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[NW_Kohaku]

Which is one of the reasons I'm excited about the caravan arc- "No thanks, my King, I have no desire to tramp across half a continent to kill some dragon that has been plaguing our people since the creation of the world. I'm perfectly capable of killing it should he try to meddle in my affairs, mind you, but I'd rather spend my time strengthening my stranglehold on the silver trade through my plan of economic domination, bribery, and strategic assassinations. But hey, if you would like some *silver warhammers* to equip some other fool with, don't hesitate to send your best offer!"

Part of why Koei's Uncharted Waters series has always held a place in my heart - you can be an explorer, a pirate, or a merchant.  If you really felt like it, you can just drop the whole plot and go off doing whatever it is you really feel like doing, and there actually are other things to do. 

I don't think I'll actually start playing Adventurer mode until we have an interactive enough city and economic model that I can actually play a character that doesn't have to engage in combat to be interesting.

I'd really like to see something like "I want to be a cheesemaker" somehow manage to become an interesting way to play the game, although I'm not sure that's going to really be possible for a long time, yet.

[Yoink]

Playing a cheesemaker in an average Fortress 'round here would be. Freaking. Terrifying.

[Genoraven]

Which is one of the reasons I'm excited about the caravan arc- "No thanks, my King, I have no desire to tramp across half a continent to kill some dragon that has been plaguing our people since the creation of the world. I'm perfectly capable of killing it should he try to meddle in my affairs, mind you, but I'd rather spend my time strengthening my stranglehold on the silver trade through my plan of economic domination, bribery, and strategic assassinations. But hey, if you would like some *silver warhammers* to equip some other fool with, don't hesitate to send your best offer!"

Part of why Koei's Uncharted Waters series has always held a place in my heart - you can be an explorer, a pirate, or a merchant.  If you really felt like it, you can just drop the whole plot and go off doing whatever it is you really feel like doing, and there actually are other things to do. 

I don't think I'll actually start playing Adventurer mode until we have an interactive enough city and economic model that I can actually play a character that doesn't have to engage in combat to be interesting.

I'd really like to see something like "I want to be a cheesemaker" somehow manage to become an interesting way to play the game, although I'm not sure that's going to really be possible for a long time, yet.

I also look forward to that. Though i don't think it's that far off(comparatively).

[zwei]

I'm always surprised when I find out how much trouble people have with the military interface- I've found that the basic premises behind it were rather intuitive, and a little dedicated work irons out most of the quirks with the system. I've always had more trouble with farming and maintaining the clothing industry- I can never quite balance it right.

There are some fundamental issues:

1) Schedulle switches do not provide feedback. It takes some time for dwarves to snap out of their previous orders. It makes everything seem like it just does not work at all. I completelly expect squad that was just assigned to patroll duty to actually start patroling instead of chilling out for month or so.

2) Enter key deletes. Seriously, how come, that is like ... worst key posible for that task. This is especially annoying when you accidentally delete chest item from default Metal Armor as there is not way to re-add that one other than reseting uniform... and if you manage to delete that from uniform, well it is ctrl-alt-del time and continuing from latest backup.

3) Squad assigments forces you to pick for all the dwarves, including other squads. Cue massive confusion and accidentally canibalized older squads. Even worse, when you add dwarf, list scroll position resets and if you want to add another dwarf that was right next to him (typical for new immigrants), you have to scroll again. It is also painfully useless if you decide to draft everyone as emergency response - try doing that to 150 pop fort without going insane.

[James.Denholm]

Playing a cheesemaker in an average Fortress 'round here would be. Freaking. Terrifying.

What's so special about the cheesemakers?

[Rip0k]

Playing a cheesemaker in an average Fortress 'round here would be. Freaking. Terrifying.

What's so special about the cheesemakers?

Back at 40d they didn't have easy lives. Best they could hope for was military.

[James.Denholm]

Playing a cheesemaker in an average Fortress 'round here would be. Freaking. Terrifying.

What's so special about the cheesemakers?

Back at 40d they didn't have easy lives. Best they could hope for was military.

But... You... There was... Daaaaaaah.

[G-Flex]

It would be cool if, other than just the terrible, zombifying curses, you could also get relatively benign ones, like a boil or wart on your character's nose, to set off the scars.

Or extremely fertile dwarves in some regions.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You guys are spoiled.  You know how long it took to go from DF3D to Temples'n'Shit DF?  Over a year.  No releases in between.

The thing I dislike the most about the current version is the way you pretty  much have to hit somebody in the head or heart to kill them.  I'd like to see some kind of trauma system put in where severe injuries have a chance to kill you outright, with that chance increasing as you become more badly injured and probably related to toughness.  Get impaled on a sword as a weedy peasant?  Probably instant death.  Same thing as a martial trancing axedorf?  You might die, but probably not, unless you're already badly hurt.

Funny thing is, that's almost what happens in the real life too. People don't really die outright unless their brain ceases functioning, the quickest ways of achieving which are hits to the heart to stop bloodflow, or hits to the head. In most cases where this is not achieved, the victim simply receives a severe wound that makes them die of blood loss or suffocation. What DF seems to have a lack of is a state of shock, or similar incapacitation due to sudden massive injury. We have "giving in to pain", which serves a similar purpose but is a bit too hazy, and getting knocked unconscious, which is exclusively a "headshot" thing. Giving in to pain seems to work as a threshold to an accumulated "pain" value right now, but maybe it could be improved by adding a "surge protector" quality to it? A sudden jump in the pain value should be able to trigger the state as well, which could probably make fights more realistic - you stab someone in the guts and they collapse, because of sudden overwhelming pain. Which lets you perform a finishing move while they're down.

[Psieye]

I'm always surprised when I find out how much trouble people have with the military interface- I've found that the basic premises behind it were rather intuitive, and a little dedicated work irons out most of the quirks with the system. I've always had more trouble with farming and maintaining the clothing industry- I can never quite balance it right.

There are some fundamental issues:

1) Schedulle switches do not provide feedback. It takes some time for dwarves to snap out of their previous orders. It makes everything seem like it just does not work at all. I completelly expect squad that was just assigned to patroll duty to actually start patroling instead of chilling out for month or so.

2) Enter key deletes. Seriously, how come, that is like ... worst key posible for that task. This is especially annoying when you accidentally delete chest item from default Metal Armor as there is not way to re-add that one other than reseting uniform... and if you manage to delete that from uniform, well it is ctrl-alt-del time and continuing from latest backup.

3) Squad assigments forces you to pick for all the dwarves, including other squads. Cue massive confusion and accidentally canibalized older squads. Even worse, when you add dwarf, list scroll position resets and if you want to add another dwarf that was right next to him (typical for new immigrants), you have to scroll again. It is also painfully useless if you decide to draft everyone as emergency response - try doing that to 150 pop fort without going insane.

It's a case of different play styles finding some issues to be irrelevant while others are glaringly huge. Issue #1 is a non-factor for me as I prefer to micromanage from the squads-screen instead of setting up patrol routes or defend burrows. Issue #2 is even less relevant because I prefer making all my equipment myself and I want a guarantee my soldiers equip specific armour types of specific materials which I know I've made. Issue #3 can be solved using Dwarf Therapist - give everyone temporary custom professions or nicknames like "S1", "S2" and remove them after setting up the squads. While the list position defaulting every time you select a dwarf is a nuisance, in the case of migrants I can just scroll backwards to get them as they're coming in from the map.

Well, that's this player's way of playing that doesn't get grossly bothered by these and other Issues with the game. Toady's task is to try and accommodate everyone's playstyles. The dev cycle currently does not have a "provide feedback for improvements, not just bugfixes". Toady moves on when he deems a set of features to be playable to certain styles, not every style.

[Rockphed]

Issue #3 can be solved using Dwarf Therapist - give everyone temporary custom professions or nicknames like "S1", "S2" and remove them after setting up the squads. While the list position defaulting every time you select a dwarf is a nuisance, in the case of migrants I can just scroll backwards to get them as they're coming in from the map.

When an action practically requires the use of a third party software, it is probably a good sign that the action is too hard to accomplish with in-game tools.

[Rip0k]

Playing a cheesemaker in an average Fortress 'round here would be. Freaking. Terrifying.

What's so special about the cheesemakers?

Back at 40d they didn't have easy lives. Best they could hope for was military.

But... You... There was... Daaaaaaah.

hehehhe...  now, that have completely slipped my mind. ;]

[thvaz]

I don't mean "completely finished", just that it would be nice for the current systems to be worked on a bit more, as a general rule. I certainly wouldn't expect Toady to revamp body part positioning/relationships right off the bat, but there are some things, some of them very simple, that he could do now in order to cause the current system to give more consistently reasonable results.

They are incomplete but they work, most  of the time. If you make extensive tests the problems will show up, but they are rarely a factor during play. If we hadn't the arena most of them wouldn't be known (and it's good we have the arena) . Some problems could be solved easily but as someone said they aren't bugs, they are problematic/unfinished features or orversights. I think Toady knows these problems, he only decided to solve them when he gets around them. This may happen in release 7 (combat move/speed split) or later, when he gets around the combat rewrite (martial arts, special moves and such).

Issue #3 can be solved using Dwarf Therapist - give everyone temporary custom professions or nicknames like "S1", "S2" and remove them after setting up the squads. While the list position defaulting every time you select a dwarf is a nuisance, in the case of migrants I can just scroll backwards to get them as they're coming in from the map.

When an action practically requires the use of a third party software, it is probably a good sign that the action is too hard to accomplish with in-game tools.

It isn't too hard, it can be done, but if the use of a third party makes it easier indeed there is room for improvement.

[Cthulhu]

Is the old list of powergoals and stuff gone?  I was trying to find it to see if there was anything in the future to let you play a Megabeast (Properly, not just setting it up so they're playable in adventure mode.  Living in a cave, sleeping on a pile of gold, adventurers attacking, you get the idea) but it's not there anymore.

[MasterMorality]

I'd love it if a curse could actually turn you into a night creature.
How cool would that be?