Why The Current State of Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition Needs Work (And What Can Be Done About It)

[DropZone]

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DISCLAIMER: I wanted to preface this by letting others know that I love this game, and all I wish is for this game to have as much success as possible. This is an account of my experiences with the negatives of this game thus far, and what I think will benefit the game in the long run. Some points are so long they have TLDR sections. A shortened version of this is also available on the reviews page. Thank you for reading.

I cannot recommend the current version of Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition. However, with the right changes, I believe I could get my friends and others on board. In its current state, the game suffers in areas that make things very difficult to understand, especially for new players, and irritating as your dwarf base gets bigger. I have divided things into different sections that I think the game suffers in:

1. Lack of information, Part I

This is the largest section, and probably the most important. I don't think it's ok to have to rely on the wiki or discord to find information on things that should be easily accessible in game. I provided examples of areas where the lack of info hurts the experience:

~ As a single player game, the games menus should have all the important information readily available in the game. There are a lot of menus in the game that lack a proper walk through, or have nested menus that you don’t know the existence of. The ones that I would deem the most important are:

• Citizen Information > Pets/Livestock (explaining the pet system, training, and hunting)
  
• Labor > Standing Orders (going through automated commands)
  
• Labor > Standing Orders > Sieges and forbidding (some of these can get your dwarves killed, the player should know about them)
  
• Labor > Standing Orders > Chores (important if you want to assign kids to specific tasks)
  
• Labor > Kitchen (cooking certain goods can kill your seed count, e.g., plump helmets)
  
• Labor > Stone Use (explaining what non-economic stones are)
  
• Citizen > Overview (unmet needs, how are they supposed to be resolved)
  
• Stockpiles (Walkthrough on how priorities for stockpiles are set, and linking existing workshops)
  
• High and Low Traffic Areas (it’s important for players to know they can restrict areas)

TLDR: There are many pages that lack a proper tutorial, or are nested in other menus. Adding a ? Icon to every page in the top right that has information about the page would reduce the need to look for an external source. Showing the player that these nested menus exist is important. Copying what is already on the wiki into the game would go a long way.

~ Unmet needs under Citizen > Overview. There are a lot of them, and very little information on how to resolve them. More information needs to be provided.

~ There is a lot of color coding in this game. When I first started playing, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what colors meant what. I think a color guide is very important to help identify what different colors mean. In a character's Overview under Unmet Needs, yellow means a higher priority than white, in the Citizen Information screen it means they have a certain profession or don’t have a job, and for items it indicates an object that has not been placed. The same color is used to indicate three different things, which is fine as they correspond to different categories, but each category should have it’s own color key to help identify what the colors mean.

TLDR: There are many colors, each indicating different things depending on the category. The game should have a color key that lets you know what different colors mean in each category. This should be added to the ? of every page.

~ At first glance, the symbols that are placed on the side of items look like flavor text (marked with -, +, *, ≡, ☼, «»). These symbols actually represent the quality of items, and if an item has been encrusted with gems. The game should have a key to help players differentiate what quality each item is at, and that the «» icons mean an object was encrusted.

~ When hovering over items, I should be able to see the quality of the item when hovering over them. This only applies to engraved walls, bins, and not placed items currently.

~ I was trying to figure out how to check the values of rooms that I had constructed. In the non steam version, I read you could easily check the values of each room. In the steam version, the only way I can check to get a guess on these values is by selecting a character, and clicking on the Rooms tab. This however, only works for characters that have a specific room assigned to them, and gives you the current name of the room instead of a value.

According to the wiki, room quality level ranges from 1-10000, with 8 Tiers. So if I select a character, and it says "Modest Quarters", I can decipher the value is around 100 and a Tier 2 room, but I wouldn't be able to figure this out by myself, as I don't know what the value of that room is from the information being provided.

TLDR: I can’t see the values or tiers of rooms. If I select the zone for a room, it should tell me what the value of that room is, as well as what Tier that room is currently at.

2. Lack of information, Part II

~ The inability to see what goods are needed to create something at a glance during crafting can be a very time consuming and frustrating process. It doesn’t make sense to me that I get a notification on the side of my screen (the little circle with a dash through it) telling me what Item is missing after I have provided the work order or task. If I am missing an item, why am I being allowed to add the task in the first place? The ability to perform a task is something that should only be given to me if I have all the necessary materials and tools to do so.

Maybe the game is pushing you towards trial and error, but if that is the case, then why is there a pop up on the side of the screen that tells me what is missing, and why are there some items that do tell you what is needed to craft them in a red box underneath, only for the red box to disappear after you have the required materials? It’s just extra steps that could be avoided if information was provided on the task in question.

TLDR: I can’t see what materials are needed for tasks. All tasks should have their materials listed at all times, and you should only be allowed to perform a task if you have the necessary materials in stock. If you hover over an existing task that has all of its required materials, you should be able to see those requirements in the top right when hovering over a task.

~ Costs of items are not specified. The cost of each task should be listed for every item. If I am crafting an armor set, I want to know how much metal each piece is going to cost me.

~ Weapons and Armors do not have explicit stats or modifiers listed. I can assume that a weapon that is Exceptional is better than a weapon that is Well-Crafted, but I would not know this unless I went to the wiki.

~ Specific metals have specific stats, but the game does not list them. If I have copper armor, I can assume that it is worse than steel, but as far as I can tell in game, copper and steel are the same.

~ This is more of a lore related one, but if I build a church, I want to know what their deity stands for after I select the zone placement. When I check the details for a temple, it doesn’t tell me the Deity, or what they stand for, e.g., gambling, death, life, etc. I can only see this information when I am choosing what the room should be and picking the temple from the provided list of temples.

~ The bookkeeper is in charge of making sure I get accurate numbers on items and such. If I open the Stocks tab, I can see the available units in White on top and the used units in Orange on the bottom. However, this only applies to certain categories like furniture, blocks, or seeds. If I want to figure out how many of my clothes, armors, weapons, or tools are in use, I have to manually look through my base to figure that out.
For the items that do have an orange box telling me that there are items in use in that category, I can’t tell which items are being used, as there is no indicator to tell me on the list. They are only listed by material type and the item's rarity, but not if it was placed or is currently in use by someone.

TLDR: It is not possible to see used units in all categories under the “Stocks” tab. The Stocks list should have an orange indicator for ALL categories that are placeable or equipable. All categories should be divided into a used and unused section to help easily distinguish which items have been placed or are in use vs items that are available.

3. Needed Quality of Life Changes

These are some quality of life changes that I think would greatly benefit the current game:

~ I can select a character to jump to them by clicking on the magnifying glass from the Citizen Information, but I can't select the Nobles and Administration page to jump to a character. If I select a workstation, I should be able to jump to the character assigned to that workstation. This should also apply to rooms. If I select a room, I should be able to jump to the character who belongs to that room.

~ Add a search function to find a specific Dwarf in the Citizens Information panel. It becomes incredibly difficult to find someone as the base grows bigger.

~ Armor and clothes are worn together, but military dwarves refuse to swap shoes. They are unwilling to use any of the boots that I crafted for them. Military dwarves should be allowed to swap their shoes without having to remove all clothing.

~ During construction, I can’t disassemble multiple pieces of furniture at once. If I have a lot of furniture placed in one room, I have to click on each one individually and select Remove This Building in the top right. Just like there is the m>x command for walls, stairs, and tiles, there should be a command for furniture too.

~ Smoothing and engraving large portions of your base makes it near impossible to see the tiles underneath during the process. Changing the opacity of the tiles would resolve this issue. I am aware there is a mod that does just this, I will add a link here.

~ Placing floors requires me to click each stone individually. This is fine if you want to mix different stones, but if I just want to use one stone, I should be able to either type in how much stone I want to use, or tell the game to use everything from one stone.

~ When placing furniture, if I want to place furniture of the same material multiple times, I have to Select Material After Placement, and then place the material. An option to Use Last Material would prevent having to click Select Material After Placement every time you want to pick out a specific material.

~ Why is it impossible to have multiple characters assigned to one dining room? It's no fun when your king has to eat by himself, when he could be eating with the baroness, mayor, the dwarf butc- I mean Hammerer, and the Dungeon Master.

~ A lot of bins and barrels will have only 1 or 2 items, as opposed to placing as much of an item as possible in an available container. Why are they using a new container when there is an existing one that still has space? Citizens should prioritize filling existing bins/barrels instead of grabbing new ones.

TLDR: The maximum capacity for each bin/barrel is not listed, and citizens don’t prioritize filling existing containers. The citizens should prioritize containers that have not yet been filled to full capacity.

4. Possible Bug and Incorrect Information

Possible bug I may have encountered, and some incorrect information in one of the tutorials:

~ For work orders, I can select the amount of an object that I would like to order, but it never checks if I have enough of the materials to do so, whether the order is possible to complete in the first place, and it doesn’t reserve the resources necessary to complete the order. If I select that I want to have 50 bricks made, the game should know if I have the materials to do so while being validated by the manager, and the order should reserve those resources for the work order.

~ If I have the 50 brick order on the Work Orders screen, and I go into the conditions menu of the order, and I set that I want at most 50 bricks. Instead of making bricks until I have 50 and stopping, the worker will continue to go through the order amount I set on the Work Orders screen, even though I specifically said I wanted 50 at most. What is the point of setting a condition if it is not acknowledged?

Thank you to everyone here and on reddit clarifying how this works.

~ In the tavern tutorial (which is hidden within the Meeting and Areas tutorial, should be listed as its own tutorial) It is said to “have a Stockpile with Booze in it, preferably close by”. If I have the stockpile outside of the tavern designation, my tavern keeper will never touch it. The wording implies that as long as the stockpile is near the tavern, the barkeeper should use it. This is not the case.

If you have made it this far, thank you for taking the time to do so. If you are a developer, I hope you will take some of these into consideration as you continue to work on the game. If you are a player, hopefully you can relate to some of the experiences listed, and if you are deciding if this game is worth the purchase, I hope this is informative of the current state of the game. If I have missed anything major, please feel free to discuss in the comments below, I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic.

Credits: Thank you to RedX1000 for taking the time to read through all of this with me and getting it ready for release.

[Roxaereon]

Not to mention lack of logs, especially when clicking on a corpse.

[perl]

Very nice summary

[TucánRojo]

Yup. These are most of my gripes with the game.

I freaking love the concept and how deep it is, but for a version that was suppossed to be more "new user friendly" there's so much stuff left unexplained that it's just frustrating. I always feel like I'm missing something.
Hell I don't even know what materials I need to craft something most of the time.

And the fact that there isn't a "select all" box in most menus where you select stuff (like burrows and trading) makes my carpal tunnel tremble in fear.

Haven't had any combat yet, but I remember there was an option in the free version to pass one frame at the time. That way you can track combat action by action. As far as I know, that isn't here.

And if you accidentally dismiss a notification? Too bad. There isn't a log you can check.

I understand the idea of letting the player discover things by themselves, but some of these seem a bit too much. It's just inconvenient and annoying, especially nowadays when these things are more standard in management/strategy games.

[Teemo]

I feel like you're trying to make the game easier, and that feels wrong. I vote we do the opposite of everything suggested and make the UI 2x as difficult to navigate.

[Ronin Cross]

+!

[POWER WITHIN USER]

It's a fortress management game.
Someone in the development team decided to remove key management tools and screens that display great information (health report, anyone?) along with ways to input commands - which cause macros to be nearly useless for everything except what, mining?

The list of flaws is rather extensive but instead of doing the publisher's job for them, I could just go play the b12 version and wait for the "features" to make their way to me next update so that I say, can no longer tell if farm plots or tables are being used, or that I'm no longer allowed to use the loo'k' or 'v'iew units cursors.

[jeetrix]

excellent summary albeit a bit lengthy and emotionally charged.
Summarizing and posting it at the right channel would be beneficial

[Alicja]

I agree with most of the points and would have a few more to add (being unable to specify ammunition for marksdwarves is perhaps the most painful), however:

~ If I have the 50 brick order on the Work Orders screen, and I go into the conditions menu of the order, and I set that I want at most 50 bricks. Instead of making bricks until I have 50 and stopping, the worker will continue to go through the order amount I set on the Work Orders screen, even though I specifically said I wanted 50 at most. What is the point of setting a condition if it is not acknowledged?

The conditions you set refer to the situation before your crafting order, not after. You are not actually specifying that you want 50 bricks to be made and not one more, you're telling the manager to greenlight the work order IF and WHEN you're under 50 bricks.

[DropZone]

Originally posted by jeetrix:

excellent summary albeit a bit lengthy and emotionally charged.
Summarizing and posting it at the right channel would be beneficial

I think some emotion definitively got through, hopefully it still got many of my points across. I just want the best version of Dwarf Fortress so desperately

[DropZone]

Originally posted by Alicja:

I agree with most of the points and would have a few more to add (being unable to specify ammunition for marksdwarves is perhaps the most painful), however:

~ If I have the 50 brick order on the Work Orders screen, and I go into the conditions menu of the order, and I set that I want at most 50 bricks. Instead of making bricks until I have 50 and stopping, the worker will continue to go through the order amount I set on the Work Orders screen, even though I specifically said I wanted 50 at most. What is the point of setting a condition if it is not acknowledged?

The conditions you set refer to the situation before your crafting order, not after. You are not actually specifying that you want 50 bricks to be made and not one more, you're telling the manager to greenlight the work order IF and WHEN you're under 50 bricks.

Going to play around with this and see if it works, thank you for the insight.

[DropZone]

Originally posted by POWER WITHIN USER:

It's a fortress management game.
Someone in the development team decided to remove key management tools and screens that display great information (health report, anyone?) along with ways to input commands - which cause macros to be nearly useless for everything except what, mining?

The list of flaws is rather extensive but instead of doing the publisher's job for them, I could just go play the b12 version and wait for the "features" to make their way to me next update so that I say, can no longer tell if farm plots or tables are being used, or that I'm no longer allowed to use the loo'k' or 'v'iew units cursors.

Funny enough, with the amount that I have played with this version, and seeing all the differences between this and the original, I might be willing to give the original a go now. Maybe I'll post a comparison between the two in the future.

[Nipply]

That's exactly what's killing me when I play. You'll get an alert about "we've discovered x rock"

But there's no indication of what it is or why, and only through the wiki do you realize it can be smelted into iron or something. Just a total lack of context as to what something is when there's adequate space to provide some info on it.

Thank god that Nookrium and Blind are putting out videos. I've learned a lot through them and some scary basic things that should have been mentioned from the tutorial.

[Nequis]

I was interested in the game along with some other friends and we all watched a stream of one of us buying the game,later he refunded it as we all decided the game was too convoluted and missing critical informations in the hud,a glaring flaw that jumped immediately to the eye especially when said friend had to literally constantly alt-tab to the wiki to figure out wtf does what.

[Avloren]

As much as I love the game, I agree with all of this - great points. These are important improvements that we need.

A couple of my own:

Where did actual numbers for skill levels go? As a longtime veteran, even I can't remember offhand if "Talented" or "Adept" is higher level without checking the wiki. There appears to be no way to find out in-game. How would a noob have any clue what those descriptions mean? And even with the wiki, we're left with no way to tell the difference between a level 15 Legendary and a level 20.

Dwarf happiness: such a simple thing and it drives me insane. When I click a Dwarf and look at his detailed panel, nothing there tells me what his overall happiness is. I have to look him up in the citizen list to see.

I just clicked the first dwarf I could see. He has a bunch of yellow-grade unmet needs, his recent thoughts are mixed between neutral and negative, not a single positive one, and his most recent thought is "I am not contented." Want to guess how he's doing overall? He's actually "happy," apparently, one of my happiest dwarves. But I can only tell if I find him on the unit list.

[DropZone]

Originally posted by Nipply:

That's exactly what's killing me when I play. You'll get an alert about "we've discovered x rock"

But there's no indication of what it is or why, and only through the wiki do you realize it can be smelted into iron or something. Just a total lack of context as to what something is when there's adequate space to provide some info on it.

Thank god that Nookrium and Blind are putting out videos. I've learned a lot through them and some scary basic things that should have been mentioned from the tutorial.

I've been watching Nookrium and Blind too, it's a lot easier to figure what is going on with those videos!