Scared of difficulty

[Soothsayer]

Hey,

I've had my eye for a long time on this game already, and i've heard of the name for years and years, but never went into it.
I tried to play rimworld 3 times in the past year, and i was always put off because the game for me was difficult. You had to know to cool your food, or it went bad, but it wasnt explained how to do it, etc... And i'm not a smart man.

Will i be overwhelmed by this game, or is the initiation smooth and more complex later on ?

Thank you

[McFuzz]

When people talk about Dorf's difficulty, they actually mean complexity. There's a lot of things to learn, and a lot of things to know, and a lot of things to remember.

There's a bit less nuance to the DF systems. Nothing like refrigerating food or managing temperatures. But then it'll say, hey if you want to make glass, here's 4 industries you need to learn first lol

You can get the basic survival in one or two playthroughs. Then you just take on the most complex systems when you feel ready. Or not at all! Plenty of veteran players don't mess around with a great deal of systems.

In terms of difficulty, you can build a drawbridge and lock your dwarves in a hole whenever an external threat arises.

But it is a game about losing. If you aren't prepared to lose a few forts, then it might not be the best pick for you.

[The Trashman]

Dwarf Fortress is an easier game the Rimworld in general, not including the UI and learning curve. Food stored in a stockpile doesn't spoil, and your dwarves are less needy than pawns tend to be.

That being said, you will need the wiki open to search things like stone types or some mechanics. You can also always ask questions here.

It's also important to note that in RW, your colony dying means the game ends. In Df, the world persists so you can keep starting new forts in the same world. Losing is fun - it just means your world has one more ruin to explore when adventurer mode comes out!

[Silfie]

Difficult in what sense? Since there's not -technically- a win condition in DF, you're not pressured to reach an end win state here, it's more of a simulation/sandbox that you play in and see what happens.

As far as complexity goes, it's probably a fair bit more complex than Rimworld, but they are adding a tutorial here and making numerous UI and graphical changes to hopefully make the experience smoother. Nobody knows how that will go yet as we haven't seen it yet.
As far as the game itself previous to that, it has a learning curve that sounds like something you might not be fully comfortable with, there's a lot to learn and do, and most tutorials out there are made by people who seemingly aren't very good at teaching people the ropes and they go on for hours.
Once you learn a few basics like digging, setting up some farm plots and building workshops/issuing orders to those, the rest of the game/learning goes relatively smoothly so long as you don't mind doing a bit of research or experimenting. It has one of the, if not the best wiki ever, which is full of very comprehensive pages explaining all mechanics and how they work. That said, DF will definitely demand a fair bit of your time, if that doesn't sound like it's for you then it doesn't seem like the best idea.

I never found DF to be about the challenge or difficulty, but about experimenting and see what kind of fort I can build this time, and what kind of nonsense will happen that will be funny or lead to me making a new one. It really doesn't sound like it's for you, but I don't want to discourage you from trying if you're interested, there's no reason to be afraid of games. You can always try the free version of the game and see how that goes, and if you do, I'd recommend kruggsmash's crash course video.

[Denture Adventure]

A book is how i learned the game, not a really big book or difficult to understand, it breaks the game down and it's menus very easily, " Getting Started with Dwarf Fortress " is the name of it. i got the PDF version and used it. very useful but i didn't know about the wiki at the time if i had i'd used it but don't be afraid to use google to help ya when you get stumped it's helped me and i've been playing on and off since 2009.

[Issie721]

Same here. I tried so hard to play RW. Couldnt do it ever. Im not a smart woman. DF scares me also. The Wiki for the original will be not useful for the new game will it? Different games?

[McFuzz]

Originally posted by novaruby26:

Same here. I tried so hard to play RW. Couldnt do it ever. Im not a smart woman. DF scares me also. The Wiki for the original will be not useful for the new game will it? Different games?

Exactly the same game. Only thing different is UI and hotkeys. The Wiki will be extremely valuable, and mostly up to date.

[Silfie]

Originally posted by novaruby26:

Same here. I tried so hard to play RW. Couldnt do it ever. Im not a smart woman. DF scares me also. The Wiki for the original will be not useful for the new game will it? Different games?

I mean... it's the same game, it just has a shiny tileset and a new, more interactable UI
Rather than smarts I'd say you guys need patience and willingness to learn a bunch of stuff, once you do it's a different experience altogether. It's the kind of game you'll want to sit down with a fair bit of time to spare to get into, but if you really couldn't get into rimworld at all, I don't know if DF will be any different. It's worth a try though

[The Trashman]

Originally posted by novaruby26:

Same here. I tried so hard to play RW. Couldnt do it ever. Im not a smart woman. DF scares me also. The Wiki for the original will be not useful for the new game will it? Different games?

The wiki will have the right ideas, but the wrong buttons for a little while. I think it'll get updated quickly though

[5SD.Elrond Hubbard]

I really think DF is a game about learning to grow your own knowledge and understanding. It's a difficult game, but you can get away with knowing fairly little. Each lost fort is a learning experience and that learning process is what *for me* keeps me coming back years later. I'm looking forward to the new tutorial just so I can go "oh! so THAT's how that works" after all these years. I haven't played much in the last few years so I'm very excited to see what's in store.

[Crazy Belette]

If your fortress die of unforseen consequences (or not), you can send an expedition (new start) at the exact same place, you'll be able to salvage quite a lot and skip on the digging.

Whatever killed your dorfs may still be lurcking tho ...

[kelewan]

The most dificult part to learn in DF was the UI. The Steam version will fix most of this.
After this you learn one System/Industry after the other.

But be mentally prepared to lose your fort. The Question is not "if" your fort will fall but "when" and "why" because ALL forts will fall. Some by your mistakes, some by bad luck, and some by the limitation by your hardware (FPS death).

The stories that your dwarves and forts create in the time they last, are the value of DF.
And DF will create the most hilarious, tragic, funny and sad stories you can think of.

If you can embrace the motto "LOSING IS FUN" DF has much to offer
if not, it is prabably not the Game for you.

[The Trashman]

Originally posted by kelewan:

But be mentally prepared to lose your fort. The Question is not "if" your fort will fall but "when" and "why" because ALL forts will fall. Some by your mistakes, some by bad luck, and some by the limitation by your hardware (FPS death).

It's not true that all forts will fail. There's always the option of retiring them and letting the game run them. Plus FPS death isn't inevitable

[Black Mirror]

Originally posted by Heretic Astartes:

Hey,

I've had my eye for a long time on this game already, and i've heard of the name for years and years, but never went into it.
I tried to play rimworld 3 times in the past year, and i was always put off because the game for me was difficult. You had to know to cool your food, or it went bad, but it wasnt explained how to do it, etc... And i'm not a smart man.

Will i be overwhelmed by this game, or is the initiation smooth and more complex later on ?

Thank you

Its sandbox game, some bad things can happen but its mostly peacuful, or at least was for me few years ago when I played the ASCII verison with intalled tileset mod.

[kelewan]

Originally posted by The Trashman:

Originally posted by kelewan:

But be mentally prepared to lose your fort. The Question is not "if" your fort will fall but "when" and "why" because ALL forts will fall. Some by your mistakes, some by bad luck, and some by the limitation by your hardware (FPS death).

It's not true that all forts will fail. There's always the option of retiring them and letting the game run them. Plus FPS death isn't inevitable

I was exaggerating a bit. You can play a safe fort (self-sufficient with drawbridges),
but where is the fun in that. Regarding the FPS death, i think the new version will help a bit.
and you can work around some of the CPU-drains. But if you are in this stage you have already managed most of the systems/industries

[Pogey-Bait]

Yeah. It will be too hard for you. I'd avoid it.