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[MrWiggles]

Also, I have no idea how a new player is supposed to know what "Flux" is.

Heck I can't even identify Flux at all as it is.

Not knowing what flux is will not make or break the DF experience for a player.

Only because the game doesn't preclude you from ever finding out. Though eventually, an in game explanation wouldn't hurt.

[Neonivek]

Yeah knowing how to make Steel from playing the game or reading the manual would be nice.

[jeffb]

Dwarf AI needs a look at, they do some really stupid things that new players have no idea how to stop. Perhaps flag items dropped from battle not to be picked up until all fighting is finished? Maybe add the option to designate where a dwarf stands when he constructs/deconstructs something? Make dwarves smarter concerning large building projects so they don't construct the nearest preventing them from completing other connected buildings (eg, large walling or channeling projects). Why don't dwarves swim out of water it looks like they should be able to? Why don't they clean up after themselves or break? etc.

Production, a move away from batch production to event based would be nice. It can be frustrating having to micro industry to keep production rolling, eg, playing on a map without wood will leave you with low numbers of barrels, meaning you constantly have to manually juggle farms, butchering, cooking, milling so you have enough free barrels to brew drinks. What about managers for each industry to oversee production levels?

Tutorial, include a prebuilt world with DF, including a functional Mountainhome. Instead of the current embarkation screen let players wander around Mountainhome and see how a working fort works, what various tasks do, etc, then ship them off to a map with notes built in about its features. Also change nobles from random mandates to helpful goals such as creating rooms for all dwarves, improving the food industry or army, etc.

End game, as the game wears on you have less and less things to do other than repel invaders. More diplomacy, trading, crises, etc, maybe even something as simple as allowing me to order my legendary dwarves to spend 10 years creating some magical artifact. Whatever, more to do outside combat please.

Im sure people have mentioned the UI and basic tiles implementation enough by now.

[Fikes]

Dwarf AI needs a look at, they do some really stupid things that new players have no idea how to stop. Perhaps flag items dropped from battle not to be picked up until all fighting is finished? Maybe add the option to designate where a dwarf stands when he constructs/deconstructs something? Make dwarves smarter concerning large building projects so they don't construct the nearest preventing them from completing other connected buildings (eg, large walling or channeling projects). Why don't dwarves swim out of water it looks like they should be able to? Why don't they clean up after themselves or break? etc.

Production, a move away from batch production to event based would be nice. It can be frustrating having to micro industry to keep production rolling, eg, playing on a map without wood will leave you with low numbers of barrels, meaning you constantly have to manually juggle farms, butchering, cooking, milling so you have enough free barrels to brew drinks. What about managers for each industry to oversee production levels?

...

End game, as the game wears on you have less and less things to do other than repel invaders. More diplomacy, trading, crises, etc, maybe even something as simple as allowing me to order my legendary dwarves to spend 10 years creating some magical artifact. Whatever, more to do outside combat please.

Im sure people have mentioned the UI and basic tiles implementation enough by now.

First off, all of these issues annoy me as well and the address the topic title quite nicely. But they don't address this line (except for the tutorial suggestion):

What do you think is scaring people away?

Most people who read about the game never make it to the point of having dwarves die to stupid things, having issues with producing, and the vast vast majority don't make it to economy, let alone some other form of end game. "we" "loose" people long before those issues, and many of the other issues listed, even become a problem, primarly, I believe, because you spend the first 15 minuets of the game pressing d, m, enter, shift + left, shift + left, right, right, shift down, up, up, up, up, enter, just making the entrance!

Do you realize that it takes SIXTY key presses to make a vertical shaft of 3x3 up/down stairways 10 z levels deep?

Where DF looses the most of its potential fan base, people who already made peace with the graphics and complexity of the game, is when they download the game, build their first fortress, watch it fail, abandon, build a new fortress and suddenly realize "Ahh fuck. I have to do all that (fortress design), all over"

[JimiD]

But for me, building the fortress is a good part of the game.

My thoughts, on my second or third successful fortress.


Without trying to 'game' the system and produce an obscene amout of wealth, I am up to 100 dwarves by year 5 (unless producing meals and stone crafts delivers that much wealth, at year 5 its still only 800,000 dwarf bucks).  Which means I have a baron, the ecomony etc in a real rush.  I am also down to 15-30FPS by year 5 too, with weather and temp off.  Ive had two ambushes and two sieges. The last two games I have jumped over Counts, and gone from no nobles to Barons in one go.

The jump from 7 dwarves to 30 odd in one wave means I go from know what each dwarf is up to, and worrying about labour allocations (and heaven forbid one dies!), to being swamped.  I have learnt a way of dealing with immigrants, by reassigning labour and renaming if necessary when they arrive, but I loose touch we who they are, and dont really mind if one dies anymore.  I can also run a number of craft/economy systems instantly, rather than slowly building up my farming from plump helmet to the more intensive Quarry Bushes and Sweet Pods.

A very gradual increase of 2-3 each wave would mean I felt more in touch with each dwarf.  Each dwarf would be valued, and I would have to decide carefully whether to allocate them to the military, or to expand an industry.  It would mean that having a large population survive was meaningful.    And it would push the end game further away.

So I would suggest reducing* the immigration rate, but not cap.
Some issues:
- Of course with less dwarves potentially there is less 'to-do', but with less dwarves the game plays quicker anyway.
- Immigration seems to happen once a year for me, so perhaps it could happen more often.  Again to keep things interesting, but still slower than the current rate.
- Perhaps more frequent ambushes, to keep things interesting?  Although this will depend on local civs etc.
- Retain the ability for experienced players to 'game' the system by targeting wealth and then triggering a mass immigration.  Megaprojects need hands.

[Techhead]

Also, I have no idea how a new player is supposed to know what "Flux" is.

Heck I can't even identify Flux at all as it is.

Flux is that gooey stuff you use when you solder...

Actually, excepted from this page:

A related use of the term flux is to designate the material added to the contents of a smelting furnace or a cupola for the purpose of purging the metal of impurities, and of rendering the slag more liquid. The flux most commonly used in iron and steel furnaces is limestone, which is charged in the proper proportions with the iron and fuel. The slag is a liquid mixture of ash, flux, and other impurities.

See also: Article on Steelmaking

[Orkel]

What turns me off even nowadays is just that it's so much work to start up a fort. I absolutely loathe the first two years. The game only becomes infinitely fun after my fort is developed well and I can start playing more sandboxily instead of being forced to spend all of my time building new rooms for dwarves and nobles plus all the other necessities.

Sum-up:

Year 1-2: rraaaggeeeeee
Year 2+: Fun as hell

[Captain Xenon]

my problem is the slowdown of framerate at the duchy level and above. that, and the 10^Armok suspended constructions from a rock in the way :/

[dyze]

could you atleast try to stay on topic?
this isnt a general complain about every little thing 'that turns you off nowadays' thread.

from the original post:

More specifically, what problems did you have before learning the ropes of the game?
..
What do you think is scaring people away?  The building placement?  Designations?  The embark screen?  Or maybe its finding the right tile sets and setting them up.

[DarkCloud]

I find ASCII okay, but I dislike the lack of mouse interactivity and the 1980s-era requirement of using hotkeys to access anything in the game. I would like to be able to select dwarves by mouse and assign them jobs instead of shifting around and trying to locate them through keypads and left right keystrokes.

Also, a semi-automated tutorial would be nice.

I played for 6-8 hours over a week and gave up after losing 4-5 fortresses before doing anything more than hollowing out a cavern and placing one shop. It is very difficult to figure out what to do and It takes a long time to regenerate fortresses or even locate good places to place fortresses (I would spend far too long searching for a place that would have water.) I just got frustrated since when I play a game I want to relax. And DF's UI made it impossible to relax.

[DarkCloud]

Where DF looses the most of its potential fan base, people who already made peace with the graphics and complexity of the game, is when they download the game, build their first fortress, watch it fail, abandon, build a new fortress and suddenly realize "Ahh fuck. I have to do all that (fortress design), all over

Yes.

[Neonivek]

Actually, excepted from this page

You make me laugh. Have you checked that page Metalhead?

Unless the player has an intricate knowledge of the chemical formula of several types of stone they will be helpless.

Marble wasn't listed on the Wikipedia page and neither was Limestone. The only way to find out what stones are flux capable is to find a very obscure material list in the game itself which doesn't exactly tell you anyhow (It only lists Economic stones which are stones that have uses other then what stone is usually...)

[Teiwaz]

Managing dwarves' labor settings. There are 3rd-party utilities to help with this, but it's still a pain in the ass.

The graphics and UI are the biggest issues by far, though. It's really hard to get people to even give DF a second look because it's so hard to learn the controls and figure out what you're seeing. Personally, what I would like to see, is a DF "SDK" - I know Toady doesn't like working on graphics and interfaces, but there's a thriving community of people out here who try to do it all the time, but lack the tools. I'd love to be able to write my own interface for DF - a graphical, mouse-driven type thing, but have DF go on being developed/running under the hood. It seems like this wouldn't be all that hard to do, as DF's interface is mostly just modifying data anyway. (Queing up jobs, etc.)

At the *very least* I'd like to see the font and world graphic sets get separated, so people can mod in graphic sets without it turning all the "h"s in the text of the game into little pictures of chairs and whatnot.

[Nivim]

  I find this thread saddening. So far everything in the game, other than the amount of time it takes to do certain tasks through the U.I., seems to be things that keep away the foolish. I thought that was one reason why this game was prized so, because it is constructed to put off all of the jerks, trolls, fools, and others that degrade a community. And yet some people want to remove these protections.

Other notes:
  It isn't hard to find out what flux is, and any metallurgy handbook will tell you the rest. I thought that things like this weren't in the manual so people would go learn something. However, I think it would be good to organize the manual a bit better, I find that reading some parts of it make one more confused than if one just tested it out.
  It would be nice to split some of the picture designations so more can be modded. Such as having different links for "h" and a chair. However, I want none of the graphics with the game to be changed, just make them able to be changed individually.
  Also, being as there are so many different ways to start a fortress, I don't think something that skips the first two years would be very effective until the A.I.'s fortress generation is fixed. As they would use the same system (remember to make sure the player has done a couple successful fortress before giving them this option). Also, how successful your fortress will be is determined by those first two years. I wouldn't let anyone or anything run my fortress for me, but apparently others would.
  A tutorial fortress would be accomplished by fixing the A.I. fortress generation and just recommending the player to take an adventurer to one.
  I actually agree about industry needing some help when it gets large. Perhaps after you have a successful couple of seasons with a large enough type of industry, you can name a dwarf to manage it, the give that dwarf a few commands on what you want to go where. He will then regulate it.

  Finally, dwarves in Dwarf Fortress are better with stupid A.I.. Protecting them from that stupidity is one of the main challenges of the game, and the source of anything interesting happening. Dwarf fortress wouldn't be half as funny if they dwarves stopped doing stupid things. New players need to die, then invent things to stop their dwarves' stupidity.

On topic (how bout that...):
  The only thing that slightly jostled my interest in Dwarf fortress is getting confused about the designation/jobs right at the beginning. The manual was worded just wrong for me.

[PTTG??]

You don't want to make the game easier to play... because this will lead to more trolls on the forum.