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Yes, they are an easy means of getting legendary dwarves.

91 (32.7%)

No, it's in the game and no one says you have to use it.

54 (19.4%)

Who cares play however you want.

133 (47.8%)

Total Members Voted: 274

Voting closed: August 13, 2011, 06:26:01 pm

[CT]

Due to a thread that i started recently I wanted to know if you think danger rooms are an exploit.

[Urist Imiknorris]

They aren't if you use menacing spikes...

[zehive]

I don't think its an exploit. But it makes the game too easy, in a way thats too easy to construct. I mean, (if the dungeon master was still working) if you tame a dragon and train it into a war dragon, that'd be a pretty nifty way to OWN sieges, but it requires great levels of dorfdom to effectively pull off. Making a breeding pair of dragons and having your fort for so long they grow into adults is interesting too.

But danger rooms, you can basically be more dangerous then a dragon with comparatively zero effort. People will say 'game features used in an unintended way to make everything easier!', but then can't you say that about many ridiculous traps? Like cave ins crushing entire hordes of demons, or a Bronze Colossus in a small wooden cage. Not an exploit, but it makes the game less challenging. For a new player, I'd recommend they use danger rooms if they want to see a long-lived fort, but tell them that playing without it makes the game more thrilling.

[Entih]

I don't much consider it an exploit, but I do consider it excessive.  It is the single easiest way to get a win-all in terms of ambushes and sieges, and if you can mine five tiles, you can make it happen.  If this should be fixed, it should be made such that training weapons can not be used in spear traps, as wearing clothing, I have had raw civilians not even get a bruise after several minutes in one.  It would still be a viable training option, but the added danger of a spike being driven through your military in a harmful way would give it an edge.

However, the training outside the danger room can be painfully slow.  The melee soldiers I have had since year 3 in my current fort, in which I resolved to not use danger rooms (or traps which incur damage to enemies), has gotten to a highest weapon level skill of 'talented' after seven whole years, although there are a few grand master fighters.  The upside is that this slow military training causes you to get quite attached to your soldiers and their progress, and losing them makes YOU want to go into a tantrum spiral.

[Lectorog]

I think they're an exploit, as they train up your dwarves unrealistically fast without any real danger to them. All the same, I don't care - play the game how you want. You'll get legendary hammerdwarves at some point; it's just a matter of one season against one year, five years, or more.

I voted for the first option, for polling purposes, but my views are also on the third.

[RenoFox]

I agree that they are an exploit, but by the very nature of DF players do things only as easily as they want to. They're just one level below using traps for perfect safety, but when you're done with them you'll start aiming for more Fun playstyles.

[Sutremaine]

However, the training outside the danger room can be painfully slow.  The melee soldiers I have had since year 3 in my current fort, in which I resolved to not use danger rooms (or traps which incur damage to enemies), has gotten to a highest weapon level skill of 'talented' after seven whole years, although there are a few grand master fighters.

You're doin' it wrong.

Take three dwarves who are the best teachers and have good skills to go with it, and put them in an unarmed squad that's set to train all the time with all members. Make sure they have waterskins (drinking takes forever otherwise), bedrooms close by, food close by, basically anything that minimises their time spent not training. Then leave them to do nothing else for a year. They should stay unarmed because dwarves like to focus on weapon skill to the exclusion of the defensive skills that are slow to train. They'll also learn unarmed combat this way, and since you can't control their tendency to throw punches and bite things they might as well be good at it. An effective bite and shake in the right place can shed a lot of blood.

[Darth_Karl]

That assume you can get people with good training though. unless you go for a military embark you'd have to be very lucky. Level 4 training is the best i've got out of over 120 immigrants. It's taking an age for anyone to level ATM.

That said, as others say, the issue with danger rooms is more that they train excessivlly high excesivlly fast. if you could designate a lever and some upright spikes as a training area that helps speed up dodge, sheild and armour training somewhat, well that would be ok. Since your still talking a multi-season train with plenty of work involved.

[Tallefred]

Sure, they're an exploit. You know what else is an exploit? Lightbulbs, and elevators, and fire. We use exploits all the time in real life, but we call it science.

Dwarf Fortress is complex enough that there are things with unintended consequences, such as danger rooms. It's not like it dupes gold, or something else that isn't meant to be in the game, it just uses the in-game physics in a way that Toady didn't envision. That's half of what this game is about.

Is it a bit overpowered? Sure. I don't use them personally for that reason, but if other people use them it's not like they're cheating. They're just doing what humans do best, abusing the world's mechanics to make our lives easier.

[Jimlad11]

deleted

[malvado]

Currently my opinion is that they are not exactly an exploit since there's so many other stuff thats partially working , such as :

*Attributes degrading instead of increasing in vanilla 32.25 on labour tasks. Pretty funny when your legendary miner +20 and 5 years only mining doesnt earn a single bit of muscle but ends up like a fat turd. Modding these a little does help though and thats what I've done.

*Your dwarves tends to do things they normally shouldnt do like : channel on the wrong side : Death either by falling down, drowing or something otherwise stupid. Walk 500 tiles to pick up a stone even when someone recently dropped 5 stones in a pit 15 tiles by.

Basically what I'm saying is that there's still a lot of balancing needed in this game so untill that is sorted I see the Danger room as a viable option for those that wishes to use it.

[ullrich]

I think it is an exploit, however I do use them as unless you want to jump through loops set up 2-3 man squads only and select squad members extremely carefully, military training basically doesn't happen.

So I think till the way military train is revamped somewhat its the only real way to train your dwarves.

(If you make a squad of 10, even with 1 with fairly high military skills as the leader, training 12 months a year they may not even get passed dabbling in a decade if you have bad luck, and that is just stupid, its not that hard to learn to swing an axe.)

[lanceleoghauni]

we seem to have a roughly even split between "I don't really care" and "OMGWTFHAX"

My guess is the I don't cares primarily come from fellow tinkers who think armies are a waste of time anyways.

[G-Flex]

Sure, they're an exploit. You know what else is an exploit? Lightbulbs, and elevators, and fire. We use exploits all the time in real life, but we call it science.

Dwarf Fortress is complex enough that there are things with unintended consequences, such as danger rooms. It's not like it dupes gold, or something else that isn't meant to be in the game, it just uses the in-game physics in a way that Toady didn't envision. That's half of what this game is about.

The problem here isn't that it's emergent gameplay, it's that it's emergent gameplay as the result of highly flawed features. Skill gain in DF is not very realistic at the moment, and I doubt that Toady sees its current state as anything near ideal.

[Berserkenstein]

I think danger rooms train too fast and that they make the game unbalanced, but I don't consider it an exploit. 

I don't bother using them anymore myself though, I just can't allow any trap to have less than the maximum amount of weapons and linking that many spikes is too time consuming...

I also can't play the game without soundsense anymore and a danger room spams obnoxious levels of noise.

I also find that they make the game way less fun.

That being said though, I can understand how newer players find them to be a godsend.  I still remember how ruthless I thought goblins were when I first started and didn't have a good grasp of game mechanics yet.

I think it becomes a crutch to some people though.  The time and resources spent making a danger room are better used in preparing proper defenses/military imho. 

The quicker you are at defending your fort, the less you will need to rely on a danger room.