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[Manveru Taurënér]

Oh, just thought of a small thing: Animal caretaking. It'd probably be better to just remove the thing unless there's some quick fix to actually have it work/do something, since having a completely non-functional profession in an already big list just leads to unnecessary clutter/confusion until new players through whatever means realize it's broken.

[FantasticDorf]

Seconded on the leather bit, one of my biggest pet peeves right from the start of playing, and while not necessarily something that'd make a big difference to noobs or others it'd add to logical consistency and first impressions somewhat. The more stuff that simply "makes sense" the better ^^

Both leather and metal melting ought to be fixed for regular players, eventually, but these issues are definitely cutting floor material when it comes to newbie improvements (but would definitely be candidates for parallel regular update content during the Big Wait and beyond).

I agree whole-heartedly, some players institute their own fixes like making leather skin globs to process a larger quantity of it into tanned hide (and summarily alter the parchment creation process) in order to get around the difficulty of obtaining the material without bulk-buying but it definitely feels silly to slaughter 50 animals full fort-capacity (for 200 or so in meat) just to obtain 50 hides to tan.

Same goes for scale, chitin & feathers for all players besides noobs since these are workshop-cloggers if they aren't trained on how to dispose of them. Toady's kind of stalled on doing anything for them, feathers particularly even after so many creatures were added after the contributor patreon drive to add more fauna to all the biomes within the game. ((some modifications exist to treat chitin & scale like everything else, tannable or usable full-piece, feathers seldom are as useful))

Seperate to that, actually getting rid of rubbish instead of piling it up is a important asset to running a fortress without having tantrum spirals with dwarves locking sight on the immense piles of detritus not dipped in lava or crushed, which are learned exploits of the game rather than a real feature to disposing trash.

• Rotting is a little bit inconsistent, bones and skeletons stopped dry-rotting (withering away) a long period of time ago in past versions indefinitely neither being able to break down sentient skeletons with ethics (which would be nice to have resolved) corpses litter world generation & fortress mode, a body will remain as a stain on FPS on a inaccessible ridge for a matter of centuries after all the beds have rotted away, things in DF are sticky and sometimes non-bio-degradable like plastic in our own world

Oh, just thought of a small thing: Animal caretaking. It'd probably be better to just remove the thing unless there's some quick fix to actually have it work/do something, since having a completely non-functional profession in an already big list just leads to unnecessary clutter/confusion until new players through whatever means realize it's broken.

I have some suggestions on the matter but actual animal caretaking is simply a partly deactivated but not a irrelevant skill. Maybe temporarily changed to a labor rather than a profession.

• What animal caretaking does in the game currently is run jobs to feed tame grazing animals in cages, though it *used* to provide healthcare.

[Manveru Taurënér]

What animal caretaking does in the game currently is run jobs to feed tame grazing animals in cages, though it *used* to provide healthcare.[/list]

Oh right, forgot about that part.

[Schmaven]

Animal care takers also feed chained grazers.  Without them, my elephant farm would be non-existent.

[Pillbo]

[...]
Seperate to that, actually getting rid of rubbish instead of piling it up is a important asset to running a fortress without having tantrum spirals with dwarves locking sight on the immense piles of detritus not dipped in lava or crushed, which are learned exploits of the game rather than a real feature to disposing trash.

• Rotting is a little bit inconsistent, bones and skeletons stopped dry-rotting (withering away) a long period of time ago in past versions indefinitely neither being able to break down sentient skeletons with ethics (which would be nice to have resolved) corpses litter world generation & fortress mode, a body will remain as a stain on FPS on a inaccessible ridge for a matter of centuries after all the beds have rotted away, things in DF are sticky and sometimes non-bio-degradable like plastic in our own world

It would be really helpful to have the option to create standing orders to dump useless items like cartilage, nervous tissue, scales, feathers, chitin, hair. Being able to add any item types or items by the amount of wear they have would make a standing order much more useful for managing trash and miasma in a fort.

[ToadChild]

I'm late to this thread, so I'm going to mention a few things without reading every page to see if they've already been said.

My main suggestion is that there need to be ways to see more high level views of information from within the game, rather than relying on tools such as Dwarf Therapist.  There's good information in the stocks screen the health screen, military squads, etc.  This needs to be extended to cover things like needs and labors.  I should be able to answer questions like "how many potash makers do I have?" or "which dwarf is the most unhappy?" without manually inspecting every dwarf one by one with a notepad and pencil handy.

Choosing an embark can still be frustrating for me, as I'm not good at predicting which metals are going to be present based on the site finder.  I get kind of annoyed when I embark on a site with multiple metal ores, and it turns out to be galena, cassiterite, and bismuthinite (or whatever).  In my most recent fort I'm cursing that I don't even have tetrahedrite - my only hope so far for military-grade metal is to buy out the next dwarven caravan that comes my way.

I don't understand very well how migrant waves are determined and controlled.  Sometimes a fort is getting off to a slow start, but then a migrant wave will more than double my population in a single day.  I have to drop everything else I was working on just to fill out enough bedrooms and make sure that food and booze stocks are sufficient.

[AnarchCassius]

[quote author=Urist_Macnme link=topic=174947.msg8049065#msg8049065 date=1572565192
My main problem is "what to do with the corpses"?
I'm not one for exploits - so the idea of using a quantum stockpile or Atom Smasher seems to me like cheating... and I am forever stuck with the problem "what to do with the corpses"?
[/quote]

As a new player I'm not even 100% sure what those are and would be disinclined to use them if they seem like cheats/exploits.

As for the sorts of issues I'm seeing: After one fort being nearly defenseless and another dying of thirst during a siege my friend and I planned for long term siege survival. We had no real trouble managing a well in the slow aquifer and things seemed good until the undead showed up. We got increasingly concerned as waves of entertainers showed up and died horribly. It became clear we needed to get the undead out before the surface was nothing but dead and undead. Thankfully they disappeared after just about a year when all seemed lost. But now we have over twice the fort's highest population worth of dead bards to take care over. This is apparently largely the result of a bug but it's still very overwhelming.

So basically take into account that new players won't know how to avoid many issues that older players may avoid as a matter of course or take advantage of solutions that seem counterintuitive or like exploits. When the issue is that you forgot to have enough seeds or even that you didn't put two and two together to realize hematite is full of iron it's a fun learning experience. When you get hit by something that logic can't anticipate at all it's just annoying.

A lot of stuff comes down to scattered UI and that seems to be well acknowledged. How exactly to remove a wagon or setup placement of a well and so on.

Yeah the massive number of immigrants makes for too easy mode.

Interestingly, I would say for a new player it feels a bit overwhelming to handle all the new dwarves. If population is also what amps up monster danger than simply reducing their numbers could go a long way towards easing people into things without reducing mid and late game difficulty. But maybe that's just a playstyle preference as I like to pay attention to them individually. Obviously things could go to far the other way but right now there do seem to be a lot of migrants.

[PatrikLundell]

The undead was probably not a bug. Either you embarked in an evil biome, which can have undead in it or you embarked within range of a necromancer's tower (which is shown on the neighbor's list pre embark). Both are added challenges not intended to be dealt with by newbies.

A quantum stockpile is a stockpile where an unlimited number of items can be stored in a single tile though the use of dumping mechanics. This can primarily be done via the (garbage) dumping mechanic and the minecart dumping mechanic. When it comes to corpse disposal, tossing them down a deep hole makes sense and doesn't really feel like a cheat to me (it's been done in the real world, although real world holes eventually fill up). Thus, it would be perfectly fine if you decide your exploit line goes between dumping into a shaft and storing items, even though the mechanism behind both is the same, but it's your call.

[muldrake]

The undead was probably not a bug. Either you embarked in an evil biome, which can have undead in it or you embarked within range of a necromancer's tower (which is shown on the neighbor's list pre embark). Both are added challenges not intended to be dealt with by newbies.

Newbies are likely not even to know to check the neighbors list.  Other things, like aquifers and salt water give an explicit warning.  Newbies also might not know that any evil biome, even the more mellow ones, presents fairly extreme challenges.

[Shonai_Dweller]

The undead was probably not a bug. Either you embarked in an evil biome, which can have undead in it or you embarked within range of a necromancer's tower (which is shown on the neighbor's list pre embark). Both are added challenges not intended to be dealt with by newbies.

Newbies are likely not even to know to check the neighbors list.  Other things, like aquifers and salt water give an explicit warning.  Newbies also might not know that any evil biome, even the more mellow ones, presents fairly extreme challenges.

Yes, that's a presentation issue in the current release. Newbies aren't likely to know anything until they play the tutorial. That's why there's a tutorial.

I mean, they can skip the tutorial, but that's kind of their own fault if they ignore the tutorial, ignore the wiki, ignore any documentation that may or may not be made and then try to play. Nerfing undead invasions for the sake of someone who's going to complain about finding a game with a reputation for being challenging, challenging isn't the way to go.

[AnarchCassius]

The undead was probably not a bug. Either you embarked in an evil biome, which can have undead in it or you embarked within range of a necromancer's tower (which is shown on the neighbor's list pre embark). Both are added challenges not intended to be dealt with by newbies.

A quantum stockpile is a stockpile where an unlimited number of items can be stored in a single tile though the use of dumping mechanics. This can primarily be done via the (garbage) dumping mechanic and the minecart dumping mechanic. When it comes to corpse disposal, tossing them down a deep hole makes sense and doesn't really feel like a cheat to me (it's been done in the real world, although real world holes eventually fill up). Thus, it would be perfectly fine if you decide your exploit line goes between dumping into a shaft and storing items, even though the mechanism behind both is the same, but it's your call.

No no, the undead were certainly not a bug. We intentionally chose a site not too far away in hopes of aiding our now weakening civilization against the onslaught.

This is the bug: https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=9184

The fact scholars and entertainers don't know to stay away might be intended but there is no delay on the game's attempt to meet the quota. We got far more bards and scholars arriving to die during that time than we would have had simply visiting the fort.

The issue from a new player stand-point is that taverns are fairly easy to set up but pose a major unanticipatable risk so they can act as sort of a trap. A wave of undead was expected, the psychological damage of moving 200+ dead entertainers was not.

As for a quantum stockpile, that actually doesn't seem so bad. My only major complaint is that it seems to obsolete the containers. I find it sort of odd that a few cut garnets or a tooth gets it's own full square in the first place. At the same time limitless items in one square with no penalties or need to rumage arround doesn't feel entirely right. Can't say I have a strong opinion here.

Likewise dropping corpses down a shaft doesn't bother me really, though I figured that would still leave a chance of ghosts. This will probably be the fate of goblin invaders and such for sure.

The atom smasher is the strategy that really feels cheat-y to me.

Nerfing undead invasions for the sake of someone who's going to complain about finding a game with a reputation for being challenging, challenging isn't the way to go.

Honestly the undead are terrifying. We beat one's head to a pulp and it kept tossing dwarves around. The werebeasts are terrifying, though killing them after they revert is quite satisfying. Realizing silver was not necessarily their weakness was a unpleasant shock but also a fun surprise. The vampires are, actually quite fun to deal with. Annoying but actually a lot less deadly so far. We have one in jail now, though a clue on a bugged slab helped a lot (not a complete giveaway but pointed us in the right direction).

Combat against anything humanoid with any combat skill generally feels like a bad move. It generally feels like something to simply avoid until you have lots of good armor. It's not hard to avoid either, these are forts after all. It's a world of literal monsters and you can't expect anyone who isn't hardened military to fair well. None of this is unfun mind you, I'm simply giving my point of view. It's actually quite interesting to see your dwarves torn asunder like extras in a horror movie, but a horror movie is what it feels like.

I know a siege update is in the works, and before or as that happens it might be good for new forts (particularly those run by new players) to get some other options once turtling isn't foolproof. Maybe I just suck at getting the military up and running, but right now defense is unbeatable and offense is suicide.

[Sarmatian123]

I think all new and old players could use is sorting feature in all listings in all menus. Sorting by distance and alphabetic can be default still.

For example, when I look at a tile with "k" option, I get listing of all items on this tile. What, if I wanted just to see some of them and to perform action only on this selection?

[Dr. Melon]

Just wanted to say how excited I am by the recent graphics posts on the devblog! It's looking great, and I'm sure it'll make the gameplay experience a much better one for newer players (and for some veteran players too, I imagine!). I'm also excited by the new graphics modding possibilities it opens up, with the smooth shaded ramps and layered creature sprites. Good work on that, everyone!

[Uthimienure]

A couple of interface improvements that I hope are considered:

1. Combining the "k", "t", and possibly the "q" (or some of its functionality) into one key.

2. Add the "q" functionality to the stockpile menu, so that after creating a stockpile you don't have to ESC and go back to it with "q" to change settings.


BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ARMOK, DON'T EVER MAKE THE MOUSE REQUIRED!!!  (i.e., we still need to be able to fully play the game with keyboard only.)

[PatrikLundell]

A couple of interface improvements that I hope are considered:

1. Combining the "k", "t", and possibly the "q" (or some of its functionality) into one key.

2. Add the "q" functionality to the stockpile menu, so that after creating a stockpile you don't have to ESC and go back to it with "q" to change settings.


BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ARMOK, DON'T EVER MAKE THE MOUSE REQUIRED!!!  (i.e., we still need to be able to fully play the game with keyboard only.)

Considering combining the keys is good. However, it might turn out the amount of "stuff" the combined key would handle is too much for one key (at least without subsections, which defeats the purpose): an investigation would show if it's reasonable.

I definitely second the keyboard sentiment: I don't care if you make DF playable with a mouse (i.e. I'm fine with improvements for others), but I probably won't play if it (effectively) can't be played without one.