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[blue sam3]

Just gonna leave this here...

The axes are labelled wrong. The axes should be "Ability to get stuff done" horizontally, against "Knowledge/understanding of game required" vertically.

[NW_Kohaku]

They're technically correct (the best kind of correct!)

In technical usage, a "steep" learning curve originally referred to one in which you gain knowledge quickly (hence, forming a steep graph.)  However, popular usage tends to use it the opposite way, likely due to the mental association of "steep" with eg. a steep, hard-to-climb cliff.

I think the main takeaway is the fact that that thread went to fifteen pages, which shows the really weird relationship a lot of Dwarf Fortress players have with the game's difficulty, like there's this pride in it being SUPAH HARD.  Honestly, though, when you get down to it...  it's not difficult once you know how to play.  I mean, if you know all the rules and the interface, you can easily make a fortress that is practically invulnerable, without requiring any particular skills beyond knowing those basic rules and controls.  There's a lot of rules and controls to memorize, which makes the game seem intimidating (and when you don't know all the rules, it tends to seem like things can fall apart for no clear reason), but I don't really think of it as a difficult game to play, just a hard one to get into.

I think the other issue is the "losing is fun" catchphrase.  What it really means is that Dwarf Fortress is designed to make it fun to lose; that is to say, when everything falls apart, it tends to do it in a memorable way.  But it's not hard game in the sense that eg. Dark Souls or Flappy Bird is hard.

The axes are labelled wrong. The axes should be "Ability to get stuff done" horizontally, against "Knowledge/understanding of game required" vertically.

That thread was locked for a reason.  Please don't reopen a pointless argument.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

...because people starting bringing in economics?

Hey, let's discuss the economical challenges of DF!

[DeCervantes]

Its just that the game has very unintuitive interface for a completely new player. Once you know how to navigate through the game it become reasonably easy.
Also, as people have stated, the game is more forgiving and in general easier now. In earlier versions you would get attacked constantly by goblins, so if you lacked a halfway decent military you could be wiped out quickly. I have also seen much less forgotten beasts in my last games, I used to see them constantly in previous versions.  And thats not mentioning even earlier versions, where fishers or dwarfs looking for water would get dismembered by carps and elephants would hulk out if you touched one of them and proceed to murder every dwarf in sight. Heck, in my last fort my hunters attacked a bunch of Rhinos and the only negative consequence is how tired they got before killing them. Im pretty sure in earlies versions this would have resulted in dead dwarfs, unhappy dwarfs, and probably a tantrum spiral.

[Pvt. Pirate]

Its just that the game has very unintuitive interface for a completely new player. Once you know how to navigate through the game it become reasonably easy.
[...] so if you lacked a halfway decent military you could be wiped out quickly. [...]

true. i am still new to the military screen and most times i don't have a sufficient military when the first enemy contact arrives - especially as i always need many haulers and my specialized dorfs must not die in the military.

[Mesa]

The problem I in particular have with DF is that its control scheme is not only unorthodox (I use vim which is easily one of the top two text editors with unusual control schemes out there together with emacs...but that's a story in and of itself, and I use some other things on my PC that don't quite follow the usual layouts as far as keyboard-based stuff is concerned), but also that they're just not very 'empowering' like those two - sometimes it feels like I'm spending as much time wrestling with the menus and controls as actually performing higher-level actions within the game, which is...well, unfun at best. Not to mention just how inconsistent it is. Some menus you move through with ↑↓, others with +-, others with */. I get there is some slight differences in each of those but that's still adds complexity without also adding much depth in return, unless mastering difficult control layouts is your thing.

I get that DF's very user-unfriendly interface has built some sort of charm around it to some people, myself included in some capacity, but it's no mystery that it's up for a rework sooner or later - and the ability to rebind keys (and possibly even share said control schemes easily via some kind of raw/config files) would go a long way towards making the lives of both new and long-time players (power users, you could say) better, making things less confusing for the former and more empowering for the latter.
Some things just seem plain ass backwards to me sometimes. Why is resizing/moving the embark area done with ...UMKH/umkh (or some other control scheme which either way just seems plain arbitrary compared to WASD or even HJKL)?

I don't know how much of a spaghetti code the game is right now to make easily-rebindable controls relatively easy to implement, let alone being able to play around with the menus (though you could probably take some inspiration from things like Eve, WoW, GW2 and even non-video game examples like Krita and Foobar2000, which let you build-your-own-interface on the go, but that's a very dream world scenario and I don't know how applicable such approach would be to Dwarf Fortress to begin with), but it's not something that can be delayed forever, since it's more than just a quality-of-life thing.

[Putnam]

rebindable controls are already implemented, in data/init/interface.txt

[Bumber]

And in-game. It's right there in the Esc menu when you go to save.

[Mesa]

Welp, disregard that particular point, then. Shows I don't look around the game too much. :L
^{(My other points still kinda stand though. I know I'm not exactly making any groundbreaking claims with the whole "ui needs a rework guys" thing, but at the same time I'm not adding it just to be a cool guy on that bandwagon.)}

[Pvt. Pirate]

well, rebinding all the actions would still result in me having first understand every single menu, which most new players (me included) don't.

[Max™]

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y U i
 H j K
  n M ,Weird, but it kinda makes sense.

Weirdest thing for me is that my keybinds are all tuned for adventure mode so I had to put in some accomodations for fort mode necessities, none of which helps me try to explain how to do something to a noobie.

"How do I wrestle someone?"
'Uh, you hit... shift+A I think?'

[milo christiansen]

I always rebind those stupid umhk bindings to wsad, it makes playing DF much more pleasant. Don't forget to swap "s" and "x" in the building orientation bindings! (it's like Toady has never played any games before, and is totally ignorant of the conventions)

[freeze]

Longtime vi user and roguelike player here. My biggest problem with the interface is that movement is _not_ vi keys. I internalized the default kb layout before it occurred to me to change them. I'd say the interface is a bit arcane but quite powerful once you get good at it. Think you're pro? Did you know you can bind keys to select rows in primary and secondary selection lists?

[Bumber]

I always rebind those stupid umhk bindings to wsad, it makes playing DF much more pleasant. Don't forget to swap "s" and "x" in the building orientation bindings! (it's like Toady has never played any games before, and is totally ignorant of the conventions)

What do you do when it requires both? Constructions and roads are moved with wsad, resized with umhk.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

I always rebind those stupid umhk bindings to wsad, it makes playing DF much more pleasant. Don't forget to swap "s" and "x" in the building orientation bindings! (it's like Toady has never played any games before, and is totally ignorant of the conventions)

  Well when I play games, I usually use ijkl for directions, wasd is not my thing except for first person shooter maybe.