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The new channeling is covered in awesome sauce, the old channeling smelled real bad.

113 (19.3%)

The old channeling was the best, we don't need two ways to make ramps it is just silly.

245 (41.8%)

Old channeling was the best, new channeling is also the best.  Can't we all just get along?

132 (22.5%)

You people need to get on with your lives, it's not a big deal either way.

96 (16.4%)

Total Members Voted: 583

[Black]

The new channeling is not flawed, it just reveals flaws in the limitations of mine designation. It shows flaws in pathfinding and in what you can actually do. It would not be a problem if there were provisions for damming flows, advanced movement like climbing, and more intelligent dwarves.

[Pickled Tink]

Lest you forget, until we have climbing skills in the game, the holes made that way are insurmountable. In the displayed cases, the digger can get out by himself, or at the very least, with a rope or a helping hand. 1-level unramped drops in DF are currently as good as perfectly smooth, impregnable, zero-friction walls. There is no way to get on top of them. So I think the question isn't "how to dig a square pit and remain out of it", but "how to dig a square pit that's impossible to get out of, and remain out of it".

As has been pointed out, nothing says the walls are smooth (Unless you smooth them, by designating them to be smoothed). They are rough, but unclimbable as is.

A lot of things are abstracted in this game. Digging a series of handholds in one wall as you go down, climbing out of your hole using them, and then leaning over the edge and whacking them with your pick until they are unusable for climbing is a reasonable enough abstraction that would leave the dwarf in the tile they dug from.

[Randy Gnoman]

Perhaps it's hard for you to imagine someone digging out a perfectly square hole without a ramp, but I present to you (courtesy of Google Images) an assortment of holes for your viewing pleasure:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Have a nice day.

Please note that in each of these holes, there is a worker. A worker Inside of the hole.  Thus, we can see that they were not, in fact, dug out completely from above.  They started with a hole large enough to get into, got into it, and finished it up from inside.

[darkflagrance]

^Simple solution: temporary fix for gameplay (due to pathfinding) until the realism of the rest of the game can be brought up to par: reinstate the old channeling while keeping the new channeling as "Dig Down Ramp."

Everyone wins!

[Megaman]

Personally, I can find a fix for the problem of channeling making a super-defence moat- have goblins bring engineers to f*** up your super defence(I.E deploying bridges). Right now its an eye sore and just adds another step to making a moat

[Squirrelloid]

Perhaps it's hard for you to imagine someone digging out a perfectly square hole without a ramp, but I present to you (courtesy of Google Images) an assortment of holes for your viewing pleasure:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Have a nice day.

Please note that in each of these holes, there is a worker. A worker Inside of the hole.  Thus, we can see that they were not, in fact, dug out completely from above.  They started with a hole large enough to get into, got into it, and finished it up from inside.

When was the last time you saw someone dig out a chunk of rock deep enough to contain them swinging a weapon without entering the area they were digging out?  Dwarf miners do that all the time.  Repeat after me: ABSTRACTION.

[Felblood]

The holes are not square!

Channeling produces a rough tunnel with no roof.

The tiles are square, but the channels are not.

I can accept needing to get down in the hole to square up the corners and smooth the walls, but not being able to dig out a ditch from beside the ditch is just silly.

I'm sorry for shouting, but it seems like a lot of the arguing going on is over whether it's okay for the channel to be square, when that should be a complete non-issue, as the channels are not, and never have been, square.

For that matter, the debate over whether a channel this deep is believable is also fairly silly.

The channel is large enough to contain a dragon or a butterfly, but not two butterflies. Unless you propose that butterflies are more than half as large as a dragon, then the size of a channel is some kind of undefined, wave-like state.

This is Schrodinger's Channel, and it's size is both ridiculously bizarre, and perfectly reasonable, at the same time.

Until it's possible to cut a channel less than 1 tile cubed, people need to accept that, like the butterfly, the channel doesn't have to fill the entire square, it just prevents anything else from existing there. (Maybe just cut out the floor over the top? I dunno.)

[Silverionmox]

I can accept needing to get down in the hole to square up the corners and smooth the walls, but not being able to dig out a ditch from beside the ditch is just silly.

If you have arms longer than your body, it's indeed not silly. I'm convinced dwarves have arms that are shorter than their body.

There are important problems with the new channelling, most notably the lost ability to breach liquid basins without getting submerged. These problems need to be addressed.

However, clamouring for a return to the old ways for every minor change is not the way to go. If every slight discomfort is blocked, we'll never get away from the local maximum. (It's like the panda's thumb: pandas have a bony protrusion that has some functions of the human thumb. However, since they have that, they'll likely have a much smaller chance to evolve real thumbs, and therefore will never be able to use a cellphone and other neat stuff.)

[Pickled Tink]

I can accept needing to get down in the hole to square up the corners and smooth the walls, but not being able to dig out a ditch from beside the ditch is just silly.

If you have arms longer than your body, it's indeed not silly. I'm convinced dwarves have arms that are shorter than their body.

There are important problems with the new channelling, most notably the lost ability to breach liquid basins without getting submerged. These problems need to be addressed.

However, clamouring for a return to the old ways for every minor change is not the way to go. If every slight discomfort is blocked, we'll never get away from the local maximum. (It's like the panda's thumb: pandas have a bony protrusion that has some functions of the human thumb. However, since they have that, they'll likely have a much smaller chance to evolve real thumbs, and therefore will never be able to use a cellphone and other neat stuff.)

Excuse me, but no one is clamouring for every minor change to be reverted. We want one particular change which we see as a poor change that does not meet it's Toady described goal while introducing a number of other significant issues to be reverted. One. All you do here is, perhaps unintentionally, paint everyone on the other side of the discussion as whiners who resist change for the sake of resisting change.

As has been said before, digging a tile without entering it is an abstraction of the digging process. Everyone knows that you need to enter a tunnel to dig it farther along in real life. Likewise, digging a channel abstracts the process of the dwarf entering the tile, digging the hole, then climbing out where he got in and ruining the handholds he used to escape it so other things cannot do the same. The channels are not "smooth" as a mason can go in and smooth them (provided they are stone). They are rough edged holes that work.

The claims that the new channels increase realism have been answered repeatedly in this thread and others and those answers have been completely ignored. I, for one, am sick of this.

[Felblood]

Honestly, I don't think I stand with either side in this over polarized debate. Several people here are trying to portray this debate as a simplistic old vs. new issue, and it is not.

Nobody actively wants new channeling to go away, stifling it's ability to grow into something that is actually useful and intuitive. Given time, new channeling may well grow into something that a sane person would actually use, and no one is saying it shouldn't have that chance.

I am saying that new channeling is not ready for the big leagues, and we need old channeling back to support it, until it is ready to stand on it's own.

A major problem is that new channeling is not very intuitive. Many of it's defenders seems to have conflicting opinions of what a ramp in a 1 tile channel represents, and on first exposure it can be very confusing.

If it is indeed a shallower channel that ramps up on all sides (which seems to be the most credible theory, given the way this formation occasionally appears in natural hillsides.) then it's behavior needs to change to reflect that. If new channeling is an irrigation ditch small enough that you can dig it without standing in it and old channeling is an eight foot deep war trench, then new channeling should hold less water, and be dug by dwarves who don't have to stand in it.

This would allow for a lot of lost functionality(like cutting holes in floors without standing on the removed section, like a cartoon character), and be more realistic than the current confusion.

[elipsis]

I like the old way much better. the new way is twice the designation, for twice the work, to make a hole in the ground that doesn't cause pathing shenanigans.

if you want new channels to be a ditch, I'd make in an option to dig a hole or pit. which is exactly like old channeling. (or maybe if ramps take over channeling, maybe channeling should go take over ramps!!)

[Silverionmox]

Excuse me, but no one is clamouring for every minor change to be reverted. We want one particular change which we see as a poor change that does not meet it's Toady described goal while introducing a number of other significant issues to be reverted. One. All you do here is, perhaps unintentionally, paint everyone on the other side of the discussion as whiners who resist change for the sake of resisting change.

I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't notice that tendency elsewhere too. People tend to propose minor adjustments in numerical balance that are just clutter AFA suggestions for an alpha go. They're beta suggestions. It's understandable because we had to made do with 40d for so long, and fresh ideas came hard to come by, but 40d is just one step in the alpha process. It was never intended as a miniature version or vision of the final game.

Besides, the OP explicitly pleads to bring old channels back. But that has been discussed sufficiently, and ultimately we'll probably end up with possible designations to carve anything that can be carved, from the 9 positions, with or without tool, material or skill requirements.

Because of the long time that 40d was the DF version, a lot of changes that depart from it will seem unintuitive - but that just means 40d is the version we learned to love. Many of us started to play with that version. And then we see often, in response to new elements in the latest version, that people want the 40d stuff back (Eg. Bring old channels back! Bring the old military screen back!). Understandable, but it's more productive to combine the best of old and new, or fill the holes in the functionality of the new.

[Lord Darkstar]

Most people aren't clamouring for a return to 28.40d. There are only a few things causing issues with the user base. By far the largest complaints are: 1) New style channeling removes functionality that is needed, therefore please return that missing functioality, 2) military is buggy and hard to use, therefore please squash the bugs and refine the screens to be somewhat more intuitive/easiier to use, and 3) can we please have one automatic mapping of "indoors" for warrens so we don't have to constantly be updating the "inside fortress" warren?

Note that the first, lost functionality in channeling, is a very loud voice. Its absence is causing significant problems for the users. The player base doesn't care if the new "down ramps from above" stays, just that it gets back its missing functionality.

The second, military, is split between "bugs" (including "balance" issues) and easy usability. The player base with DF is used to having to go through a slog of screens and commands to get anything done, but the military screens do add another full layer of slog to do the most basic tasks. However, we can note that the player base sees the potentional in it, so they are just wanting the bigger bugs chased out, and the screens to get some (not final product quality) refinement.

The final issue bothering the player base is that there isn't a quick "inside" warren command. It is a bother to constantly build the equilavent burrow by hand, especially if all they want to do is get everyone and the stray animals to run into the fortress and shut the doors and raise the bridges. Players do like the new warrens, due to its potentional, but the constant updating of "inside" bothers some.

I don't see anyone clamouring for a return to the old "material" system, the removal of hospitals and healthcare, nor the removal of caverns. Just a user base wanting lost functionality restored, truly signficant bugs addressed before Toady moves on, and a lot of "Wow! Cool! This is great! And imagine it once the bugs are squashed! It will make the most awesome game become even more awesome!".

[CaptApollo12]

Most people aren't clamouring for a return to 28.40d. There are only a few things causing issues with the user base. By far the largest complaints are: 1) New style channeling removes functionality that is needed, therefore please return that missing functioality, 2) military is buggy and hard to use, therefore please squash the bugs and refine the screens to be somewhat more intuitive/easiier to use, and 3) can we please have one automatic mapping of "indoors" for warrens so we don't have to constantly be updating the "inside fortress" warren?

Note that the first, lost functionality in channeling, is a very loud voice. Its absence is causing significant problems for the users. The player base doesn't care if the new "down ramps from above" stays, just that it gets back its missing functionality.

The second, military, is split between "bugs" (including "balance" issues) and easy usability. The player base with DF is used to having to go through a slog of screens and commands to get anything done, but the military screens do add another full layer of slog to do the most basic tasks. However, we can note that the player base sees the potentional in it, so they are just wanting the bigger bugs chased out, and the screens to get some (not final product quality) refinement.

The final issue bothering the player base is that there isn't a quick "inside" warren command. It is a bother to constantly build the equilavent burrow by hand, especially if all they want to do is get everyone and the stray animals to run into the fortress and shut the doors and raise the bridges. Players do like the new warrens, due to its potentional, but the constant updating of "inside" bothers some.

I don't see anyone clamouring for a return to the old "material" system, the removal of hospitals and healthcare, nor the removal of caverns. Just a user base wanting lost functionality restored, truly signficant bugs addressed before Toady moves on, and a lot of "Wow! Cool! This is great! And imagine it once the bugs are squashed! It will make the most awesome game become even more awesome!".

I Fully agree. The functionality of a program is what makes it what it is. Doing my own ascii game for my computer programming class I know that the little things that you can do is what the game really is. Funtionality is key to keep players interested enough to care. What Im saying is that because we can do less. DF is not as good as it could be with the function restored. When we talk about realism - game about dwarves -

[Silverionmox]

Most people aren't clamouring for a return to 28.40d.

I'm not saying that, and I recognize that the complaints are valid, sensible concerns. The reaction, to insist to going back to like it was before, is not a productive solution for those problems, especially not in the long run.

AFA realism is concerned: realism doesn't matter, but verisimilitude does. A world has to make sense. If dwarves can't climb out of a pit, they also can't climb out of a pit they just dug, period. Which doesn't invalidate temporary solutions that imply that, but don't count on it staying that way forever.

Additionally, Toady has set an AD 1400 boundary for reasons of atmosphere and balance. Warring late feudal states with developing cities is a much more interesting setting for a game like DF than the empires of the industrial revolution. The further we stray from that period, the further we stray from that pleasant balance.