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[PatrikLundell]

Even as a very experienced player I still find myself occasionally getting confused as to why my dwarves aren't doing a particular job. Usually it's just because I set a maximum skill limit in the workshop profile.
It would be a very nice usability feature if the game gave some kind of warning that you need to change some settings in order for the job to be completed. Even if it was just a red exclamation mark next to the job without any further information it would be a big improvement.

The "j" menu could really use a reason that jobs are inactive, even one as simple as "no eligible dwarves found".

"No eligible dwarves found" would be a very useful indication if that meant that the pottery job can't be performed because nobody has pottery enabled (at least if jobs are player assigned: if there's something that constantly shifts that around it's useless [like labor manager and some musings by Toady]). If it just meant that there isn't anyone with this labor available at the moment it's useless, as it would just state that it isn't done because nobody is doing it...

So yes, reasons for jobs not being performed would provide a powerful way of finding out what's happening (and not). I don't think the extremely new players will have enough background knowledge to use the info effectively (they'd have to find the jobs menu first, for starters), but it would be very useful for middling newbies all the way to the most advanced players (excluding the very small minority that never makes any mistakes once they know how things work).

[xordae]

A couple of things come to mind off the bat:

- Aquifers are dumb. I never play on aquifer embarks and don't see the appeal in them either. This is a diggy-fortress-buildy game. Having your new digout flooded right away is obstacle #1 and will result in "what the hell?" moments. Consider making aquifers a default-off option in worldgen.

- Evil biomes and undead generation is unreasonably, weirdly overpowered and I think their current mechanics are more or less an oversight because it was deemed "an error funny enough to leave in".

- The interface. At this point it's a meme and a trope and we all love to hate it, but having this monolith of key combos around is obstacle #2. It isn't so much that it's not efficient, because it can be quite efficient once you get muscle memory. The problem is that weird, fringe, sub-menu options are not evident even for seasoned players, like the various sub-sub-menus of the (o)rder menu for example. Or the arcane intricacies of the (N) and (h) menus. Also it would be a big help if the main (Tab) overview was sorted into functional groups, rather than having all the shortcuts in one pile.

- Unnecessary complexity in parts. This is not so much a newbie obstacle but it is a massive obstacle to players in general. Why are there endless pages of various leathers and bones littering the selection screens for military uniforms and other things? Condensing these down to meta groups of just 'shell', 'bone', 'leather', 'wood' etc. would not hurt, because I have not seen a single instance where I thought "Boy, I'm feeling literal and would really like to get some Aardvark leather armors made. There better not be any Yeti leather armors in this pile or I'm gonna throw a tantrum!" Similar to this: Browsing for building materials is a chore. Why not a meta group selection beforehand, letting you decide between 'stone', 'wood', 'metal', 'etc' before the player is thrown into more endless pages of lists? Why not make the lists and sublists alphabetized?


Don't agree that managers / bookkeepers are essential for the survival of a fort. I do quite well on mine and never rush these jobs.

[Bumber]

Why are there endless pages of various leathers and bones littering the selection screens for military uniforms and other things? Condensing these down to meta groups of just 'shell', 'bone', 'leather', 'wood' etc. would not hurt, because I have not seen a single instance where I thought "Boy, I'm feeling literal and would really like to get some Aardvark leather armors made. There better not be any Yeti leather armors in this pile or I'm gonna throw a tantrum!"

Fire imp leather is immune to fire, I think, so that's important at least. Probably dragon bone, too.

[PatrikLundell]

Aquifers are really handy as they provide a safe source of unlimited, non freezing water, but yes, it comes at a small cost. Heavy aquifers are indeed a significant obstacle, but light ones tend to result in screw ups you can recover from, even though it will undoubtedly confound a new player. It's a challenge that can be overcome with a little mental effort, and provides a sense of some satisfaction once that's been done. Obviously, it's good if people who don't like them can disable them.

And stone has different color for those who want color coordination, some is magma safe, and some match a particular dorf's preferences.
Having the list sorted by proximity is way more useful for construction when you don't really care than an alphabetic list.

[Fleeting Frames]

As far as nerfing aquifers further goes, light aquifers are already reduced to the point of drying out in moderate size rooms. However, the "leak from ceiling" mechanic is quite non-obvious. While it can be beneficial in fortress design, aquifers not leaking/dampening stones below, would remove most confused questions with aquifers I see.

Construction-wise, the "corners first" mechanic is something that has to be told to every newbie, which suggests it is unintuitive. Advmode system is also easier I use from what I gather.

As far as variety causing obstruction goes, that's more of a general interface thing I feel; at best it is easy to assume different animal leather has different properties.

[Remains]

Figured I could give a suggestion on how to save the noobs. Since there will be an overhauled UI and  a tutorial which will save quite a few noobs, I will instead suggest fixing some of the early noob-killing bugs.

Ive played for a couple of years so I dont remember my noob experience that well, but theres two things I can think of right away:

1. The bin/barrel/bag and the cancellation spam. Something needs to be done here, even if its not a perfect solution right away. When I started playing I instantly got the impression that all my goods were stolen/broken and all my fruits and plants were rotten. The messages are just really odd, and of course theyre wrong most of the time because of the bin/barrel weirdness.
The messages need to get better, and the containers should either be accessible to plenty of dwarves at the time, or there could be some sort of queue system so that theres not instant cancellations.

2. The weird surface crops. I know this in combination with something else killed me off in the past. Someone might think he got the food situation under control, when in reality he got plenty of foodstuffs that doesnt give any seeds, or cant be planted, or are just really awkvard to use.
Even a temporary solution would be great here . Maybe some crops could give a few seeds on gathering/harvesting, or some crops could have uses that are not entirely realistic.

Really looking forward to seeing the Steam version taking form, particulary stuff like the UI and unit lists.

[FantasticDorf]

1. The bin/barrel/bag and the cancellation spam. Something needs to be done here, even if its not a perfect solution right away. When I started playing I instantly got the impression that all my goods were stolen/broken and all my fruits and plants were rotten. The messages are just really odd, and of course theyre wrong most of the time because of the bin/barrel weirdness.
The messages need to get better, and the containers should either be accessible to plenty of dwarves at the time, or there could be some sort of queue system so that theres not instant cancellations.

That's fair, repetitiveness of the messages would be something that doesn't convey what they mean much of the time.

• "Corpse/bone/tooth does not have enough mass to butcher/craft" etc.

• "Missing a container (optional descriptor)"

Still doesn't help that many of the bugs which cause these have been diagnosed but not fixed (because often the fix would be a entire bugfixing round of reworking a entire system)  but making the issues clear would be a good step.

2. The weird surface crops. I know this in combination with something else killed me off in the past. Someone might think he got the food situation under control, when in reality he got plenty of foodstuffs that doesnt give any seeds, or cant be planted, or are just really awkvard to use.
Even a temporary solution would be great here . Maybe some crops could give a few seeds on gathering/harvesting, or some crops could have uses that are not entirely realistic.

Better crops is more in the vein of 'suggestions' subforum, but more clear reference seems pretty good in things like climate (which most players who settle the same temperate areas don't even know plant restrictions exist like berries only on aboveground tundra), the farm-plot has very bad UI, its the most terrible UI in the entire game and confuses every new player that tries to interact with it.

• Personal bugbear about fruit, fruit is very fiddly, as such i never use fruit preferring to mass import it because it fills up the stockpile with useless seeds that can't be replanted, and therefore is just a product of trash. Having to locate all your gather zones awkwardly scattered to trees far away doubly makes me less interested when farming from the ground without consequence on 24/7 surface crops & cyclic underground crops is so convenient. For a noob this may seem hellish especially with previous points of trash disposal.

Im seeing a increasing number of players simply play with DFhack in this regard (because cheating your first DF game is probably the best way to go.) just for the additional settings like to set a full year roster for plump helmets in one click by watching real-time chatrooms like Discord where they seek out advice. (And i won't lie that i like the type to search function on DFhack stockpiles more than playing DF vanilla even though i know where everything is anyway for matter of speed.)

[PatrikLundell]

:

• Personal bugbear about fruit, fruit is very fiddly, as such i never use fruit preferring to mass import it because it fills up the stockpile with useless seeds that can't be replanted, and therefore is just a product of trash. Having to locate all your gather zones awkwardly scattered to trees far away doubly makes me less interested when farming from the ground without consequence on 24/7 surface crops & cyclic underground crops is so convenient. For a noob this may seem hellish especially with previous points of trash disposal.

:

Unless you change the defaults, you get 200 seeds of every kind and then the overflow is automatically disposed of. Thus, you get trash seeds, but they only fill up to a limit.
Careful logging can get the trees spared for fruit gathering gradually get closer to your fortress, although that requires a lot of micromanagement (I'm using a DFHack script for that, as well as gathering zone management to save me from the hassle).

[Sajiky]

This seems like a small thing, but I think it would really help.

Unify the arrow keys vs +- system of menu navigation.  I tend to guess wrong first more often than not.

[PatrikLundell]

This seems like a small thing, but I think it would really help.

Unify the arrow keys vs +- system of menu navigation.  I tend to guess wrong first more often than not.

It's not a small thing, and it's also one of the things that's been mentioned for the UI overhaul, so that's something we can expect to see in the Premium release.

[ror6ax]

Did my first magma powered workshop the other day. You can place it anywhere and then when it's build it won't let you because it's not on magma.
Not pleasant and not coherent with other object placements near things.

[Uthimienure]

Did my first magma powered workshop the other day. You can place it anywhere and then when it's build it won't let you because it's not on magma.
Not pleasant and not coherent with other object placements near things.

This explains how to do it:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Magma_forge
Channel one square so the magma below is visible.
Excerpt:
"To build a magma forge, you must have magma-safe materials (non-magma-safe materials will not be shown on the material list), an anvil, and a build site where at least one tile directly beneath one of its eight non-center tiles contains magma at a depth of 4/7 or greater.  Covering the opening of the magma with an impassable tile of the workshop (dark green) will prevent dwarves from getting knocked in and prevent magma creatures from crawling out, possibly barring a building destroyer with an alternate route."

[ror6ax]

Thanks. I just destroyed the old one and built new one 2/3 hanging off a cliff into magma.

[muldrake]

Thanks. I just destroyed the old one and built new one 2/3 hanging off a cliff into magma.

You really don't want this.  Some annoying minor monster like a magma crab, or even vermin like fire snakes, will come out and set stuff on fire or attack dwarves.  If a dwarf dodges into the magma, they're dead.  Not a great way to lose a legendary weaponsmith.  You want one hole channeled down, and one of the impassable tiles over the channel so things can't crawl out of it and dwarves can't fall in.

[ror6ax]

The more you know,,,

On a different note - I can't seem to find sand in stockpile settings. There's sandstone but no sand... Any hints?