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[Grax]

Just downloaded and started 50.12 (after a 2 or 3 year pause, since 43.x or 45.x, don't remember)

Aaaand WTF?!

New UI is almost unplayable.
No shortcuts visible.
Where's side panel?

Why anything have to be pressed or viewed by mouse?

Won't play new versions of DF anymore.

[Grax]

Tried hard.

Totally unplayable without visible hotkeys.

So, it's sad to say, but - never again.
I won't play with this new UI.

[Inarius]

Well, you may not be the only one, but what is sure is that you are in (by a large margin) minority.
It's sad, though.

[Uthimienure]

I keep watching, waiting... for the interface to be useable again... without the mouse.
Until then, 0.47.05 is the game for me.
Yes, it's very sad.

[Doren I]

You get used to it, the same way you get used to the original UI.  I’m up to nearly my old speed and I only started playing the new version a couple weeks ago, and it’s nice that not all menus pause the game; before it was only the squads menu.

Many things I do miss, though.  UMKH was too visionary for our time

[PlumpHelmetMan]

The new UI has many improvements IMO (in our nostalgia, we often forget just how many complaints were levelled at the old UI). For instance, I find mining much easier and faster now than it's ever been, and I find I have a lot more freedom in digging out interesting and unique room shapes that are more than just a series of squares and rectangles of varying sizes. That said, I do think moving nearly everything to mouse-only controls was a mistake. Luckily, Toady has dropped multiple hints that he plans on gradually re-integrating keyboard commands for those who prefer them, but there's been little in the way of an ETA on how long that will take.

[Goldbeard]

New UI is shit.

Yes.

47.05 remains fully playable though.

[FantasticDorf]

I wouldn't call it bad, but its definitely rounding back to "obtuse", the way its made mirrors Toady's knack for making highly detailed bloated gui. A keyboard version with the implementations put in to support the mouse would have to be a divorced version of the game coded alongside the original, which is already what 47.05 provides.

I think its the APM that gets me the most, it's extremely easy to click way too much (like diagonals) and swapping UI panel keys to do tasks that only took one press on keyboard, especially drawing my eye to it, instead of subconciously typing it out. It really builds up my repetitive straining for less tasks than i could do before.

The paper doll system is problematic for modding and i wish it could just be toggled off, because everything else beside units has virtually static sprites.

[Salmeuk]

what kind of weak-bearded fool are ye?! DF remains above and beyond all other narrative simulations.

 that being said, I sympathize, yet if you are a true fan of DF and Tarn's vision, you will continue to struggle through the questionable UI design decisions ........ which were made by outside forces .......

here is a short list of positives to motivate you to see beyond the (many, obvious) shortcomings:

1. speed of construction designation is +++ - above ground fortresses are now very feasible!
2. specific UI interactions, like linking mechanisms, are waaay easier
3. cute creature graphics. SO CUTE
4. music is amazing
5. the game is now well-funded


install DFhack - it fixes, oh, %80 of the remaining issues I had with premium.

true salt below

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

yeah, I don't blame you at all for this gut reaction.. they even took out custom tileset support?! like what. its a bit ridiculous to essentially change the entire game interface, literally removing features, alienate like a majority of your long-time players (over decades of experience...) in the name of 'UI improvements.' which are, in many cases, objectively UNimprovements... its inverse gatekeeping.. open the gates and kick all the old players to the curb.

whats funny to me is that, new players STILL complain about the UI, and I'm like, we didn't solve anything here... the whole process of game interaction remains obtuse in many situations. but I guess it looks snazzy now

The ONLY reason I continue to play is that I am fairly young and had enough free time to essentially re-learn everything...

[DogsRNice]

After a game reaches a certain point of complexity is it even possible to create a ui the majority of players would consider good? And not just one everyone is used to?

[Worlder]

Not sure if it is any useful to reply to this thread but :

- Honestly how could you say that the mouse is "unplayable" ? What is the argument for this ? Now you can play the whole game with only 1 or 2 buttons. Not to mention how convenient it is to build stuff with it.
- However, I also think the old controls were perfectly fine too, like you said the side panel did it all anyway so whatever you wanted to achieve you just read it on the panel and you were good to go.

Anyway this kind of effort the devs are pulling out does not deserve this kind of hate. For sure change is always hard to overcome but this is not like they ruined the game, plus it is their game so they kind of do whatever they want with it. In the end my point is that you could just have been more constructive when opening your thread, but I do understand your frustration as to stuff being removed. I mean yeah the "side panel" could still have been in the game somewhere.

[Telgin]

After a game reaches a certain point of complexity is it even possible to create a ui the majority of players would consider good? And not just one everyone is used to?

This is what I was just thinking.  I can't think of any sim game I've played where people didn't complain about the UI.

Not sure if it is any useful to reply to this thread but :

- Honestly how could you say that the mouse is "unplayable" ? What is the argument for this ? Now you can play the whole game with only 1 or 2 buttons. Not to mention how convenient it is to build stuff with it.
- However, I also think the old controls were perfectly fine too, like you said the side panel did it all anyway so whatever you wanted to achieve you just read it on the panel and you were good to go.

Anyway this kind of effort the devs are pulling out does not deserve this kind of hate. For sure change is always hard to overcome but this is not like they ruined the game, plus it is their game so they kind of do whatever they want with it. In the end my point is that you could just have been more constructive when opening your thread, but I do understand your frustration as to stuff being removed. I mean yeah the "side panel" could still have been in the game somewhere.

I also agree with this.  I don't fault people for disliking change but everyone saying the game is unplayable now is really exaggerating.  I get having muscle memory for the old hotkeys, but the game is perfectly playable and I frankly find the new UI way less obtuse than the old one.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

While I agree that the negative response in certain circles is exaggerated, I do sympathize with cases like this OP's. If you've taken a hiatus from the game for several years and missed everything relating to Steam and Premium, it's probably not a fun surprise to download a new version of DF Classic and suddenly find that you have to learn an entirely new UI while having missed all context for why this change was made. It's a lot harder to make adjustments when you find them thrust on you seemingly out of nowhere.
Now, obviously, I don't think this automatically gives one a free pass from phrasing their criticism in a constructive way, but the root frustration is certainly warranted. Regardless of what you want to say about Premium, incidents like this lead me to the concession that Toady probably would've been better off leaving the UI for Classic releases the way it was.

[Eniteris]

Honestly how could you say that the mouse is "unplayable" ?

Constantly using the mouse inflames my wrist, which makes it unplayable. I liked Dwarf Fortress specifically because it was keyboard only.

47.05 had weird UI, but at least it was consistent (other than up-down, plus-minus and abcd lists, though there was some consistency: up-down for first level menus, plus minus for secondary menus, abcd lists for...military only basically). SteamUI has three different spots for the erase stockpile button (with no keyboard shortcut), right click only exits menu sometimes, only some full-menu screens pause the game when looking at them, military menu shows up on top of most menus but keyboard input is in the menu below, cancelling a text input often means submit, and can't remove mining designations in the mining menu, have to exit and reselect which also moves the keyboard cursor.

Other nonspecific complaints include can't choose specific mechanisms to link (forbidding workaround does work but as janky as custom mood materials), can't see gauntlet/boot material from the military menu, no autofocus search bars for typing, reports default to the oldest reports instead of the newest ones, lots of manual moving and clicking in lists (and burial designation), trying to construct upwards staircases into ceilings or building upward ramps no longer works. The tile size is too big; if you zoom out you can't tell what things are, and if you switch to ASCII tiles are too small to click on. I would also like to complain that natural walls are difficult to tell apart from each other as well. Also clicks don't register when the framerate dips, which lead to it being literally unplayable on launch (framerate has since stabilized, which makes it more playable).

The choice of hotkeys also makes it constantly require switching from keyboard to mouse and back again. Also, who thought it was a good idea to use f and r, two of the most easily accessible buttons with the left hand on the keyboard, for two of the least used commands in the game?

I'm hope that eventually we'll get back to a keyboard-only state.

My most minor complaints are of missing sprites (the spire artifacts are often invisible) and forgotten beasts rarely/barely looking like their description (couldn't they at least match the color?)

I think the old UI was janky but consistent. The new UI is both janky and inconsistent. Another few years and it might get back to a janky and consistent state.

EDIT: also, not using shift-click to build multiple? instead you constantly shift your mouse back and forth about the screen to toggle it on and off.

[ivanzypher]

There just needs to be hotkeys for stuff, I have faith that Toady will get to that eventually. Using the mouse is specifically better for things like constructions. I ditched the wasd cluster so I can have hotkeys similar to the old version. I can hit bcw for wall pretty fast. I can hit bwfp pretty fast for a farm plot. Same for bdd for door and bfb for bed. And so on.

It infuriates me that I can hit p for stockpiles, and all that does is open the stockpile UI menu. I can't actually start designating a stockpile without clicking on the new stockpile button with the mouse.

It makes me incredulous that the search bars, on almost everything, aren't autofocussed, so you have to click them each time before searching.

My Christmas wishlist would be, in a rough priority...

Hotkeys for...
Navigating menus in general
Works orders
Workshops
Stockpiles
Military
Zones
Announcements, logs, etc
Nobles
Full keyboard cursor, with q and k like the old version
Everything else, like standing orders, etc

This would involve navigating the menus with keys, so it'll be interesting how Toady manages to do that without moving the map  cos at the moment, the menus don't modularly swap what wasd does. What I mean is, imagine a world where Toady has done all the hotkeys, you hit o for orders, hit (e.g.) s s s s s s to go to the 5th order. Is the map going to move 5 units South because you hit s 5 times? Insanity. Can't be easy for him. Would almost be easier to go to an old Git branch and force the legacy UI into the Steam version with a menu toggle for "Legacy UI mode" (hint)  I know I know, he said it was too much to maintain all that, but at least it would get us to shut the hell up  He must be going grey super fast listening to us complain all the time 

Seriously though, the old UI with the Steam graphics would be like, super sexy. Menu button with "Legacy UI Mode (Requires Restart)"? Yeah. I'd be on it like Sonic. I'd even patiently wait a half a decade for the Magic release so that he can satisfy all the old jaded cultists.