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[Magmacube_tr]

I ask to you all a single question. What annoys you the most in Dwarf Fortress. It may be a mechanic, an issue, a flaw you percieve. Anything.

[Magmacube_tr]

For me, its the UI. Its a... lets say quite a mess. I have been trying to learn how to play this game for a while now, emphasis on trying.

I simply can't. I can't figure it out.

[Moeteru]

All the bugs.
The ones that have stopped me from playing most recently have been problems with invader pathfinding and invisible wagons getting stuck at the map edge, but there are lots of other issues too. It feels like at least half the skill of playing DF is a matter of knowing about various bugs and how to either work around them or use them to your advantage.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

For me, its the UI. Its a... lets say quite a mess. I have been trying to learn how to play this game for a while now, emphasis on trying.

I simply can't. I can't figure it out.

Have you tried using DFHack? I've heard it makes a number of aspects of the UI and gameplay a great deal easier. If it's the ASCII you're having trouble with then I'd recommend experimenting with some tilesets.

No argument though that the UI in the base game could use improvement (I don't find it absolutely unworkable personally but it can certainly slow things down quite a bit), luckily Toady seems to be working on that with the Steam updates we've seen.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

EDIT: Accidental double post, please ignore.

[Thisfox]

I love the UI. I'm living in (unjustified) fear of them changing it to cute little sprites and pictures you are forced to point and click to. I know I'm weird in that. But I love the whole damn interface. Except the trade windows. Those ARE annoying.
There are plenty of point and click games in the world, though.

What annoys me, though, is the moments where a whole decade old fort suddenly falls. It's always a stupid straw-on-the-camels-back reason, such as because someone left their glove in a doorway or a human stole an artifact wooden earring no one wanted in the first place, or an inaccessible grave. It is so irritating when it all tumbles down, and I love it, all at the same time....

[PlumpHelmetMan]

I love the UI. I'm living in (unjustified) fear of them changing it to cute little sprites and pictures you are forced to point and click to. I know I'm weird in that. But I love the whole damn interface. Except the trade windows. Those ARE annoying.
There are plenty of point and click games in the world, though.

No worries about that, ASCII mode isn't going anywhere per word of the Toad himself (it'll just be an optional feature so people who don't like it won't have to go through the trouble of installing a bunch of graphics packs, but Toady has no plans to alienate ASCII fans anytime soon). Keyboard commands will most likely stay as well.

I also prefer ASCII and keyboard commands myself, but I know they're not everyone's thing.

Also guess I should vent my own complaints if I insist on commenting in this thread. Mysterious crashes have been extremely frustrating for me lately, especially since the game lacks an autosave feature. I can spend two straight hours on a magnificent fort or an epic adventure...and then have every trace of it erased in a fraction of a second.

[Secretdorf]

What annoys me the most is my lack of adventure mode proficiency or that dumb dwarves will not haul things but rather stand idle with no job and sometimes when I want them to do something else, they are hauling. But I'd say that playing with keyboard gives such good fun, I love it, but somethings, I still haven't figured out. Magmacube you should try basic guide on df wiki thats how I started playing but you have probably already tried that.

[George_Chickens]

AI hostility bugs in adventure mode. Sometimes, I just gen worlds where nobody is hostile to me, not even after chopping off their leader's head in front of them.

[Rekov]

This is probably an odd answer, but the thing that annoys me most of all while playing DF is the designate priority thing. If you ever accidentally hit the button to turn it on, it's stuck on until you clear all of your designations. You have flashing numbers over all of your designations, and I get a headache after about 20 seconds of it.

[DwarfStar]

The things that annoy me the most are, paradoxically, the things I love the most about the game. That is, all the unfinished edges. It annoys the heck out of me, for example, that the off-site mission options are so limited. But, I also know that someday, it will get better. It’s that vast ocean of incomplete features, and the promise that they will all eventually be filled in, that keeps me fascinated with this game.

If I had to pick one UI element that gets in my way the most during gameplay, I’d have to finger the military equipment system. Burn it with fire.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

The things that annoy me the most are, paradoxically, the things I love the most about the game. That is, all the unfinished edges. It annoys the heck out of me, for example, that the off-site mission options are so limited. But, I also know that someday, it will get better. It’s that vast ocean of incomplete features, and the promise that they will all eventually be filled in, that keeps me fascinated with this game.

So much this! The fact that so many incredible breakthroughs in DF development are just on the horizon (Steam release, adventure mode villains and military improvements, myth and magic goes without saying) just makes waiting for more features that much more tantalizing and that much more frustrating, like a treat on the top shelf that's always just out of your reach.

[Magmacube_tr]

What annoys me, though, is the moments where a whole decade old fort suddenly falls. It's always a stupid straw-on-the-camels-back reason, such as because someone left their glove in a doorway or a human stole an artifact wooden earring no one wanted in the first place, or an inaccessible grave. It is so irritating when it all tumbles down, and I love it, all at the same time....

Murphy Law. If something will go wrong, anything can happen. This law should be much mire powerful in a game like DF than in real life.

[brewer bob]

I guess it'd be dwarves deciding that now is the time to fetch new clothes just after finishing construction work, throwing their socks onto the spot where a wall is being built and the construction getting suspended because of "item blocking site".

[Moeteru]

especially since the game lacks an autosave feature

I have some good news for you. There is actually an autosave feature. Look near the top of "data/init/d_init.txt" in your df folder.
These are the settings I use:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Use these to control the automatic saving behavior in the dwarf fortress mode of game.  AUTOSAVE can be set to NONE, SEASONAL or YEARLY.  This updates your save at these intervals, so that some of your progress will be saved in case of system instability.  You can set AUTOBACKUP to YES if you want the updated save to be copied to another folder so that you'll have several copies of your world at different times.  Set AUTOSAVE_PAUSE to YES if you want the game to pause every time it autosaves.

[AUTOSAVE:SEASONAL]
[AUTOBACKUP:YES]
[AUTOSAVE_PAUSE:YES]

Set this to YES if you want it to save the game when you start a new fortress.  If AUTOBACKUP above is set to YES, it will also create a copy of this new save.

[INITIAL_SAVE:YES]