'm sure I've left things out or contradicted myself. But the ideas, those are real. .
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Topic: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (Read 124601 times)