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Author Topic: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think - Posted my conclusion  (Read 15678 times)

Putnam

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2014, 11:41:13 pm »

i've ranted enough thank you

Dwimenor

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2014, 12:45:09 am »

I know it's strange, but masterowk (I was trying somewhere around v5) was much slower then original for me. Not actual gameplay, but loading the game (and launcher) took ages. That is not specific to MDF, every "big" mod that adds a lot of content (I nailed that down to having to much castes) works like this on my laptop. Once the game is loaded everything is just fine. But creating world, embarking, loading/saving takes ages.

Second thing - lack of upstream Linux version.

On a plus side - I really like the whole enable/disable addons thing. I wish there was something like this for Lazy Newb Launcher, a possibility to play around with small modification.
(Well, there is. dfhavkr5 have initial support for that and pylnp launcher is working towards something similar)
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thvaz

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2014, 01:30:25 am »

I don't really like mods for DF. I'm mostly a purist, I don't use tilesets, DT, DFHack... at most I do small changes at the raws by myself.

I did try Masterwork once - I don't remember the version -  and I thought it missed the point in what makes DF great. It has a very palpable "gamey" feel, a bit like the old pre-Z dimension DF was. I think this is a good thing to have, but it is not for me.

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Nopenope

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2014, 01:49:59 am »

Second thing - lack of upstream Linux version.
Yeah, that too. I think I stopped playing the mod because I didn't feel like booting back to windows for the sole purpose of playing MDF.
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Getix Kain

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2014, 03:37:22 am »

I love the streamlined materials.
I wish I could have it for DF2014... :(

I like the launcher, played around 7-8 forts with MDF 5.x.
I found it fun and much faster than the original DF2012 due to the streamlining (my PC is not really powerful, so...).

Loved the launcher :D
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kingu

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2014, 04:51:35 am »

Ok here goes. I have been active in MDF forums but only when I actually play the mod so I guess I will write something here. Now I play vanilla for obvious reasons.

Playing vanilla again after playing ALOT of MDF is actually a really good thing for the express purpouse of giving MDF feedback. If this was a month ago I would have said I love everything with MDF. I still love it and I will soon be back but here a a couple of thoughts.

*Please keep up with the manual to the point of not releasing anything that is not properly included in the manual at the same time. When I played I found it hard or impossible to find out anything about for example alot of the wildlife and about some new materials. ( I dont understand the RAWs very well and is not intrested in learning) I know that some things might play better as a surprise (like being killed by unknown wildlife because of a blunt sword) but that should be optional as well as everything else. This might all be fixed now but it was an issue when I played.

*the only thing I really dont miss when playing vanilla again are the castes. They do nothng for me other than actually make me spend MORE time assigning labors.

*If it is possible I would like a few less workshops but still keep all the stuff in MDF. I understand if this is impossible but I feel quite relieved playing vanilla now not having to make so many to get the full experience.

* now I feel all the magic stuff doesnt belong with dwarfs (along with the pretend -bood-metals). Its still fun but out of place. Maybe move that to another race entirely?

Kepp up the good work! I really like plaing kobolds for the insane difficulty. Please keep kobold being really hard to play until I get back :)

« Last Edit: August 13, 2014, 04:54:45 am by kingu »
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KingofstarrySkies

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2014, 04:58:05 am »

I'm going to be very blunt with this; prepare thineself.

I love this goddamn mod so much.

Every race feels fleshed out and well done, the combat just feels BETTER, and overall it's just more fun IMO. Lag is sometimes an issue, but I usually don't mind.
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NullForceOmega

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2014, 07:12:22 am »

I have played several versions of MW, and I just can't stay with it.  It feels incredibly slow for some reason, likely because everything is harder to do.  The farming changes are painfully overdone to me, yes I can disable parts, even most of the changes, but it still feels too extreme.  The various hostile creatures added by the mod are fun, but some (anything firebreathing) are a pain in the neck to even deal with, other (syndrome and interaction users) are simply cheap.  I have many ways to kill this fortress without arbitrary deaths and effects destroying any semblance of control.  The workshops are a humongous hassle, often requiring unreasonable volumes of materials just for construction, then adding huge numbers of activities that use some of the weirdest combinations of skills.  The mining changes are agonizing, even with the hazards turned off carving out even a basic fort takes forever, the reduced skill gains don't feel good for basic gameplay reasons.  I hate the castes, there, I said it.  The entire damned caste system is mind-numbing.  I can't even describe how much I hate it.  Carp god and other hidden stuff, thanks, more arbitrary crap to kill my fort while I'm actually trying to build up into a workable state.

That was a lot of negativity, and I'm a bit sorry about it, because there are things in MW that I really like, but it gets quickly overshadowed by the stuff I don't.
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Gnomeknows

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2014, 07:33:39 am »

Played latest version, being a new player having migrated to DF from Minecraft.  I wanted an in-depth game that I could play without feeling the need to include too many mods.  Mainly because for all the evolution in and standardizing of modding that minecraft has gone through, most still fall prey to a few simple key issues, here are the ones I felt MDF has fallen prey to:

First - documentation.  I put this first because it is THE most important thing.  The manuals were very lack luster.  Also the less you have to consult the MDF manuals the better.  In-game documentation, or simply intuitive reactions/building design are best.  EDIT: One big thing I noticed, is the wiki for the mod.  Vanilla df has the player base to support a wiki, sadly your mod does not.  Most pages are blank, still.  Many pages are missing.  Documentation will most likely have to come from you.  Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's what this thread is for, right?

Second - less is more.  Especially in a game with DF's already enormous depth.  It's grating to see mods that force content and ignore what's already there, feels like the modder is trying to fit a square in a round hole.  My favorite mods have always been the ones that expand on already existing elements, or provide alternative routes to accomplishing goals, for example one thing I did really like was new way to get fuel that used an existing building.  That is also an example of how to eliminate some of the need for documentation as the player will discover it naturally without making new buildings and  there's no mystery around how to accomplish it.

third - incomplete or buggy content.  Remove it, all of it.  If it isn't done, but you need feedback, a dev branch would do that right?  Most would want a clean, complete feeling mod.  It would also ensure a more dedicated tester base, as they would be volunteers, not frustrated fans.  I might feel different about this except that I'm not a teenage gamer anymore :P, anything that feels rushed or not at least semi-professional just makes me go into a cane waving frenzy lol.

I'll end this with a few of the things I enjoyed most about the mod:

First and foremost, the races.  You had me at gnomes. 

Second - alternative power and expanded machinery and traps, electricity etc.  The extra automation

third - the different ways to interact with the world at large with raids, telegraphs etc, adds nicely to the immersion.
« Last Edit: August 13, 2014, 08:24:34 am by Gnomeknows »
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Dyret

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2014, 08:17:09 am »

Yeah, I have the same problem most people seem to. Too much stuff that doesn't actually add anything. It's incredibly cool to play around with whatever modders can come up with, but all of it in the same mod is too much. The preposterous amount of workshops is especially silly, but I understand that has something to do with modding limitations at the moment.
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Splint

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #25 on: August 13, 2014, 08:37:10 am »

Manuals - I know you don't like doing them but you're the only one who knows everything about the mod (more or less,) and people who make various races need to do this as well: Keep up with them. make sure the manual documents everything major and even some of the minor. For example, the crucible in the manual didn't mention needing x number of boulders, nor do the relevant minerals. It was infuriating the first time I tried to process raw mithril when I had some and fuel only to realize I needed 3 mithril boulders to get anything. Chances are there's stuff I haven't done simply because the manual was less than helpful as to what was needed or what something did, or what would be a warning sign of what, exacerbated by issues concerning if it's clear in-game.

Diseases - You've heard me say this before. They need better documentation and/or a rewrite at the very least. The manual is no help other than 'it does this and spreads this fast' and a combat report tells me nothing about a disease unless it's super obvious, especially since several of them don't bother dwarves enough to make them see a doctor until it's practically killed them already or a chronic issue (stop complaining about your damned eyes Urist, they can't fix them!) I know someone else wrote them but at least some helpful information on what report goes with what disease in the manual under a spoiler would be nice. I'm also in favor of anything that can possibly cause permanent unconsciousness to just have that effect be replaced with "fatal stroke" instead. It saves a lot of trouble killing them yourself and keeps trade from being screwed up by that one jerk merchant who went and had a blood pressure spike in the caravan.

Alternative/other metals - Some people have complained about Bloodsteel and Ironbone, but I personally fine them as a great addition. It takes some pressure off hunting for metals when you can use other materials to make something just as good from renewable resources; it also lets you order other things from caravans instead of coal and ore. Like booze  for example. On that note, the alchemy lab should probably have those reactions placed in a separate workshop that can be accessed without research; You already have to sacrifice food (do you want to be able to eat that meat or fend off that goblin with something other than a copper sword and no armor?) or buy blood for Bloodsteel and use bones you could have used for crafts or training ammo on ironbone. No need to shoot people in the foot by making them possibly waste effort researching the lab.

SOmeone complained about bifrost and volcanic (I'd be in favor of a different name for that if a better one can be concocted,) when you need to work to get those by either great resource investment or killing one of the toughest ivading forces, with thier effectiveness reflecting the effort/danger in much the same way Adamantine does with the risk of demonic incursion for harvesting it.

Standardized materials - I love it. While it is a little annoying to only get generic stuff from things like titans, it's less shit to make the game track and less to track = a better running game performance-wise

Races - I feel the hermit was a pointless addition. I mean it, I really do feel like you wasted your effort on that, not because it was a bad idea, but because it's not something a lot of people will play or want. Part of the fun of playing a hermit fort is watching the migrants show up and die because they eventually start killing each other due to lack of beds, clothes, or what have you.

Succubi felt a little... Forced, to be included. They really don't feel like they fit well like the Warlocks did.  Boltgun did a great job on them from the looks of things, but overall I feel like they shouldn't have been included in Masterwork and would have worked better as their own expansion to vanilla. Kind of on the fence about the Drow as well because they kind of feel out of place in DF in general, but I'm used to them in Masterwork as an unplayable enemy/ally and if they stayed that way it'd be fine. They're a race that I feel really shouldn't be made playable for Masterwork.

Carp God - For the longest time carp were feared and rightly so. I find them a fun little threat to have as it stands to reason some would start to worship those fell fish in hopes of appeasing thier violent dorf-eating nature. I don't know why anyone would have complained about them, or the secret fun in general since it can be disabled before worldgen. Hell, I've never even run into them.

Dwarven Religious System: Dislike the references to armok, both in buildings and the wards. Shrines, Wards, and Temples should just be shrines, wards, and temples, while the Oracle of Armok can be changed to just "Volcanic Oracle." That way it feels less "meta" as it comes off instead as your dorfs call upon your civ's pantheon rather than an entity that they actually shouldn't know about. Plus on that last one dwarves often have volcano gods anyway so that's a win win.

Magic for Dwarves: I like it. They get a pinch of evil and good magic with things they'd regularly work with, as well as being able to act as considerably more versatile (or niche depending on your outlook,) troops at a great cost in resources (both in getting the alters and upgrading mages, especially in large numbers.) Need some heavy hitters for crowd control? Earth School. Web flinging FB? Air School. Firebreather? Sick the Fire School Mages on it. Want to hold an enemy at a bridge over a body of water or have to fight them near a crapload of ponds? The water mages can fight there safely (for a certain value of the word safely.) They fill various roles that regular dwarves can't and traps may take too long to prepare.

Trade nerf for dwarves: I read somewhere that the dwarves can't sell things anymore, which I find kind of a bad design choice. Long before the humans were playable the dwarves were able to buy and sell what they wanted in exchange for a trade license to build the shop; made it a great way to get rid of excess materials and get fewer, nicer things, or things you needed in a pinch. Or wanted to be rid of that copious mountain of leather you'll never use to pay for those relics that may or may not result in monsters killing everyone in the fort.

Excess workshops: I can agree with this to an extent. It does feel like there's way too many needed to get the most out of things, like the ore processor and the whole "need to process ore thing or only get a little metal;" it's just an extra workshop and step for the same result and would probably be better made part of the harder smithing option rather than default at the least.

Button

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #26 on: August 13, 2014, 09:56:47 am »

I haven't tried masterwork, but I can share the reasons I've been put off of/scared away from trying it.

#1 The same kind of behavior you described in your OP. Maybe vanilla fans are the provacateurs in Masterwork-specific fora, but since I started with vanilla, I've only ever seen people barge in to people having vanilla discussions saying Y U NO PLAY MASTERWORK?!?! like we've deeply offended them. I've even had this happen when livestreaming.

#2 Orcs. I know that Tolkien launched modern fantasy and gave us the conceptions of the races yada yada, and I am a pretty huge Tolkien fan, but I don't think orcs fit into DF. DF draws on Tolkien a little, but not a whole lot actually. I like to think of it as drawing on Tolkien's sources - European legends - more than on Tolkien himself.

But orcs in their modern conception were essentially invented by Tolkien from whole cloth - he took their name from backwards etymology of a generic evil spirit, and gave them the traits they have today. So orcs break my game immersion something fierce, by introducing a race that Tolkien made up into a game about earth-folk, nature-folk, evil-folk, mischief-folk and humans.

I have the same problem with mithril.
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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #27 on: August 13, 2014, 11:26:27 am »

I think Tolkien did more to invent, or at least re-invent, Elves and Dwarves than people realize too, which as a scholar he came to regret.  From the "Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien" collection;

Quote
Also I now deeply regret having used Elves, though this is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough. But the disastrous debasement of this word, in which Shakespeare played an unforgiveable pan, has really overloaded it with regrettable tones, which are too much to overcome. I hope in the Appendices to Vol. III to be able to include a note 'On translation' in which the matter of equivalences and my uses may be made clearly. My difficulty has been that, since I have tried to present a kind of legendary and history of a 'forgotten epoch', all the specific terms were in a foreign language, and no precise equivalents exist in English.

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There are no songs or stories preserved about Elves or Dwarfs in ancient English, and little enough in any other Germanic language. Words, a few names, that is about all. I do not recall any Dwarf or Elf that plays an actual pan in any story save Andvari in the Norse versions of the Nibelung matter. There is no story attached to the name Eikinskjaldi, save the one that I invented for Thorin Oakenshield. As far as old English goes 'dwarf' (dweorg) is a mere gloss for nanus, or the name of convulsions and recurrent fevers; and 'elf' we should suppose to be associated only with rheumatism, toothache and nightmares, if it were not for the occurrence of aelfsciene 'elven-fair' applied to Sarah and Judith!, and a few glosses such as dryades, wuduelfen. In all Old English poetry 'elves' (ylte) occurs once only, in Beowulf, associated with trolls, giants, and the Undead, as the accursed offspring of Cain. The gap between that and, say, Elrond or Galadriel is not bridged by learning.

Baffler

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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #28 on: August 13, 2014, 11:44:02 am »

There are a few features I really like. The wood splitting block, for example, or the crematorium. They aren't as useful as they used to be with the masses of wood you can get now, but the crematorium still stands as a good way to get rid of the tons of dead rats and old clothes and whatnot and turn them into something useful. I also enjoyed the addition of cobalt as a metal, I've been frustrated more than once by having my "deep metals" be bituminous coal and cobaltite. The thatchery and stables are also pretty cool, even though I didn't use these as much as the above.

I've lately taken to just copying those things over (except the stables, which uses DFHack) to vanilla now though, most everything else just seems excessive, like the ore processor, or too unclear on what it actually does to be worth the expensive experimenting required, like the scientific workshops. Magic also seems cool, but I stopped using anything but the hard to acquire white magic when it consistently managed to kill more of my men than the enemy.
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Re: Masterwork Mod - Let me know what you think, anything goes.
« Reply #29 on: August 13, 2014, 12:14:06 pm »

Let me begin by saying that I'm a HUGE fan of Accelerated Modest Mod. It has a tight scope and every change directly addresses a gap in gameplay. I also consider Meph one of the best modders in the DF community. The last time I tried Masterwork was sometime in 2013; unfortunately, I don't remember which version of Masterwork it was.

That said, Masterwork feels like dozens of amazing tech demos thrown together into a mod. The raws is an absolute joy to read and is a technical masterwork (pun intended), but there seems to be no real defined scope or direction to Masterwork. It reminds me of Oblivion mods that added a bunch of lore-based quest lines from different modders, then randomly added anime hairstyles, shops that sell schoolgirl outfits, and random Homestuck characters wandering around (okay I'm exaggerating for effect, but you get where I'm going); every individual part might be very well done, but the sum of the whole is actually less than the sum of the parts.

While you can turn off many of the parts of the mod, I consider this a stopgap measure rather than a solution. More frustratingly, the poor documentation and absolutely overwhelming number of features meant that I regenned my world almost a dozen times as I discovered more and more things that I wanted to turn off/tweak. I ended up deleting MW after a week because I found that I was spending more time tweaking features than I was actually playing the game, and many of the remaining features did not do much to enhance gameplay.

I did port things like the Crematorium back into my base game, though, because they enhanced parts of the base game that needed to be addressed.

TL;DR: Technical masterpiece. Lots of bloat and feature creep.
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