Print

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

[SebbyTheFreak]

Well, from all my friends, I'm the only one who have no real problems with the game since I love optimised controls and am used to using exclusively my keyboard thanks to alot of my childhood spent playing simulation games.

However, everyone else hates the fact you can't navigate throught he menus with the mouse... well basically they'd wish you could play the game with the mouse only.

So yeah... the mouse is the biggest issue for all the people I know.

[Eric Blank]

Standardized tutorials, or better publishing of the community-created ones, may be helpful to players willing to at least learn to play it. A lot of people though, especially younger players, are so instantly turned off by the realization that they need to know anything new or spend any brainpower on comprehending how the game displays the world (It's the 2d top-down as much as the ASCII) that they will walk away and never look back. I would have to say that if the game cannot be played with ungodly 3d graphics and standardized controls, a huge portion of those 90% we're losing can just be lopped off and completely ignored.
Fortunately for the community it's also filtered out most of the idiots.

The violence inherent to the game may be a turn off for a few people as well, but then again most people don't see it coming and once it begins they tend to just let it continue to it's full potential as if it's becoming normal to them.

[Andir]

Well, from all my friends, I'm the only one who have no real problems with the game since I love optimised controls and am used to using exclusively my keyboard thanks to alot of my childhood spent playing simulation games.

However, everyone else hates the fact you can't navigate throught he menus with the mouse... well basically they'd wish you could play the game with the mouse only.

So yeah... the mouse is the biggest issue for all the people I know.

The same thing occurs with games today, though it's called consolitis and from what I hear, Skyrim falls victim to this as well.  There are well established controls for doing certain actions and DF violates some of those by making mouse interactions a total mess.

[Quarterblue]

I would have to say that if the game cannot be played with ungodly 3d graphics and standardized controls, a huge portion of those 90% we're losing can just be lopped off and completely ignored.
Fortunately for the community it's also filtered out most of the idiots.

They will be added. In 2020. Not even joking. Also, people wishing to have 3d graphics in a game aren't idiots.

[Squidpalace]

They will be added. In 2020. Not even joking. Also, people wishing to have 3d graphics in a game aren't idiots.

Whether or not df will ever have 3d graphics is debated frequently. Most often the conclusion is that it is very low on the priority list, that's if it is even possible or desirable. Eric wasn't saying that people who want graphics are idiots, only that people who are able to enjoy df as it is are often not idiots.

[Nivim]

 I have an unnatural and probably foolish degree of confidence that the guy I mentioned here will indeed end up giving Dwarf Fortress graphics someday. There happens to be a poll there, if you care.

[Squidpalace]

I mentioned here

Link goes to a holiday destination near Coffs Harbour.

[Weaselcake]

I hate how there's not enough chances for 'Fun' after you eventually master the game. The strongest defense can always defeat the strongest offense in this. I'd like to see deployable ladders (so sieging enemies can climb wall defenses), more enemies that can destroy constructions, and maybe enemies that can even 'dig' their way inside the fortress if there's no other way inside.

[Nivim]

I mentioned here

Link goes to a holiday destination near Coffs Harbour.

I knew I was forgetting something; fixed this and the first.

[hoveringdog]

I hate how there's not enough chances for 'Fun' after you eventually master the game. The strongest defense can always defeat the strongest offense in this. I'd like to see deployable ladders (so sieging enemies can climb wall defenses), more enemies that can destroy constructions, and maybe enemies that can even 'dig' their way inside the fortress if there's no other way inside.

Yeah, this. I still very much enjoy the game, but it's too easy to create a prosperous, self-contained fortress while shutting out sieges with a simple drawbridge (or slaughtering the invaders wholesale by leading them single file like lemmings down a corridor of spinning blades). The main activity of the end game for me is now carving enough storage space and constructing enough containers to store a ridiculous wealth of food and crafts. Enemies that climbed, dug, destroyed walls, and avoided known traps would make for more interesting and challenging game play (as would siege engines that could actually target enemies, catapults capable of indirect fire and beating down walls, and enemies who could build siege engines in the field.)

Hopefully, the new vampire dwarves, at least, will mix things up a bit.

[Kogut]

Broken [FLIER] tag.

[QuakeIV]

Restarting after my latest failure.

That gets old pretty fast, otherwise the game is fine imo.

[Jiri Petru]

The game is tedious. Full stop.

It has some great moments thanks to its depth... enough to make it worth playing. The problem is that these are bogged down in too much menial tasks that are no fun at all. Endless micromanagement just to keep your fortress running, spending hours in miles long lists and doing many more unfun tasks.

As more and more features get added, even more micromanagement is required to achieve the same things - an oft quoted example is the new military system. While it is true it adds new options, which is always good, is also requires the player to spend more time fiddling with menus than before. Which is just bad design. Dtto for healthcare, revamped materials and many more new features.

In short, the game needs to greatly improve its tedium/fun ratio by:

1) Sensible interface (!!!) that minimizes the number of tasks that need to be done regularly, and makes important tasks (ie. setting up a military) as quick and easy as possible.
2) Optional automation for the menial tasks that are no fun. For example all production should be automatized - I hate how I have to order new batches of socks all the time. A great example of automation are the new beehives.

As it stands, I am unable to play Dwarf Fortress for long before I get bored. I know there are fun events, monsters, sieges, accidents etc. waiting for me. I just don't have the will to slog through all the boring tasks to get to them any more.

[zwei]

The game is tedious.

Yep, most foprtresses die of micromanagement for me too. After certain point, most of your gameplay is spent on maintenance "checklist":

Requeue brewing task on repeat
Requeue cooking task on repeat
Requeue other "on repeat, no brainer" tasks (dye thread or cloth, process plants, mill plants, sew cloth image ...)
Queue other maintenance stuff (soap production, some bars, barrels, bins, bolts, etc...)

Check bodypart stockpile and dump it to atom smasher/magma.

Mark plants to be gathered, trees to be cut.

Mark extra metal items to be melted.

Check mandates and queue production.

Trade with caravan - which consists of sifting through junk to find stuff you want (meltable objects on late game, plaster, etc ... ). Hammer new trade agreement which is nearly identical to your last one.

Deal with yet another siege - which means tons of hauling, corpse disposal, marking stuff to be melted and generally boring stuff.

Culling animal herds.

...

And THEN, there is "brand new game" tedium. Like making yet another plant stockpile which contains only brewable plants, another which contains only millable plants, setting some options (gather outside refuse, forbid on death, set drinks to be not cookable, reserve 5 barrels for brewing, set record keeping to maximum ...), making uniform(s) and layouting squads ...

Stuff that is pretty much the same for each and every bootup. And which makes you reconsider starting new fort.

Thank god for each automated task.

[Footkerchief]

The game is tedious. Full stop.

It has some great moments thanks to its depth... enough to make it worth playing. The problem is that these are bogged down in too much menial tasks that are no fun at all. Endless micromanagement just to keep your fortress running, spending hours in miles long lists and doing many more unfun tasks.

As more and more features get added, even more micromanagement is required to achieve the same things - an oft quoted example is the new military system. While it is true it adds new options, which is always good, is also requires the player to spend more time fiddling with menus than before. Which is just bad design. Dtto for healthcare, revamped materials and many more new features.

In short, the game needs to greatly improve its tedium/fun ratio by:

1) Sensible interface (!!!) that minimizes the number of tasks that need to be done regularly, and makes important tasks (ie. setting up a military) as quick and easy as possible.
2) Optional automation for the menial tasks that are no fun. For example all production should be automatized - I hate how I have to order new batches of socks all the time. A great example of automation are the new beehives.

As it stands, I am unable to play Dwarf Fortress for long before I get bored. I know there are fun events, monsters, sieges, accidents etc. waiting for me. I just don't have the will to slog through all the boring tasks to get to them any more.

All true, and that's the main reason I play Adventure Mode.