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[nop]

The gameplay is very boring at later stages for me.
I tried 1] to start near volcano 2] to start near evil ocean 3] to start being at war with humans, elves and goblins 4] to start in area with undead whales, undead giant eagles, undead elephants 5] to start in area with NO metals at all 6] to dig adamantine veins, avoid demons and\or fight with them 7] to avoid cheats like 'danger rooms' 8] to start in ice 9] to start on cursed ground 10] combining all features together. It's all the same at the later stages of the game. A king comes, years pass by, fortress is safe and calm.
Don't think that challenge like 'live as an elf' or 'no magma, no caverns' is a good Idea. It's something like walking to a distant city while having a car.
There are several universal recipes that can counter almost any problem I met in DF. Those recipes are walls, massive cage traps, bridges and an ability to prepare and keep indefinitely a lot of food.

I suggest to implement problems that cannot be countered so easily. Those are 1] new embark areas such as old graveyards (maybe non-humanoid graveyards such as well-known legendary elephant graveyards) or battlefields that sometimes spawn a real bunch of skeletons, zombies and especially ghosts (that are capable of passing through the walls and disturbing dwarves). Skeletons may spawn everywhere within several first layers of the soil. Dwarves should be able to find old bones while digging in those areas - a kind of sign. 2] creatures (something like worms) that can safely travel through stone and attack from almost everywhere. 3] invisible 'enemies': rabies (dogs\animals), plague (undead) and flu (migrants\sieges), fleas (too many animals), animals or crops disease (too many farming), industrial injures (dubbing workers), alcoholism (a player should not brew too much booze) and involvement of dwarves in that (a kind of disease as well), prepared food spoilage (not 'rot', should make a game really interesting), all that problems may be brought by migrants, undead, sieges or animals. Any kind of problems that can be solved only by an appropriate management, not by a weapon or item.

[MonkeyHead]

Weeeeellllllllllll, sorry to sound like an ass, but here goes. Game is alpha, and has bugs and incomplete/unfinished features. Good example - massivley overpowered cage traps. If you insist on using them (which afterall, are a "flawed" feature), then of course it will seem too easy. Thats why we restrict ourselves to create an artificial challenege in a masterwork unfinished  game. That, or crank up the insane to try original, mad and different soltins, which are a challenge and reward in themselves.

Most of what you need will be in the next update, if the really nasty enhancements to evil areas live up to thier very high promise.

[slowpokez]

Well I think your right but every solution you suggested has been suggested before, except maybe the alcoholism part which doesn't sound right in my ears(dwarves drinking too much? phfft ).

[nop]

Good to know I'm not alone

[ayoriceball]

The gameplay is very boring at later stages for me.
I tried 1] to start near volcano 2] to start near evil ocean 3] to start being at war with humans, elves and goblins 4] to start in area with undead whales, undead giant eagles, undead elephants 5] to start in area with NO metals at all 6] to dig adamantine veins, avoid demons and\or fight with them 7] to avoid cheats like 'danger rooms' 8] to start in ice 9] to start on cursed ground 10] combining all features together. It's all the same at the later stages of the game. A king comes, years pass by, fortress is safe and calm.

There are several universal recipes that can counter almost any problem I met in DF. Those recipes are walls, massive cage traps, bridges and an ability to prepare and keep indefinitely a lot of food.

Then don't use cage traps or bridges. You can't challenge yourself then just use easy solutions to those challenges. That's counter-intuitive.

[King DZA]

Game too easy? Stop using what's making it easy for you.

[irmo]

Game too easy? Stop using what's making it easy for you.

And if this were the Gameplay Questions forum, that would be a sufficient answer.

The point of talking about this is to get the currently horrible state of game balance fixed, not to be told that it's not a problem because you can always pretend half the features in the game don't exist and that makes it a little better. The game is too easy because it has design flaws, and we don't have the option to stop using the design flaws.

[Tai_MT]

It's too easy?  Really?  Man, you must be SOME KIND of pro player to have this game on "easymode" for you.

I tried the "cage trap" solution and larger and larger waves of Goblins would show up and eventually I couldn't keep the traps filled enough to keep the enemies off of my front door.

I tried the "walls" solution and then the siegers started throwing flying units at me that would go up and over walls to get at me.

I tried the "bridge" solution and run into similar problems with it.  Siegers show up and keep me without caravan supplies for sometimes upwards of a year.  Or, they sometimes fly over bridges and procede to eat their way to the bottom of my fortress.

I can't imagine how the game could GET HARDER than it already is.  I used to be able to just wall off my embark area (which would take two years right at the start) and then create a "cage trap gauntlet" to take care of any of the siegers that would come.  It would take about 3 years of game time to set up and I'd never worry again.  I never even needed a military 99% of the time.

But with the invention of all this new stuff thrown into the game, I've yet to come across one "all encompassing" solution to any problem.  I could wall myself in and never have contact with the outside world...  True...  But then all I worry about is "tantrum spirals" and "limited building room".

Do me a favor and tell me how on earth you got the game to be so easy.  I'd LOVE to know how to have a fortress last more than five years without a major outbreak of tantrum spiral or "death by siege".

[ayoriceball]

Game too easy? Stop using what's making it easy for you.

And if this were the Gameplay Questions forum, that would be a sufficient answer.

The point of talking about this is to get the currently horrible state of game balance fixed, not to be told that it's not a problem because you can always pretend half the features in the game don't exist and that makes it a little better. The game is too easy because it has design flaws, and we don't have the option to stop using the design flaws.

Yes you do. Mod the game. Take out cavern fungus, make plants take longer to grow, make dwarves smaller, edit existing creatures to make them even more difficult. Or you could just use advanced world parameters.

Don't just sit there and say "we don't have the option to stop using the flaws", because you do have that option. Every time you construct a massive field of cage traps or crush an entire army with bridges, don't you feel like you're removing some of the challenge from the game?

[Babylon]

Asking for "easy mode" to be removed is also rather discriminatory against a certain type of player.  Some of us prefer to focus on the internal workings of our forts.  Yeah, we could turn off invaders, and then we would have one less source of iron to feed into our grand magma fountain.

It would be a bit like if I were to ask for those aspects of the game that do serve as a difficult challenge, such as Forgotten Beasts and the Circus to be nerfed because I felt they impeded on my style of play.  You can choose to play in "hard mode"  I'll play in "Easy Mode" and we can both have fun.  If wall destroying digging Forgotten Beasts are ever introduced I sincerely hope that there is an option to mod them out.

[King DZA]

Babylon has a point. People often forget that the main goal of Dwarf Fortress is not just to be mind-implodingly difficult, but to create an immense and varied sandbox/simulation. Everything can't always be death and destruction.

[Loud Whispers]

Plus most of DF's difficulty is randomly generated  , it can start off anywhere from a serene morning to an apocalyptic sundown, and it ends wherever you take it.

I suggest to implement problems that cannot be countered so easily. Those are 1] new embark areas such as old graveyards (maybe non-humanoid graveyards such as well-known legendary elephant graveyards) or battlefields that sometimes spawn a real bunch of skeletons, zombies and especially ghosts (that are capable of passing through the walls and disturbing dwarves). Skeletons may spawn everywhere within several first layers of the soil. Dwarves should be able to find old bones while digging in those areas - a kind of sign. 2] creatures (something like worms) that can safely travel through stone and attack from almost everywhere. 3] invisible 'enemies': rabies (dogs\animals), plague (undead) and flu (migrants\sieges), fleas (too many animals), animals or crops disease (too many farming), industrial injures (dubbing workers), alcoholism (a player should not brew too much booze) and involvement of dwarves in that (a kind of disease as well), prepared food spoilage (not 'rot', should make a game really interesting), all that problems may be brought by migrants, undead, sieges or animals. Any kind of problems that can be solved only by an appropriate management, not by a weapon or item.

In the mean time, a lot of these things are going to be added - some of them even in the next update, and you could always try your hand at modding

[Sheb]

Also, we got some nice mods around if you want added difficulty.

[Tai_MT]

Also, we got some nice mods around if you want added difficulty.

Some of the "zombie" mods are notable for being INCREDIBLY deadly and annoying.  Especially ones that start all wildlife off as "zombie" and start them all with "legendary wrestling" stats.

The difficulty in these is also a bit more fun.  Sure, they can't "infect" people to turn them into zombies, but some of the mods do have them able to "poison" victims they bite and eventually kill them.  So even a casual encounter can be incredibly deadly.

[rephikul]

Before there's an official hardcore version, in the mean time you are free to try out my mod. It features anti shut-in mechanisms and more exciting enemies. I have advertised my mod on every single "It's easy" topics I stumble upon and I have yet to come across a "your mod is easy" feedback. Very big link/button/picture to the file depot below: