Bay 12 Games Forum

I played some Rimworld and the contrast in difficulty is astonishing. Rimworld has challenge-driven AI that throws events at you every time things start running smoothly and starvation is a major risk. There is really no comparison to Dwarf Fortress in terms of difficulty, and currently Rimworld better exemplifies "Losing is Fun". You can do your absolute best to build an unassailable settlement, but it will break down without active risk/reward decision making. I'll play Rimworld into the wee hours of the night like I once played Dwarf Fortress, there is no "I'll just fix this crisis" gameplay loop.

Dwarf Fortress needs to take a cue from other sandbox management games in the genre and introduce challenge-driven events. If fortress stress is consistently falling, thieves, invaders, diseases and wild animals need to be given a kick towards your fortress. So far my biggest fortress-killer is boredom, and I farm outdoors, shun traps, leave the drawbridge down and abscond from danger rooms. I should be facing deadly threats, instead I'm yawning to death.

That Rimworld game does look very interesting! Thanks for mentioning it.

I especially like the clear emphasis on a "Storytelling AI" as DM (Dungeon Master). It inevitably produces more interesting stories, a richer gaming experience centred on the player, than a raw simulation which can quickly become unbalanced.

The friendly badgermen drunks sound adorable! I did fear that my fixes to their lack of equipment had not taken; I'm going to have to do some more testing. Thanks for the confirmation!

As some of them turned less friendly (because a fight of drunks ended up in the death of a badgerman?), I can now confirm that badgermen don't arrive with any equipment either.

I too have found that Great Fiend Spiders and War Elephants are incredibly punishing.

Absolutely, never before have I found the capital letter 'E' so absolutely terrifying!
http://www.rayforce.net/df001.png

Quote from: Shazbot on January 11, 2016, 05:23:36 pm

Quote from: mirrizin on January 11, 2016, 04:25:33 pm

Quote from: Shazbot on January 11, 2016, 04:10:08 pm

Do you play chess against yourself? That's what Dwarf Fortress has become. Single-player chess, all white pieces, no time limit.

Figured out how to build a lifelike dragon out a chessboard?

Yes, its called the Sicilian Dragon. The entertainment value is rather limited if nobody attacks it.

I don't have enough imagination to make that a lifelike dragon.

If you want a lifelike dragon, fire up Blender (3D modeling software). Or grab a box of Lego.

This. In a previous fort, my first 2 or 3 big sieges had goblins, beak dogs and trolls. The 2 or 3 after that only had goblins and beak dogs,  and after tht the sieges were smaller and only had goblins. Now, I'd observed that trolls and beakdogs took higher casualties than the goblins did, and were often wiped out entirely. I can only conclude that either I had destroyed their domestic populations completely or had reduced them so drastically that the goblins weren't going to risk losing the entire population by using them as warbeasts. Point is, now the enemy has resources of his own to manage as well, and sometimes that means he won't give you his all, or as much as he used to.

A good DM (Dungeon Master) should always have new challenges ready for his players. This new world simulation should never lead to :
"Congratulations on being so successful! The enemy is now too weak to present any threat forever. Grab the dice, roll a new character fortress, and start over."

And this can all be done while still acknowledging the player's success. Has the goblins threat really been eliminated? Fine, well done, congratulations. The immense wealth of your fortress has attracted the attention of greedy Dragons. Savage hordes pillaging the countryside arrive from another continent. Your earthly arrogance of building a tower that reaches the heavens has drawn the ire of deities. A creature from the underworld seeks your artifact X and is advancing with its armies. Extra-planar entities envious of your riches have opened a portal from their world. A tarrasque has awakened from its 8000 years slumber, for a new iteration of a cycle wiping out all civilizations.

I hope something is planned beyond that world simulation. It should never lead to getting the upper hand (perhaps totally independently from the player's own actions) and the fortress now being safe forever.

You ignore the context of the games creation when you suggest a "5 man corporate-led endeavor to recreate Dwarf Fortress." Even if you could convince some major game company to fund a money-sink like that(can you imagine how much money it costs to hire a single software dev for 5 years, much less 5+manager?), you would never convince them that the game could make a profit. Colony builders just aren't mainstream enough to garnish the money from those hordes of stinking teenagers (no offense) that make up the industries regular consumer base. And it would have to be corporate money, considering the salaries alone. If you cut the pay of the 5, good luck finding 5 skilled individuals interested in what amounts to a passion project paying peanuts.

That's correct, I'm unfortunately well aware of how the industry works. The cash investments must be safe in zero-risk releases, and there's nothing safer than slow incremental improvements over proven concepts. There's no room to explore new ideas, there's not even time for programmers to research and pursue new promising solutions! (One of many reasons why I diverged toward the defense industry, where innovative research is sought and encouraged)

So, yes, there's a perceived risk associated to any new idea, like Dwarf Fortress, but they can still be widely successful. I think this has potential to become another Minecraft, so a small, dedicated and adventurous team could pull that off.

Otherwise, I wonder if DF could offload some of the work to the community. For example, instead of the dfhack approach, a stable plug-in interface to build custom 3D graphic engines and UI. Heck, I could contribute to that (once they fix these darn AI bugs ).

I'm not sure what pages Stragus is reading either, but on a whim I just checked:

Quote

There is no internal end point, single goal, final Easter egg or "You Win!" announcement in Dwarf Fortress. Therefore, eventually, almost every fortress will fall. The only ones that don't tend to be very conservative and very boring\u2014and what fun is that?

That's a good example, thank you. Let's read that again: "Therefore, eventually, almost every fortress will fall. The only ones that don't tend to be very conservative and very boring".

If almost every fortress will fall, what's a very conservative and very boring one? As a newcomer, I naively assumed it meant: embark in a calm biome surrounded by friendly dwarven fortresses, stay small, don't build up wealth, don't trade too much, don't be ambitious, stay hidden, turtle up, don't attract attention to yourself, don't attract visitors... and yes, no one will bother and you'll survive.

Even if my interpretation was way off, it's still difficult to agree with "almost every fortress will fall". As someone else said in this thread:

If you want to have "fun" at this game, after you've learned the mechanics and how the game works, you have to pretty much shoot yourself in the foot, and while you're at it, play blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back ecc ecc...

Stragus, you'll be back sooner than you think - nothing else is quite like Dwarf Fortress and whatever stories attracted you to it in the first place are not easily forgotten. I feel like I'm talking like some relationship counselor right now lol, but it's only fitting considering you've decided to "come back in twenty years, when you've stopped lying to me!"

Yes, you are probably right. The game is filled with good ideas, we can all see that.

I assume it's all known but I'll mention a couple more:
- Dwarves will not follow a new squad order until the existing order is "complete"
- Some dwarves won't follow a new order until perhaps 5 minutes later, or whenever they feel like it
- Many military units will stand next to a creeping fire, refuse to move no matter what (see previous bugs), catch fire and die
- Dwarves caught in a fire will slow the game down to a crawl as they try pathing out... to get provisions and fill their waterskin
- Restricting dwarves to a burrow while they are performing refuse storage jobs for a stockpile located outside the burrow will slow the game down to a crawl while spamming 80 order cancellations per second
- And so on...

The Fortress Defense mod is a great attempt at making DF challenging. It's really unfortunate all these bugs and the bad AI make it more frustrating than challenging.

Well, I really would like to thank everybody for the tips to work around some of the issues! Even if I'm not going to put them to use, I'm sure other forum readers will benefit from them.

I guess I'll have a look at Dwarf Fortress again in 20 years, if that's what it takes.

Speaking of which, what I also find sad with that kind of time frame is that it would be very easy for a dedicated team to "borrow" a bunch of good ideas from Dwarf Fortress, and publish a nice polished game with fancy graphics, way before DF itself is ready. The author may not mind, but I wouldn't like seeing that happen. It's his vision, he deserves to be the first.

Take care everybody (even the guy posting gratuitous insults!), and thanks again.

Quote from: Stragus on January 09, 2016, 05:07:47 am

Quote from: TheCheeseMaker on January 09, 2016, 01:12:21 am

Also, the game isn't even close to being finished yet.  I promise if you come back in twenty years, you'll probably like it more.

Twenty years, right. I maintain that Toady should perhaps consider seeking an extra programmer or two.

That's like going up to a guy who's working on his project car and telling him he should take it to a mechanic. I'd described in great detail exactly the sort of stupid jackass you're making of yourself here, but this is much too nice a forum for that.

Each programmer has its strengths and fields of expertise. By having various programmers writing what they know best (under a strong leadership to avoid compromising the vision), development is not only faster, you end up with a superior final product. The guy who has been writing nothing but 3D engines for the past 20 years is pretty good at it (more so than a programmer who had to do a little of everything).

If, as you say, this isn't about the end product but the journey, if the guy working on his car project just doesn't want to call upon specialized mechanics to give him a hand, then I respect that. We don't often see that in the industry! Best of luck to him.

Your initial interpretation of "Losing is fun!" was true in the earlier versions. Not just because of differences in sieges but also due to very memorable bugs (at different points in history) such as OP carp, belligerant unicorns, unkillable undead (undead whales walked on land) and hundreds of giant mosquitos. It still is true if you dig to the bottom of the map, but that's not something intuitive a new player will try out - not when there's so much to do closer to the surface.

I'll be honest, that sounds absolutely awesome! It's hilarious, I would have loved being wiped out by an army of undead land-walking whales. Dwarf Fortress could have embraced the absurdity, with fortresses being threatened in the most unexpected manners, against all expectations.

Did you even consider setting up some civilian industries to keep yourself from getting bored while you wait for the next siege and to provide even more wealth to lure the goblins? I'll wager that you made your trapline entirely from cage traps, and if a siege had ever came it would've broke without your military having to lift a finger and you would've been left with the boring task of managing your trapped prisoners so you wouldn't have had fun anyways.

I had built traps because the quick start guide appeared to emphasize it was necessary for early survival. To answer your question: yes, I have explored most civilian industries... the benefits seemed mostly non-existent, except for clothing. The library was a nice touch though. I'm not sure if there's any tangible benefit, but it certainly adds flavor, and something to do for all the dwarves clearly not built for the military life. At the end, the wealth had reached 15 millions, which I assume should have been enough to become an interesting target?

My latest game with the Fortress Defense mod has no traps, no drawbridges (except as atom smasher), and an open outdoor courtyard. It is very challenging, and I'm pleased with that (these War Elephants in full steel plate armor are darn scary...). Unfortunately, I find myself fighting the atrociously bad battle AI of my own dwarves as much as the enemies.

But indirect contol of the dwarves, and the surprizing things the AI does, will always be a big part of the challenge and !FUN!. If you actively dislike that part of the game (rather than just being 'frustrated' by it -- hey, we all are!) this probably isn't the game for you.

I actually like indirect control of the dwarves, it is a good idea (in concept) and I appreciate that. If only they could somehow not be so ridiculously stupid on their own!...

In my experience (remember, you're not the first to point out these things), you'll grow bored and move on with your life, then somehow be alerted to an upcoming release and re-install the game. The game itself will remain problematic and ultimately dissapointing, and you'll become frustrated and uninstall. Rinse, repeat, perhaps a few cycles. . .

That sounds rather sad; a cycle of expectations and inevitable disappointments... But yes, I understand why it would happen: because there are many promising ideas in Dwarf Fortress, we all know that.

You know, everywhere I look in Dwarf Fortress, I see interesting ideas. The author clearly has plenty of good ideas, even if the implementation if generally terrible (sorry). It's also visible when something was left unfinished to quickly focus on the next interesting idea.

If I knew Toady, my recommendation would be: focus on the cool stuff and get help from an excellent programmer. Put that programmer on the "boring" and complicated tasks: job/work optimal management, clever battle AIs (for both sides!), true distance job assignment/targets, multithreading, performance, fast fluid dynamics, layered 3D graphics, and so on. Seriously, we enjoy the tough problems.

Of course, an excellent programmer normally requires 5 digits per month, but there's surely a big fan of Dwarf Fortress truly believing in the project, willing to work for far less, perhaps with the promise of a bonus once the game gets more popular than Minecraft. I know putting such a programmer on the team would make a huge difference in a matter of months (and if anyone intends to misinterpret my words again: no, I do not refer to myself, I don't have time for that).

Here's a follow-up to the various recommendations of trying the Fortress Defense mod. It's a great mod, thank you for recommending it. I also applaud the work put into it.

It gets fairly intense after 2 years (it seems the author can't really get DF to send early attacks). Although I must say it doesn't only make the game "challenging"... It also makes the game frustrating at the utter stupidity of one's dwarves!

- Military units will charge anything that moves and can't ever withdraw or retreat. I can't express how absurd that is. It makes any kind of tactical maneuvering absolutely impossible!

- While War Elephants were destroying Great Fiend Spiders (two simultaneous sieges), I would have liked my 40 markmen to shoot them safely from the other side of the river... But once the markmen run out of bolts, they all run through the river to club the war elephants with their crossbows, and die awfully. Very clever!

- With a large battle coming up, some dwarves will randomly leave their post to eat/sleep/fetch provisions... even if it means running through the courtyard, seeing the ennemy, charging them alone and getting killed instantly.

- One would like to use choke points against powerful enemies, to benefit from numerical superiority, but that requires awfully precise movement timing. Otherwise, as soon as they catch a glimpse of the enemy, the dwarves will run through the actual chokepoint and end up the ones surrounded by more numerous forces. Where's the "Stand your ground" order?

- I have had a dwarf (high master speardwarf) sleeping in the middle of the courtyard, impossible to wake him up. A large melee battle began right next to him. After a while, a War Elephant (in full steel plate armor) just trampled him. He never woke up.

- I have had my best dwarves too busy eating/sleeping/fetching provisions to help during important battles. It appears impossible to tell them to get into position... and if they later rejoin the squad, they might glance the enemy on the way, charge alone and die.

- Archers running out of bolts, but sitting on a stockpile of bolts, will prefer to climb over a wall and use their crossbows as clubs rather than pick up more bolts. The only way to prevent markmen from getting themselves killed is locking them down in a fully closed container with all doors flagged as forbidden.

- Archers positioned higher up in archery towers must be right next to the wall to obtain line of sight and shoot. That's fine, but they won't move next to the wall on their own and it's impossible to tell them to do so. Additionally, a move order actually means a random point 3 tiles from the given position, including on the other side of the wall.

- Military units will climb on the roof of towers/fortifications to reach an enemy, and if the battle ends when they are still up there, they remain stranded. They will die of hunger rather than climb back down, unless of course they see a new enemy in which case they'll suddenly remember how to climb back down.

Bottom line, it appears the entire battle AI of Dwarf Fortress is awfully buggy. I suspect the game's difficulty is kept low as, if it were more challenging, people would express intense frustration at the inaptitude of the dwarven battle AI (which could be okay if we could manually micro-manage, but we can't!).

"I heard this game [insert subjective opinion], but I feel the exact opposite way about it. So, clearly it must be broken and the developer should fix it according to my suggestions. Otherwise, I will not going to have fun playing the game, and then..."

As far as I can tell, you are trolling. I hope you had fun completely twisting my statements!

I'm sure you already know the game itself is awfully easy, it's the interface that is terrible and totally undocumented in-game. Having to read a whole wiki to figure out how things work doesn't make the game "hard". It doesn't make the game challenging either. But it does make the game very tedious.

In case you weren't trolling and really missed the point, my problem was with the Dwarf Fortress documentation promising a (very) challenging game. As already explained, that is false.