Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3

Author Topic: Better indication of the size of creatures  (Read 7063 times)

thvaz

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Better indication of the size of creatures
« on: December 30, 2015, 03:05:47 pm »

Currently, Dwarf Fortress uses adjectives to represent size of creatures in game (internally, it uses big numbers that represent volume). Enormous, gigantic, large, etc. But I never can imagine how big a creature is just by these adjectives. A night troll usually is described as a large humanoid, but large in relation to what? To a dwarf? To a human? And if I'm playing as a elephant man, is it larger than the elephant man or smaller?

I suggest that the description of the creatures should be changed to present the size as a relation to the size of the observer, as clothes are, but even more specific, and in fortress mode, in relation to the size of the dwarves (or of the main race in case of modding). This way we could keep the avoidance of the game in presenting stats as numbers and still give enough information to the player.
Logged

Blastbeard

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2015, 05:14:51 am »

I'll second that, clarifying the size of generated creatures in particular would be very helpful. The closest thing I've ever seen to an indication of a night troll's size is how easy it is to cut one in half, and for how weak and easy to kill certain titans can be, you'd think they were human-sized. How big something is should be immediately apparent and easily quantifiable.
There was a mod I used a long time ago that had a number relating to the creature's size in the description, and the only thing I remember about it is how helpful that was.

If you want to preserve immersion, any sort of approximation in the creature's description would the trick.
something like, "[He/She/It] is [slightly/somewhat/much/incredibly/unimaginably/impossibly] [larger/smaller] [than you/than a [player_race]]", for example. If it's the same size as another creature, you could have an extra line of text for that to further define it. Examining a goblin as a human would give "[He/She] is as large as an elf".
Logged
I don't know how it all works, I just throw molten science at the wall and see what ignites.

DG

  • Bay Watcher
  • Pull the Lever
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2018, 10:25:04 am »

(necro bump)

I think this is going to become a bigger issue in the future with the myth-generator giving us random creatures. Currently the ingame descriptions are the only vanilla guide we have for creature size, and they are currently often inconsistent and sometimes misleading. But it doesn't really matter, because you either know what the creature is in rl if it's mundane, or you can easily look it up on the wiki if it's fantasy (with the exception of titans/demons/night creatures etc).

But when the game starts generating all sorts of different creatures with different names, we wont be able to confirm their size on the wiki. Is the "large" describing this wandering tratonip a strangler-type "large" or a blind cave ogre "large"? That's roughly 6,960,000 cm3 riding on the interpretation of a very flexible adjective.

The ops suggestion for descriptions relative to size of the observer would be a big improvement on the current system, but I actually think that simply showing the creatures cm3 when you view them would be best.

Here's a quick mock-up of what I'm talking about:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So for the bear it's what it would look like if you were just given an "average" size for that creature type, the same as if you were to look it up on the wiki. By remembering the magical number of 60000, dwarf-size, you can easily tell how big something is.

Now for the dogs I'm showing what a more useful system could look like. It would show you the creature's actual size. I don't agree that it breaks immersion, because its the best (only?) way to represent what you're actual doing, which is looking at the creature. Anyone with eyes can easily tell which dog is bigger than another by looking at them, even if the difference in size isn't enough to warrant a difference in the adjective being used to describe them. So even if both of these dogs are "large dogs", I can still see with my eyes which dog is bigger, although not bigger enough to jump up to "huge", or whichever adjective is next in the hierarchy1. Granted, you wouldn't be able to assess them down to their cubic centimetres by eye, so the actual number can be rounded-off to prevent that sort of accuracy if it's a problem.

benefits:

-no need to set up a system of attaching adjectives to creatures relative to the observer (dwarves in fort mode, whichever race you are in ad mode)
-no need to learn a (arbitrary) hierarchy of size adjectives
-it's inherently scalable, if you're being attacked by a titan and a dragon you can tell which is bigger (how adult is that adult dragon?) for example, adjective descriptions break down in usefulness in either extreme
-allows players to easily see which individuals among their war creatures are best, for use or breeding
-same for ranchers breeding livestock for consumption

1 For the record, I have no idea if a 150cm3 size difference between two dogs, like in my example, would be visible to the naked eye, I just made the numbers up for an example. A smarter person than me would implement the real ranges governing visible difference.
Logged

IndigoFenix

  • Bay Watcher
  • All things die, but nothing dies forever.
    • View Profile
    • Boundworlds: A Browser-Based Multiverse Creation and Exploration Game
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2018, 11:43:37 am »

Agreed to all of this.  I'd even suggest putting the volume of all objects right on the in-game screen, without even needing to examine them closely.  True, in real life a person might not be able to judge the exact volume of objects, but the ability to do so will never impact gameplay negatively, and the ability to do so would make judging a creature's size much quicker and more convenient.  The AI can see it, so there's no reason we shouldn't.

Hey, you know what might be fun?  Adjusting perception of creature size when drunk, to make you more likely to make bad decisions.

Miles_Umbrae

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2018, 01:56:41 pm »

Given that dorfs are supposedly relatively poorly educated.
They are supposedly counting on their fingers, and rounding up to closest set of 10, 100, 1000, that they can enumerate through counting on their fingers.
As such it's not realistic for them to be able to give an accurate measurement of the observed objects volume .. or even know how to measure volume at a glance.
Because of this definition of the dwarven intellect it is more realistic if the description/details given is an abstract comparison to the self.
Logged

DG

  • Bay Watcher
  • Pull the Lever
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #5 on: July 10, 2018, 12:41:57 am »

Hey, you know what might be fun?  Adjusting perception of creature size when drunk, to make you more likely to make bad decisions.

That would be great. :D I imagine that size perception would rely on the spatial sense skill so the alcohol syndrome can lower spatial sense (which it may already do for all I know) and thus mess with the number you see for size.
Logged

Shonai_Dweller

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2018, 03:58:32 am »

Given that dorfs are supposedly relatively poorly educated.
They are supposedly counting on their fingers, and rounding up to closest set of 10, 100, 1000, that they can enumerate through counting on their fingers.
As such it's not realistic for them to be able to give an accurate measurement of the observed objects volume .. or even know how to measure volume at a glance.
Because of this definition of the dwarven intellect it is more realistic if the description/details given is an abstract comparison to the self.
How does this explain bookmakers? Or indeed all the scholar professions? Presumably some meme I'm unaware of...

But, yeah printing the volume of every creature on the screen as a solution to letting the player know how much bigger something is than themselves is an awful idea. "You see a dragon it's random long string of numbers cm3". Oops sorry brain switched off for a moment there.

As opposed to, "you see a dragon, a magical fire-breathing beast, twice as long as a whale and several times taller than a dwarf". Randomize "whale" and "dwarf" with other standard creatures that exist in your world along with "house", "castle", "wagon" and so on. You'd get the idea and maintain lore without making it seems like DF is made for some niche mathematicians club.

Would help if creatures had other dimensions besides volume, of course.
Logged

IndigoFenix

  • Bay Watcher
  • All things die, but nothing dies forever.
    • View Profile
    • Boundworlds: A Browser-Based Multiverse Creation and Exploration Game
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2018, 04:37:03 am »

Let's say you are a dwarf who is attacked by two humans, one with a volume of 75000 and one with a volume of 85000.  If it was real life, it would be easy to tell which one was bigger, which could help you decide which to focus on first.  But using text descriptions, both are "bigger than you" and "large for a human"; unless they happened to be on opposite sides of an arbitrary description threshold there would be no way for a player to tell them apart.

While you could come up with a complicated system to compare different units in the room with each other, why bother?

Giving exact measurements doesn't tell the player anything important that they shouldn't know, and does tell them something that they should know.  More importantly, it would be by far the easist method to implement.

I agree that it shouldn't be part of the main description text (he has long black hair and is 76345 cubic centimeters in volume doesn't sound right) but the player should have access to the information.  DG's solution is a good one, or putting it in parenthesis when (l)ooking at the unit.

Oh, and using a skill or attribute to judge size more accurately makes perfect sense and would help immerse the player in the character better.  Like how observer skill lets you judge incoming attacks more accurately.

Shonai_Dweller

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2018, 05:22:22 am »

Let's say you are a dwarf who is attacked by two humans, one with a volume of 75000 and one with a volume of 85000.  If it was real life, it would be easy to tell which one was bigger, which could help you decide which to focus on first.  But using text descriptions, both are "bigger than you" and "large for a human"; unless they happened to be on opposite sides of an arbitrary description threshold there would be no way for a player to tell them apart.

While you could come up with a complicated system to compare different units in the room with each other, why bother?

Giving exact measurements doesn't tell the player anything important that they shouldn't know, and does tell them something that they should know.  More importantly, it would be by far the easist method to implement.

I agree that it shouldn't be part of the main description text (he has long black hair and is 76345 cubic centimeters in volume doesn't sound right) but the player should have access to the information.  DG's solution is a good one, or putting it in parenthesis when (l)ooking at the unit.

Oh, and using a skill or attribute to judge size more accurately makes perfect sense and would help immerse the player in the character better.  Like how observer skill lets you judge incoming attacks more accurately.
A large powerful muscular human and a small weeny human attack you. Humans are gangly humanoid creatures somewhat taller than a dwarf.

I know which is which because I'm told basically what a human is, I know one is big, one isn't (already kind of implemented ). Therapist or something can give me the actual volume if I'm really interested. Displaying the volume may be simple, but it's just not a useful or immersive solution. It doesn't add anything to the game. "Simple" is something mods can easily achieve (and probably already do).
Logged

voliol

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
    • Website
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2018, 06:50:44 am »

Let's say you are a dwarf who is attacked by two humans, one with a volume of 75000 and one with a volume of 85000.  If it was real life, it would be easy to tell which one was bigger, which could help you decide which to focus on first.  But using text descriptions, both are "bigger than you" and "large for a human"; unless they happened to be on opposite sides of an arbitrary description threshold there would be no way for a player to tell them apart.

While you could come up with a complicated system to compare different units in the room with each other, why bother?

Giving exact measurements doesn't tell the player anything important that they shouldn't know, and does tell them something that they should know.  More importantly, it would be by far the easist method to implement.

I agree that it shouldn't be part of the main description text (he has long black hair and is 76345 cubic centimeters in volume doesn't sound right) but the player should have access to the information.  DG's solution is a good one, or putting it in parenthesis when (l)ooking at the unit.

Oh, and using a skill or attribute to judge size more accurately makes perfect sense and would help immerse the player in the character better.  Like how observer skill lets you judge incoming attacks more accurately.
A large powerful muscular human and a small weeny human attack you. Humans are gangly humanoid creatures somewhat taller than a dwarf.

I know which is which because I'm told basically what a human is, I know one is big, one isn't (already kind of implemented ). Therapist or something can give me the actual volume if I'm really interested. Displaying the volume may be simple, but it's just not a useful or immersive solution. It doesn't add anything to the game. "Simple" is something mods can easily achieve (and probably already do).
The game already displays weights rounded to the nearest kilogram, so having numbers being displayed isn't exactly something new. I say round the number to 2-3 digits in dwarf mode, with the amount of digits in adventurer mode being decided by your adventurer's spatial sense. Your tame/caged creatures could also get more exact numbers depending on a book-keeper setting, or just by default.

With this it'd be nice with a [TINY_VOLUME] token that makes the volume show up as "<1", because all ants, bees, flies and mosquitoes being 1 cm^3 would just be terrifying.

Miles_Umbrae

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #10 on: July 10, 2018, 10:31:48 am »

Given that dorfs are supposedly relatively poorly educated.
They are supposedly counting on their fingers, and rounding up to closest set of 10, 100, 1000, that they can enumerate through counting on their fingers.
As such it's not realistic for them to be able to give an accurate measurement of the observed objects volume .. or even know how to measure volume at a glance.
Because of this definition of the dwarven intellect it is more realistic if the description/details given is an abstract comparison to the self.
How does this explain bookmakers? Or indeed all the scholar professions? Presumably some meme I'm unaware of...

...

Don't remember where I've read it, either wiki or in-game.
Bookkeepers are explained as necessary highly educated dwarves that does what the average dwarf is not able to do.
Logged

Shonai_Dweller

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2018, 04:07:14 pm »

Given that dorfs are supposedly relatively poorly educated.
They are supposedly counting on their fingers, and rounding up to closest set of 10, 100, 1000, that they can enumerate through counting on their fingers.
As such it's not realistic for them to be able to give an accurate measurement of the observed objects volume .. or even know how to measure volume at a glance.
Because of this definition of the dwarven intellect it is more realistic if the description/details given is an abstract comparison to the self.
How does this explain bookmakers? Or indeed all the scholar professions? Presumably some meme I'm unaware of...

...

Don't remember where I've read it, either wiki or in-game.
Bookkeepers are explained as necessary highly educated dwarves that does what the average dwarf is not able to do.
I'd say it's just fanlore, based on some old system that only used multiples of ten then. Combined with the typically funny, "oh the stupid dorf built a wall, blocking his own escape from the HFS" stories.

They have mechanisms, they build libraries to debate atmospheric pressure, they build complex musical instruments and (mentioned a couple of months ago as something to add) little machines. Nothing about DF dwarves seems to indicate that stupidity and a lack of intellect are the norm.
Logged

Bumber

  • Bay Watcher
  • REMOVE KOBOLD
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2018, 06:29:31 pm »

[...] Displaying the volume may be simple, but it's just not a useful or immersive solution. It doesn't add anything to the game. "Simple" is something mods can easily achieve (and probably already do).
Sizes are used for pressure plates, in increments of 1K. There's no in-game way to check creature sizes. (Clothing size is specified by the humanoid's name only.)

You need DFHack for adding stuff the GUI. That's not really a kosher solution, since it uses DLL injection to hack the game.
Logged
Reading his name would trigger it. Thinking of him would trigger it. No other circumstances would trigger it- it was strictly related to the concept of Bill Clinton entering the conscious mind.

THE xTROLL FUR SOCKx RUSE WAS A........... DISTACTION        the carp HAVE the wagon

A wizard has turned you into a wagon. This was inevitable (Y/y)?

Dorsidwarf

  • Bay Watcher
  • [INTERSTELLAR]
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #13 on: July 11, 2018, 03:23:55 am »

Given that dorfs are supposedly relatively poorly educated.
They are supposedly counting on their fingers, and rounding up to closest set of 10, 100, 1000, that they can enumerate through counting on their fingers.
As such it's not realistic for them to be able to give an accurate measurement of the observed objects volume .. or even know how to measure volume at a glance.
Because of this definition of the dwarven intellect it is more realistic if the description/details given is an abstract comparison to the self.
How does this explain bookmakers? Or indeed all the scholar professions? Presumably some meme I'm unaware of...

...

Don't remember where I've read it, either wiki or in-game.
Bookkeepers are explained as necessary highly educated dwarves that does what the average dwarf is not able to do.

But any random schmuck can do a book-keepers job perfectly, it just takes him longer, right?
.
Logged
Quote from: Rodney Ootkins
Everything is going to be alright

Shonai_Dweller

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Better indication of the size of creatures
« Reply #14 on: July 11, 2018, 03:46:31 am »

[...] Displaying the volume may be simple, but it's just not a useful or immersive solution. It doesn't add anything to the game. "Simple" is something mods can easily achieve (and probably already do).
Sizes are used for pressure plates, in increments of 1K. There's no in-game way to check creature sizes. (Clothing size is specified by the humanoid's name only.)

You need DFHack for adding stuff the GUI. That's not really a kosher solution, since it uses DLL injection to hack the game.
Yes, there's no in-game way to see sizes. That's the point of this suggestion, right?
I was objecting to the idea that the best way to show the player how massive the beast he's facing is, is to show it's size in volume. There are better (but more complicated) ways which trigger the imagination in a far more satisfying way than "750,000 cm3, now you'll know why you fear the night."

(Pressure plates actually also include the description 'about the size of a dragon, about the size of a gorlak, as I recall. Haven't used them in a while).
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3