How hard is this to get into for new players?

[Buon Tia]

I have NEVER played Dwarf Fortress, know nothing about it. How many hours of youtube tutorials do I need to get into this, if any at all?

[Fin]

Are you familiar with brain surgery or perhaps rocket science.

[The Former]

Depends: Have you played games like Rimworld before? If you've played Rimworld or similar, you'll get comfortable after 4-10 hours depending on your learning speed. If you haven't, it may take significantly longer, but I'd say no more than an hour of videos should get you started.

It's the kind of game where there's a lot to it, but you don't have to know every bit of it all at once. Plus, if you fail, you just add to your world's lore and try again!

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

Its more a learning cliff than curve; its basically rimworld tripled.

[TwistedTrip]

Yeah real difficult, 16hrs in I'm completely lost..

[jitrnicka2]

Not that much really. You have to approach it more like a rogue-like style of game where "losing is fun". Just watch a few tutorials about feeding your dwarves and learn some basics of the work orders and similar stuff. Most of your early forts won't last for more than few years but you will learn a new stuff and learn how to deal with the bad stuff and learn the more complex systems of the game.

[TwistedTrip]

Says guy whos not new, yeah its easy... >.>

[The Former]

Publicado originalmente por TwistedTrip:

Says guy whos not new, yeah its easy... >.>

No shame in that! Took me months to get a handle on Crusader Kings II. Just keep failing, and take a little knowledge forward each time. If each defeat can give you so much as one thought of, "Well, I'd better not let x happen again!" then you're one step closer to mastering the game. Embrace defeat when it comes and learn from it. Losing is fun, as they say!

[ian.whitchurch]

Remember that Losing is Fun.

You'll probably need to set small goals, like 'We will get a working farm, a kitchen and a brewery, so we don't starve to death. Plus a carpenter's workshop to make doors and beds, and a Craftsdwarf workshop to make Rock Pots to put the food and booze into'.

Once you can reliably not have your dorfs starve and/or go mad from lack of booze, then you can discover how metalsmithing works, or setting up a cloth industry.

Basically, take the game in small bites.

[jitrnicka2]

Publicado originalmente por TwistedTrip:

Says guy whos not new, yeah its easy... >.>

To start playing, all you need to know is how to dig, some basic info about jobs/skills and that you dwarves need booze, food, booze, beds and more booze. The rest is just extra that you will learn while playing. For example I've learned of placing a work orders via the manager noble after a several months (real life) of playing the game.

[The Trashman]

Publicado originalmente por Buon Tia:

I have NEVER played Dwarf Fortress, know nothing about it. How many hours of youtube tutorials do I need to get into this, if any at all?

I think the new tutorial isn't quite enough to get into the game for a player new to the genre. If you don't mind losing while you learn, then you can jump in and ask questions here, but I think it's worth watching a video that covers the basic needs of your colony, like food and drinks

[Caldrin]

Publicado originalmente por Buon Tia:

I have NEVER played Dwarf Fortress, know nothing about it. How many hours of youtube tutorials do I need to get into this, if any at all?

Have you ever played Rimworld or similar ?


I had never played DF before, was aware of it of course but could never get past the graphics haha even back when it first came out.

Anyway if you have played Rimworld of similar you will be familiar with the type of game.. Yes this does appear to have a lot more depth but has only taken me a few hours to get to grips with.. using a few Youtube tutorials as well.

Now if you have not played these kind of games before then yeah 100% jump on youtube to see what its all about,

[Red the stalker]

Most of DF's difficulty was in reading the game to begin with, and the various keybinds and such you'd need to learn to play the game. In reality, it's not that hard, and is mostly hyped up from years and years of people developing the myth of DF.

In reality, most of the systems are fairly simple, and it doesn't take much time to learn (Though this is coming from someone who's beeen playing on and off for a decade or so. The tutorial in the game is fairly robuts, but if you aren't sure if you want to spend money on it, just get the lazy newb pack for free, and give that a spin. Watch a few simple guides, and just test things out.

Don't buy unless you are really sure, and you want to support development.

[Shoober]

Publicado originalmente por Buon Tia:

I have NEVER played Dwarf Fortress, know nothing about it. How many hours of youtube tutorials do I need to get into this, if any at all?

There's a quickstart guide on the wikipedia that's about all you need to get started although videos will help. This game isn't honestly that hard, there's just a huge amount of knowledge to intake and it just takes time. Play with wiki open and understand your first many hours will feel overwhelming but that's part of the fun of learning! You can add me if you need any really abstract help but i think the games been around so long that google has everything.

[TheDecline]

This game you learn from losing, once you understand why the fort fell then you go on to make sure you avoid that on the next fort and so on....

However

EVERYONE loses in the end even the Veterans thats what FUN is.

If you invest the time into the game and get over the learning curve, I dont know a game out there thats more rewarding.

[Leo]

The neat thing about Dwarf Fortress is that it's not primarily interested in posing a Challenge™, but instead presents you with a lot of moving parts - it takes little to keep a settlement going, but a lot of consideration goes a long way, and every messy incident is a fun story and learning opportunity.

Even if the whole fort suffers catastrophically, with not a single dwarf left alive to recover, you can send another group of dwarves to try and reclaim it later.

As a beginner, you'll routinely run into a lot of interesting issues and find ways to resolve them that'll still serve you well in future forts - once you get a little experience with what kinds of problems a fort has to deal with, you'll find it pretty easy to keep everyone alive and happy, and you can tackle the more in-depth systems at whatever pace you're comfortable with.

This release also has a tutorial that shows you the ropes a little!