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[Darkfyre]

While I don't mind increased difficulty, it seems like being a pure meele tank doesn't work anymore   
Why is it that bandits, BANDITS, can whip a near legendary champion in one blow with zero combat skills? Last build, bandits were a little too week. Suddenly, it seems everyone is a badass with no previous injurious. it should not be sneak or die, as it appears that that is the only way to survive now. what's the point of having other choices if the only way to survive is 1 way? this is why I'm annoyed.

[t9nv3]

I'm not too frustrated over the difficulty level. Lots of good advice on this thread so far. For me, a big part of the pleasure of DF comes from the fact that we create a world with a persistent history. It's always fun to read over legends mode and see how things are in a constant state of flux. I'm more invested in my world than I am in any individual character. I get a sense that I'm affecting things (for better or worse). Whenever I get downed by an arrow, I'm always reminded of the Battle of Hastings where ol' Harold 2 was reportedly killed by some anonymous archer who managed to get him in the eye. 

[Darkfyre]

I'm not too frustrated over the difficulty level. Lots of good advice on this thread so far. For me, a big part of the pleasure of DF comes from the fact that we create a world with a persistent history. It's always fun to read over legends mode and see how things are in a constant state of flux. I'm more invested in my world than I am in any individual character. I get a sense that I'm affecting things (for better or worse). Whenever I get downed by an arrow, I'm always reminded of the Battle of Hastings where ol' Harold 2 was reportedly killed by some anonymous archer who managed to get him in the eye.

You kind of miss my point, this is about normal human enemies being too hard, not about the state of the world being too hard.

[Flying Dice]

Normal human enemies aren't too hard. They're average opponents who will be anywhere from an annoyance to a serious threat, depending on how good they and you are. Remember that DF, like many roguelikes, doesn't put you in the shoes of The Hero(ine) of Legend. Depending on the difficulty, you're either a talentless peasant who decided killing things was better than farming, a experienced soldier with decent skills, or an abnormally powerful combat veteran. None of those are 'immortal' or 'superpowered'; even heros from classical folklore who were supposed to be literal divine offspring could be killed by an average soldier if they got a lucky hit in. You don't need to sneak everywhere, but you will if you want to survive a long time alone. You can't just sit and pound on everyone that comes to you; that would get you killed in real life, and it will get you killed in DF. Don't fight tough, fight smart. Use cover, make tactical retreats to string out enemies, go for crippling blows rather than lethal ones, bring companions to distract enemies, don't reveal yourself to enemy archers, etc.

[Batmantis]

people seem to forget, this isn't a game about hitpoints etc, you are waving deadly weapons around, and having them constantly shoved in your face;

I think what Toady is going for is similar in real life, the ability to survive (ie, dodge/block/run away) is a far better option than recklessly diving headlong into battle, hoping you get the first lucky strike.

at the end of the day, a nondescript stranger who just picked up his first crossbow [Edit: or Sword] can and should have a fair chance of killing a Hero.

I think its pretty accurate.

[Achanei]

While I don't mind increased difficulty, it seems like being a pure meele tank doesn't work anymore   
Why is it that bandits, BANDITS, can whip a near legendary champion in one blow with zero combat skills? Last build, bandits were a little too week. Suddenly, it seems everyone is a badass with no previous injurious. it should not be sneak or die, as it appears that that is the only way to survive now. what's the point of having other choices if the only way to survive is 1 way? this is why I'm annoyed.

give me a battleaxe, clad yourself in armor. i never handled a battlaxe. give me 10-15 tries, i smash your face in. Thats really kind of the point of DF combat, as Flying Dice and Batmantis already pointed out.
On the "melee tank doesnt work anymore" thing, well, it still does work, but it no longer lets you survive being surrounded by opponents and stuff you shouldn't really be able to survive. About the sneak-or-die, well, actually, if your skills are really high, even bandit camps full of archers work pretty well without sneaking, if you are willing to risk some injuries (werebeast anyone?) - cover behind trees, high weapon skill allows you to bash projectiles out of the air which is badass and really handy, at legendary you can rely on that pretty well, and there goes the bandits. i usually start out with hero difficulty, and its about one-in-five-ish to survive, the rest gets eaten by camels or boogeymen or kobold archers whatevers. but those who survive, say, the first month, those do pretty well for quite a while until they die either heroic or because i did something stupid. after a certain point of training and equipment, combat difficulty works fine for me - though i admit, becoming a necromaner helps usually a lot, since a quick raise of my first victim is a nice distraction if a fight is harder than i expected.

[Khym Chanur]

I'm having similar issues in that I -can't- grind my levels up. Every combat, unless its like a bunny, even when I made a demigod for once. I swing once, then get hit around 12 times and killed before I can try anything else.

Let world-gen go on long enough that there's lots of were-creatures.  Since they are currently weaponless and naked you can kill them via wrestling ("c" to change combat preference), which will level up your fighting skill.

And to make it worse. "Tell them it was the yadah yaddah if you live!" take one step.

Put a point into the observer skill, that'll help.

Shot. Dead.  I get challenge but where's the fun if every fight you die before you can even act?
[/quote]

[Berserkenstein]

I'm having similar issues in that I -can't- grind my levels up. Every combat, unless its like a bunny, even when I made a demigod for once. I swing once, then get hit around 12 times and killed before I can try anything else.

Let world-gen go on long enough that there's lots of were-creatures.  Since they are currently weaponless and naked you can kill them via wrestling ("c" to change combat preference), which will level up your fighting skill.

I do the same thing, except I sneak up to a group of animals.  You can strangle up to 4 at the same time which levels you up 4 times as fast.

[Splint]

A tone of great advice to be found, though some of the complaints are valid. While it's hilarious to beat enemies to death and them not react, some of the fun that was available in 2010 adv. mode is gone now.

Case in point: My best adventurer was able to beat enemies to death with a bag of stolen coins. THAT was fun. Not !!FUN!!, not bad fun where you die if the bandits have a single bowman, but good fun. Cause beating people to death with your money is fucking funny as hell when they explode against a wall/turn to mush.

Now my best adventurer is lucky if he doesn't get spotted from however the fuck many feet away. And there are those of us who don't like effectivly crawling the whole way there; It just flat takes to long and it's boring as hell having to go anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes depending on world size and where you're going just to avoid dying. After all, a game is meant to be fun, and indeed certainly be challenging, but when You get one shotted before you so much as even blink is zero fun.

I'd recommend ranged combat, but if they spot you or you miss (In my expierience) You're as good as dead, because they can practically zero in and litarally be in your face faster than you can even tell they moved, due to the nature of the game's engine.

Plus, while mauling animals is all well and good (and needed to not die outside of combat now) they rarely pose a challenge unless they're.... carp or sea lampry that can slap yo shit. And what amounts to time spent killing animals can probably 60-90% of the time be all for nothing, when a depleted uranium crossbow bolt coated in copper punches a hole through that iron helmet you borrowed from the local law giver.

Blah, pardon my rambling, but it felt good to get out. In short
Complaint is this not as fun as it used to be, because no skill douches bring you down before you even know wtf happened. There's a fine line between fun and utterly pointless to even try. What was said is it's becoming to the point where you might as well not bother if you wanna just have some good ol' fun beating the shit out of bandits. You have to play 2010 for that kind of fun now. Doesn't really help that the more meatshields you bring, the more enemies you have to deal with if it's a quest.

However, there is alot of sound advice here too, much of which I do myself in terms of minimizing contact and keeping out of sight of the archers as best I can (Time for the elf accusations: Against archers trees are your friends.) though I don't care for the whole no fast travel bit. I don't wanna spend 15+ minutes going from city to camp. That's boring as all hell.

Again, pardon my random babbling and complaining. Each side has valid points is all and I just felt that urge to dump my own outlook on the overkill difficulty/challenge included with the new version.

[Rumrusher]

from what I learn toady fiddle with fast travel, Fast travel is now extremely unsafe to use if you are really really weak.
walking to the destination is much safer than fast traveling and will drop your encounter rate to any animals in the area.

[bombzero]

fun fact, ambushes irl are usually instantly lethal, as all a crossbowman had to do was hide in tall grass, and pop a bolt in their chest when they walked by.

so dwarf fortress is realistic, aka hard as fuck, nobody is invincible, and a peasant can kill you, welcome to a imitation of reality.

[WaffleEggnog]

Beating the crap outta someone and having an unskilled peasant kill you from behind, thats realistic.

But the thing is, i dont WANT realism in a game like this. If i wanted realism id dig a hole in my backyard. Thats why we play games, isnt it? So we can do things we couldent do in real life?

Also, look at the graphics! Im not trying to insault the game, im fine with the graphics and all, but im not sure i could be convinced anything was realistic when staring at a screen that looks like binary.

Now introduce yourself to my slightly edited quote form the Minecraft forums.

Dragons and monsters? Perfectly fine. Other inteligent races? Pfft! Evil weather that kills people? I see that every day! But GOD forbit dem bansits are unrealistic.

[bombzero]

Beating the crap outta someone and having an unskilled peasant kill you from behind, thats realistic.

But the thing is, i dont WANT realism in a game like this. If i wanted realism id dig a hole in my backyard. Thats why we play games, isnt it? So we can do things we couldent do in real life?

Also, look at the graphics! Im not trying to insault the game, im fine with the graphics and all, but im not sure i could be convinced anything was realistic when staring at a screen that looks like binary.

Now introduce yourself to my slightly edited quote form the Minecraft forums.

Dragons and monsters? Perfectly fine. Other inteligent races? Pfft! Evil weather that kills people? I see that every day! But GOD forbit dem bansits are unrealistic.

dwarf fortress is not a real life simulator so much as a realistic fantasy world generator/fortress management/adventuring game. not sure what complaint your actually voicing with that quote though.

(btw, were dwarf fortress to have actual graphics, even something basic like you might see in a flash game, your computer would probably explode.)

[nenjin]

Is the reload time the same as it's always been? I'm still more or less an adventure mode newb...but the reload penalty on them has basically made them unusable to me. Does that scale with skill level or something? Because my first few games in .34.xx, I'd be dead or as good as dead after my first shot.

[Berserkenstein]

Is the reload time the same as it's always been? I'm still more or less an adventure mode newb...but the reload penalty on them has basically made them unusable to me. Does that scale with skill level or something? Because my first few games in .34.xx, I'd be dead or as good as dead after my first shot.

Are you talking about crossbows?  I'm not sure what you are responding to. 

Yes, reloading times on crossbows and bows are rather harsh.  The benefit in using them over throwing is that you can hold a lot of ammo before it slows you down, and you don't have to look through your pack for ammo or use macros to do it.  The real bonus is that if you decide to make a marksdwarf, you can retire him at a mountainhome and he has a chance to migrate to your fort and become an incredible hunter or legendary marksdwarf/hammerdwarf.   I butcher everything I kill as well so I have the option to make him a decent butcher to start as well.

Ranged weapon tips:

• If you travel light and have good agility and strength, you can keep your distance.  Fire a shot, then run back beyond your enemies running distance between reload, then fire again.
  
  
• Stealth archers are the best, since they can stay beyond detection range, fire at enemies until they become prone from leg or spinal injuries or pass out.  Then stealthily finish them off by strangulation or bashing in their skulls.