"Crafting" and "Gathering"
Over-reliance on combat for solving all problems in the world.
I just wanted to point out that crafting and gathering could (at least in theory) be "done right". The key though is that (like pretty much any other game play element that is going to be good/interesting/highly-replayable in the game) they would have to:
- involve game play mechanics that pit the player against an AI (so they are challenging/interesting)
- allow for automation of the entire process if/when the task is simple (to avoid "boring minigame syndrome")
- be useful in making some meaningful impact in the state of the game world
Coming up with a solution for that first step can take some imagination. Note that the AI in question does
not have to be an NPC - it could be a representation of nature, the essence or spirit of a river, or any other mumbo jumbo that can be fit into the game world's lore. (I will just add that for my own project I already came up with a solution for doing exactly this for enchanting items, which is one instance of crafting. And I really hope I can come up with a good solution for another instance - smithing - as well, just because I think it would be very cool to be able to essentially win a war just by providing your side with better gear - while of course doing so via fun game play. I really haven't given gathering much thought though. That one might be a tough one to apply this to, especially as it's not "self contained" like crafting is. I.e., it relates to resources "in the wild".)
I also quoted your comment on combat because I wanted to point out that:
- it is an example of the same 3 ideas as above (or at least would be if RPGs would support #2 - many strategy games with tactical combat do support #2, letting you choose "auto-combat")
- if you want the game to not rely so much on combat, then it (of course) needs to rely on other things, and (again of course) those other things should be fun/interesting, and using the 3 ideas above is a way to do that (though not necessarily the only way)
- the fact that RPGs mostly only apply something like the 3 ideas above to combat is a "tradition" that should be broken
Well, first of all, imagine a typical video game (RPG, shooter, whatever) and all the AI problems it probably has.
How about we stick with the strategy games I already listed as being fun for me. I've already stated RPG AI tends to be inadequate, so trying to use it as an argument for DF AI being good enough is logically invalid.
These games are relatively simple, everything is static, the developers have a good idea of what's going on, the systems are relatively shallow.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. The strategy games I listed are fun to me specifically because the developers have no real idea how things are going to play out (and therefore can't ruin the game play by scripting everything), especially since every one of the games I listed supports random maps (which is how I prefer to play them), and the state of the buildings/units across the map over time is 100% emergent (due to interaction between my side and the AI sides). In fact, they are in some ways far more dynamic than DF - you can have an entire side representing 1/4 of the entire population being wiped out in just a few minutes. In AoW even the map is not static (as tunneling is a game mechanic in AoW), so DF is not unique even in that respect (though DF has more than just the 3 levels that AoW:SM has, though more levels would probably be more of a problem for AoW players than for the AI).
And the AI still has all kinds of issues.
Accomplishing its purpose, providing higher level strategy to challenge the player, even with "issues", is far better than DF which provides no such higher level strategy at all.
Then you have Dwarf Fortress, which is the most complex game ever made, with tons of deep systems. It seems somewhat unrealistic to expect it to have perfect AI. Due to its complexity, it will always have some bugs or quirky unintended behavior, but most of those will get ironed out in time.
No, this is also wrong. DF AI is not shallow/buggy/quirky by some inviolable law that says complex systems make AI flawed. DF AI has the problems it has because of how it has been coded - as a bunch of special cases (similar to an expert system) rather than as a generic AI (generalized search and learning). With a generic AI all you have to do is codify the rules (the "complex systems") in a format the AI understands. (A generic AI does require more effort/skill to create than a bunch of special cases, but once it's done you can add more rules without having to redo the AI, without having to worry about complex AI bugs, and without ending up with an AI that doesn't know how to use rules except in the few special cases that have been explicitly coded.)
It's not a game that's dependent on having extremely lifelike AI, its fun and gameplay are derived from the multitude of in-depth systems in it and their interaction with each other and the player (combat/war, building/digging, economy, politics, crime, fluid dynamics, crafting, etc).
I never said the AI has to be "lifelike" (though for NPCs I certainly think that would be a good thing). I said the AI has to be "good". (And your statement is implicitly subjective, because "its fun" does not even exist for me.) To further clarify what "good" is, and why good AI is so critical, consider that all good stories are about conflict, and that
all "reliably" interesting conflict is between two intelligent entities (or groups thereof). A sandbox game like Factorio may be interesting to play while you're still mastering its systems, but once you achieve that the game quickly turns to being boring. And that's because it lacks any AI with which the player can enter a meaningful conflict, where instead of "being mastered" like some deterministic game mechanic, the AI is able to throw different strategies at the player, keeping things more interesting. DF has a lot of sandbox quality to it, and some people really like that kind of thing - that's all they need to make them happy. I am not one of those people. I want some meaningful conflict. Weak/shallow AI simply can not provide that. Yes, you can have (generally not interesting) tactical combat with such shallow AI, and DF has its gratuitously numerous ways in which you can maim and kill each other. But that is shallow and short-lived conflict. Are there ever kingdoms going to war and employing some reasonable strategy in doing so in DF? Are they constructing outposts, training new troops, researching weapons, and otherwise gearing up for conquest? That is one kind of "higher level" planning/action an AI can engage in (and what most of the games I listed are about). Of course, higher level planning need not just be about war - it could be about city building, making trade empires, growing a guild, all kinds of things (and all of those could be platforms for meaningful conflict between player and AI).
In most RPGs, like in DF, combat is procedural - it's player vs AI using the game's combat-related mechanics. So in that respect they are the same. And note that while I agree that if an RPG is going to have combat it's preferable that that combat be good/interesting, my main beef with RPGs was not the combat, but the stories. The problem is that those higher level conflicts are scripted stories, and I want something better than that. What DF provides in its place is
nothing. There is no higher level conflict in DF. It just doesn't exist. That means there's no real over-arching story lines either. Sure, you can make a blog of what your DF character did this day and the next and the next and call that a story, but that's really not an interesting story, at least not to me.
The kind of thing I'd like to see is this: Say I make a party of bandits and start attacking merchants traveling along the road and stealing all their stuff (and not killing them if I don't have to because I want to rob them again some time). The merchants may respond by hiring more security and/or traveling in a caravan and/or trying different routes. If goods aren't reaching their destination, prices should go up and there may be scarcity. If some of the goods going scarce are considered important to the kingdom's security (maybe the merchants were trying to deliver goods to the capitol or some castle), the local lord or king may get involved, sending guards on patrol and/or hiring some adventurers/mercenaries and/or posting a reward. Maybe meanwhile characters in some city off in the opposite direction hear about this and spot an opportunity and start producing those scarce goods themselves and shipping them to the capitol for sale (since they heard me and my bandits have only been operating in an area they don't have to travel through).
Those kind of things can not be hand-coded into the AI by the developer. It's just not feasible. Maybe you could hand-code the one scenario above, but then there's the next thousand interesting scenarios, and the thousand after that, and you really can't stop until you've coded up so many of them that the player rarely has face-palm moments due to the NPCs acting unbelievably dumb because you've hit a scenario they know nothing about. (And then every one of those scenarios has a thousand variations that are basically the same thing but which hand-coded NPC reactions are not likely to recognize and treat as such.) That's why a general purpose AI is needed - so stories like the one above can emerge from the interactions of the PC, the NPCs and the game world mechanics.
As long as the AI is capable of navigating these systems in a believable manner, that's enough.
And what part of that video I posted, where the player sets the elf village on fire, and then the elf elder is happy to have a cordial chat with the player while the village burns (and the elf guards just stand in the fire and burn) was "believable"?
The reason why doing a sewers quest is awesome
Dude, I watched the video. Awesome it was not. It was boring. Don't think you can use argument to convince me that what I watched was in fact not boring. (Though technically I didn't watch most of it, just listened to it while I read other stuff and only flipped it back to foreground to watch if something interesting was going on. It was almost 20 minutes of pretty much nothing interesting.)
And what's wrong with spending time to look for stuff, or having to walk/explore between interesting bits?
It's a waste of time. It's boring. I would rather be having fun. You know - fun - that reason why I play games in the first place.
Do you just want an IV delivering a steady dose of AWESOME into your bloodstream?
Don't try to make this about some "awesome button retardedness". This is about wanting something that is fun/interesting to play. That doesn't mean 100% "AWESOME, WINNING!" It can mean having a puzzle to work on, or trying to figure out what some clues mean, or running away for my life because I just walked into something I really wasn't ready for, or any number of other things. But what I don't want is 95% boring crap and 5% interesting game play.
Without effort, there can be no achievement, without slower parts, excitement loses its magic or wears you out.
You're just engaging in strawmen/confusion here. Of course there has to be effort - in the form of challenge, conflict, solving problems, etc. There does not need to be effort in the form of "slowly click mouse button 200 times in slightly different locations to lead your character through boring streets". And "slower" does not need to mean boring. Working on solving a puzzle is going to be slower than engaging in real-time combat, but they can both be interesting game play. And recall that from the start I have
always stated that the level of detail the player plays at
should be up to the player. If you enjoy walking everywhere, then the game should let you do that. If I don't, then the game shouldn't make me. Everyone gets what they want. What's wrong with that?
Well, you did spend a bunch of hours researching other people's playthroughs so I imagine lack of time is not an issue. You could just go ahead and try to play the game yourself.
No, I didn't spend nearly that long. I did not "watch" the entirety of the videos I linked (e.g., I stopped with the "sewers quest" one at his first death), and as mentioned above didn't really even watch most of the time (just listened while I read other stuff). I also have dozens of RPGs from GOG I could "just play myself", and the ones pakoito suggested, and a bunch of free ones I've noted, and then non-RPG games, and then non-game stuff. There's quite a few things there I would spend a lot of time on before sinking hours into DF adventure mode simply because my estimation of the value of doing so is significantly higher than my estimation of the value of playing DF adventure mode. That's kind of the point - if I'm going to play a game, it's going to be because it's the best thing I can do with my time at that moment.