I suppose... but on the other hand I was writing a MUD at one point and instantaneous death being a possibility of combat was a strong feature that I thought made it much more exciting/fulfilling to play. Different strokes.
But death was not permanent. In a roguelike, it ordinarily is; and so having a mechanic where you can be oneshotted without making a mistake (this does assume that the game isn't one where being in combat in the first place means you've made a mistake) is inappropriate.
I guess... I mean, yes - I see your point. I even agree as far as the "gameplay" aspect goes... sort of.
But I find it entirely enjoyable with the possibility of receiving a critical hit to the spleen or the brain. Due to the gameplay aspect, I guess this is the only place where I can understand an "I have super moves but the rest of you chumps can only swing wildly" aspect. But if that's introduced I hope it would be an init option.
Nethack occasionally spawns gnome lords with wands of death/lightning/magic missile. Most characters in the Gnomish Mines don't have magic resistance. I don't find the possibility of that putting me off Nethack any more than I find the idea of a speargoblin putting his weapon into my brainpan via the eye a deterrment from adventure mode in DF.
Again, different strokes.
I'm not trying to say your experiences are illegitimate or anything, just making sure you're aware that many people enjoy the simulationist aspects.
I still don't understand your point, sorry.
I'm referring to the way rivers downstream from waterfalls have incorrectly high pressure and the water doesn't behave as you expect.
I haven't noticed that before - how is it incorrect? Not arguing - I'm actually curious.
I'm confused - what I was saying above was that the salient details of fortress #1 ARE saved for use in fortress #2.
What I'm trying to say is that that could be done without simulating the entire world.
To some extent, but what would be the point of taking away the world sim? Again, arguments against features seem odd. Also you wouldn't get engravings of past battles that occurred in the same location.
So I guess we're on the same page here?
I'm not sure. Let me try and explain what I'm really getting at more clearly.
I don't object to all that detail per se. It doesn't normally make the game worse for me (in the way that, say, the nightmare of micromanagement does). And I'm not soley concerned with statistics; that individual dwarves have personalities, or that engravings depict notable events (elephants on fire, say), is all perfectly jolly.
But I have three caveats about all that detail. The first is that it does make the game worse when suspension of disbelief suffers because of inconsistency. Brewing doesn't require water. An artifact pigtail sock, singular (and spiky to boot, so how does anyone wear it?) When I stop and think "what, that's obviously daft!", that doesn't help the game; and these oddities are amplified by the way things are so detailed. A stick figure with no nose looks normal; a lovingly detailed human face with no nose looks distinctly odd.
The second is that, while DF has got a lot of interesting gameplay from emergent properties of simulationism, simulationism can also work against gameplay. The way I can't just have an embark site with some of everything fun and I could beforehand strikes me an an example of this. Another worry would be the upcoming Army Arc. If I establish a fortress of seven dwarves in striking range of goblins, the sensible thing for them to do would be to send a sufficient force to wipe me out immediately and take all my gear. For a fun game I want the AI to be stupid - to send attacks I can defeat; but from a simulationist POV the AI should surely do what real militaries do and try to fight battles it can win.
The third is that I think a lot of development effort is diverted into either quite arbitary detail (as mentioned upthread, do you care about dwarves' skincare routine? A difference between you and me may be that I don't care at all and you care a bit, but is that as important to either of us as, for example, having fire behave like fire?) or needlessly complex mechanics which don't really change the gameplay significantly (hospitals, treatment, and surgery - great! yet more injury minituae - not so good), and when there are a lot of long-known serious issues that impact the play of the game today, I personally would prefer to see those addressed.
Singular socks are a little odd, but I think it's on the bug list.
The "some of everything fun" is just foreign to my mind I guess. I obviously know what you mean but I see so much else as "fun." And to me, deciduous trees growing in a desert at the rim of an active volcano just so I can have glass and beds and infinite fuel without having to trade for anything outside of my 3x3 embark area -- and having that be the common state of affairs! I can walk 6 miles up the road and see the exact same setup! -- would make the game
far less enjoyable. As I said before - it would make it "a game." As in, one of the things EA produces everytime a new Spider-Man movie comes out. Oh, I can't walk down this hallway even though I can walk down the one next to it. I guess the other one is where the boss is.
Before the AI sends a huge army they have to know about you - it destroys the living world illusion if their "goblin sense" tingles and they know seven dwarves just settled 80 miles to the south. So you'll still see scouts first, following the caravans to find you. Then raiding parties from nearby goblin villages. Then finally besieging armies from the capital as word spreads - remember, no telephone.
Of course, if you embark on their doorstep you might have issues, but isn't the point of doing so to look for trouble?
The nice thing about the "skincare" details is that he's adding them side-handed. A diversion of six hours of development time to add something that helps complete the living world illusion, even if it doesn't affect gameplay greatly, isn't such a big deal. The wrinkles were a side-effect of having creatures that grow and mature as they age. The wrinkles and greying hair themselves took only a couple hours (I'm recalling this from one of the interviews or question responses) to do as he was already working in the area.
It would be nice if dwarves recognized that being on fire is a bad thing. I'm definitely not arguing against bug fixes.
Hospitals treatment and surgery don't change the gameplay interestingly? ("significantly" is hard to evaluate in terms of meaningfulness - a "significant" change would be to make goblins explode in a burst of blood when you click on them, but that wouldn't necessarily make the game better.) I disagree, but again, different style of play.
The current development version is all about adding the features that have been building up that will break save compatibility. Once this is out, the work will go toward bug fixes and more gameplay oriented features. And they will come out faster. And you won't have to regen the world every time a new version comes out - so you can continue to elaborate on the history you're currently engaged with. Until suddenly, in the Year of Our Urist 532, dwarves realize that fire is bad for their health.
EDIT: Re: your edit (attribute leveling)
Already fixed in the next version. There are now more attributes, split into mental and physical categories, and certain tasks exercise only certain attributes.