Putting the whole issue of soil pH not exactly being my idea in the first place aside
Irrelevant, you're supporting it now
It is the NPK and water aspect that requires constant upkeep.
I have been combining soil pH and some other aspects of your system under the label soil pH for the purpose of discussion, apologies if that caused confusion.
As for being "wrapped up in proving I'm right", I'll remind you that it's rather silly to accuse people of trying to advocate for the things they believe are best for the game. Obviously I believe I am arguing for something I believe is right, or I wouldn't be doing it. That, however, doesn't mean I'm somehow incapable of listening to or understanding what other people say.
You do not appear to approach discussions from a standpoint of objectively determining the truth or the best course of action. But rather with a preconceived notion of what the answer already is and vociferously defend that position. There is no hint of consideration or compromise in your language, merely the assumption that you are right and everyone else is wrong. That may not be entirely correct, it may merely be a function of phrasing but it's most certain the impression that comes across.
Look over the way that the Improved Farming thread has evolved
I have no interest in looking over the evolution of a 40+ page forum thread...
I have reversed myself on pests - I used to think it was just another labor sink for the simple sake of labor sinking, but now think it is perhaps the most dynamic feature that can be imposed upon a player.
The phrase "imposed upon a player" fairly well sums up my problems with parts of the system. It is designed to impose on the player as opposed to imposing on dwarves and allowing the player to remove those impositions through gameplay.
This notion that I ignore complaints is ill-founded. The problem with many of the complaints that have been cropping up recently, however, is that they are not interested in what actually goes into the farming system, but rather about a mere design philosophy standpoint... People argue that any work on the part of the player is "micromanagement" (so I work to automate what I can), but that if it is automated, it's "just watching a dwarf movie" (so I have to provide more complex and systematic problems for the player to tackle). Not only are these goals mutually exclusive (and occasionally argued by the same person in the same post)
Which is pretty much an issue of interesting choices, hence why it was brought up and discussed. Too many choices (micromanagement) and the individual decisions do not carry enough consequence to be interesting. And too few (dwarf movie) and there aren't enough for the game to be fun. The fact that you're getting complaints from both sides is a good sign, there is no perfect spot where everyone will agree, only where total complaints are kept to a minimum. My impression however is that you are fielding more complaints about micromanagement than about too much automation which should tell you something. Especially if you take into account that the responders in the farming improvement thread are going to be a self selecting population that lean towards a heavier emphasis in farming than the general player base.
Even worse, this just creates an absurd semantic argument over is or isn't an "Interesting Decision", where, I will point out, Makaze, that you eventually landed on saying that "when Mario jumps" (and whether he hits a goomba or falls into a bottomless pit) is an "Interesting Decision"... if simply WHEN you press the button is an Interesting Decision, then by extension almost anything I make of the Farming system will be an Interesting Decision, since you can always just choose to grow what you want sooner or later. (And of course, every single person had different definitions of the term, making it thoroughly useless as a means of conveying information - even if I match up direct comparisons of the things one person said were "Interesting Decisions" to something almost entirely like it, they could simply refuse to acknowledge the comparison (and move the goalposts again).)
Everything must be taken in context. Jumping to crush Goombas in Mario can be considered an interesting decision (though admittedly very loosely) due to the time constraints imposed on the player. The speed at which the player must make that decision factors in heavily. Playing Mario in slow motion is less entertaining than at full speed as a result. But speed constraints do not exist in the context of DF and so something as simple as choosing when to jump would not be (widely) considered interesting.
You're also missing the point of the concept. It's not a means of labeling. You don't say that in game X decision Y was interesting so we need decisions like that. And it's not binary, a choice it not interesting or not interesting, it's a sliding scale. It's just a guideline to encourage that you present your players with multiple meaningful and valid (Valid being reasonable to pick, not necessarily correct. In a multiple choice quiz game there are multiple valid answers but only 1 correct one) and that there be a different and understandable consequence for each of those choices. Agreed it's partially subjective, so is taste in food. But there is a large degree of overlap in what people find to taste good, it works the same way in what people find to be interesting decisions.
Then let me use a different term than "free stuff", let me call it "infinite resources". You do not need to stop and consider what you use your stone for, because you will always have more of it than you will ever need. You DO, however, need to consider what you use your steel for, because it is limited in supply, and it takes more management to set up.
Why is steel limited? Is it because there is a limited amount of iron ore/flux/fuel available? Because it took manual player interaction to dig/chop those resources (and notice how many people have wanted a dig vein designation or perma-chop this area for years now...)? Or because of the multitude of ingredients and amount of labor that goes into its production?
Obviously it's a mixture of all of those. But I would argue that it's primarily the later that both makes it limited and makes its production interesting. If iron ore and flux were effectively unlimited as wood or crops are you'd see very little change in the amount of steel produced in game.
The point of this is to make food and other farmable goods less like stone, where you can't get rid of it fast enough, and more like steel, where you have to consider how you manage it because you can't be absolutely certain that there will always be a surplus.
The difference of course being that steel is not (directly) required for living dwarves. I still have issues with the design philosophy of making a resource rare by piling burdens onto the player as opposed to in game limitations. But I am far less opposed to it in relation to optional resources than a requirement such as food.
This sort of thing simply isn't possible if the answer to any shortage is merely "make more dwarves farm", with a possible additional "designate a little more farm". That's just a quick reflex, it doesn't make you consider
It does if the fundamental problem of too little cost of labor is solved. If there aren't 100 spare dwarves standing around then building an additional farm and allocating them to farming has a real cost that must be considered.
With that said, if you assume I am going to force you to repeatedly return to the farm tiles every 2 game weeks to punch the "water the crops" button, then you simply haven't been reading what I've written on the subject, because I've spent some significant time specifically on the subject of how to design automatable systems of exactly the sort you are arguing should be there.
My concern is not with the idea that the player will be forced to punch a button every 2 weeks (or ever). That's an obviously bad design decision and if ever implemented would quickly be yanked out as soon as it was tried. No, rather my concern is in the setting up of a purposefully unbalanced system that requires player interaction to function. Multiplied by the number of fields the player wishes to have. I question the possibility of automating the system you've proposed especially considering the current UI and balancing things so that they do not enter feedback loops that spiral out of control. Compound that with your earlier stated goal of preventing the player from easily making course corrections and you have the trappings of a system that can easily descend into a death spiral or rubberband unless setup in a very few perfect ways or constantly monitored.
(You can start reading here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=22015.msg1481494#msg1481494)
Summarize, seriously. There should be a single post or a wiki page (wikis are free) that summarizes your current system, edit it as needed. I have read through several of your posts on the subject but it is difficult to determine exactly what your current thoughts are at any given moment. I am interested in reading a summary of your system and talking about it. However, as I mentioned before I am in no way interested in wading through a 40+ page thread and picking out the important bits from you ranting about people not understanding you and insisting that you're right and they're wrong.
A constant complaint of yours is that people do not understand what you've written. Perhaps the problem lies not with all of them but in your method of communication?
Likewise, if you think that I should include more than simply food in farms... CONGRATULATIONS! I have been advocating this straight from the begining.
Something we agree on then. That was however not really the point. It was simply an example to solve what you consider the underlying problems with DF and therefore the impetus for your farming system in a different way. It was presented as an alternate form of complication that accomplishes your goal (more effectively I'd argue since it targets the root problem) but may be more palatable to other players. As an illustration that people can want more complication yet still dislike portions of your particular farming system, the two are not mutually exclusive as you so often imply.
More coming the less time I have to spend arguing this same argument with you all day every day.)
I am not forcing you to do anything. If you don't find the discussion thought provoking or entertaining then don't participate.
edit: I am forced to repeatedly restate what, exactly, it is I am arguing for over and over again, and this is why I am so highly frustrated by this whole process, especially since it just seems to crop up all over again in another thread each week.
Again let me suggest that there is a fault in either your communications or in the message itself. If a multitude of people don't understand or disagree with what you're saying then there's probably a reason for that...
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Topic: Dwarf fortress: Margionally complex, but mostly just detailed (Read 13137 times)