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[corvvs]

Wow, I am amazed this thread is still alive.

What turns me off about DF, and I've posted this elsewhere, maybe here... is...

Well, it is unpopular, but I'll lay it out anyway.

found a lot of things wrong with the groundhog bite today. First, a groundhog ripped a lion in half and bit off a dwarf's arms... and it was using every part of its head (eyes, nose, etc.), not just its teeth, for the biting. After I fixed that up, it was still using its teeth like little needles and piercing brains and so on. I eventually got that sorted out.

Some systems in the game are WAY too simple, like farming. While some systems in the game are way to complicated, like the health/layers system.

I think the game is simply too complicated on a level few players will really understand. You have individual layers of flesh, bones and tendons. Why? Why make it that complicated. A system which allows the loss of limbs would be just as effective, almost as cool, and take a fraction of the time to develop.

It seems incredibly awesome, but now you have to spend time checking pointy-ness of the teeth of the groundhogs! And when all is said and done, the average player isn't going to look that deeply at how their guys lost his arms anyways.

If you are talking only about what turns new players off, I am going to stick to mouse support.

Click and drag mining baby!

Well, the problem comes in when you have tentacle demons or crazy monsters modders have made - the modders need ways to define limbs... and there's a "slippery slope" thing there except it's not a race to the bottom, it's a race to expose as much functionality as possible in the raws. I'd like to stress that I don't think this is a bad thing despite my use of the phrase "slippery slope"

By the way, you can use the mouse to designate now - I do it all the time when I need a tunnel that looks more natural as opposed to a 5-tile wide underground "highway."

[joquarky]

I started DF about a month or two ago.  It was quite overwhelming to get past the learning curve, but I decided that I would take that as a challenge.  I watched all of Captain Duck's video tutorials and relied heavily on the wiki.  In all, I spent about 20 hours reading up before my first embark.  Watching the video tutorials was actually quite entertaining, so this wasn't so bad.

I think most of my initial frustrations with DF were with the UI.  There are so many things that are strewn about without any order to them. 

Biggest one:  losing my cursor position.  Every time I reset and perform a new action, my cursor recenters.  This is especially frustrating when I want to switch between k, v, t, and q modes on the same object.

For that matter, why can't k, v, t and q be combined in some way?  Perhaps k could be the default, with the v, t, and q being "tabbed" modes you switch between like how gen inv pref and wnd are when viewing a dwarf, without requiring you to space back (leave screen) and re-position your cursor to the same object.

The information shown at the top of the k panel should be shown for the current tile while doing designations.

How exactly is the Stocks portion of the Status window organized?  It's not alphabetical or any pattern that I can discern.  I notice some related things seem lumped together, but as a newbie, I find it takes a lot of time to find things.

It's very frustrating setting up dwarf preferences and labors.  Maybe I'm missing something, but I find it enormously frustrating to go down the unit list one-by-one and "zoom cre" to go to each dwarf, set their labor, then space back only to find that it doesn't bring me back to the unit list, like it does with viewcre.  Instead, I have to re-open the unit list and then page/arrow down to the next dwarf (hopefully I remember the name of the last one I was configuring to know the next one to arrow down to).

When there is too much stuff blinking, I often can't find my X cursor.  Perhaps the cursor should have a unique tile that easily distinguishes it from the stairs, bins, etc.

I am unable to prioritize jobs.  There are critical times when this is extremely frustrating.

Please make a way to configure which types of stone are important enough to justify pausing and recentering my view when they are discovered.  I find it nearly impossible to do anything while doing exploration mining.


And here are some lesser issues:

Can we make some way to condense stone that doesn't seem hackish like the 1-tile garbage zone?  Perhaps we could build pallets that act like bins (but only for stone) so that we can stack stone on them to save perhaps 10x space in stone stockpiles.

It's very unrealistic that I can carve out huge rooms without any consequences (e.g., some risk of cave-in, especially in sandy soil).  This makes the game kind of boring in that I have no reason to make individual stockpile rooms.  I might as well just lump everything into one super-sized stockpile room and set up workshops scattered about in the middle of it.

It's very frustrating that I can't designate a bed (or other furniture) to be built in a certain tile whenever a bed becomes available.  When I move to a new house, I can designate that I will place my bed somewhere without having to currently own a bed.

Please let there be a way to have more than one line of announcements (optimally, let us configure the number of lines that can be used for announcements) on the main screen.  Sometimes things just go by so fast I feel like I have to constantly keep hitting a to catch everything since there is constantly [MORE].

I have no idea what most of the symbols mean on the embark map.  I don't even see a reference on the wiki.

I wish that each object in the game could get its own graphical tile in the same way that there is an option to give creatures their own graphical tileset.  There are too many characters that have multiple uses and newbies don't have enough experience to determine what something is from context.

[h45hc0d3]

For that matter, why can't k, v, t and q be combined in some way?  Perhaps k could be the default, with the v, t, and q being "tabbed" modes you switch between like how gen inv pref and wnd are when viewing a dwarf, without requiring you to space back (leave screen) and re-position your cursor to the same object.

I like that. Toggles for the cursor inside ANOTHER submenu! You're brilliant

How exactly is the Stocks portion of the Status window organized?  It's not alphabetical or any pattern that I can discern.  I notice some related things seem lumped together, but as a newbie, I find it takes a lot of time to find things.

It's in the same order every other big list is in, if I recall correctly. I might be crazy - I play dwarf fortress, after all! - but I think they're the same order?

It's very frustrating setting up dwarf preferences and labors.  Maybe I'm missing something, but I find it enormously frustrating to go down the unit list one-by-one and "zoom cre" to go to each dwarf, set their labor, then space back only to find that it doesn't bring me back to the unit list, like it does with viewcre.  Instead, I have to re-open the unit list and then page/arrow down to the next dwarf (hopefully I remember the name of the last one I was configuring to know the next one to arrow down to).

Heh, yeah. I really need to either start using nicknames more, or remembering first AND last names.

When there is too much stuff blinking, I often can't find my X cursor.  Perhaps the cursor should have a unique tile that easily distinguishes it from the stairs, bins, etc.

Shouldn't be too hard for you to change its COLOR.

Please make a way to configure which types of stone are important enough to justify pausing and recentering my view when they are discovered.  I find it nearly impossible to do anything while doing exploration mining.

Isn't that already available in the init file?

Can we make some way to condense stone that doesn't seem hackish like the 1-tile garbage zone?  Perhaps we could build pallets that act like bins (but only for stone) so that we can stack stone on them to save perhaps 10x space in stone stockpiles.

But how do we get the stone to keep from rolling around on the pallet? I know, we'll cut it into blocks and sort it out into bins! GENIUS

It's very unrealistic that I can carve out huge rooms without any consequences (e.g., some risk of cave-in, especially in sandy soil).  This makes the game kind of boring in that I have no reason to make individual stockpile rooms.  I might as well just lump everything into one super-sized stockpile room and set up workshops scattered about in the middle of it.

Define huge. Unless I'm wrong, I thought any 7x7 unsupported area was fair game for a cavein, just that they didn't necessarily happen instantly.

Please let there be a way to have more than one line of announcements (optimally, let us configure the number of lines that can be used for announcements) on the main screen.  Sometimes things just go by so fast I feel like I have to constantly keep hitting a to catch everything since there is constantly [MORE].

So pause the game and hit a. Spacebar is pause, you know, and I don't think most players consider spacebar an exploit.

I have no idea what most of the symbols mean on the embark map.  I don't even see a reference on the wiki.

They're mostly meaningless. If you quint, you can tell they're symbols... on a map. Where they change is probably where something on the MAP changes.

I wish that each object in the game could get its own graphical tile in the same way that there is an option to give creatures their own graphical tileset.  There are too many characters that have multiple uses and newbies don't have enough experience to determine what something is from context.

Isn't that why we all use your new and improved loo(K) tool?

[MrWiggles]

And here are some lesser issues:

Can we make some way to condense stone that doesn't seem hackish like the 1-tile garbage zone?  Perhaps we could build pallets that act like bins (but only for stone) so that we can stack stone on them to save perhaps 10x space in stone stockpiles.

Blocks, lots and lots of blocks. And mass dumping, with localized garbage zones for short drag times.

It's very unrealistic that I can carve out huge rooms without any consequences (e.g., some risk of cave-in, especially in sandy soil).  This makes the game kind of boring in that I have no reason to make individual stockpile rooms.  I might as well just lump everything into one super-sized stockpile room and set up workshops scattered about in the middle of it.

Cave-in mechanic is a place holder for the actual cave in mechanics, which the next release will have the ground for, with all thew raw information for tiles. LIke tension strength, I think was added. The community doesn't consider this a high priority thing right now, but you can vote to help influence that. But yea, you're right. It is broke.

It's very frustrating that I can't designate a bed (or other furniture) to be built in a certain tile whenever a bed becomes available.  When I move to a new house, I can designate that I will place my bed somewhere without having to currently own a bed.

You can actually, what happen is that the bed is getting marked for stockpile storage, and consider in use as soon as its built. You could influence this by setting small number of dorf with furniture hauling, or babysit the workshop.

Please let there be a way to have more than one line of announcements (optimally, let us configure the number of lines that can be used for announcements) on the main screen.  Sometimes things just go by so fast I feel like I have to constantly keep hitting a to catch everything since there is constantly [MORE].

You can! IN in the init file, lots of neat stuff to set options for your liking.

I have no idea what most of the symbols mean on the embark map.  I don't even see a reference on the wiki.

I wish that each object in the game could get its own graphical tile in the same way that there is an option to give creatures their own graphical tileset.  There are too many characters that have multiple uses and newbies don't have enough experience to determine what something is from context.

I am annoyed by this as well, since there is no actual reason for this to be case, that it was a game design descion. However, this is generally a weakness of ASCII text game in general.

If you make liable use of the loo(k), command you begin to recognize the difference animals based on context, and color of the tile. Occasionally I do confuse grounds with goblins when they come to siege me. 

I apologist for hardcode snarkiness.

[Neruz]

I have to say, if Toady does fix Atom Smashing and Quantum Dump Zones, he'd better add some way to deal with the giant masses of stone lying around; a stone garbage disposal or something.

[Typoman]

I have to say, if Toady does fix Atom Smashing and Quantum Dump Zones, he'd better add some way to deal with the giant masses of stone lying around; a stone garbage disposal or something.

it's called a megaproject. another common name is bottomless pit or chasm
but yeah if you don't have the latter and don't want to do the former there does need to be something. currently the "exploits (currently not so much because there is not really another viable option in the described circumstances)" do it but take them away and people who like clean forts and the stocks screen not getting stuck if you forget to pgdwn at the right moment will most likely be very annoyed

[Neruz]

Megaprojects don't actually get rid of the stone though; it can still be accessed in the stone menu.

[Andir]

Megaprojects don't actually get rid of the stone though; it can still be accessed in the stone menu.

It does if you build something out of the stone.

[Neruz]

Megaprojects don't actually get rid of the stone though; it can still be accessed in the stone menu.

It does if you build something out of the stone.

No-oo, i'm pretty sure the stone in walls remains in the stone menu.

[Typoman]

Megaprojects don't actually get rid of the stone though; it can still be accessed in the stone menu.

It does if you build something out of the stone.

No-oo, i'm pretty sure the stone in walls remains in the stone menu.

if that is the case, add that to the list of things that need fixing.
it's just silly.
mangager: "why haven't you built the 25th floor yet?"
mason: "no stone"
manager: "what we have 10's of thousands of units what are you talking about?"
mason:"yeah, those are in the other 24 floors"
manager: *rage*
manager: where's that clerk i'm gonna rip his arm off and shove it down his throat! then put him in the drowning chamber!

[Neonivek]

Perhaps we could build pallets that act like bins (but only for stone) so that we can stack stone on them to save perhaps 10x space in stone stockpiles.

The problem is that effectively one stone could be all that is required to fill an entire square (and indeed it is) so a Pallet could only fit one MAYBE 2 stone.

Though it does say something about storing things off site. Which would be a more logical fix (and what sort of enemy is even capable or willing to steal large quantities of stone?) for the distant future.

[Granite26]

Perhaps we could build pallets that act like bins (but only for stone) so that we can stack stone on them to save perhaps 10x space in stone stockpiles.

The problem is that effectively one stone could be all that is required to fill an entire square (and indeed it is) so a Pallet could only fit one MAYBE 2 stone.

Though it does say something about storing things off site. Which would be a more logical fix (and what sort of enemy is even capable or willing to steal large quantities of stone?) for the distant future.

I don't think I like the idea of saying 1 ANYTHING 'fills' a magic square...

I always have 3-4 stonecrafters near the fort entrance working full speed on crafts.  Dump everything they make on any trade caravan that comes by (taking whatever seems useful off of it and leaving them with a 300-400% profit)

[asper]

3. Exploratory mining... this is pretty 'grind-ish'. You have to slooowly lay out line by line and hope you hit something interesting. Would be nice if this was improved.

How would you propose to "improve" this without dumbing the game down? Mining should be realistic, and this involves what you called "grinding".

[Neruz]

What we could definitely use is a 'mine out this vein' command. Once i find a vein i don't want to babysit my dwarves telling them to mine it out properly.

[Granite26]

What we could definitely use is a 'mine out this vein' command. Once i find a vein i don't want to babysit my dwarves telling them to mine it out properly.

apathy cures all ills...