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[Leatra]

I don't really remember much about newbie problems since it's been a decade when I started playing DF, but I think military was the biggest problem for me. Setting up schedules and armor was hard enough to figure out, but what really got me is that the military basically acts like a homing missile. The military just charges against hostiles and stays in combat until all hostiles are eliminated. Sometimes you want all your squads to gather at a specific point before attacking but once they get one whiff of a hostile, they charge in and die one by one as they arrive. You can't order retreat from a battle you are losing as well. Crossbowdwarves can also get rather suicidal especially when they run out of bolts, jumping over walls and moats to punch the enemy and such.

I made my peace with overzealous military behavior but most newbies would probably be turned off from the game with this behavior. There is also the problem of dodging into the moat and drowning to death as well. Sure there are workarounds but most newbies won't be aware of it. I can just imagine newbies screeching in Steam comments about all their dwarves drowning in the moat.

[Starver]

(I'm still quite bad with Schedules, which I didn't even use for the longest time because they weren't a thing, instead I'd have a standing army training and if things got to needing me to I'd draft in others... But mostly I got good at Turtling and keeping everyone safe, including preventing death-diving archers from atop my walls.)

For quite a while, there has been the idea of formations. Without wanting to turn it into the Rock-Paper-Scissors of various other games I see ads about, the ability to ask a unit to maintain a formation (line, square, wedge) and expect it to be performed (at least while the degree of training still overcomes other pressures, like excitement or loss of morale). Player-led as necessary, but experience (or inate skill) of squad commanders could autonomously apply the appropriate offensive or defensive formation as seems to be required (while still respecting such a "charge"/”advance"/"stand"/(re)"form up"/"fall back"/”flee" overall overseer wish, with or without over-commander squad leaders applying a strategy across sub-militias/etc.


Programmatically... Difficult. But certainly a (training-numbers inspired) "have a minimum number of N troops reach this staging point before then charging off against the first enemy they see" feature would help, and as they gather they could mill into a mutually-defensive formation with very basic info on passable/impassible info and where the nearest enemy actually is (e.g. line up across the wagon-corridor, where the threat is at one end of it, or build up a circle/arc in the open where the enemy can come in/loose projectiles from any direction but are currently mostly in one big lump in one direction).

In the interests of noobs (and probably myself, given my lack of work in this arena of DF's gameplay, even if I've had a fair amount of tabletop experience with dice of various face-counts) it should probably initially default to something like "half the (surviving) squad must arrive at a waypoint/patrol-marker before doing moving on" (while not overwhelmed by fight-or-flight pressures) and could stick to merely milling about with handy status indicator to clue the player in on why they aren't doing more[1]. Advanced changes (form a shield-wall against pointy attackers, square against mounted, space out vs projectiles, wedge up to break an enemy line, "cross the T" with mounted archers vs a column... whatever works for whatever the game can actually accomodate) would be fine-tuned and perhaps become available with tactician skills.


[1] Though most without DF experience would expect them to do no more, so long as the enemy aren't actively attacking (which will trigger their defensive reaction) and if you set them to gather away from trouble then re-stationed the (eventually) fully supplied-up and equipped unit in the midst of the foe once you had them massed as much as you were comfortably able to, then the skirmish is started. (Though currently the enemy is unlikely to hang back without other inducements in the direct gift of the player only if the game's internal Artificial Stupidity is skillfully handled.)

[ror6ax]

'Attack enemy X as a squad' seems like a fairly straightforward thing to implement, both from UI perspective and programatically.
Formations would be cool as hell but not impossible to live without. As for crossbow dwarves doing melee - the fix is even easier. Only allow melee with a crossbow if the units are on adjacent squares. Otherwise retreat/restock bolts.

Currently, mechanic of combat leans into suicide. It should definitely lean into self-preservation. It will still be bizarre at times, but at least players will have an army available.

[SuperPluck]

I think we should, at least get the following commands/order/whatever:

- do not leave area (could be a burrow or a new kind of zone)
- do not initiate attack (stay in position until attacked by someone, go back to position until attacked again)
- attack anything on sight (current behaviour)
- move somewhere (as in, stop anything you are doing and go to this place)

That at least would make things a little more noob friendly.

At the very least have specific orders be "followed" as high priority (so, if I want the whole squad to attack a specific enemy or retreat). Currently once a dwarf starts fighting you can forget about it and that's very frustating and not expected.

[madpathmoth]

As a newb, I'd really like to see a better stress interface.  I know the upcoming UI changes will show you the emotional state of your dwarves as a whole with helpful emojis, but I want a way (in the main game itself, not DFhack or a utility I mean) to see everything relevant to a dwarf's stress together, with nothing else.  A screen that shows me which experiences and situations are stressing them, listed from most severe to least, with no other thoughts inbetween, followed by any relevant personality facets that affect their ability to deal with stress like "frequently depressed", "cracks easily under pressure", that sort of thing.

With how much the game demands you provide for your dwarves to minimize the stress they experience, it's completely unfair to bury the relevant information on each dwarf's status page among a word-dump of other traits and memories.  Please.

I don't even care if it provides any extra info you can't already find out if that's a concern, just please at least make it clearer that this is even a factor for newer players!  If somebody buys the game on Itch and notices they dwarves moods, they will probably catch on that they can try to make their dwarves happier and keep them from getting stressed.  But they won't know that not only are some dwarves so predisposed to stress-spirals that a newb has little hope of keeping them under control, but that others can and will occasionally become traumatized by completely random things like rain or wearing tattered clothes and become doomed to a stress spiral from a personality change.  Can you imagine how frustrating that will be?  "I am doing everything I can!  All the other dwarves are happy, but this one keeps throwing tantrums!"  "I spent years in-game making everything nice, but this one dwarf just kept getting more and more stressed??  And then he went berserk, and killed someone, and now a bunch of my dwarves are stressed out!"

What I'm asking isn't a change to the stress mechanics, which is why I'm putting it here and not on the thread about stress.

[Uthimienure]

...Can you imagine how frustrating that will be?  "I am doing everything I can!  All the other dwarves are happy, but this one keeps throwing tantrums!"  "I spent years in-game making everything nice, but this one dwarf just kept getting more and more stressed??  And then he went berserk, and killed someone, and now a bunch of my dwarves are stressed out!"...

Yes, we could benefit from your ideas about a better stress interface, but the part I quoted seems to me just like real life people behave. Some people can not be helped no matter what is done for them, and their friends will react to that... so it should be with dwarfs.

The stress system needs a bit of tweaking, but it's really not that bad.  Look around at all the mental illness in the real world. Dwarfs aren't that far from r/l.
- rain stress could be toned down, many dwarfs already get over this and are alright, some don't.
- dead bodies' (of enemies) stress could be toned down a little, but most dwarfs already get hardened to this as-is, some don't (same in r/l also).
- missing relatives stress seems more seriously in need of a bit of tweaking, etc.

From my perspective, the realism part of stress just needs some tweaks.
I agree with your idea that the stress system needs a better in-game interface.

I'll add this to it: an easier way to see results of our attempts to make dwarfs happier, such as when we trick-out their bedrooms with stuff they like.

[madpathmoth]

Some people can not be helped no matter what is done for them, and their friends will react to that... so it should be with dwarfs.

The stress system needs a bit of tweaking, but it's really not that bad.  Look around at all the mental illness in the real world. Dwarfs aren't that far from r/l.

You do people with mental illness (myself included) a disservice by comparing real mental illness to dwarves becoming traumatized and then unrecoverably spiralling towards death-by-insanity or being just "born like that" to be depressed from birth.  This is a videogame and being a mental illness simulator isn't one of the goals; it's different in some very major ways.  Your comment was unneeded, I specifically said I wasn't discussing changing the stress mechanics, I just want those mechanics organized and made clear for the player.

[Uthimienure]

I appreciate your thoughtful callout. Please accept my apology as my poorly made comments were not intended to do anyone a disservice.

[madpathmoth]

Another suggestion to make the game a bit more noob-friendly would be to fix some of the major common bugs/issues with merchants.

This is based off of my personal experience, but figuring out how to build a depot and some crafts out of whatever shiny metals I have and don't need is one of the easiest things to learn to do early on.  Easier than many many things, like establishing a clothing industry, or learning how to muddy an underground layer for a farm plot, or other things vital to making a fortress fully self-sustaining.  For newer players, the merchants that show up each year are VITAL to making sure they can supply their dwarves with things, (especially if you include the random bullshit that's impossible to get on your embark that your dwarves may strange-mood demand and go insane without) and just help a struggling fort shore up supplies.

And yet...

• Caravans become terrified/horrified very easily, abandon their wagons, and flee. Bug:7185
• Wagons can occasionally become "stuck" on other wagons, walls, etc. Stuck wagons eventually deconstruct, leaving their merchandise behind. Bug:5687
• If a caravan attempts to leave in late Winter/early Spring, they may try to path over any large frozen body of water. If the water thaws while the caravan is on it, the caravan will become magically stuck in mid-air until either the water refreezes or a floor is built underneath it. At this point, if they are still alive, they will leave the map normally.
• If a merchant's chosen map edge exit is guarded by a hostile creature (including those on a restraint), the merchant will wander back and forth repeatedly and eventually go insane rather than path to an alternate exit.

These are really very common bugs, and all of them punish the player due to no fault of their own, and can even potentially ruin a fortress!  This is from the wiki; these are clearly recorded already.  Fix these, I beg you.  Access to trade is so important and helpful, to lose access to it or have it significantly restricted due to complete bullshit the player couldn't predict or work around (because it's just the game being dysfunctional and incomplete) is another great way to alienate newer players trying to get their first real fortress going.  Currently it's too easy, and mostly just pure luck, to have your yearly trade penalized or ceased by something out of your control, over and over again.

This is more than just getting items though; Outpost Liasons are bugged too, and seeing as they also only arrive with the trade caravan, some random stupid bug where a merchant's wagon gets stuck in itself and the mountainhome blames you, no liason or word of the outside world for a year or two.  Minor, but it just makes the trade caravan problem even bigger.

[ror6ax]

It would be really useful to see dwarf's attack/defence values on the screens where uniform/weapons can be modified.

[Bumber]

It would be really useful to see dwarf's attack/defence values on the screens where uniform/weapons can be modified.

What do you mean? Skills and attributes? There aren't any real combat values beyond that and equipment.

[Starver]

I read it as a 'summary value' that mashes up martial aptitudes into a singular value (or, rather, one for offensive and one for defensive) so that assigning marginally better[1] items will show a slightly better guide value.

The trouble is that the game isn't actually designed for this. Unlike others where combat tests works on just rolling against these competing values, so the internal abstraction is key to success, rather than having to invent an abstraction to broadly and yet rather fuzzily predict the probability of outcomes.


(Or I may misunderstand the intent, but that's how it immediately read.)


[1] By some mash-up value. Average armour protection vs stab, slash, whack attacks, further adjust by sum coverage and encumberance modifiers. Weapon being rate of attack, speed of attack, effective damage, etc.

[ror6ax]

Yes, that is what I meant. I guess quality of the items should be enough, but then how do I know if, say, breastplate is better in protecting my dwarf than a helmet?

[LilyInTheWater]

I just think it's really weird that dwarves will be traumatized from getting rained on too many times when that's not necessarily reasonable reaction one would anticipate. It should contribute to souring mood but I don't personally think it should go into a dwarf's core memory. If something BAD happened to the dwarf (like if they got injured really badly while hunting) while it was raining it would be reasonable for them to be traumatized by it, though. That's not something I see new people anticipating because the memory system is foggy.

[madpathmoth]

Yes, that is what I meant. I guess quality of the items should be enough, but then how do I know if, say, breastplate is better in protecting my dwarf than a helmet?

Isn't that like me asking you if which of a shoe or a glove protects you from stab wounds more in real life?  If you get hit in the head, any helmet is better than any breastplate.  Strikes to the torso are more common but, that's not really something you can assign a "defense rating" to.  You're asking for stuff that is unrelated to the game's paradigm.  Have you played Adventure Mode any?  Combat in DF isn't like combat is the majority of RPGs or turn-based strategy games.