Print

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

[Naryar]

yeah there needs to be a fix to that... DF without enemies isn't DF.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Which is still pretty much a bug or rather an error in design, though... Players want to be attacked. Changing the fundamental structure of the game in a way that makes players not get attacked anymore is making the game less of a good game and may need to be seriously reconsidered, and soon... I.e., that's not just a sufficient explanation or justification by itself to say that it  has changed.

I'm not saying we go back to making them out of thin air. But you also probably don't want the world to simulate goblins COMPLETELY realistically as in treating you no differently than any other fort. You'll need something in between -- adding parameters in that cause them to bias toward your fort beyond its actual strategic value or the actual chance of stumbling across it.

And you say the populations can't support that. Okay, so up the populations and the gobline breeding rate too so that they can!

Etc. etc. Excuses for a boring game don't make the game fun. Fixing the problem makes a game fun.

If there turns out to be no way to really fix the problem, then the feature should be rolled back, honestly. I don't think this is likely -- I think there are probably lots of ways to make it work with dynamic simulation. But IF there weren't, then it would be rolled back, not just "oh well, the game doesn't do what we want anymore" and give up...

(this is all a bit hyperbolic. It's still a fun game. But just less so.)

Actually, if I had the choice of conjuring goblins from the air or blasting them towards the player's fort and the current system, I would take the current system. The persistent world and total simulation is a great step forward for the game, and goblins should not be exempt from that. Nor do I want any favouritism towards the player's fort - that is simply a lazy way of making fake difficulty which the other forts in the game do not experience and unbalances the simulation. If players want to be attacked they can embark next to a necromancer tower or goblin fort which should just attack them by proximity. Rather than making goblin attacks come from nothing, or sending them towards the player all the time, it would be better to just make them much stronger and capable of doing things like tunnelling and destroying some walls, so that when they did come, there would be a serious fight and likely the end of the fortress unless the dwarves were very well prepared.

Rolling back the feature would be a big step back for the simulation, which is one of the best things about DF. This is not a game of COD zombies where the enemies come endlessly. Each enemy must be tracked and act in a sensible (by dwarven standards) way, with logistics and so on. And I prefer it like this, knowing that no stupid stuff is being stacked against me. If that means no invasions every year, then that means no invasions every year.

Of course, if players still want more fights, there is always the possibility of making underground animal men and other foes much, much more threatening...no invasions may come from above, but many from below...

[pisskop]

To the 'nobody attacks me' crowd

I've found out that the goblins arent using some of the weapons they could be, like giant axes, due to a bug.  I reduced the minsize of several 2h weapons from 62500 to 60000, the size of gobbos.  They are doing much better now . . .  Even keeping parity with their elven oppressors.

Seriously, for better goblins, give them the ability to use the very weapons they can make!

A side benefit is giving dwarves who are large enough the ability to use those weapons as well.

[bluephoenix]

I really don't mind not being besieged every single year, I got my forts first siege after 5 years and that's okay.
There are other things to do besides squashing goblins.

Also it is good that the players fort does not get attacked constantly like in any random RTS, it would bother me a lot now that the world is alive.
Look here we have the NPC fortress "cavesprinkled" in the green mountains, what a nice fort, oh look player fortress "troubledchairs" that is right next to cavesprinkled gets a huge goblin siege every 6 months... That would look really out of place, why is the players fort different?

If you want to get attacked, you can dig down any time you like.

[Naryar]

this is funny because back then in 0.34 i remember being sieged up to 6 times a year with Fortress Defense 2. Which was a bit much, to be honest. Too much shit to clean outside. But three or four times a year was fine, iirc.

Now people are happy with not being sieged every year :O

[GavJ]

so that when they did come, there would be a serious fight and likely the end of the fortress unless the dwarves were very well prepared.

This does not sound remotely fun, sorry. Sit around for 20 years being bored then sudden random annihilation of your fort unless you have been constantly vigilant, which you wouldn't be because an attack almost never happens and that would be super annoying and unreasonable to expect to be always prepared for it. No thanks.

Rolling back the feature would be a big step back for the simulation

Uh I'm simply referring to the goblins and sieges, not the entire simulation of the game world!!! That would be absurd to roll back.

By "roll back" I mean only the sieges aspect. I.e. go ahead and keep having armies walking aroudn and everything else, but simply temporarily stick in a few lines of code that say "armies ignore player + other goblins are spawned to attack player only, until we have time to get around to fixing the problem that was caused, then we'll put it back."

[Aslandus]

so that when they did come, there would be a serious fight and likely the end of the fortress unless the dwarves were very well prepared.

This does not sound remotely fun, sorry. Sit around for 20 years being bored then sudden random annihilation of your fort unless you have been constantly vigilant, which you wouldn't be because an attack almost never happens and that would be super annoying and unreasonable to expect to be always prepared for it. No thanks.

What kind of defenses are you using that require you to be constantly vigilant or your fortress just explodes? If you had 20 years to prepare, you had time to build walls, about 600 traps, train a legendary military and clad them all in steel armor and steel weapons. Basically, you should've been ready...

Etc. etc. Excuses for a boring game don't make the game fun. Fixing the problem makes a game fun.

I'll cut to the chase: people want different things. Some people want more things to kill, some people want to be left alone, some people want a realistic simulation of a world so they can feel like they're actually keeping a community of dwarves alive rather than just "playing a game". You can probably revert to older versions or find a mod that does what you want (or make one if you know how) but I personally like the more simulation, less gamey approach that is being taken.

[GavJ]

If you had 20 years to prepare, you had time to build walls, about 600 traps, train a legendary military and clad them all in steel armor and steel weapons. Basically, you should've been ready...

But nobody is going to do that. That's such a colossal, unfun, ridiculous waste of time. I don't even remember the last time I played a fort for 20 years, if ever, or even 10, really. I would NOT do ANY of those things, because the chances would be much higher that I would get bored of the fort before anything came of it, and it would just be riling myself up for nothing.

BEST case scenario, I prepared for 10 hours of gameplay for a minute and 35 second event. Uh no. Screw that. If the game were like that, I would just completely ignore defense entirely, and on the off chance goblins attacked after only 4 years, just go "oh well" and make a new fort. Because that would be way less annoying than spending hours preparing for epic goblins in 12 forts without ever seeing one.

You can probably revert to older versions

And not get any benefit from any other updates? That is not a reasonable solution.

Notice that I did not say at any point the game should not ultimately be realistically simualted. I said it should be fixed soon, or if not a high priority, then a TEMPORARY stopgap should be put in place to fix the broken side effect, until such time as it can be made to work well while still running off of the full simulation and actual historical figures. I agree that is the best ultimate goal. Ideally with parameters that control underlying things in the realistic simulation to make it, realistically, provide different kinds of gameplay that different people enjoy.

But that's not what we have now. We have an undercooked system that wasn't apparently ready yet, and it needs some bandaids until it is fully baked.

Also notice that the stopgap measure DOES allow almost everybody of diverse interests to get what they want -- if you want few invasions or more invasions, or for them to come in different general time periods, random or not random, different sizes of invasions, any of those preferences are easily accommodated. Generated goblins just for sieges would be trivial to control with a custom parameters until a better realistically driven system is in place. Thus, the solution satisfies every group of people except the ones who happen to like simulations for their own sake aside from gameplay. Which I dare say is probably a small minority.

So am I maybe a small minority too. But not me + the people who want later but reliable sieges + the people who want lots of ambushes + the people who want blah blah, everybody else who would benefit from a less capricious and broken system.

[Naryar]

No, it is an issue of the game.

If some hippies players do not want to fight at all, there is an option in the game that removes invaders.

If some players want occasional fighting, then put your fortress far away from a goblin encampment and necromancer towers. Besides, goblins are only active in winter, 1 attack per year is a reasonable pace.

And if players want some action, like first ambushes in end of year 2 - year 3 and the first siege a few years thereafter, and then some consequent goblin attacks, they should have it !

[Urist Tilaturist]

The system is neither capricious nor broken. Armies just behave in a sensible way and do not beeline for the player's fort. A lot of you seem to want extra goblins spawning without regard to logistics and so on, which would unbalance the simulation and be a massive inconsistency - why don't elves get loads of extras materialising all the time, or dwarves?

When goblins arrived, I never said they would be unbeatable, or anything close to unbeatable. I just said that they would wreck the fortress if players had not prepared properly with traps, concentric defences and loads of legendary dwarves. If they had, the goblins would be soundly beaten. And, sure enough, I and many other players do not find preparing fort defences to be boring. Remember that if they are sieging, it is because they think they can win - nobody starts a fight with somebody he thinks will batter him if he has any sense.

If people are not being attacked even if they embark right next to a goblin fort/necromancer tower, then something is wrong, but that fix needs to come based on the current system, by making goblins attack more, making them stronger, breed faster and so on, not by using simulation breaking, lazy, "gamey" tactics like making loads of goblins appear for no reason and throwing them at the player's fort. One of the best things about DF is its simulation. If it resorts to launching waves of enemies at the player, it is turning into COD zombies, and that is not a good thing.

[Col_Jessep]

The system is neither capricious nor broken. Armies just behave in a sensible way and do not beeline for the player's fort. A lot of you seem to want extra goblins spawning without regard to logistics and so on, which would unbalance the simulation and be a massive inconsistency...

I embarked in a tile away from a dark fortress with 10,000 gobbos and 5,000 trolls. Nothing happened for years. I think it would feel more "realistic" if the goblins would send a couple of soldiers ASAP to fuck up those 7 crazy dwarfs who are trying to build a new fortress within spitting distance of their capital.

Besides, DF has no problem conjuring migrants, traders and even your monarch from thin air. I'd have no problem with it if it would just generate a couple of raiders and bandits and the odd siege every now and then.

Realism is all nice and stuff but in games it's better to make things fun and then put them into a setting that makes them seem plausible. And who said Armok can't just create 50 goblins and trolls from thin air because he is bored?

[Sergarr]

Even if sieges would be conjured from air, you'd run into a problem where dwarves will not attack the goblins and just stand there.

These two bugs combine with each other to make DF unplayable as a war game.

[Urist Tilaturist]

The system is neither capricious nor broken. Armies just behave in a sensible way and do not beeline for the player's fort. A lot of you seem to want extra goblins spawning without regard to logistics and so on, which would unbalance the simulation and be a massive inconsistency...

I embarked in a tile away from a dark fortress with 10,000 gobbos and 5,000 trolls. Nothing happened for years. I think it would feel more "realistic" if the goblins would send a couple of soldiers ASAP to fuck up those 7 crazy dwarfs who are trying to build a new fortress within spitting distance of their capital.

Besides, DF has no problem conjuring migrants, traders and even your monarch from thin air. I'd have no problem with it if it would just generate a couple of raiders and bandits and the odd siege every now and then.

Realism is all nice and stuff but in games it's better to make things fun and then put them into a setting that makes them seem plausible. And who said Armok can't just create 50 goblins and trolls from thin air because he is bored?

This shows a problem with the current situation, but the solution is just to make that dark fortress attack small nearby settlements more often, resulting in your being attacked, not conjuring goblins from the air. Armok conjuring things, if it is in game, should apply to all races and not be focused solely on the player's fort. If there are 10,000 goblins around it should not be hard to make 20 of them come to attack the fort. I agree that it is silly that no goblins have attacked, but I would prefer for the goblins to just be much more aggressive to small nearby settlements and try to "nip the bud" before they grow with small armies. That seems doable and fits with the current, better model of the game.

To Sergarr:
DF is not a war game. I do agree that goblins do not attack enough in some cases, but goblins sieges are not and should not be the focus of the game.

[Aslandus]

The system is neither capricious nor broken. Armies just behave in a sensible way and do not beeline for the player's fort. A lot of you seem to want extra goblins spawning without regard to logistics and so on, which would unbalance the simulation and be a massive inconsistency...

I embarked in a tile away from a dark fortress with 10,000 gobbos and 5,000 trolls. Nothing happened for years. I think it would feel more "realistic" if the goblins would send a couple of soldiers ASAP to fuck up those 7 crazy dwarfs who are trying to build a new fortress within spitting distance of their capital.

Besides, DF has no problem conjuring migrants, traders and even your monarch from thin air. I'd have no problem with it if it would just generate a couple of raiders and bandits and the odd siege every now and then.

Realism is all nice and stuff but in games it's better to make things fun and then put them into a setting that makes them seem plausible. And who said Armok can't just create 50 goblins and trolls from thin air because he is bored?

This shows a problem with the current situation, but the solution is just to make that dark fortress attack small nearby settlements more often, resulting in your being attacked, not conjuring goblins from the air. Armok conjuring things, if it is in game, should apply to all races and not be focused solely on the player's fort. If there are 10,000 goblins around it should not be hard to make 20 of them come to attack the fort. I agree that it is silly that no goblins have attacked, but I would prefer for the goblins to just be much more aggressive to small nearby settlements and try to "nip the bud" before they grow with small armies. That seems doable and fits with the current, better model of the game.

To Sergarr:
DF is not a war game. I do agree that goblins do not attack enough in some cases, but goblins sieges are not and should not be the focus of the game.

That sounds like a more sensible solution, have the goblins actually attack more often when you are closer rather than having a static "will attack or won't attack" if you're in range... (granted I don't know what the coding actually looks like but it seems from the existence of this thread that proximity isn't considered very much)

Also I'm surprised people think this game is supposed to be centered around killing goblins rather than building fortresses or leading dwarves, I mean it's called "Dwarf Fortress" not "Goblin Murder Simulator"...

[Ancalagon_TB]

If you want to use that argument, well... it is call fortress - which implies a strong defensive position.  It's not called "dwarven city"