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[Ragnar_Deerslayer]

I've been playing DF for several months, and lurking on the forum for about as long, but I registered just to post to this thread.

I love roguelikes, and I love turn-based strategy games like Civ II & III.  When I heard about DF, I was stoked.  So I downloaded it, but was so put off by it, I uninstalled it in disappointment.

My problems:

I.  User Interface issues: Inconsistent and non-intuitive commands. 
*  Selection process:  Sometimes you use +/- to scroll, sometimes 8/2.  Sometimes ENTER selects, sometimes SPACE, and sometimes F9.  For that matter, sometimes SPACE selects a choice, and sometimes it cancels a choice.  ESCAPE never escapes the current menu, it escapes the *game*.  Recommendation:  SPACE and ENTER do the same thing (as in many other games) and ESCAPE goes back one choice.  Unify scrolling where possible.  (I think the requests for the next merchant caravan screen is the only place where it wouldn't work to unify it.)
* Viewing process:  loo[k] views a square.  But [t] views the contents of a workshop, [q] views the production queue of a workshop, and [v] views the status of a dwarf.  I love roguelikes, so I wasn't put off by the ASCII graphics - but the basic tool for understanding what I was seeing, the "examine" command (as ZAngband calls it), wasn't doing what I needed it to do.  The view command is the most basic tool for learning the game, and if there was a unified viewing command, I could have figured much more of the game out myself.

II.  Gameplay issues:  I had no idea what to do, or how.  The in-game documentation was less than helpful.  The only thing it taught me was that sometimes I use SPACE where I would expect to use ESCAPE.

What got me back in to play the game?  I read Boatmurdered, which is currently the best marketing tool the game has, and I was pointed to the wiki, which contained a simple tutorial.  Really, the tutorial was what did it.  If you do nothing else, put a brief note on the title screen saying "Beginner tutorial available at:" and give the URL for the wiki's Your First Fortress.

Ragnar

[Randominality]

Having a robust simulation is a good thing ONLY if it supports and vitalizes the game not when it exists for its own sake.

You beat me to it. That is just what i wanted to say. I love the idea of having all the history behind events so you know that, as tourettedog put it : "that the goblins are attacking because the demon got attacked by an elf that was enslaved by a dwarf (who had a brown beard that was unevenly cut and was missing his right incisor) that was kidnapped but rescued by those sames goblins 300 years ago." However until this actually has an effect on gameplay, so that I DO get attacked because of this, the core game is not gonna hold my attention for very long.

I suppose what I would prefer is for Toady to do stuff in chunks that means that those small details would affect gameplay in the same release as opposed to the distant future. Especially since by the time he does come to something that relies on something he did ages ago he may have to rewrite that bit anyway.

That said, my no.1 turnoff is still the bad framerate.

[thvaz]

I think the problem we are facing here is not unlike that Will Wright suffered while Spore was in the works...and we all know how that turned out.

There are some here who are literally asking for a dumbing down of the game...I have said this before, and I will repeat: DF is all about pointless details. Take this from it, and we will have a Dungeon Keeper with worst graphics and an anemic nethack.

[Pnx]

Adding a big bold green link on the download page informing people of the existence of the wiki would help people a lot. Currently the official documentation leaves more than a little wanting, the wiki more than makes up for it.

[G-Flex]

Having a robust simulation is a good thing ONLY if it supports and vitalizes the game not when it exists for its own sake.

You beat me to it. That is just what i wanted to say. I love the idea of having all the history behind events so you know that, as tourettedog put it : "that the goblins are attacking because the demon got attacked by an elf that was enslaved by a dwarf (who had a brown beard that was unevenly cut and was missing his right incisor) that was kidnapped but rescued by those sames goblins 300 years ago." However until this actually has an effect on gameplay, so that I DO get attacked because of this, the core game is not gonna hold my attention for very long.

I suppose what I would prefer is for Toady to do stuff in chunks that means that those small details would affect gameplay in the same release as opposed to the distant future.

The problem is that I hardly think this is feasible. A lot of those simulation goals simply aren't able to be broken up into smaller units effectively, and considering how much time it takes to do those and implement actual gameplay incorporating them, it wouldn't even be worth it.

I believe Toady has said stuff to the effect of "a lot of this stuff has to be done all at once" before, anyhow.

So I see your point, but it's just something we have to live with, for the time being. The game will continue to get more interesting, of course... just not quickly. And that means stretches where things are being developed whose implications we don't see right away.

And you know what? That's probably what it's like for the development of ANY videogame like this. With DF, it's just easier to get pissed-off about it because we get to experience the game as it's being developed.

Especially since by the time he does come to something that relies on something he did ages ago he may have to rewrite that bit anyway.

No, the reason why he spends so much time on these bits of the simulation is so he WON'T have to rewrite the hell out of it later on. Tacking on bits of gameplay with smaller bits of simulation backdrop, like some people here seem to be suggesting, on the other hand, WOULD result in much wasted development time.

And like I said, the gameplay implications of things like the worldgen revamp are surprisingly close in terms of development, and the implications of the new body and material systems are showing up in the very version in which they're being introduced.

[Neonivek]

Adding a big bold green link on the download page informing people of the existence of the wiki would help people a lot. Currently the official documentation leaves more than a little wanting, the wiki more than makes up for it.

Normally I would say no... but... it is kind of vital.

A lot of those simulation goals simply aren't able to be broken up into smaller units effectively

You have to wait for the Carrivan Arc! (The joke here is that there are a ton of features that can't be added until the carrivan arc)

[Kardos]

I for one welcome my Toady One and ThreeToe overlords and their method of implementation.

[Mel_Vixen]

I for one welcome my Toady One and ThreeToe overlords and their method of implementation.

Threetoe for President! Cuba needs a new Direction and he can give it! Yes we Can! 

Seriously now: Development can be very slow especally in fields you dont know so we dont should be nitpicky on some things that just need time to be read up and worked out theoricly.

Also yes to A more prominent link to the Wiki on the download pages and a handbook for download.

[Kazindir]

Other than disagreements over the graphics, I would pick:

[n]Short Term - what stops people from picking it up past a download and quick start:[/b]
Lack of a little in game tutorial.
It doesn't have to be complex or particularly indepth, just enough to show how to do a few basics like how to dig a tunnel. One of the first questions people seem to have is something along the lines of "how do I dig down?" - I know it was one of mine - as the way ramps and stairs work don't rally make a great deal of sense. (For example, how can you dig a set of down stairs without also creating matching up stairs?  )


Longer Term - what ends up pushing people away once they've got all the basics down and have built a few large fortresses:
Danger, Sieges and Performance.
Non-modded "danger" for your dwarves is near non-existant once you have the core of a fortress estabished.

Entire goblin sieges can be slain by a couple of champions, provided they're not cut down by marksdwarves first or exploded by traps.
Wandering dangerous animals are much the same, although in some cases (carp) actually prove more dangerous than actual sieges which only adds to the oddness.
"Points of Interest" don't have respawning dangers. One you've cleared your chasm/underground river/magma vent of the few generally low danger baddies that lurk, thats it. Even the HFS doesn't respawn, although at least they can be nasty before they're put down.

Coupled with that, even with the new code performance on large forts tends to collapse in flames onces you've got your 200 dwarves and their usual huge stockpiles and all the associated pathing. So the net result tends to be a lack of potential unplanned fun coupled with very slow motion progress.


Short version:
Need a basic tutorial and then more challenge you don't have to go out of your way to create yourself. (EG modding evil races, using no traps/crossbows etc.)

[Rift]

i completely and utterly agree with Kazindir.
Its generally expected for games to have atleast basic tutorials and/or guides provided with the game. Most of the exceptions i can think of have very small player bases. When you find there is no tutorial and no guide, you basically hit the "What the hell do i do?". Even if you just cut and paste the "your first fortress" into a txt file, bundle it with the the game, and label it "Tutorial", people would probably get it. It would be even better just to throw it ingame as some missions or some tooltips or something, but ANYTHING would be a step in the right direction.

I think the "danger/challange" will be greater increased in the next release, so it's not a major concern that needs to be yelled about, but it shouldn't be ignored either... Even after this release we still need new challanges to keep it freash [Hello army arc!]

And yes, the thing that stops me from playing almost any fort i create is the FPS hit i get... Sure, i can limit the dwarves but that also means effectively stopping growth for my culture. Further, a lot of the features require atleast 80 dwarves [economy] ect.. Which on most computers is significantly slower then when you start with 7, to the point the game just feels like its dragging along and you have to wait for everything.

Honestly, what really concerns me is that a tutorial, and more challanges are promised to come before version 1.0, while improving the performance in pathfinding seems to take a back seat. While it might not be nearly as fun to program it would make us desperatly happy to have. Please toady, Suffer through it for us!

Edit: i refer to the ADVANCED HELP ARC for the planned tutorial, as well as pretty much all the other arcs for more challanges, while there is indeed a BURROWS, TRANSPORTION AND AUTOMATION ARC, it doesn't really say there will be pathfinding improvements, just generally organizing the society better... not making the actual algorithm run faster in the same situation.

[Neonivek]

Most of the exceptions i can think of have very small player bases

Well that or they are just so instinctual they don't need guides. Though that doesn't apply to Dwarf Fortress...

[Rift]

It just scares me that theres no promise that we will have better pathfinding even by 2025[eta of version 1]

[Volfram]

I much agree with Tourettedog, likely because I am also one of those players who wants externally-imposed challenges(one of the reasons I'm REALLY looking forward to the new cavern system).

I would like to see a simpler military implementation.  Part of the reason my forts rarely last long is because the military is so hard to manage that I usually just line my entryway with several layers of cage traps and forget about it.  Instead, I try to make breding stocks of naked goblins to train gladiators on.

Perhaps I should play more of Adventure mode as an explorer.

[Capntastic]

I consider myself to be a pretty hardcore observer of DF's development, but I do think that there are a good deal of issues keeping it from being 'fun' and holding people's attention between releases.

In essence, I agree with CHANGE NAME PLEASE in pretty much every way.   There's a lot of stuff going on in a DF world, with religions and battles, etc, but there's very little the player can do to interact with any of it.   As it is, it's a bunch of mad libs, as was aptly stated.   Obviously, a lot of things in the game are placeholders right now.   The issue is that while these elaborate frameworks are built, the 'core game' itself is more or less stagnant.   While dwarves have personalities and hairstyles and elaborate geneologies, there is literally nothing the player can do to have fun with this other than reading the text dumps.   They provide no gameplay options, or anything 'tangible'.

I likewise see no reason why save compatibility is a big issue at this point.  There's almost no reason to keep a world for more than one fort, for the most part, since there's very very very little interaction between things at this point.   Save compatibility was awesome when new releases were happening every week or so. 

Essentially, DF's development is entirely one-tracked, which would be fine if there was more 'game' to experience while new things were added.   To symbolize it, it's like the oldschool 2D game, wherein you hold the right button and eventually get the message that your dwarves are dying while you're taking your trip to the center of the world.

So yeah, while I see that development appears slow as molasses because Toady's uprooting all these things and planting a new crop of content, I eagerly await a return to the old days when new stuff was added regularly.    And, past that, a lot of us hunger for more things to do in the world with the new stuff.   I think that's the bottom line.

[Neruz]

The only thing that got me was the ASCII graphics; i'm fine with low graphic games, but i need something to work off. There's plenty of graphic sets though; so that problem is solved for me.

Interface is kinda clunky and unintuitive; but i've seen and used worse and i got used to it fairly quickly.


Apart from that; keeping in mind that the game is basically an Alpha release, it's doing damn well.