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[qalnor]

quote:Originally posted by dav:
<STRONG>Brainstorming is always good.  Some of this is in the dev files, and some can be modified yourself.  Add creatures, increase their frequency, make your dogs and dwarves slow and helpless.  Make trap damage pall in comparison to an elephant stampede.  (Don't mean this to be a conversaton killer, just pointing out that there are some noncomprehensive fixes.)</STRONG>

I don't really think most of these points are terribly legitimate responses to most of the ideas presented here.

Some of it might be in the dev files, I'll grant that, and I agree with you there where that's true.

But I think the ideas you've presnted as 'solutions' for making the game harder are really not very useful or fun.

I would also say, in addition to that, that even if solutions can be achieved by editing data files, I don't think that's a complete criticism for suggestions.

Most of us play either vanilla dwarf fortress or else we play vanilla dwarf fortress with only minor changes. Why?

Because when you add new features, you can no longer have a conversation with someone else who plays the game and have true common ground. Things you say become either meaningless or confusing, as I've noticed dozens of times on these forums when people mention things about the game without remembering to mention the fact that it was edited in.

[puke]

quote:Originally posted by CogDissident:
<STRONG>You can change the frequency of dragons and such in the files, try it sometime.</STRONG>

really?  which one?  I thought I looked through all the documented settings in the creatures file, is it somewhere else?

Do you have to do this at world creation to make a world with more of those monsters, or are they random generated events in fortress mode?

[puke]

quote:Originally posted by qalnor:
<STRONG>But I think the ideas you've presnted as 'solutions' for making the game harder are really not very useful or fun.</STRONG>

actually he was contributing very constructively, and was finding ways to increase the challenge level of the game without removing other features.  I really dont like the idea of stripping out the game features, as most of them are what initially attracted me to DF in the first place.

In fact, nowhere did poor little Dav suggest that others' ideas were illegitamate.  Why are you telling him that his are?  lets just step back from that arguement, and continue posting usefull suggestions.  not everyone will like all of them.

[qalnor]

Well he suggested that some of the things listed could be accomplished just by editing data files.

What I'm saying is that I can't think of very many circumstances where that's true.

And I don't see anything where he said anything about removing or not removing game features, nor am I really sure what you're referring to.

I agree that we should return to listing ideas, which is not what 'edit the files yourself and read the dev notes' is.

I'm not trying to slam on him, either, I just don't particuarly agree that much of what has been listed here can be accomplished  well by the means he describes.

[bbb]

can always try slowing your dwarves down by say 500%

[grendel]

quote:Originally posted by Skyrage:
<STRONG>I think that people are going way overboard with their ideas here

  :roll:

On the other hand, adding an option which sets how extreme the game difficulty should be in terms of events and whatnot else is always possible. That way everyone will be happy </STRONG>

That, and some areas could be harder than others. In the same world you could have The Happy Peaceful Forest and The Terrible Forest of Stabbing. I think Toady was going to do something like this, but then decided to work on things that were more critical, like fixing crash bugs and such.

[Misterstone]

I think another thing that needs to be tweaked is animal raising...  you really shouldn't be able to raise a huge herd of horses in a cave without them needing extra food/fodder or without them making a huge smell mess of the place.  It should be a little more challenging (for instance, you need to build pens for them outside, provide them with food- maybe crops like wheat or pig tails could provide fodder by-products- etc).  Predator packs could be tempted to raid your livestock herds more often... you get the idea.  Right now, if you get a large herd of horses going it can take care of a huge % of your food needs.

Raising elephants should be even tougher than horses  

[Misterstone]

Oh yeah, before I forget...

I think it should be much harder to channel magma.  I mean, you are you going to get magma all the way out of your fortress without it simply solidifying?  I always assumed that the magma river was over a really hot geothermal spot of some kind, but building a channel that goes more than a few hundred meters is just going to give you a pit full of volcanic rock, right?

I think that the steam defense was pretty cool, but let's be honest:  now that someone was smart enough to develop it, it takes the challenge out of defense.  

So I say, limit the distance that lava can be channeled, but make it possible to site magma forges on those channels.  Two issues solved in a single blow!

[puke]

thats a good point.  it will probably be fixed when more of the biome work is done, but tame creatures currently dont eat, dont freeze, handle any climate, and are basically spontaniously reproducing meat.

dogs / horses / mules / whatever should all have diet requirements as well as temperature tollerances.

of course, detailing to this level might make it impractical to chain animals anywhere, or cage them, or to run a zoo.  you'd have to way the benefits of whatever approach you took..

[Solara]

quote:Originally posted by jonhuang:
<STRONG>A nice and subtle way to make the game harder is to require mechanisms to be made of metal, not stone.

0) Fits the lore. Stone clockwork mechanisms are kind of silly anyway.
1) Most people will have to nile farm the first year
2) Reduces abuse of hundreds of traps without making it impossible to make hundreds of traps. The game gets a lot harder if you have to use a dwarf military to fend things too--injuries are worse than death (which I actually think is too much).
3) Encourages people to make metal before lava forges
4) Makes it harder to have legendary mechanics

Also, there are "exploits" everyone uses right now.

1) loading up with 1 of every food for extra barrels / wagons / animals
2) We probably shouldn't be able to cook alcohol to make one unit of food into five.
3) Unbreakable defenses / drawbridge crushing
4) Noble stacking
5) Free crossbows with trappers
6) other things I forget

Amazing game btw.

[ November 10, 2006: Message edited by: jonhuang ]</STRONG>

This has to be my favorite suggestion so far. Makes sense, not too drastic on the surface, and probably the easiest to program, but it would make for a lot more challenge in the early game since you can't rely on stonefall traps and floodgates.

[dav]

[qalnor: You're right - my former post wasn't amazingly helpful.  It's a stopgap measure for people who want immediate results.  However, I mod the raws quite a bit for flavor, and I'm still conversing with other DF players.  It may not be right for you; that's fine.]

There's a real balance to be had, and I like the idea of sliding scales, which seem to be in the game on some level.  No doubt this will expand as Toady has the time and/or will.  

I think seeing a world that responds more appropriately to the dwarf intrusion would rack up the difficulty.  That is, depending on your playing style, the difficulty would be more or less.  Obviously, things like making metal mechanisms (great idea) make things more difficult for everyone.  

What if, say, clear-cutting your map of trees had a genuine effect?  Even thirty years after clearcutting a hillside, it may remain decimated.  You'd need to weigh getting wood fast vs. a long term supply.  Creatures would change as well.  If you hunt all the deer, what are the wolves going to eat?  Horses?  Cats?  Woodcutters?  

What if there were more serious consequences for noble deaths, or large numbers of immigrant deaths?  

I like the social play of DF - that shows in what kinds of things I'd like.  I'm much less interested in raw combat.

[Seryntas]

I've got some ideas about farming.

As far as the metal mechanisms idea goes, I think it's a good one, except I think we should be then given the option of watering our crops by bucket - a slow, ponderous, and wood-intensive way to go about it, but I don't trust Nile flooding.

As far as floodgates go in the first place, it's never seemed to me to be particularly logical or realistic to have a lever system like this at early stages, especially because it functions through several layers of solid stone.  If you ask me, you should just be able to open a floodgate by hand, and then just enough to let out a little trickle of water to wet the ground enough for mushrooms (and then open it all the way later to drown the invaders).  Having a dangerous quantity of water getting just sucked out of the room by a shut floodgate isn't realistic in the first place.  Possibly this is due to the lack of a system of elevation in Dwarf mode; the concept of water flowing downhill breaks down when...there...is...no...downhill...

A miner with more skill should be able to open a channel right to a body of water (i.e. no floodgate) with less chance of getting caught in the flow like an idiot.  I don't know if this is the case already, but in my experience it doesn't seem to be.  Also, the concept of a simple dam that can be destroyed seems logical to me as well.

In addition, we're told about rain so often that we should be able to goddamn do something with it, like set buckets to collect it or a channel to bring it into the fortress.

The idea that dwarves shouldn't be able to build channels outside is illogical, if you ask me.  I mean, all balance issues aside, it's a ditch.  I'm sure the pathfinding behaviors that make channel corralling so effective will be corrected eventually or made harder to use (i.e. an animal who fails to find a path because he's been cunningly trapped becomes skittish and/or violent).  Of course, channels must be made correctly or there are all sorts of ways to muck it up; that might be an effective way to discourage it, too.  A risk of accidentally diverting the main flow of the outside river toward the cave entrance might be interesting...

[Draxxalon]

It's also illogical that dwarves cannot plant exterior plants and farm them, or are unable to build traps of any sort outside.  

But you can't do either of those, for gameplay reasons.

And as someone recently said, it's more brainstorming than actual "hey, make the game do this" in this thread.

I think mechanism materials might be an interesting idea, perhaps instead of metal-only, have different mechanism uses require different materials.

Stone mechanisms could be used to make levers, pressure plates, and perhaps stonefall traps (to allow a primitive trap still, although perhaps stonefall traps should be less effective than they are now?).  Higher quality traps and levers connected to things could require (furniture grade) metal  mechanisms.  Perhaps things like bridges could require weapons-grade metals?

Tying into the idea of less-lethal floods, perhaps you could hook up floodgates with stone mechanisms, but that would only ever generate shallow water (good for farming, not much else), and to generate an actual flood, you'd need metal ones.

[jonhuang]

RE: metal mechanisms. Allowing stone mechanisms for farming or stonefall traps kinda removes the purpose of restricing it to metal. Basically, it should restrict stonefalls to the current price of weapon traps. And if you'd like to allow builds that floodgate farm right off, let people buy mechanisms with their starting points.

Another interesting change could be made to channels, which are overused for outdoor defense issues, manipulating mob pathing, etc. Why not equate outdoor channels to dirt roads? Effective and cheap, but they get filled in by the spring thaw. If people want permanant features, use aquaducts.

Also agreeing that lava should destory non-steel doors/floodgates/aquaducts. It just makes sense. And making a steel bridge out of 1x steel and 5x tin shouldn't count either.

Basically, I think the best changes shouldn't restrict any possible thing that we can do today (except unbeatable moats/doors). Just make it more expensive.

[ November 11, 2006: Message edited by: jonhuang ]

[Draxxalon]

The problem with "all-metal" mechanisms, I think, is that you're hugely increasing that "survive the first winter" step, which is already a big one to surpass.

Allowing them to be brought with you would either mean they would have to be very cheap (and become an exploitable source of metal), or would likewise make that first winter step harder due to less supplies/skiils if they were not.

  I believe that "first winter" step is already pretty hard, particularly for new players (how many forts does it take the average person to get through that stage, without looking at the wiki, or asking for help?).  

Increasing the difficulty beyond that stage was the idea of this thread.   Incremental material uses for mechanicism would add difficulty over time.

(Note that where I said stonefall traps should be reduced in power... so you would need a lot of them to be at all effective, even against weak creatures, and that the floodgates using stone would not allow flood traps either).

Anyhow, tis just a suggestion, and one unlikely to be implemented anyway