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Author Topic: What turns you off about DF?  (Read 291559 times)

Lomax

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1890 on: November 17, 2012, 08:12:29 am »

Recommendation: Please, for the love of Armok, give me smaller migrant waves! (like 2-8 migrants a season)   I want to be happy to have more dwarves to work with, not annoyed because I have to spend more time paused doing labor re-assignment surgery.
This.

Also, the fact that the game pauses every time I do anything.  Can that be an option? Maybe I don't want to pause while I designate the next branch to mine.
And this.

Also, the fact that the cursor jumps to the center of the screen every time you switch from one tool to another. I "k" to see what something is and may then want to do "d" or "b" or something else to it, now I have to go upupupupuprightrightrightright again to get back to the spot I wanted to designate. Gets old fast.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it, why not always show information about what's under the cursor? The amount of information under "k" is quite small; it would easily fit somewhere on screen. The re-centering would still be annoying though; I often find that I have the wrong tool selected only _after_ I have moved the cursor into position.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2012, 08:52:05 am by Lomax »
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petela

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1891 on: July 18, 2018, 10:48:36 pm »

What turns me off about DF?

10 years old well known bugs never getting fixed.

Instead of adding new layers of grinding (ie: libraries), why don't we get militar equipment layering right? Or animal hair to finally get pull out of the loom, or strings and cloths used in medical care dot becoming unusable and unrecognizable to at least being able to dump them. Or maybe, preventing dwarves from hoarding unneeded clothing items, etc, etc, etc, etc....
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KittyTac

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1892 on: July 18, 2018, 10:54:57 pm »

Nice necro. Anyways, the magic update will make the game more challenging.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2018, 10:56:42 pm by KittyTac »
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mifki

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1893 on: July 18, 2018, 11:28:51 pm »

Nice necro. Anyways, the magic update will make the game more challenging.

Yeah those times when ThreeToe was active on forums and there was no TWBT to make graphics not the first thing everyone mentions... :)

DG

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1894 on: July 19, 2018, 02:07:19 am »

Nice necro. Anyways, the magic update will make the game more challenging.

I suggested it to him, he knows how old the thread is. If you have to comment on someone's concerns here you should make it more relevant.
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HerbalistRanger

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1895 on: July 20, 2018, 08:28:54 pm »

I spend 90% of the game searching for a good embark site with all of the civilizations within reach, 4 interesting biomes and rerolling dwarves. The starting dwarves are important to me and it takes forever to find a team I like. Last game I spent hours finding the best embark and start dwarves and it crashed... Some kind of save feature before changing the world would be so nice to have.
I am usually half way burned out before I strike the earth. Being able to save locations before embarking or being able to reroll the starting dwarves would save so much pain. Custom starting dwarves would be amazing. My fortresses are all or nothing with the start dwarves. I want ones I like and for them to survive.
edit- That's all I can think of. I am in love with this game. Only game I can play for more than few hours in years. Simpler marksdwarves would be good. I just don't mess with them. Equipping military is very frustrating. I spend way too much time trying to get my favorite dorfs to wear certain artifacts. Long saves along with losing dorfs to missions has been frustrating recently. Anxiety of waiting wondering if my favorite artifact raider will come back or have to load save.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 08:35:48 pm by HerbalistRanger »
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pisskop

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1896 on: July 20, 2018, 09:26:45 pm »

I do love the game of WorldGen; even more than actual, df . . .

While I think customized S7 would be bad, I do think that paying points for 'more quality' in a dwarf or seven would be okay.  More chances to roll a good one or paying for a reroll of a single stat that is poor.  If people are going to keep force-quiting until the get what they want doing this ingame is hardly cheating.

Or maybe a system wherein you pick your desired classes (i.e. 1 lumberjack, 2 miners, 1 farmer, 1 mason, 1 crafter, 1 armorsmith) and the game gens characters who 'fit the bill' and then you proceed to point allocation.  This model adds a step to embark but also makes it possible to simplify the above 'pay for rerolls', or even lets you command in-world dwarves instead of puffed-out-of-armok's-backdoor dwarves.
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WordsandChaos

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1897 on: July 21, 2018, 06:42:07 am »

This may be a bit unstructured, but:

I think the one major hurdle is that the game doesn't explain itself at all. I remember the first time I ever booted up the game I literally had no idea how to get anyone to do anything: you don't even realise that the dwarves are autonomous, and they don't really act like it until something pesters them. So you're looking at your guys waddle around a bit and then they die. And you've tried to get them to do something, but you can't select them and there's no explanation as to why. You've just got a big bar at the side that seems to be a series of buildings that you can't build because you don't have the resources and you seemingly can't get the resources.

I can't even remember if there's a standard loadout that you get if you don't start with a specific roles and equipment, and I can't remember if that's a thing you have to toggle on for each dwarf or there are some basics turned on by default. Then, assuming your dwarves have some jobs, there's no way you're going to notice the jobs toggle screen, the fact that you need to designate stockpiles to get your dwarves to bring the things back so they can use them, the nobility that is necessary to assign new jobs, the fact that you need a book keeper to know how much of a thing you have. Just that basic level set up chain is never outlined.

I'm not sure it's worth doing a full on tutorial for this game as it changes all the time. But a basic little sub-screen that runs you through the concepts of the game and some scenarios so you at least know roughly what the mindset of the game is. Get your dwarves to dig, setting up stockpiles and getting them to gather resources, how the jobs system works, etc. You can pretty much just bounce from one thing to the next as long as you know how the game thinks, but you need something to be able to intuit from first. I think the base level of unintuitiveness is more a sidestep from the expected frame of mind, rather than a complete alien concept. But people need to have a starting ground so they know what they should roughly be looking for, if you see what I mean.   

Other concerns: Just some basic quality of life stuff: consistent keybinds, so moving through a series of menus doesn't inexplicably require three different sets of controls - that kind of thing. 

For the entrenched players:
Some way of exporting and importing job orders. The automation was probably one of my absolute favourite things you guys have added in a while. The sheer time it can take to set things up in Dwarf Fortress will often just block my desire to actually start a new fort. I spend a little while looking for a spot, I do the setup, I then have to designate a half a dozen things and set up some stockpiles, farms etc, and then add ten plus rules for basic food, brewing furniture, etc. I think just being able to import a series of job rules would speed the launch a lot. I think most forts are going to start roughly the same per player, so you may as well skip the basic stuff and diverge from there, get to more of the guts of the game faster etc, than spending literally an hour or more before you're even able to unpause the game.         

Position based rooms, and furniture designations. I know that there are mods for this, but it makes sense for it to be in the base game: Nobody wants to have to constantly assign new studies for their nobles every time one of them gets killed or goes crazy or whatever. Just let us designate X chair goes to the book keeper, or this room belongs to the hammerer, etc. Much in the way that basic unclaimed rooms work. That also just cuts down the tedium. If a player wants to reassign individuals to specific rooms they should be able to, but most of the time I'd assume we don't care that much. Book keeper dies? Next one is assigned and knows where their quarters are.  Similarly, I don't want to replace every chair, table, and door individually because a troll didn't like it's beer. designate the tables, if one gets broken the game knows that a table should be in that square and another is chosen to replace it from the stockpiles. Cutting down the intrusive bits of tedious micromanagement could smooth the experience a lot more.

carewolf

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1898 on: July 24, 2018, 06:58:15 am »

It is too simple and primitive... I expected more.

Also development doesn't seem to fix long standing bugs, which is annoying.
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KittyTac

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1899 on: July 24, 2018, 07:18:29 am »

It is too simple and primitive... I expected more.
That is because:
a) DF should not be overestimated, you'll never be able to do everything.

b) It's literally less-than-half done.
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1900 on: July 24, 2018, 03:49:21 pm »

Wordsandchaos, dwarf fortress is very intrinsically not a game you can just hop into and expect to learn normally. It’s a game where you need to read at least the basics of how to play before trying to do so, and is very much not going to hold your hand through those confusing first hours.
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Edward_Tohr

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1901 on: July 25, 2018, 09:45:50 am »

Wordsandchaos, dwarf fortress is very intrinsically not a game you can just hop into and expect to learn normally. It’s a game where you need to read at least the basics of how to play before trying to do so, and is very much not going to hold your hand through those confusing first hours.

Right. Which is exactly what their complaint was. Speaking of complaints...

Also development doesn't seem to fix long standing bugs, which is annoying.

Came here to post that myself. Military uniforms have been conflicting with mining/woodcutting/hunting for more than eight years now. Tame purring maggots have been unmilkable since they were first introduced in the 2D version. Some dwarf needs are impossible to fulfill, and the others are up to the whims of the AI. And sure, there's workarounds for some of those, but when the base gameplay involves more working around bugs than actual intended gameplay, that's a sign that a long bugfix session is in order.

It's to the point where I actively dislike hearing about new features. Woo, we'll be getting randomized creation myths. That sure does more to make the game playable and accessible than, say, allowing you to kill off lycanthropes who happen to have immigrated to your fort alone, so they have a young child off-map so you can't exile them. Or changing Adventure Mode so that step one isn't "Hope you spawned in a fort that actually does have an accessible entrance". More procgen creatures? Honestly, I'd prefer not having to deal with a tantrum spiral because my legendary immigrant hunter can't stand the outdoors, and is constantly seething with rage because he got rained on once a decade ago.

Also: the way people get dogpiled with the same "Oh, it's a pre-alpha, you can't expect an actually functional program!" or "Just study and memorize every single page on the wiki so you can learn how to do whichever basic necessary task you were having trouble with" whenever they insinuate that the game is anything less than utter perfection.

/rant
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carewolf

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1902 on: July 27, 2018, 07:19:46 am »

It is too simple and primitive... I expected more.
That is because:
a) DF should not be overestimated, you'll never be able to do everything.

b) It's literally less-than-half done.
Nah. I think it is my fault for having played more Rimworld. I just expect to spend more time try to keep food fresh, or manage temperatures (though that should be simple most places under ground).
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recneps

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1903 on: July 31, 2018, 12:17:52 pm »

There are two major things I'm disappointed in..

It's fairly uneventful: Unless you actively mod in extra civs or make existing ones more hostile, or crowd the world to the point where it strains all believability in the fantasy world simulator, there's not much happening that you don't initiate. Sieges are kinda far between. Megabeast attacks are nice, but once again, they're kinda rare without you making your own alterations to the game. Hostile weather is cool, except the only real counter to it is "go inside," and that is a complete counter: essentially, you either succumb entirely to the evil weather, or it gives you no issues.

There's not much interaction with the outside world: really all you can do to affect the greater scheme of things is destroy places. This is less of an issue for me than the first, in part because I know development is actively working towards this.
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grotball

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Re: What turns you off about DF?
« Reply #1904 on: July 31, 2018, 10:44:52 pm »

Personally, my turn off list with DF (but it's free, so, who really cares):

*) Glacial development pace. I understand it's one coder and coding wasn't his former job, but even still. How many years has it been now, and the donations are easily a decent full time salary, so to trot out a few (to me, pretty lacklustre) features every few years, and leave existing, fairly game-breaking bugs scattered around, is annoying to me. Feels ... privileged, even if that's not the intention.

*) Non open source. More a peeve that I think it could be much better if other people were allowed to contribute. I don't personally think his vision is that spectacular that people need to sit back and watch for years while he realizes it. But, his call.

*) Finally, hearing random forumers and posters online when DF is mentioned wax lyrical about how it's 'the most complicated game ever!!!!' and 'truly anything is possible!!!!' etc etc. It doesn't strike me as anywhere near that level of praise, it's emergent properties are fairly rail-roaded. Maybe that will change but I get a bit sick of hearing that particular praise for some reason.

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