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[rephikul]

DF's learning curve was always more like this to me, only better drawn.

I've taken the liberty to modify your image so all the challenges keep going upward.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On a side note, as I've played both, I think that eve online is much tougher then dwarf fortress. They are equally as wacky and bug driven, sure. However eve is a pvp game and the opponent handle situations much better then your average skeletal whales

[Syff]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I didn't really have that much trouble.  My first few forts succumbed to "oh, I see how I can make a much more efficient layout now that I know what's going on!", and I've never lost a fortress to an invasion or tantrum spiral.
There's a curve to learning how to play better, sure, but it's not like embarking without a broker (point each in appraiser and JoI) or whatever is going to immediately spell doom for your fortress, rather than just be a minor annoyance.

Build doors, dig moats with bridges over them, and close up shop.  Grow plump helmets.  (Actually, that last one's gotten a little harder since .31.x;  Build a walled-off surface garden or pour out a murky pool.)

[SkyRender]

Honestly speaking, DF's learning curve isn't that massive.  Yes, the game has a lot of functions, but when you get right down to it, all you really need to grasp to have your survive is farming and a firm understanding of effective design layout in general.  You need more than that to thrive, of course, but you can get by otherwise.

[Organum]

My first fort died because I couldn't even recognize what a single tile was. This was my first ASCII(ANSII?) game, so I really had no clue what was going on. "Open space?" said the younger me,"Then why can't I build anything there?" I didn't know how to switch z-levels. The help screen might have helped, but I didn't know how to access that, either. All that added complications. What killed it was sending someone out to hunt unicorns. That worked fine for the first one or two, but then the guy died...I decided to quit while I was behind.

Point being, diving straight into the game with no knowledge of what's what or that the forums or wiki exist is very difficult. That would be the learning cliff, methinks.

[nordak]

There is a help screen?

 I recommend a tileset before starting your first game. Its too hard of a game to not know that that swarm of g's are goblins... Seriously a tileset lowers the learning curve by half.

Learning how to just be self sufficient is the next step.  Then learning how to set up a variety of defenses.  Nothing like defending against a flying, building destroying, syndrome spitting, blood is poisonous, titan.
then again a lucky spear dwarf can always manage to put his spear through it's brain in 2 rounds.  But the odds are always stacked against you. 

Then you play long enough for the entire goblin population to throw themselves at your well made deffenses. litterally becoming extinct.  Then you are forced to abandon because your dwarves move 1 tile a minute.

Edit: Oh yea, forgot to mention that Titans are trap immune.  So you must be creative....  Also forget about using pressure plates.

this post also doesn't mention anything about what is below... Dig deeper...

Also, goodluck surviving the nasty bugs, they are more deadly than any beast. Never take shortcuts.

[rephikul]

Then you play long enough for the entire goblin population to throw themselves at your well made deffenses. litterally becoming extinct.

I've checked and stuff showing up at your fort doesnt get removed from the civ they cave from in world data at all. They just spawn from no where. This include immigration.

[nordak]

I've noticed that they eventually stop showing up after so many have died.  Either I hit a bug, or the population ticks down with each kill.  Also if parent civ is dead, the caravans, Immigrants and liason will not show up. I've seen this and others have reported it as well.

[Number7]

i played for a bit in 40d, but then something came up, i forgot, and i moved off DF for a little bit and just forgot about it. i never achieved the trader arriving twice.

I also tried a tile-set. After playing with the ASCII, the tile-set just looks weird

WEIRD I SAY.

(I <3 the ascii because its familiar)

anyway, i decided to have my first bit of "fun" because this fort was built on large amounts of rock salt or something, which i couldnt smooth or engrave. (much to my rage)

so i locked everyone into my little fort underground, built a large room (several Z layers high) with several double doors connecting it to my base, and dug into the river. (at the cost of a legendary miner. Soil levels them up fast!)  I let the chamber fill until it was 100% filled, and then had my dwarves remove the doors.

i lol'd as they were all washed away.

Now i have to start a new one, and work out this Smelting business!

and these traps

And cages

and animals

and what to do with ALL THESE CATS!?

and the list goes on XD

[Zaerosz]

That doesn't accurately show DF's learning curve.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is more accurate

Er... it's... negative playing time on part "Ffs now how do I do that?" 

That's about the time you screw up so well you have to make a new fort.

[Lytha]

I've played Nethack and ADOM before, so the hordes of gs being goblins and the ground being the .s was never an issue for me. The issue was to realize that this is an ASCII art game that has z-levels. My very first fortress died because of that. ("where did my dwarves go??")

Later fortresses died because I was overwhelmed by all the workshops that I could build ("but which one do I need first?? Let's randomly select aaaaaaa.... support. Doh.")

Then I was introduced to TinyPirate's tutorial and the importance of a farm and a source of water ("well > anything else! must build a megaproject-alike canal first! Why are they dieing of dehydration?!") a still, and it became clearer.

[silhouette]

The learning curve for me is/ was more like...

Code: [Select]

####################
#...################
#.#.###..######.####
#.#.###.#.####.#.###
#.##...###....####..
#.##################
.###################

The little bumps are when the updates come out and i have to get use to everything again...

[Oglokoog]

I don't find the game all that hard if you take the time to look at stuff and don't panic. There is help for everything, there are tutorials - and I think a game where reading a tutorial can actually make you able to play it well can't really be hard. Compare it to... I don't know, Counter-strike for example. You can read all the tutorials you want, but you'll still pretty much suck unless you play a lot. Same thing with a lot of other games. In DF, however, just knowing what you're doing and what you should be doing is enough; you don't need much skill to turn that knowledge into actual gameplay actions.

Also, I definitely don't recommend using graphical sets. It makes the game painful to look at... sure, you know immediately that goblins are goblins, but you can know that too if you just, you know, press v and look at them which you should be doing anyway, even if you do know what they are. And you'll not have to endure issues like having levers in the names of dwarves and whatnot.
Non-graphical tilesets (basically just different fonts for the game) can be quite useful, especially since the default DF tileset is non-square which is just insane. I played the game with a nonsquare tileset for about a month and I still couldn't get used to how terrible it is.

[WrathNail]

The biggest hurdle is getting all the controls down. Once you learned that you can make the game as difficult as you want.

[Herbiie]

It's quite easy for a bit, but then it throws something else in your face :| Like you'll be going aaah everythings working. Time to expand!

*20 minutes later*

Omg! Just kill it!!! *fortress crumbles*

[Uristocrat]

After playing Dwarf Fortress for a week or so, every single fort I have had has gone and died before I felt I really got started, because of some mistake I did.

This made me realize that there is no learning curve. There is, instead, a learning wall.

Just keep reading the wiki and you'll figure it out.  Also, many early mistakes can be fixed if you bring enough food and booze to survive until the caravan.  After that, it's just a matter of trapping goblins and getting farms running.

If all else fails, remember one thing:  kittens are delicious, nutritious little goblin-baiters, cavern explorers, and ambush-finders.