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[Erk]

Do bear in mind, saying a thing is false is not the same as saying you're a liar. Liar implies intent, the other is intent neutral.

[Putnam]

Yeah, no liar accusation on my part, just saying that your belief was false and you should stop believing it, which happens to everyone every day constantly forever, not much shame in it. All the ways to convey sound unbearably aggressive, though.

[Heretic]

I can agree with a lot of reasoning of new system
Main (and an only, in my personal opinion) - it's much easier for new player to play game "somehow" without going into depths of details.
It's BIG. Really big, i meant. When newplayer want get something, he just place order, and boom, it's done.
This is enough for this to exists. Justified.

Which I don't really like that seems like Putnam meant that now we have basicly only one approach to fortress to exists - his own one.
I want mention - not everybody calls "micromanagment hell" actually hell. I personally know person who would manually manage all 100+ planets of his empire in Stellaris. Or 20-30 in Aurora4X. And for him this update is big NO. Like, he already tell that game is dead for him for now. But okey, his game, his choise, it's just kinda radical example.

I myself can play 200+ beards forts, but sometomes like playing of the edge with 15-30 dwarves in as harsh enviroment as i can handle.
In such scenarious i'm usually basicly play turn-based game, usually managing every crysis turn by turn and have in memory everything about every dorf in fortress - even without any Therapiest or DFhack. And now i feels such scenarious kinda... screwed. Maybe they will return then "skill not less then" and maybe even  with addition of "equal" and "less" will come back...  But now it's seems doomed.

[jipehog]

I think this labor update would have splashed better if Tarn warned us that design would be removing player control, intentionally. certain blog updates suggested this was coming but there was no explanation provided for this change of systems, which put a bad taste in many player's mouths

This is simply false. This post from August 2021 fully explained the labor system and all of the loss of control therein. Nothing was hidden here. I don't think they should be blamed for something they didn't do.

You are correct about this post. However, to be fair virtually no one read all the updates, even the more dedicated portion of the user base were likely to miss something sandwiched between couple of.. lets be honest.. not particularly interesting UI screenshot updates, at least I did tuning out at that point.

Also in the lead to the release, I have not heard Tarn repeat things like "this change takes a lot of control away [..] which you may find yourself wanting back as you become more skilled with the game" because this summarize my feeling about the new direction exactly and I don't find the 'work details'  to be a saving grace.

So glad Tarn stuck to what he wants the game to be anyway.

Please.. Pretty sure that what Tran wanted the game to be has changed remarkably over the decades, fortress mode was a side project before it became the bread and butter, and almost certainly the need to replenish the userbase was factor here too. Certainly the new streamlined direction will appeal to the steam player base.

[Putnam]

I can agree with a lot of reasoning of new system
Main (and an only, in my personal opinion) - it's much easier for new player to play game "somehow" without going into depths of details.
It's BIG. Really big, i meant. When newplayer want get something, he just place order, and boom, it's done.
This is enough for this to exists. Justified.

Which I don't really like that seems like Putnam meant that now we have basicly only one approach to fortress to exists - his own one.
I want mention - not everybody calls "micromanagment hell" actually hell. I personally know person who would manually manage all 100+ planets of his empire in Stellaris. Or 20-30 in Aurora4X. And for him this update is big NO. Like, he already tell that game is dead for him for now. But okey, his game, his choise, it's just kinda radical example.

I myself can play 200+ beards forts, but sometomes like playing of the edge with 15-30 dwarves in as harsh enviroment as i can handle.
In such scenarious i'm usually basicly play turn-based game, usually managing every crysis turn by turn and have in memory everything about every dorf in fortress - even without any Therapiest or DFhack. And now i feels such scenarious kinda... screwed. Maybe they will return then "skill not less then" and maybe even  with addition of "equal" and "less" will come back...  But now it's seems doomed.

The game is dead because the game didn't implement features from third-party programs that aren't going to stop existing just because the game updated? You can't see how that's unreasonable? This is my main problem with the complaints, it's not like therapist is going away. I even personally asked for a global flag--which is now implemented as of v50.04--to disable the work details system completely so third-party programs can more easily implement their own systems. Like, hot damn, they replaced a godawful system with a significantly better system, but it's not the exact system other people already made and are still planning to maintain, so people are pissed off? You can see why I think that's a bit ridiculous.

[Flying Dice]

I think there's a fair amount of talking past one another happening on this topic.

Pretty common gripes seem to be oriented around a) some of the details of the new system's implementation which lack clarity and flexibility -- the inability to edit or delete default details, the lack of meaningful icons for custom details, the limited number of displayed details on each dwarf, and b) things that could have been improved but weren't, like a way to hop back and forth between related screens without having to drill down from the top level window each time (either by way of a "back" function or multi-window display).

I don't think anyone is saying that the new system is worse than the old one, or that it won't be improved given time and mods, so much as that even though most of the issues a new UI was supposed to resolve have been known problems for most of the game's life many of them didn't really change all that much. It's definitely a win for new players who were scared of ASCII and lack of clickable buttons (and the evidence for that is everywhere), but anyone who is familiar with the game is well aware of the outstanding issues and capable of recognizing that with a few exceptions (the mouse-based look function, the new military menu once you figure out how to open it) a lot of the changes weren't so much improvements as pivots towards still-flawed implementations less likely to immediately drive off new players and more likely to be improved with further development.

To be clear: I don't really care all that much about UI issues--I've played Aurora religiously and DF periodically for more than a decade. I don't care that new players who don't know better think that the Steam release fixed all of the problems with the game. What I do care about is people ripping into each other for very little reason over fairly minor disagreements about the state of various systems in the premium release, or pretending that there aren't any issues with the new implementations.

[Telgin]

I read the Reddit thread and I'm surprised but pleased to see that the labor system prioritizes highly skilled dwarves, which is definitely the one reason I was a bit unsure about the new labor system.

Frankly speaking I was glad to see the game essentially tell me that I wasn't supposed to be micromanaging labors, and I relaxed on it pretty quickly and just let the dwarves go.  I did eventually set up custom labors for craft work, weapon smithing and armor smithing, and I'm glad to see that that's really all I needed to do.

Maybe I'd have a different opinion if I ever used Dwarf Therapist, but I think this is a move in the right direction.  Definitely agreed on some of the nitpicks though, like the ability to set custom icons, edit existing labors and maybe some default new labors for things like smith work or at least some way to hint to players that they may want to create them.

[LadySerpentine]

While I broadly agree, I do have a couple of complaints, nevertheless.

Job selection prioritizing more skilled dwarves is relevant, but imperfect - I've experienced a number of cases of someone random making something because the most skilled dude was asleep, hauling, or otherwise occupied in some fashion at the particular moment I assigned it. That ties into the next issue, which is...

...I've had some issues with assigning individual dwarves to a workshop. The last time that I tried doing so, it instead resulted in nobody performing the task, including that dwarf. I'm not sure if this is a bug or the result of me doing something wrong, but I did try to do due diligence at the time, so I would argue that if I did miss something there's a good chance it ought to be more clearly flagged in-game.

Also, having to create a custom work detail for some jobs to be performed at all is, I would argue, the opposite of how the rest of the labor system behaves. Having both paradigms in there is just kind of weird. That said, the place I've encountered this was trying to get a hospital running, which was noted. Not that any doctoring happened once I made one - might be a bug there?

[martinuzz]

The new system is mostly fine, except it is a hassle to prime unskilled dwarves for a specific mood now.
The previous system gave more direct control.

[Putnam]

The new system is mostly fine, except it is a hassle to prime unskilled dwarves for a specific mood now.
The previous system gave more direct control.

Easiest way to do that since 0.47.01 is guild halls rather than having them do jobs

Also, having to create a custom work detail for some jobs to be performed at all is, I would argue, the opposite of how the rest of the labor system behaves. Having both paradigms in there is just kind of weird. That said, the place I've encountered this was trying to get a hospital running, which was noted. Not that any doctoring happened once I made one - might be a bug there?

No bug, it's just terribly unclear. Fact of the matter is: work details have essentially no effect on doctoring labors. Assignment to a hospital is basically the only thing that matters here. You don't need to make a custom work detail for it and it will override any work details you have set up.

[el Indio]

No bug, it's just terribly unclear. Fact of the matter is: work details have essentially no effect on doctoring labors. Assignment to a hospital is basically the only thing that matters here. You don't need to make a custom work detail for it and it will override any work details you have set up.

Trying to work out why something is or isn't working is hard.  It might be that the dwarf simply doesn't feel like performing an action like diagnosing, but the player is left to wonder if they have done something wrong.

Is there any downside to making a work detail for healthcare?  Does it help with Guilds and teaching other dwarfs?

[martinuzz]

The new system is mostly fine, except it is a hassle to prime unskilled dwarves for a specific mood now.
The previous system gave more direct control.

Easiest way to do that since 0.47.01 is guild halls rather than having them do jobs

I never got into guildhalls, I usually run low population forts / forts that only grow by having children grow up, so I don't get to the requirements to build guildhalls, yet still have unskilled dwarves that need priming (that one or two lucky children that grew up without getting a random worthless craftdwarf mood, I really want to prime those for something useful).

Guildhalls also don't work if you don't yet have any/many members of the specific skill you want a legendary worker for. My forts don't need 10 armorsmiths, they only need 1 or 2

[FantasticDorf]

Here is a useful, if aggressively titled, post on the labor system from our very own Putnam.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/zg0spw/please_try_to_use_the_new_labor_system_the_way/

I can't nessecarily agree with the last point, doing something badly when jobs are split up just ruins the existing systems with overall poorer quality, because there is nothing really quirky about 7 dwarves trying a labor out for the first time then all gaining dabbling experience. I could compare it directly to something like the sims 3, where every trait in a sim is manifest in the task they are currently doing, such as affecting the artstyle of the paintings they produce through a filter (neurotic sims have erratic paintings, depressive sims have a blue-phase, all of the same subject) and moving between these traits by rerolling the sim is meant to signify growth. Something DF dwarves dont really have except on reflection of their experiences and some static personality traits with minimal effects.

Edit - Obviously the content is affected by their preferences more there most for the dwarf's 'signature' but you can produce a thousand signature valuable trinkets at a rate using a micromanaging workshop position so stuff actually gets done around the fort, i don't really buy into the arguement.

Mass engraving is nice, but again you want to keep your moodable craft-experience seperate from one another and dwarves in self contained roles for guild groupings (just give use for guilds centric labor managment instead would be probably better). Mechanic role and Doctors are also omitted in a way that isn't tangible to bypass by giving specific workshops to and FPS death (and real, your fort is going to die if brewer jobs aren't specified to pump out drinks fast enough) demands streamline efficient fort industry.

Point 4 is simply lost in translation: Here in the UK, we refer to hospital sanitary & very petty care staff as 'porters' instead of orderlies and the exact actions a mason takes will probably be lost on most people to understand the reference other than their clothing is mason-white, while stone crafters are blue as they've always been.

Edit- On reflection, i can change the ingame labor tokens to whatever title i would like, but its moreso annoying its baked into the game's ui as this as static.

[jipehog]

I don't think anyone is saying that the new system is worse than the old one.

To be fair, everything is better compared to the old in-game system, however, over the decade since DF release therapist has become the de-facto standard for most players, compared with that for many the new system was worse.

a lot of the changes weren't so much improvements as pivots towards still-flawed implementations less likely to immediately drive off new players and more likely to be improved with further development.

That pivot might be the underlying issue. Imagine if Aurora4x removed spreadsheets and took control away from you in favor of more streamlined automated interface that would make the game more accessible to others..

And labor is hardly the only aspect of the game that got the pivot treatment. DF used to be a permadeath game where you have to rely on skill with no do overs, its clones enshrined its motto 'losing is fun' as the highest difficulty possible, but now with new save system and the addition of difficulty settings to main, you can easily set yourself for much more casual experience than any of its clones.

[Lord Dakoth]

I was suspicious of the new labor system until it "clicked" that I no longer have to waste time managing 200+ dwarves' labors in Dwarf Therapist. Now, the only labors I micromanage are weaponsmith, armorer, and metalsmith. I no longer feel utter dread when a new migrant wave appears, and I don't expect that I'll ever need Dwarf Therapist again.

At the end of the day, I don't care whether the barrels and bins in my stockpiles are base or masterwork quality.