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[Chief10]

-snip-

A lot of things should be condensed, and there's enough that I can start a sub-list.

A: Maybe we could not have q, v, t, and k as different ways of literally just looking, which is normally a passive thing with the cursor.

B: Next, possibly some kind of core change to what defines rooms, zones, stockpiles, and burrows as to not have an overwhelming amount of invisible areas. Stockpiles and zones could maybe be turned into one thing, with stockpile being a new kind of zone, and the more room-like zones (hospital, tavern, temple) being turned into actual rooms. Burrows and military alerts definitely need to be turned into one thing with settings to govern their exact behavior so you can decide who gets locked down and how much permission they have to leave their lockdown area.

C: Announcements could maybe also be simplified, with just a single announcements tab that can sort by different things instead of announcements, combat reports, mission reports, and petitions.

D: Un-necessary menus should be removed. Instead of having a Depot Access menu, make that a thing you can view from the depot building. Integrate the nobles menu with the units menu, maybe let us right click on a civilian in the units menu to change jobs, military status, nobility roles, and all that good stuff sort of that view does. Or just integrate it with what v normally does in the unit menu, if keybinds are kept as per usual. There's a few almost useless menus like R (rooms/buildings), h (complicated minecart stuff that I still hardly understand after a year of pretty heavy play), l (lowercase L, which is just redundant zone control except separated from the zones themselves and only relating to locations), and lastly, o (orders menu, which mostly belongs in the status menu tabs or shouldn't exist). There's a lot of interpretation and personal taste for how exactly menus should be condensed, but my opinion is that it needs to be done. Condensing menus and making them into simple settings and sub-menus will greatly contribute to removing some of that paralysis of "oh god there's like 18 menus and I only know what two of them do" feeling when you just get started.

-snip-

After reading all 40 pages of responses, I think this is the best, for a few reasons.

• Struggling through menus and information overload was quite literally the first issue I had when first starting. When a newb opens the game, where do their eyes go on the screen? What menus do they click through? How do they find out what dwarves they have? How do they find out what items they have?
  
• Menu/info-discovery changes can make the game smoother without really changing its "character".
  
• I think this is by far the best bang-for-buck in terms of development time. Sure it would be nice to massively overhaul some complicated system, but that would take ages and introduce new bugs. In theory re-arranging menus is one of the easiest "overhauls" there is.
  

It sounds like some of these things will be addressed in the steam UI release, but the videos I've seen make it seem like just putting graphics onto the existing layout. I sincerely hope there is a complete overhaul here.

edit: Just looked through all the news on steam, and looks like exactly this will be addressed! So nevermind, looks good to me :p

[Ghills]

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.

QFT

The basic jobs of an interface are exposing data, including the context needed for decision-making, and taking the results of that decision.  The military system interface - by which I don't just mean the screen called the military screen, I mean all attempts to interact with your dwarves as a military unit because that's how new players will see it - is 100% broken from start to finish. It doesn't tell players what they need to know to make military decisions or let them do what they need to do. The default behavior of military dwarves is insane and there's no way for players to fix a lot of it. There isn't even a way to find out what happened; the current playerbase has a lot of extremely dedicated people who have combined knowledge to identify the many bugs and UI workarounds.   
 
I turn off invaders, weres, night creatures and don't use with the military at all. If there's ever a release where that isn't possible, I'm going to stop updating unless the military interface is completely redone.   Every single aspect of how the military information is presented to players is terrible.  There's no context given for any of it, there's no way for new players to learn what's the right thing to do in a situation, it's fiendishly difficult to even figure out how to assign equipment which players shouldn't have to do anyway because soldiers should maintain their own gear unless players want to specifically change what gear they use.  There's no idea of a sane default that the game handles while players are learning the basics.  The whole system is a nightmare.  That some players have managed to figure it out anyway is amazing, but absolutely shouldn't be taken for granted. It's a big reason people quit the game.  I stuck around because I'm mostly interested in DF as a town and megaconstruction simulator anyway, but lots of players aren't OK with just not interacting with a huge part of the game.

[Ghills]

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.

This is a really good point.  New players won't even know that the stress system exists, it's not really exposed anywhere, and there's no in-game way to see what's causing a dwark stress.  There's a reason people use common utilities: the existing UI is really lacking, and they need the information to effectively run their fort.

[muldrake]

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.

It also depends what skills your dwarves have.  Do you have shield users?  You probably should after some training.  Anyone with good shield skill can probably use a shield more than anything else.  Are you going to be fighting giant cave spiders?  They love biting your head.  Helmets are really good for that (although they can also just shake you to death after webbing you). 

This is a wiki image I think is really helpful.


So do you have a skill that actually makes one particular piece of armor particularly useful?  The shield is the most obvious example.  Are you facing a particular enemy that tends to attack a particular part of your body?  GCS are obvious enemies that do this, but in general, a headshot kills, so helmets are particularly useful.  Your dwarves can survive wounds nearly anywhere else.  Except the torso.  So breastplates.  Or leather armor.  Or really anything.

It's better to generate a bunch of crap armor for every part of everyone before insisting on masterwork armor made out of steel that maybe you'll have a couple years from now.

This is a pretty good thread from here (where I grabbed that image from):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=148719.0

[madpathmoth]

This is a wiki image I think is really helpful.

So, in this game, dresses go up to your eyebrows, but a face veil doesn't cover your face?  ...Why would Tarn program it that way?

[muldrake]

This is a wiki image I think is really helpful.

So, in this game, dresses go up to your eyebrows, but a face veil doesn't cover your face?  ...Why would Tarn program it that way?

It's classified as head armor, which can't cover the face.  Why?  I have no idea.  This applies to helmets, too, although you would think you could craft a visored helmet that would protect the face.

[Fleeting Frames]

Small thing that might have been said, but I've been reminded some of the old the tooltip messages could be more helpful:

||

The confusion of catch-22 is apparent; that a bed item laying on ground isn't good enough isn't obvious as well. Perhaps the message should say something like "Need to produce bed at Carpenter's workshop."?

Though obviously can't be just that for something like a chair....And if they did go try to build a Carpenter's workshop, they'd lack building material items (another novel jargon) too ^^;

[voliol]

My take on that picture is that they didn’t find ’d’esignations, and assumed you could build things from scratch like in e.g. Sims or Simcity, given some abstract money account. That you need materials/items isn’t obvious, so it’s the kind of thing a tutorial needs to go through.

But that a bed ”needs bed” is also confusing, that specific formulation could definitely be better.

[Starver]

In some ways a 'revelation' model might help (maybe as Newbie Mode). A designation of a bed cannot be built until a bed is made. A bed cannot be made until a carpenter's workshop is built (and a willing carpenter to use it, but that's a subtly different form of confusion/revelation). A workshop cannot be built until building materials can be obtained. Which can't happen until either wagon-dismantling, tree-felling or rock-excavation has occured.

So, assuming we have each stage clue the user in on (all possible) pre-steps necessary[1], for Newbie Mode can we not show anything that has not previously (including across games, since the last Newbie Reset) been within one remove of possibility.  i.e., at the start the possibility of building a mythical bed isn't even mooted. Possibly (depending upon what is on the wagon) an entirely absent Construct menu. But once you've got a rock/log/whatever (even if used/sold/lost) the Construction menu has eveything that doesn't need more than that (no well, no dyer, no door/bed/floodgate/etc until sub-matefials are found - or maybe a brought-barrel emptied?)


Note that I would personally hate that (as default, unavoidable) as in games that actually 'reveal' as a reward I will play to reveal, ASAP, over the actual gameplay it is supposed to encourage (either that or I'll maximise everything I can do at each stage[2]... I have a very strange game-psychology, I acknowledge). For those that give reasonable look-ahead, I'll generally follow the accepted curve on the first run-through, even if later on I go "all monomaniac on the tech-tree" in personal-challenge runs (e.g. as quickly to Railways as possible in a Civ game).

So it needs to be an option, not a constraint. IMO. And I think some of this (not the 'hiding') is already in the new UI.


[1] To save on complication, probably just to the first depth but 'hyperlinked' to let the player investigate/fulfill the.pre-viability of that too?

[2] In DF, this would probably incarnate as my digging out a huge hole, until I starve my dorfs. Next time I'd dig out all but a farming platform (until I get attacked). The next time I'll do the same but with defensive architecture at the edges. Insert the need to accept a wagon into that sequence somewhere.

[PatrikLundell]

I don't think hiding is a good mechanic as, as you say, it implies "unlocking". A much better variation on the "show me what I can do" theme would be to gray out unavailable options, with tool tips/link descriptions to explanations of what's needed to make them available (could be static, but ideally dependent on what's currently missing).

If graying out is implemented, I think two settings are needed: one "current" mode, i.e. there's nobody available at the moment, because e.g. the carpenter is busy hauling, and one "static" mode (which would be grayed out if there wasn't a carpenter at all, plus the other conditions). Grayed out tasks would still be possible to designated if the only thing missing is the worker (i.e. the functionality would remain as is [or as improved by the Premium release]).

[Starver]

Much the reason (i.e. no carpenter free/assignable) why I sidelined that requirement. "I have a workshop trying to produce, and yet nobody is working in it" is more complex for the lack of worker than merely "there's no rocks dug yet, so you can't make a stone pot" .

Merely greyed-out options are functionally the same as ungreyed options that say "Needs bed" when you try them (less so, actually, if it also doesn't have "Not available without a bed" tooltip/hint as explanation), but are they less annoying than tempting the user before cock-blocking them?


I know I'm nowhere near the typical new player, as screenshotted. Spending a whole 15 minutes trying to build (and never seemingly poking away at the dig-designations enough (or using other methods) to get material that allows something (probably a useless ramp/similar to start with) to be constructed) is possible but doesn't seem like a common sticking point to me. But, for the sake of the people who do go down that particular rabbithole, enabling "glass walls" that keep them even tighter on the path of the possible seems the way to go. Toggle-offable (perhaps to "visible but inactive" as you suggest, as the next setting out on a non-binary selectable scale).


Tarn's got the Tutorial Scenarios coming into the Steam(/non-Steam-equivalent) release that probably cover this, though. "Here's how (and where!) to build a bed(room)" that automagically makes sure enough precursors exist, whether that be from scratch or by 'granting' a starter-bed/hobbithole-to-put-it-in having separately offered tutorialising and general capentry and digging for those that seek hints on those more basic bits.

[Ziusudra]

My take on that picture is that they didn’t find ’d’esignations, and assumed you could build things from scratch like in e.g. Sims or Simcity, given some abstract money account. That you need materials/items isn’t obvious, so it’s the kind of thing a tutorial needs to go through.

But that a bed ”needs bed” is also confusing, that specific formulation could definitely be better.

That screenshot does not show that they joined, said that, and immediately left the server. And their name is a meme spelling of 'wrecked'. My take is that they were a meming troll.

[Fleeting Frames]

Nonetheless, they had more success than Casey Johnston (but that one wasn't something that could be quickly and simply fixed).

As an aside, the designation vs building Constructions being two different ways of making stairs is another common thing I see*. A player being stuck on trying to designate stairs on dug-out floor is something I've seen several times.

* A job for tooltip or redirect? Not sure.

@StarverPatrikLundell: The greyed-out keys idea is pretty nice ✓ I can see it being useful to more than just newbies too.

I don't know if sorting menus by "most recent" would be also useful. It'd help push stuff at top like wall grates to the bottom, but it could mess with muscle memory for clicking (which leans me to think "probably not").

[PatrikLundell]

I really don't like when things jump around in "straight" menus, i.e. ones where there is only one thing that can satisfy your need (if you want to build a bed, a grate won't do), but like the DFHack sorting of building materials by distance a lot, as most of the time I want the one that's the fastest and only occasionally want a particular building material.

Muscle memory is shot if you're forced to use a mouse, but the eye memory can still find the wanted item faster if it's in the same location every time (and I still hope key shortcuts won't be cut due to lack of time, allowing for retraining of the muscle memory).

[Starver]

@Starver: The greyed-out keys idea is pretty nice ✓

All due credit, that was Patrik (within this particular fragment of discussion) who introduced that subtlety.