Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Willadie]

Hey. What do you guys think of cheaty tactics, such as the melting 500 (individual) steel coins, danger rooms ect. I think people obviously are allowed to use them, it's a single player game, though I feel naughty when using them, though usually I try them out to see how well they work. I may * occasionally * use them afterwards though... 

[WaffleEggnog]

I think anything that gives you a ton of reward for no effort, or is not meant to happen in game, is considered cheating to me. Me, i never ever used danger rooms, i never used cheaty melt100000arrows, or anything like that at all, cept once to try it, since i started, and i shun upon people who cant handle playing the game the way its meant to be played, so they resort to crap-easy tactics.

Also, messing with the raws (Exept those god forsaken aquifers )

[terko]

Not using danger rooms or melting exploits, just building a lot of masterwork weapon traps out of glass. It's fun that sometimes someone makes it almost unharmed through 50 traps in a row because of the stuff was deflected by his copper armor, but hey, often enough they're shred to pieces in almost no time. And btw., the one who made it so far often collapses due to exhaustion and get's slaughtered. "Finally, I made it into the fortre..." _____________ (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep)

[WealthyRadish]

The line between intentional and unintentional mechanics in DF is rather blurred, since it's more about putting the complex systems in place than having specific intentions. However, it's reasonable to say that danger rooms wouldn't intentionally be as effective as they are, that prepared meals are inadvertently overvalued, various embarking costs are undervalued, etc.

But all that doesn't really matter anyway, since DF is exactly as difficult as the player chooses it to be. It's a game that trusts the player to handicap themselves by embarking in ridiculous and dangerous areas, conforming the fort to some stylistic theme, or otherwise making the challenge their own, if they desire to do so... and if they don't, it doesn't make the experience any different. So no, the exploity stuff doesn't really bother me... if anything, I'm glad it's there, on the slim chance it makes the game easier for people to get into, which it very much needs. More variation in difficulty is a good thing, certainly, even if from the use of exploits.

[ignatzami]

I usually have three, or four forts going at the same time.

At least one is the "Fun" fort, this fort is in a nice docile location, with lots of minerals, and fresh water, I'll use DwarfHack Reveal to plan my rooms, and stairs. I use cheaty tactics, it's the "I've got half an hour at work and want to have fun" fort.

I then have a harder, legit, fort. That one I don't cheat on, yet still will run a dozen or so years before I abandon.

Lastly, I have my hard-mode fort. That's in a terrifying biome, with no water, few metals, a hellish pop cap, the works. That's the fort I'm proud of.

In the end, it's a game, just have fun.

[Maxmurder]

Personally i try to avoid the overly exploity stuff... ive never used danger rooms and try to keep trap corridors from being to overpowered... however legendary dining rooms and mist generators are fair game.

I do edit raws to make some animals war-trainable... but who could resist the alure of having a war hippo (op btw).

[LordSlowpoke]

DF is a single player game (unless otherwise noted - succession, DFMP, etc.) and as such cheating is fully in the hands and conscience of the one doing the cheating. And unless they come to the map archive to show me how great a fortress they made in three years with their [NOEAT], [SPEED:0] dorfs, or claim that they did something glorious in multi but utilised these, sure, I'm fine with it. I use some tactics regularly considered cheaty out of sheer convenience of testing during such circumstances, since it reduces variables. The point being, it's your choice how you play this game, and that's a part what makes it so good.

[DavionFuxa]

If you are talking about Adventure Mode - I could care less what people might think about cheaty actions or not. Even when I cheat I might still experience a high degree of fun.

Dwarf Fortress though is a different story. It isn't so 'horribly in-balanced in every direction' and lacking content that makes the game fun. Some stuff still needs to be balanced out and other things improved but for the most part, you shouldn't necessarily instantly be hit with !fun! if you go with the 5 seeds over 6 on Embark, forgo the danger rooms, limit the traps, etc.

However, that's my personally opinion on how I play. Someone people like to use cheat programs to get ahead and I can care less if they can do - it isn't like I'm competing with them so they can do as they wish. I expect that Toady will come back to re-balance or tweak things anyways - depending on how far he decides to go, we'll probably see things get improved and changed. Then whatever is left when he is done that is a 'cheaty exploit' can be considered legitimate.

[Muddy Mudstone]

Also, messing with the raws (Exept those god forsaken aquifers )

So, generally, you shouldn't use exploits or edit the game, except to fix obvious mistakes, and each person will have different ideas about what's obviously a mistake and what isn't.

Me, I love aquifers. From my perspective, it's difficult to find a really satisfying aquifer. If there's low ground somewhere on the map, that's usually where there's a route round the aquifer, taking away all the challenge and making it just a handy drinking fountain. Even when an aquifer goes all the way across, it's rarely very many levels deep.

Despite what I just said about people having different perceptions of how the game should be, I don't think that being editable is an excuse for a game having broken parts, and I do tend to prefer to play games in the way that they are presented. That's kind of the point of a game. Otherwise it might as well be a paint program with the words "make something up yourself" written on the title bar. So I sympathise with purism.

I tend to avoid things like quantum stockpiles (except they tend to happen naturally anyway) and other exploits. Really, though, when you use an exploit (or make an edit) you're changing rules of the game, so you're being a game designer, and it might be a good piece of game design you're doing.

Even so, I'd rather not be a game designer when I'm playing a game.

[Berlioz]

I think anything that gives you a ton of reward for no effort, or is not meant to happen in game, is considered cheating to me. Me, i never ever used danger rooms, i never used cheaty melt100000arrows, or anything like that at all, cept once to try it, since i started, and i shun upon people who cant handle playing the game the way its meant to be played, so they resort to crap-easy tactics.

Also, messing with the raws (Exept those god forsaken aquifers )

After that tirade you suddenly say you do it yourself!?

In my opinion everyone should play such a way that he has fun. For me that means not to use strange behaviour or bugs. No dwarven water generators, danger rooms, drawbridge rooms, save scumming, raw adamantine carving, etc. Dwarf fortress would be way too easy otherwise.
But other people have other preferences and that's as it should be.
(I also play nethack sometimes, so I'm used to permadeath.)

[GhostDwemer]

It all depends on why you play dwarf fortress and what parts of it you find fun. The hypocrisy of a rant decrying all forms of "cheating" but ending in an admission of getting rid of aquifers had me rolling on the floor. People are funny creatures who think very strange thoughts sometimes.

The real question is, why does anyone care how someone else plays this single player beta release sandbox game? Why does anyone care what someone else thinks of how they play? Do y'all also have opinions about the proper way to use Legos? "NO!!!! You can't stick them together sideways, even if they fit, that's CHEATING!"

ROFL about human insecurities and the need to be at or near the top of some imagined hierarchy.

[PsychicKid]

I get rid of aquifers and use DF Hack to determine if my map has iron or not, and to find out when the soil layer ends so I can start digging out rooms. That's about the extent of what I do for "cheaty tactics." I also used to use DF Hack to fill murky pools next to rivers up with fresh water so that way the entire river didn't get screwed up, but that doesn't seem to happen anymore.

[Broseph Stalin]

I don't think danger rooms are cheating. The arrow thing makes sense because obviously you cant turn one steel bar into 25 arrows then melt those arrows into multiple steel bars but danger rooms make sense on paper. If you order someone to stand in a room and dodge, block, or parry wooden sticks that jut out to poke them they're going to get the hang of it. I don't use them just as a matter of flavor but I can see the appeal and the logic.

In the context of a succession fort then you definitely shouldn't fiddle with the raws but other than that assuming you're trying to make the game more fun rather than more easy raw editing is one of the most exciting parts of DF. Don't like how something's implemented? Change it, there's no reason your game has to be anything like anybody elses.

DFhack can bring some things into balance but it can also be used as a cheater tool. I like homogeneity in my forts it bothers me when my all black floor has a streak of hot pink running through it or is half brown so I'll use  Changelayer and Changevein to create a more aesthetically pleasing fort. Fastdwarf and liquids may be helpful but I don't think anyone's arguing that they're anything less than cheating. Still using liquids to fill a cistern that's already filling to save FPS isn't much of a cheaty move.

I don't assert the moral authority to tell anyone else to do so you should just play in a way that you find fun and balanced.

[Sutremaine]

I like homogeneity in my forts it bothers me when my all black floor has a streak of hot pink running through it or is half brown so I'll use  Changelayer and Changevein to create a more aesthetically pleasing fort.

You can do that in-game for floors, so it's less of a cheat than a time-saver.

I think the cheatiest thing I do beyond modding out aquifers and using reveal to decide where to dig is setting the mineral scarcity to 100. Like danger rooms, it's a thing the game allows, but it's a major shortcut.

[weenog]

If it can be done completely inside the game without requiring external accessories or editing the game itself, I'll do it and not lose a wink of sleep over it.  I don't care if water reactors are an intentional feature or an overlooked bug, for example, that's just the way the game plays... for now, anyway.

When editing the game, I use a fairly light touch.  I don't like to change basic functionality too much.  It's not an ethics thing, I'd just rather master the game before taking on something different that looks like it.  The edits I make are mainly small changes to the interaction between game and player: automating away some boring changes to labor lists by fiddling with the immigrant labor defaults, changing colour schemes to make things easier to see, showing fluid depth, that kind of thing.  I do revise the population caps down to something that seems more reasonable to me, and I've been considering trying to arrange for playable goblin towers, but I don't do things like turning off temperature or aquifers, moving hard-to-get flora and fauna into accessible places, or anything that really changes how the world works.