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DF General Discussion / Re: *We need your help to save the noobs!*
« on: November 04, 2019, 12:35:48 pm »
I wrote this all out on Friday while I was waiting for my username to register on the forums, so apologies if I'm being repetitive, but:
To me, there are a few pieces that get me as a still fairly new player:
First is this statement: "Starting a fortress should be relatively easy given the right embark." The right embark isn't super trivial, and even when it is, there are things that aren't easy to understand when following getting started guides and the like. Even once I find the menu for searching for a spot, do I want trees? Aquifers? Metals? Flux? Savagery? Evil is a simple thing to determine I don't want, but... Just some way for a new player to skip from "I've generated a world" to "I'm embarking on a beginner fortress" would be excellent - all of the configuration for embarks and what goods you're bringing with you are... overwhelming.
The second thing that got me and still gets me is how job suspension works. You get a warning in a place that you're not really accustomed to looking (as a new player,) and 2 months later, all of your dwarves are dehydrated because you didn't realize your still got suspended. To exacerbate issues, I put it on repeat, which I always assume means "Do this whenever you can," but the suspensions mean that when I inevitably make mistakes, even once I fix them, I have to go back, find the suspension, and clear it. Once you're in the swing of things, suspensions are somewhat rare and easier to fix, but as a new player, constant suspensions are really rough.
And the last is the value of nobles, and their requirements. I recently came back to the game after being away for a while, and despite knowing vaguely that I needed nobles, and figuring out how to assign them, I couldn't remember what they were supposed to do, AND it's unclear why I would need them on a lot of screens. When trading, there's no indication that you don't know what things are worth, and worse, it looks kind of like weight is value. When looking at your stocks, it tells you that you need a broker to determine value, but doesn't tell you that you need a bookkeeper. And, well, nobody even mentions what the manager does in getting started guides, and the menu is hidden behind two button presses. And even once you assign them, they don't actual work until you fulfill their requirements, which you can tell from the noble screen, but not from the screens where you're looking for the information. A lot of the learning of DF happens when you find a thing, and think "Huh, I wonder how to do that," and things like stocks and the trading screen don't clearly say "This screen will be more useful once you have a properly-beofficed <manager, bookkeeper, etc>"
To me, there are a few pieces that get me as a still fairly new player:
First is this statement: "Starting a fortress should be relatively easy given the right embark." The right embark isn't super trivial, and even when it is, there are things that aren't easy to understand when following getting started guides and the like. Even once I find the menu for searching for a spot, do I want trees? Aquifers? Metals? Flux? Savagery? Evil is a simple thing to determine I don't want, but... Just some way for a new player to skip from "I've generated a world" to "I'm embarking on a beginner fortress" would be excellent - all of the configuration for embarks and what goods you're bringing with you are... overwhelming.
The second thing that got me and still gets me is how job suspension works. You get a warning in a place that you're not really accustomed to looking (as a new player,) and 2 months later, all of your dwarves are dehydrated because you didn't realize your still got suspended. To exacerbate issues, I put it on repeat, which I always assume means "Do this whenever you can," but the suspensions mean that when I inevitably make mistakes, even once I fix them, I have to go back, find the suspension, and clear it. Once you're in the swing of things, suspensions are somewhat rare and easier to fix, but as a new player, constant suspensions are really rough.
And the last is the value of nobles, and their requirements. I recently came back to the game after being away for a while, and despite knowing vaguely that I needed nobles, and figuring out how to assign them, I couldn't remember what they were supposed to do, AND it's unclear why I would need them on a lot of screens. When trading, there's no indication that you don't know what things are worth, and worse, it looks kind of like weight is value. When looking at your stocks, it tells you that you need a broker to determine value, but doesn't tell you that you need a bookkeeper. And, well, nobody even mentions what the manager does in getting started guides, and the menu is hidden behind two button presses. And even once you assign them, they don't actual work until you fulfill their requirements, which you can tell from the noble screen, but not from the screens where you're looking for the information. A lot of the learning of DF happens when you find a thing, and think "Huh, I wonder how to do that," and things like stocks and the trading screen don't clearly say "This screen will be more useful once you have a properly-beofficed <manager, bookkeeper, etc>"