I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever. Plenty of taverns with every type of alcohol. Three different taverns and temples. New clothes. All sorts of trinkets and trash for them to acquire. Lavish meals. You get the picture.You've described a fort that is not going to happen for a new player. They might get there, but there's a lot of experience baked into what you said. When you say every kind, do you mean all fruits, all underground? It's hard to know, but certainly in any situation where you're cutoff from the elves it can be hard to get a lot of kinds of fruit. And as a new player, I don't think it's reasonable to think that at year 3 you'll know to build all that stuff. I don't think it's possible you'll know how to design taverns so that people can socialize, or even how that works. So you're giving us high level play on what is effectively a new fort. I wouldn't expect much bad to have happened. Also if you aren't pulling data about the actual dwarfs in your fort, it's not really convincing. Did you do military training for everyone so they have some discipline? Did you win the dwarf lottery and everyone there except the few unluckies you've mentioned actually come into the world toughened up? How many dwarfs are in your fort? Did you have 4 dwarfs out of 500 who felt bad? Or 4 dwarfs out of 20?
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.I've been watching/playing since ~2009. The biggest "problems" for me right now are I have no tools for diplomacy to end wars, so if I'm being invaded, I must weather repeated invasions and then go and basically commit genocide in order to make that stop, or change my init files. I'm about 250y into my current world, and the survivors of my civ that come as immigrants are mostly battle-hardened (some discipline training) soldiers. I specifically conquered all the goblins in the world because it was that or every fort was going to eventually succumb to long-term exposure to dead bodies, or I have to build every fort to have a trap that eliminates bodies or hides them entirely from the populace.
5. Multiple-servings-per-round Alcohol poisoning in taverns results in not assigning tavern keepers, reducing the effectiveness of taverns in reducing mood impacts and negativity.
This cannot be allowed to continue, or taverns are going to remain less effective at addressing mood - dwarves get a positive moodlet for inebriation, but cannot reliably become inebriated without risking alcohol poisonings.
That's just it - how can stress be "fine" when one of the most critical stress relief areas is flat-out BROKEN and is known widely to the community to BE BROKEN?5. Multiple-servings-per-round Alcohol poisoning in taverns results in not assigning tavern keepers, reducing the effectiveness of taverns in reducing mood impacts and negativity.
This cannot be allowed to continue, or taverns are going to remain less effective at addressing mood - dwarves get a positive moodlet for inebriation, but cannot reliably become inebriated without risking alcohol poisonings.
Ha! I forgot about this one. I stopped assigning tavernkeepers so long ago I forgot they were an option for weeding out random dwarf populations and making everyone unhappy all the time because of the dead bodies!
I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever.
3 years is far too short.
Ptw.
One interesting tool could be a "highlight preferred goods"-switch that can be turned on and off for individual dwarves (no, multiple or even all dwarves at a time). If any good matches a preference of a dwarf with that switched on, it should be highlighted/flashing/whatever. This would be most important in trading, but also just about everywhere else.Probably wouldn't be too hard to implement as a DFHack script producing one or more lists (flashing would have the problem of only showing things within the current view window, and would be a mess for anything is quantum stockpiles, workshops, or the trade depots). The problem would then be to keep track of who wanted what and order their construction in the right rooms.
- A lot of people mention corpses as being too severe. I think it's set ok as it is, and turning off corpse/refuse hauling on almost all dwarves should leave you with a couple more stoic and resilient individuals who act as undertakers. It's a gruesome job, and should take its toll on one's mental health. Even the corpses of enemies are horrifying. Yes, there's a little mitigation in knowing you are safe now from said enemy, but that doesn't remove the impact of seeing a gore spattered passageway strewn with blood and entrails.
First off, corpse hauling is very low priority. Even if you have a group of dedicated haulers, they're going to take their sweet time to move the bodies.I'm thinking here, of having a couple individuals who ONLY have corpse hauling turned on. Dedicated undertakers.
Plenty of time for others dwarves to see the corpse and get the negative thought. Mind as well make everyone a hauler, the end result is going to be the same.True. Maybe make it less impactful to SEE a corpse as it is to HANDLE a corpse. Or maybe a susceptible dwarf could be like, "There is a corpse here, this makes me uncomfortable, I shall refuse to look as I pass by". Being able to turn our heads away from something we don't necessarily want to see if a defense we use to cope in situations such as these.
And while it's undeniably gruesome and harrowing to see, it will become less so with each encounter for your average dwarf. Seeing your first dead sapient would be a lasting experience. Seeing your 154th isn't. But the game currently treats that one with the same severity as the first. Some dwarves will never grow to cope with it obviously, but I imagine most would.Very true. I mean, hopefully your 154th effects you still, but you WILL be more desensitized to it the more exposure you have to it. My first bio-hazard clean up job was brutal, mentally. My 5th, not so much. I do remember them all though with a distinct lack of fondness, but they don't HAUNT me.
ETA: I used to do biohazard cleanup, and it's not something I've ever forgotten.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
I think Toady's description of his venerable 3 year old fort is a great description of what I'd love to see in this game.That's Threetoe/Zach in the op.
First off, corpse hauling is very low priority. Even if you have a group of dedicated haulers, they're going to take their sweet time to move the bodies.I'm thinking here, of having a couple individuals who ONLY have corpse hauling turned on. Dedicated undertakers.
Not if that's all they do. Obviously you'd make sure they can carry more than one tooth at a time when implementing this.First off, corpse hauling is very low priority. Even if you have a group of dedicated haulers, they're going to take their sweet time to move the bodies.I'm thinking here, of having a couple individuals who ONLY have corpse hauling turned on. Dedicated undertakers.
That would be so incredibly slow and tedious. You'd be cleaning up a siege for literally years afterwards.
- Make tantrums less common and/or less destructive. (Possibly introduce suicide attempts as a less destructive alternative to tantrums, unless of course suicide is considered too touchy a topic even for this game.)
If you changed the game to allow for dedicated cleanup squads to perform the cleanup within a reasonable time, that would obviously change the assessment (and I would certainly like that), but with the current logic of one trip for every half tooth they'll probably not finish before the next siege hits more often than not for a fortress that defeats their enemies on the battle field.Not if that's all they do. Obviously you'd make sure they can carry more than one tooth at a time when implementing this.First off, corpse hauling is very low priority. Even if you have a group of dedicated haulers, they're going to take their sweet time to move the bodies.I'm thinking here, of having a couple individuals who ONLY have corpse hauling turned on. Dedicated undertakers.
That would be so incredibly slow and tedious. You'd be cleaning up a siege for literally years afterwards.
One herbalist can clear an entire map of fruit in one sweep. Undertakers (with body carts, say) could clean up in no time.
@feelotraveller:
A day isn't enough for many dorfs to travel to an activity site, let alone achieve something.
This is probably not the right thread or time for that kind of suggestions, as the implications are very substantial. At a guess, the agriculture overhaul is the first reasonable stop, and even then, I'd expect further substantial changes to have to be in place apart from that. Also, such an overhaul would probably mean fortress building/mining... etc. progress to slow to about 1.5 effective current FPS (1/72:nd of the current rate, assuming the new fortress FPS isn't hampered), as the current production/digging rate is somewhat tied to real world progress rates, with dorf movements/activities being abstracted.@feelotraveller:
A day isn't enough for many dorfs to travel to an activity site, let alone achieve something.
I wonder if it's time to rehash one of those "make the days/years longer/slower" suggestion threads, if not the day-night cycle ones. They never seemed popular enough to gain much traction, but as more and more activities are squeezed in you never know.
Would anyone not be confused by this?
As someone who has played DF on and off for at least 9 years now... I have only just learnt this from reading this thread right now.
I never knew that complaint was for the food pref.
I honestly didn't even think of that either, yeah. Played the game for around 5 years now and the decent meals thing seemed more than a bit unclear to me. The game kinda has that issue with unclear nomenclature in other places too - I still, as one example, don't actually know what the "uphold tradition" need entails, or if it can even be completed.Would anyone not be confused by this?
As someone who has played DF on and off for at least 9 years now... I have only just learnt this from reading this thread right now.
I never knew that complaint was for the food pref.
Would anyone not be confused by this?
As someone who has played DF on and off for at least 9 years now... I have only just learnt this from reading this thread right now.
I never knew that complaint was for the food pref.
Honestly, why do things like rain and lack of chairs cause long term stress at all, even less likely to cause personality changes, think about it, how often do you remember every time you've been rained on, or even the most recent time?Yeah, this.
Like Patrick pointed out, dwarves do commit suicide alreadyYes, but only after they go insane ('stricken by melancholy'), at which point they are completely beyond recovery. In that sense it doesn't serve as a substitute for tantrums, which happen to dwarves who are not yet insane and can still (theoretically) be turned around with the right help. It's also not very realistic, since plenty of people in real life attempt suicide and then later turn their life around.
I think the main problem with tantrums is that apparantly their fistfight's escalation level are no-quarter/lethal instead of brawlYeah, that's a big part of it. Like I said, the building demolition is also really annoying and seems to go beyond what is realistic- considering the extended time required for a dwarf to carefully dismantle a stone drawbridge, a tantruming dwarf doing the same thing to multiple buildings in a very short span of time just seems unreasonable. Something like breaking a goblet or kicking over a chair I would understand, but the level of physical destruction caused by tantrums is pretty excessive right now.
Communication is so important for the question of frustration.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
- Make invaders more dignified in defeat. Say, there would be a commander noble that is appointed in each siege. When the siege is considered lifted, your dwarves and invaders become neutral to each other, and their commander (if alive and not caged) will go attend meeting with your militia commander. Invaders will request to retreive their dead for burial, to which the player can either agree, refuse or order to continue fighting. If player agrees, each remaining invader picks up a (non-citizen sentient) corpse and leaves the map; if mechanically possible, they may also be made to pick up items to add to the player's dilemma ("They are running away with my loot!"). If the player refuses, invaders simply leave without fighting. The third option equates the way thing always happen in the game currently. This is the "hard, but engaging" approach where player gets to choose between having clean up and loot, as well as between letting the invaders go (to surely return next siege) or making even more corpses.
- Make invaders more dignified in defeat. Say, there would be a commander noble that is appointed in each siege. When the siege is considered lifted, your dwarves and invaders become neutral to each other, and their commander (if alive and not caged) will go attend meeting with your militia commander. Invaders will request to retreive their dead for burial, to which the player can either agree, refuse or order to continue fighting. If player agrees, each remaining invader picks up a (non-citizen sentient) corpse and leaves the map; if mechanically possible, they may also be made to pick up items to add to the player's dilemma ("They are running away with my loot!"). If the player refuses, invaders simply leave without fighting. The third option equates the way thing always happen in the game currently. This is the "hard, but engaging" approach where player gets to choose between having clean up and loot, as well as between letting the invaders go (to surely return next siege) or making even more corpses.
I've never come across a suggestion like this (I also just did a lazy search and came up with nothing). There's lots of scope in it. I suggest putting it in the Suggestions Forum, too, so that it isn't lost. People can argue in that thread whether goblins would care etc. Post Battle Corpse Retrieval Truce maybe or, instead, an actual good title.
*by significant stress problems I mean 3 or more (out of 100) dorfs I expect to lose to insanity; obviously higher in evil biomes buuut that would be expected no? I also always have one level of discipline on all 7 dorfs- I continue to maintain that if you think stress is broken in 44.12 you need to "git gud"
I created an account just to comment here *I am impervious to stress as a result of having to create a bay12 account in 2019* and say that there is absolutely nothing game-breakingly wrong with stress at all. This is THE GAME. This entire thread is unreadable and reminds me of the people who complain about "micro" in Rimworld. Or my moody dwarf who feels better after crying on someone in charge.
I regularly start a fort with little to no planning and can end up in year 5 before I have significant stress problems. Learn to build a bedroom. Learn to have a variety of crops. Set-up a decent clothing industry.
Don't get online and cry until my game is game-breakingly easy. FFS you can dupe metal and two farmers can feed like 50 dorfs. You should try managing 40 to 100 people in real life (especially if you control the entire economy); I think you'd find DF is not unbalanced.
I was recently in a conversation about Skyrim and all the new live support games out there and the one thing we all agreed on is that the player feedback is almost always off-base. Basically, outside some guy like me who doesn't want to see the nature of the game ruined, you are far more likely to get some outspoken noob or a set-in-their-ways veteran who wants you to match their play style to give you an opinion than hear from someone who wants you to stick to the crazy kind of focus and thinking that got you into the MOMA in the first place.
Burn this thread o7
*by significant stress problems I mean 3 or more (out of 100) dorfs I expect to lose to insanity; obviously higher in evil biomes buuut that would be expected no? I also always have one level of discipline on all 7 dorfs- I continue to maintain that if you think stress is broken in 44.12 you need to "git gud"
Listen dude, I don't care if you want to be all "Oh I don't have problems with stress, git gud", but if >95% of the playerbase outside of this forum has significant problems with stress - to the point veterans are complaining and the developers ask for help diagnosing(!) - then there has to be SOME fix. If you've been around so long, you'd know the aim isn't to be a very hard game that gatekeeps newcomers - hell, the whole point of the Steam release IS to be welcoming to newcomers. The point of the game is the simulation mechanics - which, as of right now, are broken. Even with a perfect crop rotation, clothing industry, and Legendary dining halls with perfect Royal bedrooms for every dwarf, you're still going to have forts fall because it rained outside. Regardless of how "hard" you want the game, the developers don't want stress to be the endemic problem it is right now. Regardless of that difficulty preference, having One Right Solution (small 2x3 taverns, microing labours, wagon-dumping to avoid rain) is not how a simulation is meant to be played.
This came to from someone who is having issues posting on this forum but asked for help getting her reply here:QuoteListen dude, I don't care if you want to be all "Oh I don't have problems with stress, git gud", but if >95% of the playerbase outside of this forum has significant problems with stress - to the point veterans are complaining and the developers ask for help diagnosing(!) - then there has to be SOME fix. If you've been around so long, you'd know the aim isn't to be a very hard game that gatekeeps newcomers - hell, the whole point of the Steam release IS to be welcoming to newcomers. The point of the game is the simulation mechanics - which, as of right now, are broken. Even with a perfect crop rotation, clothing industry, and Legendary dining halls with perfect Royal bedrooms for every dwarf, you're still going to have forts fall because it rained outside. Regardless of how "hard" you want the game, the developers don't want stress to be the endemic problem it is right now. Regardless of that difficulty preference, having One Right Solution (small 2x3 taverns, microing labours, wagon-dumping to avoid rain) is not how a simulation is meant to be played.
I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever. Plenty of taverns with every type of alcohol. Three different taverns and temples. New clothes. All sorts of trinkets and trash for them to acquire. Lavish meals. You get the picture.
Now the negative side: I attacked the goblins and in return weathered three sieges of over 100 goblins total. I killed them all with trained and iron armored dwarves with only a few injuries. Then I had my entire fortress run out and pick up the bodies.
The results were as follows: Three dwarves went into a depression. Some soldiers suffered post traumatic stress. And one dwarf threw a fit and went to jail.
This kind of result isn't bad. We want this.
No, I disagree with this. Problem dwarves should always be part of the game so long as there are ways of dealing with them. We had the "no Dwarf ever feels stress because his dining room is nice" version of the game. It was boring.*by significant stress problems I mean 3 or more (out of 100) dorfs I expect to lose to insanity; obviously higher in evil biomes buuut that would be expected no? I also always have one level of discipline on all 7 dorfs- I continue to maintain that if you think stress is broken in 44.12 you need to "git gud"
Um, no.
3 dwarfs out of 100 is not an acceptable number of losses when the fortress is otherwise running well.
The first insane dwarf should be a sign that your fort has started to fail.
I generally agree with Shonai_Dweller.No, I disagree with this. Problem dwarves should always be part of the game so long as there are ways of dealing with them. We had the "no Dwarf ever feels stress because his dining room is nice" version of the game. It was boring.*by significant stress problems I mean 3 or more (out of 100) dorfs I expect to lose to insanity; obviously higher in evil biomes buuut that would be expected no? I also always have one level of discipline on all 7 dorfs- I continue to maintain that if you think stress is broken in 44.12 you need to "git gud"
Um, no.
3 dwarfs out of 100 is not an acceptable number of losses when the fortress is otherwise running well.
The first insane dwarf should be a sign that your fort has started to fail.
Hi Dorfs,
We have been going through some extensive testing to find the biggest problems for new (and old!) players that make them give up in frustration. Most of these people don't bother giving us any feedback, which is understandable. The game just sucks and why play? We need your help to nail down what exactly is going on.
While we are working on every problem we can find, this thread is specifically for problems with the stress system. There are a spattering of reports that come up on Reddit and other forums from people talking about how the stress system is so screwed up the game is unplayable. I haven't found this to be the case so I need your help!
I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever. Plenty of taverns with every type of alcohol. Three different taverns and temples. New clothes. All sorts of trinkets and trash for them to acquire. Lavish meals. You get the picture.
Now the negative side: I attacked the goblins and in return weathered three sieges of over 100 goblins total. I killed them all with trained and iron armored dwarves with only a few injuries. Then I had my entire fortress run out and pick up the bodies.
The results were as follows: Three dwarves went into a depression. Some soldiers suffered post traumatic stress. And one dwarf threw a fit and went to jail.
This kind of result isn't bad. We want this.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
We are aware of socialization problems. I haven't seen a game ending problem here, but these will definitely be addressed at some point.
This is the kind of problem we want solved: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.msg7839740#msg7839740
We really don't want “a cancer of red arrows”
Help us find out what's going on and we will attempt to fix it!
3) As also mentioned above, marriage age gap was fixed (improved anyway). Check out the devblog for news on developments in marriage, divorce, adultry and kids.
Fort mode work has only just started. But yes, devblog says it's planned to be part of fort mode too.3) As also mentioned above, marriage age gap was fixed (improved anyway). Check out the devblog for news on developments in marriage, divorce, adultry and kids.
Was any of that in fort mode or was all of that worldgen?
At some point early on, perhaps before traitors, we'll also have to bring the fort in line with the new relationship model. This will expand what grudges and friendships mean, and it will also allow the new w.g. features like divorce and multiple lovers to happen in fort mode.
Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".
Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".
To illustrate that point, I modded dwarves with [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK][NO_SLEEP], disabled weather, invaders, and immigration, and removed the active season (and clothing) tokens from the mountain entity. I then embarked with sets of leather armor, assigned uniforms, isolated each dwarf in a one tile area, and let the game run for 10 years. Despite *actively not meeting* all of their needs, not a single dwarf complained about stress, threw a tantrum, or went insane. This is a worst case scenario; even a dabbling overseer can be expected to satisfy some of their dwarves' needs by, say, brewing alcohol and assigning work, so "real game" stress from neglected needs would accumulate even slower than in this test. Additionally, the moderate stress from unmet needs could presumably be offset by positive thoughts the dwarves experienced. If you want to see some heavily-distracted-but-sane dwarves, you can download my test embark (http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14592) or recreate the setup from the description above.
Multiple lovers fundamentally mean nothing whilst the ability of dwarfs to even make friends is basically broken. (Maybe a curiosity or two from arriving immigrants.) Sorry but new features are pointless when the base that they need to work is itself pragmatically non-functional (barring exploits). To me it just shows a lack of awareness regarding the state of the game on Toady's part.
The base as it stands is broken, and adding another story on top of that has no useful effect (it might add some flavor to some stories, at best). Lover relationships, should they form through a miracle, do not seem to have any useful effect in needs fulfillment terms (Lovers count as friends. When lovers marry the Family need gets fulfilled and the formerly fulfilled Friend need gets booted out).Multiple lovers fundamentally mean nothing whilst the ability of dwarfs to even make friends is basically broken. (Maybe a curiosity or two from arriving immigrants.) Sorry but new features are pointless when the base that they need to work is itself pragmatically non-functional (barring exploits). To me it just shows a lack of awareness regarding the state of the game on Toady's part.
You think that it's completely impossible to fix things during a rework? It tends to be easier, since such things tend to involve tearing out the existing system anyway.
You think that it's completely impossible to fix things during a rework? It tends to be easier, since such things tend to involve tearing out the existing system anyway.
I find Loci's experimental results very worrying. If unmet needs by themselves don't generate stress, but experience shows meeting needs in stressed fortresses alleviates stress a little (at least that's my experience), that, to me, implies unmet needs instead act as negative stress amplifiers, which is a lot worse than if they're stressors in themselves.
Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".Okay - I'll bite. This is interesting. It implies that there's a source of stress that either we're not seeing, or that isn't being reported, and that what we're seeing reported is possibly not even what's causing the stress we do see.
Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".Okay - I'll bite. This is interesting. It implies that there's a source of stress that either we're not seeing, or that isn't being reported, and that what we're seeing reported is possibly not even what's causing the stress we do see.
Unmet needs thoughts get stronger when the general bad thoughts change their personality to be more stress vulnerable.
until the health system starts covering more than just injuries and forgotten beast extract.it barely even covers those :P
Instead of expecting the player to micromanage every single dwarf to fulfill their needs, the player should be expected to provide the means for dwarves to fulfill these needs themselves.Well:
There's no reason a dwarf shouldn't be able to pick up a new piece of clothing or a shiny bauble from a stockpile at their own volition. There's no reason a dwarf shouldn't be able to find their preferred food or drink in a stockpile. There's no a reason a lonely dwarf shouldn't be able to go to the tavern and socialize. A lot of these things seem like common sense, and the fact that it's not what is happening is what's throwing people off. Right now dwarves are simply too stupid to live. Like koalas starving to death because their smooth brains fail to recognize leaves on the ground as food because they're not attached to a tree.
A related issue is that dwarves spend an awful lot of time filling needs. Some of that may be dwarves caught in need fulfillment bugs, but it feels seems like about half of my dwarves not on active military duty are in the temple, tavern, or library at any time. Add dwarves sleeping who are harder to count and that's way too little labor per dwarf for a fort at an FPS friendly scale to work smoothly. I've had to run fastdwarf from time to time to get enemy equipment cleaned up that my dwarves haven't otherwise been able to haul between sieges and that's using autodump to deal with the actual bodies.Whether this is a balance issue or not depends on how much leave you give them. If you were to give them only a month per year, yes, I'd expect them to spend it on catching up. If you run a 50% duty, 50% leave schedule (with no barracks allocated when off duty), that's an issue.
There is a problem with stress? ???Have you not played the game since 44.10 or so? That's when most of these issues started.
I understand this imbalance alone doesn't create a problem, but it does show a preference for negative emotions in the system and a lack of positive emotions to make up for the bad experiences.
There is a problem with stress? ???
There is a problem with stress? ???Have you not played the game since 44.10 or so? That's when most of these issues started.
I understand this imbalance alone doesn't create a problem, but it does show a preference for negative emotions in the system and a lack of positive emotions to make up for the bad experiences.
It doesn't show much anything of the sort, since that would suggest that there's a uniform distribution of all emotions, which... I don't know, have you ever seen grim satisfaction? I have, once.
I understand this imbalance alone doesn't create a problem, but it does show a preference for negative emotions in the system and a lack of positive emotions to make up for the bad experiences.
It doesn't show much anything of the sort, since that would suggest that there's a uniform distribution of all emotions, which... I don't know, have you ever seen grim satisfaction? I have, once.
I have actually. Isn't this essentially what schadenfreude is? (specifically in the case of poetic justice, where somebody who has been a source of great distress to others, suffers the consequences of such behavior in a profound, and significant fashion?)
There is a problem with stress? ???Have you not played the game since 44.10 or so? That's when most of these issues started.
Yes I have and I found no issues with stress.
Everybody spends all their time being deliriously happy about how great their dining hall is and how great their bedrooms are as well as how interesting their chair is. Then there is alcohol on top of that; the occasional bad thing that happens does not counteract in any way the general barrage of good things. Bad things happen occasionally, good things happen constantly
if bad things are happening constantly the problem is you the player and not the game.
I understand this imbalance alone doesn't create a problem, but it does show a preference for negative emotions in the system and a lack of positive emotions to make up for the bad experiences.
It doesn't show much anything of the sort, since that would suggest that there's a uniform distribution of all emotions, which... I don't know, have you ever seen grim satisfaction? I have, once.
I have actually. Isn't this essentially what schadenfreude is? (specifically in the case of poetic justice, where somebody who has been a source of great distress to others, suffers the consequences of such behavior in a profound, and significant fashion?)
It's a lot more visible in adventure mode if you go around killing bandits. Nonetheless its just a neutral moodlet rather than positive or negative.
Personally, I think a good deal of the "I saw a bit of a corpse!! OH NO!" nonsense has to do with 3 things.
1) Each little bit of corpse counts as a whole corpse being seen (Sure, a mangled corpse is more horrific than a peacefully reposing one, but "I SAW UNCLE URIST'S HANGNAIL! OH NO! And now I am double traumatized by seeing his left index finger's fingernail! GODS!" is just absurd. Urist is dead. That shock should happen once, and once only, no matter how many of his body parts you find.)
2) Each corpse piece can be experienced repeatedly. (Instead of having an emotional shock about the tragic loss of Uncle Urist, followed by acceptance and going forward with life, dwarves keep re-experiencing the trauma of losing Uncle Urist over and over and over and over and over again, every time they see Uncle Urist's hangnail. This is absurd. Dwarves should move on with loss, and stop being traumatized by bits of exhumed corpse. You know that scene from Hamlet? "Alas, Poor Yorick--"? Yeah, dwarves NEVER get to that level of acceptance.)
3) Dwarves never get over emotional loss of people in general (which is why they slowly go insane from lamenting that their loved ones aren't in the fort all the damn time.)
[snip]
3) Implement emotional healing such that these kinds of losses no longer continually accumulate negative emotional tallies. EG- implement some kind of "long tail" like mechanism, where the amount of negative emotion added by "Missing Uncle Urist" gets diminished each time it gets applied, based on time passed since separation.
I was meaning more the
"Hi, I'm Urist from the mountain home! I came here, leaving mom, dad and my 20 siblings behind!"
The new mechanism means essentially nothing in a fortress unless dorfs are able to make friends and get (re)married on their own. However, it seems there's a good chance they're going to address this as part of the game ending stress/needs rebalancing activities, but don't expect anything useful to happen in the Villains release in this regard, at least not the first one. I expect Toady would want to get that out the door as soon as possible, which means these things will come later, possibly as late as the Premium release, although I hope it will be pushed out before that to get feedback beyond what a closed beta can provide (and time to address the worst issues indicated by that feedback).I was meaning more the
"Hi, I'm Urist from the mountain home! I came here, leaving mom, dad and my 20 siblings behind!"
Hopefully to just quip this quickly, the new divorce and re-marriage mechanics will mean that everyone on people's relationship lists won't be related, and probably more viable to have step parents and less of a onslaught of 20 cousins that even for a long lived dwarf is absurd tied into the issue of family and presumably extended family they might actually meet.
He already added all of the new values that go into friendship and relationship forming now and said he would have to bring fortress relationships up to date as part of this release too.The new mechanism means essentially nothing in a fortress unless dorfs are able to make friends and get (re)married on their own. However, it seems there's a good chance they're going to address this as part of the game ending stress/needs rebalancing activities, but don't expect anything useful to happen in the Villains release in this regard, at least not the first one. I expect Toady would want to get that out the door as soon as possible, which means these things will come later, possibly as late as the Premium release, although I hope it will be pushed out before that to get feedback beyond what a closed beta can provide (and time to address the worst issues indicated by that feedback).I was meaning more the
"Hi, I'm Urist from the mountain home! I came here, leaving mom, dad and my 20 siblings behind!"
Hopefully to just quip this quickly, the new divorce and re-marriage mechanics will mean that everyone on people's relationship lists won't be related, and probably more viable to have step parents and less of a onslaught of 20 cousins that even for a long lived dwarf is absurd tied into the issue of family and presumably extended family they might actually meet.
He already added all of the new values that go into friendship and relationship forming now and said he would have to bring fortress relationships up to date as part of this release too.The new mechanism means essentially nothing in a fortress unless dorfs are able to make friends and get (re)married on their own. However, it seems there's a good chance they're going to address this as part of the game ending stress/needs rebalancing activities, but don't expect anything useful to happen in the Villains release in this regard, at least not the first one. I expect Toady would want to get that out the door as soon as possible, which means these things will come later, possibly as late as the Premium release, although I hope it will be pushed out before that to get feedback beyond what a closed beta can provide (and time to address the worst issues indicated by that feedback).I was meaning more the
"Hi, I'm Urist from the mountain home! I came here, leaving mom, dad and my 20 siblings behind!"
Hopefully to just quip this quickly, the new divorce and re-marriage mechanics will mean that everyone on people's relationship lists won't be related, and probably more viable to have step parents and less of a onslaught of 20 cousins that even for a long lived dwarf is absurd tied into the issue of family and presumably extended family they might actually meet.
So he's going to be working very closely with the bugged code. Seems like a good chance he'll take a stab at it just to check any of it works.
Yes, as feelotraveller pointed out (and I tried to get across), there are no apparent major bugs in the relationship structures, which are the ones Toady has changed, with the associated code of managing it. That's all that's needed for world gen and world activation to work. The part that's not working in player fortresses and which isn't needed at all outside fortress mode is that there's no logic present for dorfs to seek out partners to socialize with once the overall logic has brought them to the tavern. They're essentially sent to the tavern (which works, as far as I can tell), but then just get dropped in a random tile with random movement until socializing time is up. Once in the tavern, they ought to look for someone(s) to interact with based on their socializing priorities (family for family needs, friends for friends needs, strangers for novelty seekers when the basic needs are met [or can't be met given the current tavern patrons], performances, etc.), move there and do their socializing, select a new target either based on a timeout or when the partner leaves.He already added all of the new values that go into friendship and relationship forming now and said he would have to bring fortress relationships up to date as part of this release too.The new mechanism means essentially nothing in a fortress unless dorfs are able to make friends and get (re)married on their own. However, it seems there's a good chance they're going to address this as part of the game ending stress/needs rebalancing activities, but don't expect anything useful to happen in the Villains release in this regard, at least not the first one. I expect Toady would want to get that out the door as soon as possible, which means these things will come later, possibly as late as the Premium release, although I hope it will be pushed out before that to get feedback beyond what a closed beta can provide (and time to address the worst issues indicated by that feedback).I was meaning more the
"Hi, I'm Urist from the mountain home! I came here, leaving mom, dad and my 20 siblings behind!"
Hopefully to just quip this quickly, the new divorce and re-marriage mechanics will mean that everyone on people's relationship lists won't be related, and probably more viable to have step parents and less of a onslaught of 20 cousins that even for a long lived dwarf is absurd tied into the issue of family and presumably extended family they might actually meet.
So he's going to be working very closely with the bugged code. Seems like a good chance he'll take a stab at it just to check any of it works.
So...
Ideal tavern size is 2 tiles then? ;)
/s
(Joking-- This means every dwarf is either occupying the same tile, or has direct proximity with all other dwarfs in the tavern. Beware fistfights!)
Everything beside, taverns dont work, i never build inefficient 10x10 ones because they fit 200 dwarves packed into the squares and massive voids of space when using anything less than that amount of patrons. I've already offered suggestions like special code for spacing them out (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173962.msg7971552#msg7971552). Temples never require more than 1x3/1x5 on the logic that a small shrine fits 12-20 worshippers because they stand on the same tiles.
- Dwarves are now incredibly inattentive for any matter besides spotting enemies in combat, they hardly acknowledge beautiful decoration unless they are standing right beside it, unless some bad/regressive code is there for checking adjacent tiles. In the same way there's a bug which means that dwarves need additional partners to strike up a conversation in NESW directions. Said dwarves could also be immobilized (some people suggested shooting their legs off with ballistae) to strike conversation with (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.msg7950181#msg7950181)
Libraries are the most succesuful becuase they dont have a floor activity and are just modified meeting area's with a activity to fufill within them if it is a bit repetitive because of possible dwarf code, which should ideally be the archetype like we have in the previous definition of statue garden modifiers to art, or meeting halls all being one big dining room.
One of the best is 3x3 with a table in the middle and chairs in the cardinal directions.They'll get negative thoughts for sharing a table.
If you give "content with" more than one option (say 3, very common ones), they are about equivalent...
Content with would be "Satisfied, no boost", where the other two are boosts, and are luxuries. (since the need can be met with the content with options).
They wouldn't need rye beer drenching everything to satisfy their diet wants, since they have some staples that they find "good enough" that should already be in basically every meal already. (Say strawberry, plump helmet, cave wheat-- or similar. If you have several kinds of farm plot going, your standard crops are going to be strawberry, prickle berry, longland grass, cave wheat, plump helmet, rock nut, and the alcohols from those. Basically every embark should have those, unless you purposefully embarked in one that has no surface plants at all and cannot grow any. (Undead biome, et al.) In which case, this is part of the FUN.
I would put desires for less common plants, and the like-- in the "Enjoys" category, and put rare items (like sunberry, et al) in the "greatly enjoys" category. If you can *GET* it, it's worth it--- but if you cant, don't sweat it-- They are content with strawberries.
Just a quick note: "Wandering" need is satisfied by hunting, fishing and plant gathering. ob_keeping_this_on_topic: This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to manage stress -- no discernable feedback between what's wrong and what you need to do to fix it. Although if Loci is right you can just ignore the wandering need and it won't have any impact on stress. It's all very confusing.
Leaving the fortress to go visit/rescue them (or petitioning to do so) would be nice to see. Then at least it's a player decision to lose a dwarf or try to keep its stress under control.Just a quick note: "Wandering" need is satisfied by hunting, fishing and plant gathering. ob_keeping_this_on_topic: This is the kind of thing that makes it hard to manage stress -- no discernable feedback between what's wrong and what you need to do to fix it. Although if Loci is right you can just ignore the wandering need and it won't have any impact on stress. It's all very confusing.
It some cases we shouldn't have to fix it. In some cases they should be able to fix it themselves. For instance we often have family related unhappy thoughts despite family being present in the fortress; it would be good if the lonely dwarves would deliberately seek out their family members for a meeting. A lot of social related stress-thoughts should lead to targeted socialising, so if I have no friends I should zero-in on someone in particular to actually befriend them.
If they literally have no family in the fort however, I am quite happy with them not be able to do anything about their stress-thoughts however.
Leaving the fortress to go visit/rescue them (or petitioning to do so) would be nice to see. Then at least it's a player decision to lose a dwarf or try to keep its stress under control.
Really, this whole barrier surrounding the fortress is kind of silly. Just watched the circus wipe out a fortress, a lot of whom were outside hunting and gathering plants. Yeah, like, no that doesn't actually make sense.
Chiming in after years of lurking because I saw a comment pointing out that feedback is probably skewed to people who've been tolerating the system well enough to troop through it somewhat, or just really dedicated fans. As I've not been trooping it and have essentially been driven away but took a peek at the website to see what's up, I'll leave a message now to share the perspective of someone who's been playing for a long time but can't handle it in the current state. Then I'll probably just disappear again for a few years at least. (I'm just not a social person)
[snip]✂️[/snip]
Some point by point thoughts/ideas:
-Make nice things all around the board work a little better, without drooling ecstasy as a result (with the exception of some kind of godlike super-managed utopic fort design, which thus-far results in some super-genius players having a fort actually survive).
-Cut down on the building up of a psychological doomsday counter, and maybe focus more on shifting through levels of moodiness depending on a combination of whether it's been a crappy day and the general thickness of skin / positive or negative attitude an individual has.
-Maybe even let them coordinate outings like ordinary real world people, let them agree to go for a beer after work so that they'll actually be guaranteed to socialize AND drink a beer.
-Give tavern keepers some amount of responsible alcohol dosing judgement ability (in real life we have certification for that). Only allow truly disturbed or problematic alcohol-addicted dwarves to poison themselves, with the occasional stupid teenager passing out and throwing up from inexperience. Have them learn from their mistakes with alcohol.
-Maybe give them an analogue to the labour menu in the form of a leisure menu where you can pick what leisure activities to spend the most time on so they spend more time praying, socializing etc.
I have no idea how difficult any suggestions I make would be to implement and am by no means making demands or ultimatums. Just sharing thoughts.
Well, that's my 2 cents, for whatever it's worth. Love this game, will continue donating regularly to feed the beast and watch it grow. Take care of yourselves. Bye for now. *poof*
-Maybe give them an analogue to the labour menu in the form of a leisure menu where you can pick what leisure activities to spend the most time on so they spend more time praying, socializing etc. ((You follow them on the jobs screen *not that you can actually stop them, but it'd be nice to illustrate the places they are not allowed to be, such as pulling away permission from the dwarves you rely to pull levers to get caught up in a tavern dance routine so they are restricted to meeting zones. Sober designated driver kind of deal))
-Make nice things all around the board work a little better, without drooling ecstasy as a result (with the exception of some kind of godlike super-managed utopic fort design, which thus-far results in some super-genius players having a fort actually survive). ((i mean, meeting zones used to be enough, but religion comes in close but is eclipsed by the need to use it building anxiety, some dwarves seperately have religious needs so skewered they do literally nothing but pray and fufill their needs, these are the kind of people you throw away into monastic cults or something and still suffer because they can't get enough god.))
-Allow dwarves to put up with missing a need or two or three, as long as most aspects of their life are decent.
-Cut down on the building up of a psychological doomsday counter, and maybe focus more on shifting through levels of moodiness depending on a combination of whether it's been a crappy day and the general thickness of skin / positive or negative attitude an individual has. ((though that's what a stress-tantrum is, a treasured part of DF. But the negative moods precluding it are if not almost worse and a freefall))
-Give tavern keepers some amount of responsible alcohol dosing judgement ability (in real life we have certification for that). Only allow truly disturbed or problematic alcohol-addicted dwarves to poison themselves, with the occasional stupid teenager passing out and throwing up from inexperience. Have them learn from their mistakes with alcohol. ((Tavern keepers really are a unpolished feature, i support but dwarves will inexplicably always abuse alcohol for numerous cultural and creature based reasons, so a figure for temperance of the habit in charge of drinks to be chosen is fine, greedy dwarves will just be annoyed to not be served more than they were expecting and go drink extra from a barrel or something))
I have found atom smashing to be an excellent solution to stress. In a world where multiple previous forts have either been retired or have gone down (in one spectacular case to a dragon), many migrant dwarves are re-migrating to new fortresses as I oversee them. The current one is intended to be the capital of Dorf Island, and we will not tolerate dwarves who start fights over and over again.Expelling is just as efficient. And doesn't involve forcing players to kill their dwarves.
Any dwarf who enters with a red status arrow is checked. Any who are subsequently found to have personality traits making them susceptible to stress (almost 100% of cases, things like "doesn't handle stress well" or my favorite "is in a constant state of internal rage") are immediately sent to the garbage disposal via military conscription for atom-smashing. It's clean, no bodies to worry about. Engrave a slab, install it, and you're done.
It's been very, very effective thus far.
I have found atom smashing to be an excellent solution to stress. In a world where multiple previous forts have either been retired or have gone down (in one spectacular case to a dragon), many migrant dwarves are re-migrating to new fortresses as I oversee them. The current one is intended to be the capital of Dorf Island, and we will not tolerate dwarves who start fights over and over again.Expelling is just as efficient. And doesn't involve forcing players to kill their dwarves.
Any dwarf who enters with a red status arrow is checked. Any who are subsequently found to have personality traits making them susceptible to stress (almost 100% of cases, things like "doesn't handle stress well" or my favorite "is in a constant state of internal rage") are immediately sent to the garbage disposal via military conscription for atom-smashing. It's clean, no bodies to worry about. Engrave a slab, install it, and you're done.
It's been very, very effective thus far.
Gotta fix the "child not present" bug though.
For some reason the dwarves I expel always come back. Death seems to be the only liberation from their stress induced mischief.
Are you expelling them, or sending them off to one of your holdings (like the dark pits which are now handily economically linked to your site ;) )? Just wondering if having them roam the wilderness near your site makes them more likely to try to come back.I have found atom smashing to be an excellent solution to stress. In a world where multiple previous forts have either been retired or have gone down (in one spectacular case to a dragon), many migrant dwarves are re-migrating to new fortresses as I oversee them. The current one is intended to be the capital of Dorf Island, and we will not tolerate dwarves who start fights over and over again.Expelling is just as efficient. And doesn't involve forcing players to kill their dwarves.
Any dwarf who enters with a red status arrow is checked. Any who are subsequently found to have personality traits making them susceptible to stress (almost 100% of cases, things like "doesn't handle stress well" or my favorite "is in a constant state of internal rage") are immediately sent to the garbage disposal via military conscription for atom-smashing. It's clean, no bodies to worry about. Engrave a slab, install it, and you're done.
It's been very, very effective thus far.
Gotta fix the "child not present" bug though.
For some reason the dwarves I expel always come back. Death seems to be the only liberation from their stress induced mischief.
Just having traps doesn't work for a number of reasonsSorry, to clarify, I didn't mean trap, the boring little one tile stock construction. I meant Trap, the fun, large, overly complicated things-moving-flying-and-flowing design of your choice.
Sieges are rare now? Hmm. Best check your settings. Missing sieges haven't been a thing since 40.24.Just having traps doesn't work for a number of reasonsSorry, to clarify, I didn't mean trap, the boring little one tile stock construction. I meant Trap, the fun, large, overly complicated things-moving-flying-and-flowing design of your choice.
And I remember post-siege campers being an issue, but sieges are so rare now, or require so much extra effort to trigger, that they aren't really part of my expectation when I pick DF back up to play anymore.
I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed. It's like they forgot they were expelled. It's more of a timeout than an expulsion. I don't even bother with expelling them now, it just kicks the can down the road.Are you expelling them, or sending them off to one of your holdings (like the dark pits which are now handily economically linked to your site ;) )? Just wondering if having them roam the wilderness near your site makes them more likely to try to come back.I have found atom smashing to be an excellent solution to stress. In a world where multiple previous forts have either been retired or have gone down (in one spectacular case to a dragon), many migrant dwarves are re-migrating to new fortresses as I oversee them. The current one is intended to be the capital of Dorf Island, and we will not tolerate dwarves who start fights over and over again.Expelling is just as efficient. And doesn't involve forcing players to kill their dwarves.
Any dwarf who enters with a red status arrow is checked. Any who are subsequently found to have personality traits making them susceptible to stress (almost 100% of cases, things like "doesn't handle stress well" or my favorite "is in a constant state of internal rage") are immediately sent to the garbage disposal via military conscription for atom-smashing. It's clean, no bodies to worry about. Engrave a slab, install it, and you're done.
It's been very, very effective thus far.
Gotta fix the "child not present" bug though.
For some reason the dwarves I expel always come back. Death seems to be the only liberation from their stress induced mischief.
I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed.
I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed.
According to Toady's devlog on 6/15/18, expelled citizens should not return in subsequent immigration waves. (That likely doesn't apply to new fortresses, retired/unretired fortresses, etc.) If you have an example of an expelled dwarf immigrating back to your fortress, please report the bug (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/bug_report_page.php) on the tracker.
New player, had about 5 forts now ranging from 1-5 years in duration.this depends are you using Lazy newb pack or just download fresh from toady links Dwarf fortress?
If I see a dwarf is stressed I read their thoughts and feel pretty good about being able to improve their situation. Unless its after a bloody siege. I'm learning I have to quarantine those. If my dwarfs kinda ignore my commands tho it can be tricky. I do sometimes kill high stress dorfs discretely.
On the dwarf labor screen I have numbers that show stress 0, -5000, etc. I'm not sure if that is an addon or base game but it helps me a looot. If that's an addon I'd suggest something similar for new players to track the meta stress of their colony.
New player, had about 5 forts now ranging from 1-5 years in duration.this depends are you using Lazy newb pack or just download fresh from toady links Dwarf fortress?
If I see a dwarf is stressed I read their thoughts and feel pretty good about being able to improve their situation. Unless its after a bloody siege. I'm learning I have to quarantine those. If my dwarfs kinda ignore my commands tho it can be tricky. I do sometimes kill high stress dorfs discretely.
On the dwarf labor screen I have numbers that show stress 0, -5000, etc. I'm not sure if that is an addon or base game but it helps me a looot. If that's an addon I'd suggest something similar for new players to track the meta stress of their colony.
because I don't think the game legit tells you how stressed the dwarves are on a number standpoint or how happy they are going by the -5000.
do wanna say it's just Them remembering all the stressful moments in their life is causing the stress uptick. like I think taverns back before the remember update only downside were the spies, artifact hunters and probably the dwarves potential of getting so drunk they suffocate on their booze and/or get into fist fights killing each other, and most of that is manageable.
so before you need to like combo a series of bad emotional trauma to super stress a dwarf out, where now there's a bucket that just sits in the dwarf's mind and constantly pools over negative energy, and said negative energy can add negative energy that stresses the dwarf out. though now I wonder is it possible for an adventurer to calm down someone dealing with high stress? like the player can give gifts and talk about stuff and do performances which all these are mood boosters.
I haven't had too many issues, but I will chime in that the thing that annoys me the most is dwarves with a persistent bad thought of a fixable nature that they just don't do. I have a dwarf in one fort who constantly feels sad because they don't get enough interaction. I have multiple meeting areas and taverns with people in them at all times. Just go take a break and hang out!
Or the other dwarf who has multiple negative thoughts from not praying...but I have a temple to that god. Just...go pray! It's what it is there for!
Most of these people don't bother giving us any feedback, which is understandable. The game just sucks and why play?Sorry.
Training military is a dance on a knives edge between having 30 dwarves get chopped up by a single properly equipped goblin because they kept their training swords on vs. dwarves slicing each other up with real weapons in the barracks barely gaining any skill.
why are training weapons still in the game if they have no use and only introduce liabilities?
Now now, it's also to equip your fort guard with so they hold back a little.
Training military is a dance on a knives edge between having 30 dwarves get chopped up by a single properly equipped goblin because they kept their training swords on vs. dwarves slicing each other up with real weapons in the barracks barely gaining any skill.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but is this actually true? Last few times I played you didn't even need to make training weapons because dwarves trained safely with real weapons.
Of course, that highlights a separate issue - why are training weapons still in the game if they have no use and only introduce liabilities?
Training military is a dance on a knives edge between having 30 dwarves get chopped up by a single properly equipped goblin because they kept their training swords on vs. dwarves slicing each other up with real weapons in the barracks barely gaining any skill.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but is this actually true? Last few times I played you didn't even need to make training weapons because dwarves trained safely with real weapons.
Of course, that highlights a separate issue - why are training weapons still in the game if they have no use and only introduce liabilities?
My sheriff ripped out a formerly tantrumming cook's throat in the middle of a punishment beating with his teeth (http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=10861) leading to fatal suffocation and bleeding, i think some more fine tuning is required of the escalation levels in general.
I dunno, it's pretty reasonable to be unhappy about being stuck in a hospital.
It would be neat to have an order where the mayor/king/leader of the fort could call a court meeting. All dwarves must attend, all jobs are postponed, dwarves who defy the order to go for one reason or another are punished for breaking the law (those in prison either are exempt or are brought by guards), children are exempt.
The purpose is it gives a boost in mood to all who attend, maybe the leader can also use skills to make peace between dwarves or lighten their mood with an inspirational speech. [snip]
I can imagine this becoming an important game milestone. When to call your first council, with risks and benefits and also how soon to call a council after bad events or prior to battle so that the survivors will have a mood boost for the hard times ahead. LOTR is full of examples.
Yeah. Leaders should do more and the more complex the fort becomes the more dedicated the rulers have to be to their job. Maybe it could lead to a faction system where a greedy ruler will extort citizens, etc.
If the ruler is skilled and popular enough then they have support, or if not then maybe a real civil war could happen, with each side wishing to install its leader to the throne.
Imagine a scenario where the king keeps taking a dwarfs socks because they are his favorite item, but the dwarf happens to be an elite guard in the kings throne room... And so goes the tale of Urist "The Headless" Longhose....
Isn't the law arc, in all likelihood, still nearly a decade away? I agree that some work before then would be helpful.
Myth and Magic at least a couple of long development phases. 3 years for one 1.5 for the other 6 months brush up/bugs in between, then development starts. Getting close to a decade.Isn't the law arc, in all likelihood, still nearly a decade away? I agree that some work before then would be helpful.
If I recall correctly it's set to be right after the Myth and Magic arc, which is pretty much as close in time as possible in the grand scheme of things (which may very well be 5 years or so off still, but definitely not a decade).
There's already the upcoming law arc for flexible application of entities governence but pretty much, but it'd be helpful if actual insurrections would formally generate a new governmental name and some way to mediate the conflicts.I like your idea. A fort call to court should be easy and quick to implement and can solve some unhappiness problems without breaking the game. And can always be expanded into diplomacy later.
If dwarves can put forward a ultimatum first in a emergency roundtable meeting like a diplomat from the mountainhome asking that you surrender to the will of the Dwarven kingdom and accept a administrator peacefully to avert a siege, or the enraged/villian network leader of the opposition they can probably solve the problem without resorting first to violence.
There's already the upcoming law arc for flexible application of entities governence but pretty much, but it'd be helpful if actual insurrections would formally generate a new governmental name and some way to mediate the conflicts.I like your idea. A fort call to court should be easy and quick to implement and can solve some unhappiness problems without breaking the game. And can always be expanded into diplomacy later.
If dwarves can put forward a ultimatum first in a emergency roundtable meeting like a diplomat from the mountainhome asking that you surrender to the will of the Dwarven kingdom and accept a administrator peacefully to avert a siege, or the enraged/villian network leader of the opposition they can probably solve the problem without resorting first to violence.
saying of 47.01, the new intermingling of values from migration to be less straightly set in stone does add complexity to dealing with needs but things are much more managable now. Here's to more refinement with 47.02 onwards.
I really don't have a problem with the stress system as it is. If you make alcohol, nice accommodations, food, avoid bathing your dwarves in miasma, etc. it doesn't seem to be like a big problem.
Goblin migrants that joined through petitions getting stress from not eating good food or drink (Goblins don't eat or drink).
So long as you have a tavern keeper, vampires drink in taverns now, goblins too. Goblins have a tendancy to overindulge and die though. Acquiring the need to eat after petitioning to join the fortress needs to be fixed though, sure.Goblin migrants that joined through petitions getting stress from not eating good food or drink (Goblins don't eat or drink).
Honestly, for creatures that don't need to it should be that they don't need to, not that they can't. Would also allow for vampires and similar things to mask their presence even more effectively too, while allowing those needs to be filled.
So long as you have a tavern keeper, vampires drink in taverns now, goblins too. Goblins have a tendancy to overindulge and die though. Acquiring the need to eat after petitioning to join the fortress needs to be fixed though, sure.I've heard the tavern keepers basically poison your fort members if the booze stockpile is too close or you have too many of them, so the fort where I noted multiple goblins upset by lack of food/drink I only had a single tavern keeper with a reasonably long distance to the booze stockpile.
Doesn't happen often enough to worry about. I always assign the Chief Medical Dwarf as tavern keeper (and manager). He's not only to busy to kill everyone, he possibly ensures people get to the hospital in a timely manner (no proof that this works, just second-hand evidence of wine soaked beds in the hospital and dwarves being "rescued" while in the tavern, apparently not under attack from time to time). Sadly my first fortress in 47.01 saw the Tavern keeper drink himself to death. Damn. Proves that dwarves can manage to die just fine by themselves, I guess.So long as you have a tavern keeper, vampires drink in taverns now, goblins too. Goblins have a tendancy to overindulge and die though. Acquiring the need to eat after petitioning to join the fortress needs to be fixed though, sure.I've heard the tavern keepers basically poison your fort members if the booze stockpile is too close or you have too many of them, so the fort where I noted multiple goblins upset by lack of food/drink I only had a single tavern keeper with a reasonably long distance to the booze stockpile.
It seems that new residents always get "rescued" the first time they get a drink in a fortress, at least in 0.44.12, so observations of dorfs being rescued would have to account for, and eliminate, those bugged cases.Doesn't happen often enough to worry about. I always assign the Chief Medical Dwarf as tavern keeper (and manager). He's not only to busy to kill everyone, he possibly ensures people get to the hospital in a timely manner (no proof that this works, just second-hand evidence of wine soaked beds in the hospital and dwarves being "rescued" while in the tavern, apparently not under attack from time to time). Sadly my first fortress in 47.01 saw the Tavern keeper drink himself to death. Damn. Proves that dwarves can manage to die just fine by themselves, I guess.So long as you have a tavern keeper, vampires drink in taverns now, goblins too. Goblins have a tendancy to overindulge and die though. Acquiring the need to eat after petitioning to join the fortress needs to be fixed though, sure.I've heard the tavern keepers basically poison your fort members if the booze stockpile is too close or you have too many of them, so the fort where I noted multiple goblins upset by lack of food/drink I only had a single tavern keeper with a reasonably long distance to the booze stockpile.
As far as I know, needs are still not causing "game ending stress" (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=174931.msg8049126#msg8049126).
Some thoughts remove stress, some thoughts add stress, and different thoughts and emotions cause different amounts. Unmet needs cause very minor stress.
Personally, I inadvertently made a race that can easily be prevented from game-ending stress by just making them especially violent and having them all regularly do military training. This was sufficient, which surprised me.
Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".
To illustrate that point, I modded dwarves with [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK][NO_SLEEP], disabled weather, invaders, and immigration, and removed the active season (and clothing) tokens from the mountain entity. I then embarked with sets of leather armor, assigned uniforms, isolated each dwarf in a one tile area, and let the game run for 10 years. Despite *actively not meeting* all of their needs, not a single dwarf complained about stress, threw a tantrum, or went insane. This is a worst case scenario; even a dabbling overseer can be expected to satisfy some of their dwarves' needs by, say, brewing alcohol and assigning work, so "real game" stress from neglected needs would accumulate even slower than in this test. Additionally, the moderate stress from unmet needs could presumably be offset by positive thoughts the dwarves experienced. If you want to see some heavily-distracted-but-sane dwarves, you can download my test embark (http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14592) or recreate the setup from the description above.
It's confusing because many "haggard" dwarves will have no bad thoughts in the top block except unmet needs.
It's confusing because many "haggard" dwarves will have no bad thoughts in the top block except unmet needs.
I see the same behavior all the time. A wall of positive, happy thoughts and yet the dwarf is still haggard. There does not appear to be any way to reduce stress no matter how charmed of a life the dwarf lives. All the luxuries in the world, every need met, and still stress climbs.
The lack of control is whats frustrating. I understand if I screw up and doom everyone its my own fault. Flooding the dining room with pressurized water from an ocean is entirely my own fault. This doesn't cause me any frustration because cause and effect are linked.
[snip]
I'm not asking for a magic de-stress button (thought DFHack has one), I just want a clear path to calm dwarves and remove stress. I wish the game told me what to do so that I can do it. Does the stressed dwarf demand a zoo with a hippo and a parrot as exhibits? I can work with that! Just give me a path to fix the problem.
Yeah, the thread has been great. We have about twenty angles to work with there, and some of them are straightforward enough that they should come up in the parallel releases rather than with the Steam/itch release. I haven't run any numeric tests yet, so I'm not going to pin it on anything, but between siege bodies and rain and food and cave adaptation etc. there is a lot to check and change. The needs discourse is fascinating since it doesn't seem(?) to be a numeric stress problem, but it is a presentation problem, so we'll still need to address it. The changes made to friendship forming and vulnerable dwarves in the recent 47s is just the start.
That may be how dwarves are, but if that's going to be the case moving forward, then the game is going somewhere that I can't follow.
I find a lot more dwarves than previously become unsalvageable and just need to be expelled or launched into magma. I even build a bridge for it fairly early on. Just station them on it and pull the lever. No dwarf, no stress.Previously compared to when? From before 47.04 initial stress fixes?
I find a lot more dwarves than previously become unsalvageable and just need to be expelled or launched into magma. I even build a bridge for it fairly early on. Just station them on it and pull the lever. No dwarf, no stress.Previously compared to when? From before 47.04 initial stress fixes?
I find a lot more dwarves than previously become unsalvageable and just need to be expelled or launched into magma. I even build a bridge for it fairly early on. Just station them on it and pull the lever. No dwarf, no stress.
Also it appears soldiers have a lower chance to snap, so maybe military training is necessary for a heathier fort.
Also it appears soldiers have a lower chance to snap, so maybe military training is necessary for a heathier fort.
I won't commit to saying that disicipline might give a division factor on inputs of negative stress as much as they're expected to just blunt the negative input of certain situations but all the best stories of tantrum spirals usually come about with a crazed dwarf with a axe.
You can pretty easily set up squad schedules to have a good chunk of your dwarves training at all times, which helps with stress a lot. "Minimum dwarves training" is actually... "maximum dwarves training". They automatically shuffle out of the squad if they have other needs.
You can pretty easily set up squad schedules to have a good chunk of your dwarves training at all times, which helps with stress a lot. "Minimum dwarves training" is actually... "maximum dwarves training". They automatically shuffle out of the squad if they have other needs.
You can pretty easily set up squad schedules to have a good chunk of your dwarves training at all times, which helps with stress a lot. "Minimum dwarves training" is actually... "maximum dwarves training". They automatically shuffle out of the squad if they have other needs.
Is there a coinstar room style method of getting them the "doesn't really care about anything any more" trait and would this actually help?
You can pretty easily set up squad schedules to have a good chunk of your dwarves training at all times, which helps with stress a lot. "Minimum dwarves training" is actually... "maximum dwarves training". They automatically shuffle out of the squad if they have other needs.
Is there a coinstar room style method of getting them the "doesn't really care about anything any more" trait and would this actually help?
Combat hardness only affects the "saw a dead body" and "got into conflict" thoughts AFAIK, not stress in general.
You can pretty easily set up squad schedules to have a good chunk of your dwarves training at all times, which helps with stress a lot. "Minimum dwarves training" is actually... "maximum dwarves training". They automatically shuffle out of the squad if they have other needs.
Is there a coinstar room style method of getting them the "doesn't really care about anything any more" trait and would this actually help?
Combat hardness only affects the "saw a dead body" and "got into conflict" thoughts AFAIK, not stress in general.
We have been going through some extensive testing to find the biggest problems for new (and old!) players that make them give up in frustration. ...I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.1. A prepare-carefully screen that learns my preferences.
We have been going through some extensive testing to find the biggest problems for new (and old!) players that make them give up in frustration. ...I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.1. A prepare-carefully screen that learns my preferences.
I recommend saving your embark profile after the items are finished if you want to choose suitable skills to suitable dwarves - as they're randomized each time. This is, however, a level of micromanagement that isn't very necessary.By the time you should be able to request additional expedition members as part of your embark arrangements, the micromanagement aspect of specialising the randomized dwarves could be knocked out by just deleting a member of the party (to six) and re-adding them to get a new dwarf (or adding more dwarves until there's a stable amount of them to be marriagable/friends and inverse, having barely 2 etc so they're always intimately close to each other)
- Etc, how many guards and how many prisoners are you embarking with you are in charge of, possibly raising your embark point allowance and how does this affect your goals for setting up a prison, does your prison require skilled prisoners for forced labor?
- Are there any normal citizens amongst your monastary complex to help complete labor while the erudite priests can only really watch on from afar?
- If you are playing a group of exiled dwarves per scenario, how should all the dwarves relate to one another? Is it a family group, perfect strangers, or are they sharing a commonality between each other like being members of the same overthrown site administration and how does the player have input into these social connections?
A small but annoying thing I have noticed in my current fort. I failed to create a proper Temple after accepting a petition to do so, and no one cared except one dwarf. He actually isn't very stressed, but he seems to experience "dismay" every few weeks - he will cancel his current task, stop for a moment, then start another task. The thoughts and preferences screen says something like "He was dismayed after reliving ."That's a bug. Needs to be on the bug tracker. Temple and guild thoughts are coming up incomplete here and there. This is a new one I haven't seen before.
This isn't game breaking or a big problem, but I think this isn't working as intended.
Some had cloths rotting from them though, as I didn't manage to change all 180 of them with military menu. Mittens, caps, vests, robes, tunics and shoes are banned from my fortress. Selection in military menu is too indistinguishable and too tiny for scrolling 180 Dwarves.Why do you need to put 180 dwarves in the military just to have them wear clothes? I don't think that's actually a thing, is it?
If you decide to use a play style that does not produce certain clothing layers DF does not provide specific support for that play style to ban all usage of the forbidden layer clothing. A possible work around is to draft everyone in squads and use replace clothing, or else they'll keep the old things until they rot off or can be replaced by items scavenged from invaders (possibly before the player stops them from grabbing replacements). [Trying to explain a reason for having an issue: it's not my play style].Some had cloths rotting from them though, as I didn't manage to change all 180 of them with military menu. Mittens, caps, vests, robes, tunics and shoes are banned from my fortress. Selection in military menu is too indistinguishable and too tiny for scrolling 180 Dwarves.Why do you need to put 180 dwarves in the military just to have them wear clothes? I don't think that's actually a thing, is it?
Fascinating!If you decide to use a play style that does not produce certain clothing layers DF does not provide specific support for that play style to ban all usage of the forbidden layer clothing. A possible work around is to draft everyone in squads and use replace clothing, or else they'll keep the old things until they rot off or can be replaced by items scavenged from invaders (possibly before the player stops them from grabbing replacements). [Trying to explain a reason for having an issue: it's not my play style].Some had cloths rotting from them though, as I didn't manage to change all 180 of them with military menu. Mittens, caps, vests, robes, tunics and shoes are banned from my fortress. Selection in military menu is too indistinguishable and too tiny for scrolling 180 Dwarves.Why do you need to put 180 dwarves in the military just to have them wear clothes? I don't think that's actually a thing, is it?
It can be noted that providing all clothing layers possible maximizes the number of happy thoughts dorfs get from acquiring new clothing (at the expense of a rather massive amount of old clothing to deal with).
Fascinating!If you decide to use a play style that does not produce certain clothing layers DF does not provide specific support for that play style to ban all usage of the forbidden layer clothing. A possible work around is to draft everyone in squads and use replace clothing, or else they'll keep the old things until they rot off or can be replaced by items scavenged from invaders (possibly before the player stops them from grabbing replacements). [Trying to explain a reason for having an issue: it's not my play style].Some had cloths rotting from them though, as I didn't manage to change all 180 of them with military menu. Mittens, caps, vests, robes, tunics and shoes are banned from my fortress. Selection in military menu is too indistinguishable and too tiny for scrolling 180 Dwarves.Why do you need to put 180 dwarves in the military just to have them wear clothes? I don't think that's actually a thing, is it?
It can be noted that providing all clothing layers possible maximizes the number of happy thoughts dorfs get from acquiring new clothing (at the expense of a rather massive amount of old clothing to deal with).
One for the suggestions forum I'd think rather than this thread on stress balance.
I'd like to mention that I'm experiencing a much better management of stress in the current version. Still not perfect, but definitely better.Fascinating. I didn't see anything explicitly mentioned in the patch notes, but good news if this is repeatable. IIRC, the biggest non-social issues were weather and sentient body parts.
My fort has been going for a few years - I was feeling confident in my military and bored with the lack of raids (no necromancers in this world - just by chance.) A forgotten beast composed of water entered the caverns and I took it on. It could shoot webs, but I figured my marksdwarves could take it down before that was really an issue. A few minutes later, 20 dwarves had died.
Dwarves did the thing they do and gathered all the clothes instead of the bodies - exposing themselves and their friends to extra negative thoughts. Luckily, body bits weren't causing it, as the beast preferred kicking people in the head, some teeth had been scattered about. Dwarves buried their dead and I spent some time managing labors and refilling blank positions. Three dwarves came undone - the leader of the military being one of them. They all did so either in a depressed way or far from anyone else (this fight happened about 100 levels deep, so the clean up was sort of far from the main fortress.)
Those three were a lost cause and either died or were exiled. There are 4 more very upset dwarves who I have been paying close attention to. I've given them a bit of work to do, and avoided further bad thoughts and it's working. It seems, the fort will recover, even if a few of these guys go mad later on.
This is really nice compared to 44.12. Without a doubt, this would have been a death sentence to the fort, but in my fort now, nearly a year later, the scar is there, but the wound is recovering.
Not sure how everyone else is doing, and there still remain some issue (needs and thoughts being confused, this whole thing being a bit unclear to new players), but I'm happy with the improvements so far.
The "attend meeting" stress relief action has to be toned down. As far as I can see, literally every second action of a stressed character (probably modified by traits) is to cry/yell at the expedition leader, leaving even less time for fulfilling the neglected needs (as well as making it neigh impossible for players to force the morons into temples to pray, rooms to spend time with the spouse/friends/intended future friends using burrows, as they'll just sit there with "attend meeting" rather than actually do anything useful).Priests were meant to help there, but in my experience having them tied to the temple demand system means there's almost never a chance to appoint one. You can lower the demand cap, but it mght be more useful to have temple demands and preist setting separate so they start working right away like taverns and guildhalls. Also someone in charge of the "no specific deity" zone to shout at would be nice.
Ah, well, I DID get a demand for a temple (a first for me), and I appointed the trouble dorf as the priest... Sounds like that was a mistake, but at least it was his sect.The "attend meeting" stress relief action has to be toned down. As far as I can see, literally every second action of a stressed character (probably modified by traits) is to cry/yell at the expedition leader, leaving even less time for fulfilling the neglected needs (as well as making it neigh impossible for players to force the morons into temples to pray, rooms to spend time with the spouse/friends/intended future friends using burrows, as they'll just sit there with "attend meeting" rather than actually do anything useful).Priests were meant to help there, but in my experience having them tied to the temple demand system means there's almost never a chance to appoint one. You can lower the demand cap, but it mght be more useful to have temple demands and preist setting separate so they start working right away like taverns and guildhalls. Also someone in charge of the "no specific deity" zone to shout at would be nice.
maybe calm down a little and rehash your thoughts? I had trouble parsing through that rather confusing text.It says "stress is an issue".
maybe calm down a little and rehash your thoughts? I had trouble parsing through that rather confusing text.What part twiddled your parser?
@knutor: I too, have significant problems interpreting what you mean (in other threads as well), as you make liberal use of some slang I'm unfamiliar with (and some which I do recognize), together with jumbled typing and farfetched analogies. It may also be worth remembering that a lot of people on the forum are not native English speakers, and so may struggle even with normal text.maybe calm down a little and rehash your thoughts? I had trouble parsing through that rather confusing text.What part twiddled your parser?
Made sense to me. But I'm showing senile behavior, sometimes, age of youth, passed me by. I apologize. They asked for opinions, in this one, poured it on. Usually I hold the troll in deep inside.
The keybind is not from a modded game. My rage at it, was misplaced. I am sorry, for ghe record. Had an older version file. See it on Mantis. Shonai even fixed it there, too. Congrats, I will name a dwarf in your honor, in my next embark. What nickname does thee wish, to be named?
This is the kind of problem we want solved: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.msg7839740#msg7839740
We really don't want “a cancer of red arrows”
That mechanism already exists: crying/yelling at a person in charge/priest. It needs to be toned down in frequency (currently every second action), but the mechanism is there.This is the kind of problem we want solved: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.msg7839740#msg7839740
We really don't want “a cancer of red arrows”
Maybe such a thing as a dwarf psychiatrist lol. I don't know how it would work, but maybe similar to a manager or something. Of course this would have to be properly dwarfy. Maybe when they can talk to the barkeep and telling their problems would relieve some stress, or a close family member, a diety etc. They need some kind of way to process and deal with their problems, be it in a healthy or unhealthy way. I know there are ways to deal with it and give happy thoughts, but there needs to be a mechanism to heal too.
I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever. Plenty of taverns with every type of alcohol. Three different taverns and temples. New clothes. All sorts of trinkets and trash for them to acquire. Lavish meals. You get the picture.
Here again. It is impossible for the scenario given by the OP to occur. Threetoe the OP states...Wow, someone completely missed the point of this thread.
If OP is refering to the benefit I get in Architecture skill improving by year 3 of rebuilding my Still and Kitchen, 8 times over, from the 6-10 bitter beards, that are now stronger than my last 2 dead sheriffs, I get his point. Why I'll have the best looking and designed well, for suicidal dorfs to jump into, this side of Hillock heaven.Threetoe s asking what's causing game quitting dwarf stress. Nothing more, nothing less. He gave an example of a 3-year fort with little stress, I and many others also could post many 3-year forts with little stress. He wants to know how to get from there to a crushing forest of red arrows so he can fix the game.
After 2 murdered sheriffs, there is no coming back to a stable goblin invasion thwarting fortress, you do realize that? But he failed to type that which is so often happening to players. Instead he glorified a product, with a delusional example. Newbies are just not familiar enough with simplifying game mechanics as Threetoe, Shonai, and whoever else(me too)sneaks peaks into the raws.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If OP is refering to the benefit I get in Architecture skill improving by year 3 of rebuilding my Still and Kitchen, 8 times over, from the 6-10 bitter beards, that are now stronger than my last 2 dead sheriffs, I get his point. Why I'll have the best looking and designed well, for suicidal dorfs to jump into, this side of Hillock heaven.
It can be noted that DF does not display stress levels. You suddenly get a red arrow and constant meetings instead. You need third party tools to see stress levels (but it would be very useful if that was visible in vanilla).
It can be noted that DF does not display stress levels. You suddenly get a red arrow and constant meetings instead. You need third party tools to see stress levels (but it would be very useful if that was visible in vanilla).
I have a dfhack plugin, not sure which one, that adds a labor tool to the user menu, accessed via 'l' that gives stress levels. You can even sort by them. And obviously Dwarf Therapist does this by default.
It can be noted that DF does not display stress levels. You suddenly get a red arrow and constant meetings instead. You need third party tools to see stress levels (but it would be very useful if that was visible in vanilla).
I have a dfhack plugin, not sure which one, that adds a labor tool to the user menu, accessed via 'l' that gives stress levels. You can even sort by them. And obviously Dwarf Therapist does this by default.
Imho DF needs more immersive way of doing that. E.g. a complaint board that gets visited by dwarves and displays that regions hottest problems or a new position that manages most important topics (either if a lot of dwarves say the same or few are very angry about).
The role exists since a fair while. Yelling at/crying at the expedition leader/mayor... 0.47 introduced thos role (in parallel) for priests as well. A complaints summary doesn't exist, though, but most stress cases are not about fortress features, although it would still be useful if such general complaints (lack of tables/clean water/...) were highlighted.Imho DF needs more immersive way of doing that. E.g. a complaint board that gets visited by dwarves and displays that regions hottest problems or a new position that manages most important topics (either if a lot of dwarves say the same or few are very angry about).
This would be really great. Having a UI version of dwarf therapist would be one thing, but actually having it become part of the immersion would be much better. It would be interesting to even have a new noble position and skill for "therapist/consoler" or something. They would need an office and would periodically have meetings with stressed dwarves. The meetings could help console the dwarves, (and might even make some of them more upset... leading to more !!FUN!!).
In the 'z' screen there could then be a tab for "Stress" (much like "health") where you could see an evaluation from that chief therapist.
:
If you don't assign poisoners to your taverns the taverns won't have anyone to force booze down the throats of their patrons, and it should reduce the number of fatal non lethal bar room brawls as well. The down side to that is that a staffed tavern is the only way to get gobbos, vampires, and necros to drink booze and get the benefits of that.
If you don't assign poisoners to your taverns the taverns won't have anyone to force booze down the throats of their patrons, and it should reduce the number of fatal non lethal bar room brawls as well. The down side to that is that a staffed tavern is the only way to get gobbos, vampires, and necros to drink booze and get the benefits of that.
This may be a bit of an unpopular idea, what about bringing back on break and parties for stressed dwarves that end up with no job for a period of time.
Parties for social dwarves with antisocial dwarves simply getting a better bonus over being able to go on break and admire furniture. Something to compensate for not being likely to go to a party, or if they do end up going a chance to enjoy it with a bigger bonus and a positive personality change
Could also have it so a civ alert or high priority job can break someone out of the party coupled with a minor negative thought (frustrated at leaving party early) or a positive one for antisocial ones (relieved to be able to get away from a party)
I find the stress level indicator of DFHack extremely useful it makes you anticipate mental troubles long time ahead. I have a three year old fort and while my militia commander seemed to be doing well the first years, he recently became extremely stressed and started throwing tantrums, despite eating and sleeping greatly, and putting on great clothing. I called him the fortress's crybaby until I read his thoughts more carefully: he has changed attitude towards war: He personally believes that the idea of war is utterly repellent and would have peace at all costs (due to a new romance in 125) ... He dreams of creating a great work of art..
I let him focus on crafting stuff and picked another militia commander. His stress level has been dropping (raw DFHack value raising) significantly ever since.
I find the stress level indicator of DFHack extremely useful it makes you anticipate mental troubles long time ahead. I have a three year old fort and while my militia commander seemed to be doing well the first years, he recently became extremely stressed and started throwing tantrums, despite eating and sleeping greatly, and putting on great clothing. I called him the fortress's crybaby until I read his thoughts more carefully: he has changed attitude towards war: He personally believes that the idea of war is utterly repellent and would have peace at all costs (due to a new romance in 125) ... He dreams of creating a great work of art..
I let him focus on crafting stuff and picked another militia commander. His stress level has been dropping (raw DFHack value raising) significantly ever since.
The problem is they place a huge burden on the player to force them to do things they should be able to do on their own.
A lost case. I wish there were a possibility of dwarves just to emigrate. You're not happy in my fortress? You're free to go try find a better place, anytime!
A lost case. I wish there were a possibility of dwarves just to emigrate. You're not happy in my fortress? You're free to go try find a better place, anytime!
You can manually expel them to a nearby town.
Family leaving with them is a working-as-intended feature. As is relations getting upset.A lost case. I wish there were a possibility of dwarves just to emigrate. You're not happy in my fortress? You're free to go try find a better place, anytime!
You can manually expel them to a nearby town.
That's super bugged though, and for absolutely no good reason (it being a bug) you can't expel anyone who has family that isn't in the fort, and if they do have family in the fort, the family leaves with them and on top of that, other relations who don't leave get really upset by it.
Just this week I had to expel 5 dwarves, because they were inevitably going to tantrum ( two did - and kicked a lots of fellow dwarves in rather unpleasant places :o ). And I'm playing without invasions ...Again, none of that is necessary to sort out the too many gods bug. Just write code which allows dwarves with tons of gods to get through them all without going insane or disallow worship of tons of gods. It's a bug, it doesn't need workarounds, just fixing.
What I find most frustrating is the lack of information what is actually stressing these dwarves and how to mitigate the stress factors.
There also seems to be some things going on like dwarves having too many gods to pray to, one of my dwarves was excessively stressed because he was unable to pray to his gods, although he had every single task disabled and did basically nothing else besides praying ...
What might help a lot could be a simple holiday schedule, similar to the military schedule.
Simply give us the ability to schedule in which months a dwarf has to nothing ( = disable all jobs, maybe even hauling jobs etc. ) but to do what he wants and/or needs.
This could also mean, he could accept jobs he simply wants to do, like accepting jobs to satisfy his crafting needs.
Also, an overhaul of food preferences and the dwarves capabilities to choose what they eat would most likely be very welcome. Most of my dwarves complain about a lack of decent meals, although 1/3 of all meals is mastercrafted and they simply choose not to eat what they like in the first place, even if what they liked were availlable.
Another thing that might be helpful, sort the thoughts of dwarves by priorities.
So I've been playing this a bunch since the release and for what I can see it comes down to one major thing.Dwarves without jobs do all these things except joining the military. They socialize, make friends, enjoy art and get crafting needs fulfilled in the guildhalls. The micromanagement is giving them the time to do so (fortress wide holidays being the least "micro" way) and working out martial needs, which, yes, should be addressed as that's pretty fiddly.
Dwarves don't do anything on their own. They don't have any hobbies. They have needs to have fun in whatever ways, but they aren't able to seek activities out of their own volition. It has to be you who micromanage them and make them part of production or put them in the military or whatever.
So yeah, I think dwarves should have hobbies. Martially inclined dwarves should train on their own (or seek out other dwarves with the same interests and wrestle or box or whatever). Dwarves who want to be creative or craft things should craft things on their own. Dwarves who want to spend time with their friends and family should have a "spend time with friends/family" action that brings them together. Or "make friends" actions where they go to the tavern and have increased relationship gain or something.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
1. The game makes it difficult to access the relevant information, and some of the information it presents is misleading:
- There's no quick way to see which dwarves are stressed and why.
Yes, but those are third party utils, so kind of irrelevant to the discussion on what needs improving in the game itself except to use as reference for how ideas can be achieved.1. The game makes it difficult to access the relevant information, and some of the information it presents is misleading:
- There's no quick way to see which dwarves are stressed and why.
In dfhack, if you bring up the Units menu "u" and then press "l" to bring up the labor manager utility, the stress of each dwarf is shown next to their name. You can then find out why by just looking at that dwarf. Similarly, with Dwarf Therapist, you can sort by stress and if you hover over the box, it will pop up the text from the description showing which messages are applicable.[/list]
Yes, but those are third party utils, so kind of irrelevant to the discussion on what needs improving in the game itself except to use as reference for how ideas can be achieved.
- Clearing up enemy corpses shouldn't be nearly as stressful as clearing up corpses of citizens/allies. Some dwarves could even get a happy thought from seeing a pile of dead goblins.
DF will have to decide whether "the save everyone" play style is intended to be viable. I don't think that's the intention. I've played that way for years, but the new stress system has shown that it's not always possible, and I don't think it will be after stress balancing either. Note that "expel to site" is a lot more humane than atom smashing, though (at least if the site isn't run by goblins).
I don't mind losing dwarves. I'm not above savescumming if I feel I've made a particularly poor decision, but I always end up building a fairly substantial burial/memorial complex sooner or later. The difference with stress is that the deaths are usually stupid and immersion-breaking.
I'd actually keep the system of traumatic experiences causing PTSD-like flashbacks and personality changes. If a dwarf sees their whole family get killed by abyssal horrors, then it makes narrative sense for them to suffer some psychological trauma. It would be nice if there were more end-points for those dwarves than insanity, exile, or "unfortunate accident" though. I like the pilgrimage (AKA. "Sod it I've had enough of this dump!") idea, but I'd make the dwarf initiate it instead of the player. Maybe they could petition to be allowed to leave the fortress, or they could just declare that they're leaving and walk out. Given the dangers in the wilderness, it would be nice if they waited to leave with a caravan.
:Bug? Dwarven ethics does not allow for slavery, and so you can't sell sapients. If dorfs would refuse to move containers containing things that cannot get sold you'd get even more problem with bins, so either "items" that cannot be sold are removed or the dorfs would refuse to move containers containing goods that cannot be sold.
Though on a off-chance, it feels like a lot of deaths may have been preventable by a non-lethal way of taking them out of the game to be transferred to someone's labor camp or just some sort of capital prison/private royal menangerie for giants and such. Its a pity the bug that releases them is not fixed.
The claims that unmet needs isn't a problem doesn't match my experience.
Two cases seen:
0.44.12 fairly long term fortress: One of the starting 7 (carpenter, I think) gradually sunk into depression over the years, but never permanently due to being immune (having mooded), and ended up at 100000 stress. The bugger had a red need for trinkets, but steadfastly refused to pick any up when hauling them. Eventually I managed to organize the making of trinkets out of a favored stone for hauling, and those were actually picked up. The stress gradually decreased to around 70000 after that (at which time the fortress suddenly was killed by equipment corruption, so I wasn't able to see the full recovery).
I just saw the Reddit stress thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/hjt112/i_think_ive_figured_out_the_stress_spiral_thoughts/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/hjt112/i_think_ive_figured_out_the_stress_spiral_thoughts/)That's really interesting and explains a lot of the behaviour people have reported.
@shonai_dweller: I don't know if you were actually talking about Doran, but in her case it was a miasma (my first one, I had put my kitchen in a stockroom a lot of dwarves travelled through) and several deaths that kept haunting her. I deleted Dwarf fortress so I cannot go back to check, but it was the memories in combination with her losing the DNA lottery that made her unsalvageable.
I don't remember what was causing the first dorf to slide (the game crashed 1˝ years ago), but I don't think it was any one event (although it may well be the bugger that was pining badly for excitement and then went into shock when that excitement, against all reasonable expectations, of course, turned into a gobbo corpse). However, what I'm saying is that chronically unmet needs produce a constant stress pressure (dwelling on not getting any shinies * a bazillion, over time), so it's probably not the need itself, but the effects of it being unmet (repeated bad thoughts), which doesn't affect the outcome (but possibly Toady & Threetoe's evaluation of what to do). Meeting the bad need provides the benefit both of a positive thought (unless the bugger was ambivalent about getting new clothes [not the case here]), as well as interrupting the stream of bad thoughts (repeated dwelling on the unmet need). In most cases dorfs can handle one or even two impossible needs [like eating fairy brain and drinking bumblebee mead], but it's still a drain, and some can't handle even a small constant drain.The claims that unmet needs isn't a problem doesn't match my experience.
Two cases seen:
0.44.12 fairly long term fortress: One of the starting 7 (carpenter, I think) gradually sunk into depression over the years, but never permanently due to being immune (having mooded), and ended up at 100000 stress. The bugger had a red need for trinkets, but steadfastly refused to pick any up when hauling them. Eventually I managed to organize the making of trinkets out of a favored stone for hauling, and those were actually picked up. The stress gradually decreased to around 70000 after that (at which time the fortress suddenly was killed by equipment corruption, so I wasn't able to see the full recovery).
What was actually causing the stress to this first dwarf?
You cured her of stress by picking up trinkets, there's a happy thought related to picking up new stuff. Happy thoughts cure stress (usually not quickly enough, but whatever). Yes, it met her needs too, and yes there's almost certainly a correlation (Dwarf who likes stuff needs new stuff. Dwarf who likes stuff is extra happy when getting new stuff), but you see how this is not the same thing mechanically as "Dwarf is focused therefore dwarf stress is reduced", right?
I've noticed that simply having a number showing the exact numeric stress value of each dwarf like in dfhack makes dwarven stress management far less of a headache. It's impossible to tell if your current stress strategy is working for some particular dwarf when the only information you get on their condition is these huge bins of "Stressed", "Haggard", or "Harrowed". By the time you learn that a stressed dwarf's condition is getting worse, they've already hit haggard and it's too late to prevent tantrums. Being able to see a dwarf's stress level slowly increase or decrease lets me know if my strategy is working or if I need to get that dwarf doing something else.
:Bug? Dwarven ethics does not allow for slavery, and so you can't sell sapients. If dorfs would refuse to move containers containing things that cannot get sold you'd get even more problem with bins, so either "items" that cannot be sold are removed or the dorfs would refuse to move containers containing goods that cannot be sold.
Though on a off-chance, it feels like a lot of deaths may have been preventable by a non-lethal way of taking them out of the game to be transferred to someone's labor camp or just some sort of capital prison/private royal menangerie for giants and such. Its a pity the bug that releases them is not fixed.
@FantasticDwarf: replacing the problem of being Mengele on the train platform, by giving the player to become a worse human being by creating slaves of your own dwarves, does not appeal to me.
The claims that unmet needs isn't a problem doesn't match my experience.
Two cases seen:
0.44.12 fairly long term fortress: One of the starting 7 (carpenter, I think) gradually sunk into depression over the years, but never permanently due to being immune (having mooded), and ended up at 100000 stress. The bugger had a red need for trinkets, but steadfastly refused to pick any up when hauling them. Eventually I managed to organize the making of trinkets out of a favored stone for hauling, and those were actually picked up. The stress gradually decreased to around 70000 after that (at which time the fortress suddenly was killed by equipment corruption, so I wasn't able to see the full recovery).
Current fortress (0.47.04): At year 11 (of the fortress) one of the friends of a miner (typically the happiest dorfs in my fortresses, as engraving is one of their tasks) died due to deadly evil rain, and the miner suffered flashbacks for many years after that (but they've seen to have ended). One day, several years later, I caught the miner at 10100 stress (red arrow, and check with Dwarf Therapist) while caught in the rain (safely building a roof for the deadly rain, while exposed to the normal variety), and immediately changed the tasks (no outdoors work, no hauling except trade goods), as well as setting in therapy (a lot of engraving, plus regular crafting sessions). This dorf was kept at around 0 stress for a decade through regular therapy, but without would accumulate around 5000 stress per year (while doing the work that kept the other miner ecstatic). All needs were met at least yearly, except "be with family", as void dorfs don't have family, and there wasn't any male available for marriage (A recruited poet was far too young. A decade or two later he came into range, nuptial encouragement treatment resulted in kindred spirit status, but wouldn't progress further despite about half a year of treatment, plus a later attempt a few years later). After many additional years of continued regular therapy, the miner was still kept in check, when there suddenly was a message that she and the poet had finally married. From then on, she's slowly but steadily on the path towards heavenly bliss, despite being back to regular work (including vomit comet outdoors work).
- I can't recollect if i mentioned it before, but personalities are universally timid to violence, which is sort of a failing of the psychology to project on how people (i wont say specifically dwarves) view things, as some of the more extreme facets (extremely cruel for instance) end up extremely positively receptive to mundane violence (beatings, fistfights, sparring) but harrowed by anything slightly more than that and its straight back to coddling emotionally fragile dwarves again.
Make two taverns, have one accept visitors and put it somewhere way out of the way so no citizen dorfs want to go there. Burrow your fistfight loving dwarf in there from time to time.
- I can't recollect if i mentioned it before, but personalities are universally timid to violence, which is sort of a failing of the psychology to project on how people (i wont say specifically dwarves) view things, as some of the more extreme facets (extremely cruel for instance) end up extremely positively receptive to mundane violence (beatings, fistfights, sparring) but harrowed by anything slightly more than that and its straight back to coddling emotionally fragile dwarves again.
There's the occasional dwarf who seems to really like getting in fistfights. I haven't figured out a way to use this without all the other dwarves who do not like fistfights suffering from it.
That's them benefitting from Discipline (also, probably beneifitting from getting martial practice thoughts, which is oft ignored source of minor stress)
By the way: easiest way to have "stress-relief squads" is to simply schedule the squads every month at minimum 5; they'll train when they're on schedule then take a break when they need to, basically, and the overall effect is that they spend 50% of their time training.
By the way: easiest way to have "stress-relief squads" is to simply schedule the squads every month at minimum 5; they'll train when they're on schedule then take a break when they need to, basically, and the overall effect is that they spend 50% of their time training.
If you turn off `Train` from the schedule in a perpetually active state
By the way: easiest way to have "stress-relief squads" is to simply schedule the squads every month at minimum 5; they'll train when they're on schedule then take a break when they need to, basically, and the overall effect is that they spend 50% of their time training.
If you turn off `Train` from the schedule in a perpetually active state
What does this even mean
I just saw the Reddit stress thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/hjt112/i_think_ive_figured_out_the_stress_spiral_thoughts/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/hjt112/i_think_ive_figured_out_the_stress_spiral_thoughts/)
TL;DR Equal strength long-term memories cannot overwrite eachother. If a dwarf has 5 traumatic memories of +1 and 3 good memories of -1, nothing will change and that dwarf will always slowly succumb to stress without micromanagement.
That's not okay and explains why some of my dwarves just crash. Would be best to have some n% chance of overwriting equal strength memories so that no dwarf is irredeemable, and no dwarf is 100% happy 100% of their life.
EDIT: As someone who has personally lived through the trauma of being homeless with an injury and lack of income, even I have been able to see some stabilisation in my mood - even with the trauma still present in my memory and hurting to this day.
dwarves being immune to stress in older versions (back when euphoria from drinking was a -1 divisor thought or thereabouts, and a dwarf could therefore rapidly perma-fill up their long term memory with untouchable stress relief
By the way: easiest way to have "stress-relief squads" is to simply schedule the squads every month at minimum 5; they'll train when they're on schedule then take a break when they need to, basically, and the overall effect is that they spend 50% of their time training.
If you turn off `Train` from the schedule in a perpetually active state
What does this even mean
Sorry i should have elaborated. If you go to the military screen, and check the squad `schedule` it's by default set to 'train' at all dwarf month phases which when the squad is in a active state, makes them actively hone their skills non-stop only stopping to drink, eat & rest. There are other options you can choose like 'Guard' & 'Patrol' but neither of these in my experience work particularly well, simply cancelling train creates nothing for that scheduled month.
They're saying to set some of the "train" months in active/training to "nothing", which my suggestion was, well, literally a better alternative to that I suspect they didn't try; I assume they thought I simply didn't know you could cancel them, rather than having, in my 10 years of experience, maybe actually determined a more effective way than the standard "cancel every 3 months of training"?Your suggestion was set 5 to minimum, right? That's based on a squad of 10, so half are always on break?
They're saying to set some of the "train" months in active/training to "nothing", which my suggestion was, well, literally a better alternative to that I suspect they didn't try; I assume they thought I simply didn't know you could cancel them, rather than having, in my 10 years of experience, maybe actually determined a more effective way than the standard "cancel every 3 months of training"?
Inactive / no order
When dwarves have an empty spot in their schedule, dwarves with good self-discipline will visit the barracks and train themselves in their spare time - if you see a dwarf doing "Individual training" when they're free, that's what's happening. Technically this is not an order applicable in the 'Give Orders' screen - it is a lack of an order.
Yes, but which 5 depends on which ones "need" breaks at the moment afaik.
They're saying to set some of the "train" months in active/training to "nothing", which my suggestion was, well, literally a better alternative to that I suspect they didn't try; I assume they thought I simply didn't know you could cancel them, rather than having, in my 10 years of experience, maybe actually determined a more effective way than the standard "cancel every 3 months of training"?
Hi Dorfs,
We have been going through some extensive testing to find the biggest problems for new (and old!) players that make them give up in frustration. Most of these people don't bother giving us any feedback, which is understandable. The game just sucks and why play? We need your help to nail down what exactly is going on.
While we are working on every problem we can find, this thread is specifically for problems with the stress system. There are a spattering of reports that come up on Reddit and other forums from people talking about how the stress system is so screwed up the game is unplayable. I haven't found this to be the case so I need your help!
I have a fort that is 3 years old and has every possible stress reliever. Plenty of taverns with every type of alcohol. Three different taverns and temples. New clothes. All sorts of trinkets and trash for them to acquire. Lavish meals. You get the picture.
Now the negative side: I attacked the goblins and in return weathered three sieges of over 100 goblins total. I killed them all with trained and iron armored dwarves with only a few injuries. Then I had my entire fortress run out and pick up the bodies.
The results were as follows: Three dwarves went into a depression. Some soldiers suffered post traumatic stress. And one dwarf threw a fit and went to jail.
This kind of result isn't bad. We want this.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
We are aware of socialization problems. I haven't seen a game ending problem here, but these will definitely be addressed at some point.
This is the kind of problem we want solved: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.msg7839740#msg7839740
We really don't want “a cancer of red arrows”
Help us find out what's going on and we will attempt to fix it!
This kind of result isn't bad. We want this.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
We are aware of socialization problems. I haven't seen a game ending problem here, but these will definitely be addressed at some point.
Help us find out what's going on and we will attempt to fix it!
He created the game...This kind of result isn't bad. We want this.
I want to know what kind of play style is causing people to quit in frustration.
We are aware of socialization problems. I haven't seen a game ending problem here, but these will definitely be addressed at some point.
Help us find out what's going on and we will attempt to fix it!
I would humbly suggest you're probably damn good at the game.
Hello everyone.
This post is old, I don't know if there is still a relevance about Stress problems. However I want to share my gaming experience and how I play. And how I still perceive problems related to Stress.
In Dwarf Fortress, in Fortress mode, I always like to start at the beginning of the history of the worlds that are generated. I like to experience the first things. The first heroes, the first monsters, the first wars, the first Scholars, the first books, the first written poems, the first necromancers. And so on. And so, follow the initial historical facts and see their possible consequences. Follow the story from there.
I like to consider details, history of dwarves that I consider important and all the historical events that he can do.
Well, saying my preferences. I'll tell you now about the last game I had in July, in version 47.04.
I started a fortress in a world in the year 5, in a temperate environment, the fortress is called Čzumorrum “Hameroared”, The Odorous Books (the name was generated randomly and I liked it)
In the year 6 a couple of Dwarfs came to migrate to the fortress and they came as Peasants, they had no skills, but with deep personalities and a newborn daughter.
I focused on choosing the Dwarf man to be a warrior, a HammerDwarf, he eventually became a “Grand Master HammerDwarf” !!! And his name is Sarvesh Udilalmôsh (Sarvesh Lantergleam), “The Hammerer of the Hameroared” (my invention)
He became a legendary warrior and he came to have 2 notable deaths, a goblin and a cyclops. However, he gained a great deal of stress. At first I thought it would be easy to deal with, but it got worse ... a lot. He now has depression.
I went to check his history. And he says he cares a lot about his family.
https://ibb.co/S526jCd (https://ibb.co/S526jCd)
So I had left him in Idle, to do nothing, so that he might talk to his wife and daughter, to meet the need for Be With Family…. BUT…. as far as I followed, for four months (time in the game), just observing Sarvesh, he always complained about not being able to be with his family, but it seems that he never met this need while in Idle. And he also always complains about the food, even if he fed on a MasterWork Prepared Meal. Rejecting masterwork prepared meal, in my view, is a bug or something abnormal, in previous versions of Dwarf Fortress this would never happen.
And his main dish, no civilization in the region has it, no one has yet discovered potatoes. The drink was possible (River Spirits), but potatoes ... impossible.
And his stress only gets worse, I tried to intervene without using DFHack, but it seems to be impossible to deal with it in Vanilla mode.
This has somewhat frustrated the gameplay, broken my fun a little. And hope that the gameplay will improve in the coming patches.
That's it, I would like to leave it on record. And I'm sorry if I said something very wrong, my English is not good. But I felt a great need to post my experience and my problem on the Stress system.
Another example is the need to be with family or friends, and that dwarf has ZERO love propensity, causing them to never making friends with anyone.
I think the worst stress related problem right now is the NEEDS system.
Well, sensitive dorfs can get remember the bad thoughts about missed needs very frequently, on top of the occasional thoughts about those same missed needs, causing them to crash mentally. It may well be that it might be possible to replace those memories with others, if you could devise a method, though.I think the worst stress related problem right now is the NEEDS system.
Research seems to show otherwise. (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/hjt112/i_think_ive_figured_out_the_stress_spiral_thoughts/) Unmet needs only cause a bad thought every once in a while. Negative long term memories cause continuous stress. The memories don't seem to ever get replaced by ones of equal strength, so if you fill up too many memory slots with powerful negative memories before you can get powerful positive ones, then your dwarf is inevitably doomed.
New solid cultural finished food products in order to make a relevant dish that like alcohol has a strength of value + what a dwarf regards it as a preference to how much it fills up. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175536.msg8086635#msg8086635)
&
Interactable interface for interrogating some of the *context from the dwarven personality screens (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=177070.0)
Im not sure on my recollection, but by the same logic that removing preference strings from animals makes them unable to appear on dwarven preferences, then by extent it should apply to everything else too.
As far as I understand the prefstrings are for liking the animals (and other things) not eating them ("Urist likes fleshballs for their calming roundness", which, in the case of animals, would mean they'd like having that creature as a pet).The code for generating preferences (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Preferences) can actually reject objects lacking PREFSTRINGs, but only in the case of non-domestic animals (e.g. the case described above) - plant and tree preferences can also reference a prefstring, but they don't require it to exist like the above example would.
The code for generating preferences (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Preferences) can actually reject objects lacking PREFSTRINGs, but only in the case of non-domestic animals (e.g. the case described above) - plant and tree preferences can also reference a prefstring, but they don't require it to exist like the above example would.As far as I understand the prefstrings are for liking the animals (and other things) not eating them ("Urist likes fleshballs for their calming roundness", which, in the case of animals, would mean they'd like having that creature as a pet).~snip~That was a decent guess, but it's wrong, sadly.
~snip of his method~
In hindsight, if I had realized that things such as crafts (figurines, catapult parts, etc.) and alcohol have no prefstring whatsoever, I wouldn't have to conduct such an extreme empirical test.
As far as I understand the prefstrings are for liking the animals (and other things) not eating them ("Urist likes fleshballs for their calming roundness", which, in the case of animals, would mean they'd like having that creature as a pet).The code for generating preferences (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Preferences) can actually reject objects lacking PREFSTRINGs, but only in the case of non-domestic animals (e.g. the case described above) - plant and tree preferences can also reference a prefstring, but they don't require it to exist like the above example would.
Thanks for the insight, though i would add that no prefstrings on exotic animals also means no products derived from them (which was what I originally meant @PatrickLundell) so there may yet be a purpose for allievating exotic panda meat cravings.
If you're reading, I'd say overall please make Dwarves more Dwarf-like when coding the little folks' personalities and tendencies. I mean this in a general fantasy sense. As it stands now, it's just embarrassing that so many members of the mighty Dwarven race get so upset over seeing a dead corpse or slaying an enemy or being in snow. I feel like I'm managing baby elves more than Dwarves with all this depression and sadness over menial things like rain or seeing a dead gobbo.
If you're reading, I'd say overall please make Dwarves more Dwarf-like when coding the little folks' personalities and tendencies. I mean this in a general fantasy sense. As it stands now, it's just embarrassing that so many members of the mighty Dwarven race get so upset over seeing a dead corpse or slaying an enemy or being in snow. I feel like I'm managing baby elves more than Dwarves with all this depression and sadness over menial things like rain or seeing a dead gobbo.
This is especially irritating when they get upset about seeing a dead gobbo or elf or whatever that they actually enjoyed killing. What the hell is that? They should get a positive for that. "Yep, that filthy gobbo is still dead!" It's especially annoying when they're constantly horrified by dead bodies or body parts or whatever yet adamantly refuse to just haul them off to the dump.
The fact that getting rained is anything but the most impermanent penalty is ridiculous, let alone that it's comparable mechanically to a dwarf giving birth to her first child. Frankly? It's kinda stupid. It shouldn't be a surprise that dwarves just inevitably get depressed and die when the overwhelming amount of available stimuli in the game is negative and prioritized, what else would you expect? It's like filling a playpen full of thumbtacks then tossing a couple babies with in with a toy or two and being like "I'm surprised how often the babies step on or interact with the tacks, huhhhhh... But they have other options!"
Because...stress system has bugs. It's a simulation. Toady didn't deliberately program dwarves to constantly remember rain just to annoy you.The fact that getting rained is anything but the most impermanent penalty is ridiculous, let alone that it's comparable mechanically to a dwarf giving birth to her first child. Frankly? It's kinda stupid. It shouldn't be a surprise that dwarves just inevitably get depressed and die when the overwhelming amount of available stimuli in the game is negative and prioritized, what else would you expect? It's like filling a playpen full of thumbtacks then tossing a couple babies with in with a toy or two and being like "I'm surprised how often the babies step on or interact with the tacks, huhhhhh... But they have other options!"
It's super annoying when a dwarf spirals off into insanity not just because of being rained on, but literally going insane because of REMEMBERING being rained on over and over. Wtf? This is absolute bullshit. Maybe if it was being rained on with elf vomit in a terrrifying biome but wtf? Just rain? How are dwarves such weak pussies?
Because...stress system has bugs. It's a simulation. Toady didn't deliberately program dwarves to constantly remember rain just to annoy you.
How EVERY character in this game can't emotionally handle combat is so annoying. Especially in Adventurer Mode, where just nothing works well, it's annoying that context NEVER matters. Oh, how true, it's terribly traumatic for a dwarf to end the life of something trying to kill him-- What's that? This is a master warrior killing the jungle titan that eliminated his family and threatened his people for decades? Cause for celebration, what's that? All I see is a lone dwarf crying because he got an ouchie, shaken to the core by the death of this innocent, brutal killing machine.If you're reading, I'd say overall please make Dwarves more Dwarf-like when coding the little folks' personalities and tendencies. I mean this in a general fantasy sense. As it stands now, it's just embarrassing that so many members of the mighty Dwarven race get so upset over seeing a dead corpse or slaying an enemy or being in snow. I feel like I'm managing baby elves more than Dwarves with all this depression and sadness over menial things like rain or seeing a dead gobbo.
This is especially irritating when they get upset about seeing a dead gobbo or elf or whatever that they actually enjoyed killing. What the hell is that? They should get a positive for that. "Yep, that filthy gobbo is still dead!" It's especially annoying when they're constantly horrified by dead bodies or body parts or whatever yet adamantly refuse to just haul them off to the dump.
The fact that none of the dwarves are like that at all bothers me. If most dwarves were just against the violent killing of anything sentient, and only a few did enjoy seeing their murderous, child-stealing, demon-lead enemies burn and die, that'd make sense but still not feel like dwarves in basically any other fantasy setting or story. As-is dwarves have no sense of victory, at all, while being incredibly sensitive (literally "will never recover and slowly descend towards suicide") to just boring, illogical things.
[snipped bit above]
Time for him to return home, less of a person, achievements and victory be damned. It feels like you're sitting at a table with a pissed-off, manic-depressive GM who refuses to listen to you and just physically slaps whatever you're holding from your hands every time you imply there should be any levity or characters who desire this life... Same deal in fortress mode. It's like there's this oppressive assumption-- more like a decree, really-- that anything that could be negative should be, and anything that could be positive only is if there's no justification for it not to be.
It's super annoying when a dwarf spirals off into insanity not just because of being rained on, but literally going insane because of REMEMBERING being rained on over and over. Wtf? This is absolute bullshit. Maybe if it was being rained on with elf vomit in a terrrifying biome but wtf? Just rain? How are dwarves such weak pussies?
It would certainly be more dwarfy if they went insane at the sight of the gaping, infinite sky than at the minor detail that said horrifying expanse sometimes drips.
I've always seen it like the dwarves, who mostly live in the first cavern layer, are just as frightened by the strange and deadly world of the surface as we humans would be by the caverns, with flora and fauna which is, to us, completely alien.
Ok then. Yes confirmed bug. 30 pages ago and on the tracker. What was your discussion point? Seemed like you were just venting annoyance at bugs.Because...stress system has bugs. It's a simulation. Toady didn't deliberately program dwarves to constantly remember rain just to annoy you.
And this is the thread for discussing such bugs. Dwarves being inordinately upset (and continuing to be traumatized by such insignificant events) is one such bug. I do not believe I ever claimed Toady put this in the game as some kind of persecution of me personally. That would be an incredibly weird claim.
Cavern-level dwarf sites have been in since 2014 iirc? And I get the impression that that's where the majority of dwarf population is supposed to be, as opposed to hillocks and fortresses. Hillocks are essentially small surface towns, fortresses are small but well-defended gateways between the surface world and the caverns, and deep sites are the dwarven equivalent to cities.
Are you talking about mountain halls? They are there but can only be accessed from the tunnels. They can be easy to miss as the entrance is just a single downstair in the tunnel floor. (Assuming they always spawn that entrance correctly.)Cavern-level dwarf sites have been in since 2014 iirc? And I get the impression that that's where the majority of dwarf population is supposed to be, as opposed to hillocks and fortresses. Hillocks are essentially small surface towns, fortresses are small but well-defended gateways between the surface world and the caverns, and deep sites are the dwarven equivalent to cities.
My bad, poor word choice on my part. What I meant is I don't think we can visit these sites yet, they're like how goblin sites used be - they're there on the map and whatnot, but if you tried to find them in adventure mode you'd just be sanding in the middle of nowhere with nothing interesting around (man that was a depressing event the last time I played 31.25 adventure mode, cause I was all kinds of hyped to go beat goblins to death with my overloaded coin bag.) They're basically an intangible element of the game like goblin sites once were, there on paper but not in practice. That being said, I just did a quick look on the wiki and while not it's not infallible, it may just be that I'm extremely unobservant or mistook them for parts of the fortresses they were connected to.
Are you talking about mountain halls? They are there but can only be accessed from the tunnels. They can be easy to miss as the entrance is just a single downstair in the tunnel floor. (Assuming they always spawn that entrance correctly.)Cavern-level dwarf sites have been in since 2014 iirc? And I get the impression that that's where the majority of dwarf population is supposed to be, as opposed to hillocks and fortresses. Hillocks are essentially small surface towns, fortresses are small but well-defended gateways between the surface world and the caverns, and deep sites are the dwarven equivalent to cities.
My bad, poor word choice on my part. What I meant is I don't think we can visit these sites yet, they're like how goblin sites used be - they're there on the map and whatnot, but if you tried to find them in adventure mode you'd just be sanding in the middle of nowhere with nothing interesting around (man that was a depressing event the last time I played 31.25 adventure mode, cause I was all kinds of hyped to go beat goblins to death with my overloaded coin bag.) They're basically an intangible element of the game like goblin sites once were, there on paper but not in practice. That being said, I just did a quick look on the wiki and while not it's not infallible, it may just be that I'm extremely unobservant or mistook them for parts of the fortresses they were connected to.
What if being unhappy caused dwarves to slowly leave the fortress? Perhaps with the exception of dwarves that have too many ties to the fortress. Other personality traits might impact their likelihood to emigrate sooner or later, too.
You might still be able to request them back from other holdings after a period. It would be nice if they de-stressed over time while being away, as well. Then you could actively send them off to other holdings to vacation, so to speak, as a method of dealing with them.
This makes stress have a negative impact on fortresses in a way that's not as destructive as tantrums, but still powerful.
After all, we already know all the "Stress is fine, git gud newbs!" people are going to buy the game, right? There's hardly any point in listening to them repeat their opinion that DF should remain only for the inner elite twice per page, but when long-time players like PetGreySquirrel opine that, yes, they can make it work with effort, but it's so unfun as to make them revert to more functional releases with fewer features, that's a useful data point.
I don't provide this feedback about my experiences with this system just to whine, I want this to be improved, I'm interested to see what this system working well looks like! It has potential, but, as-is, it's just not fun (or Fun) for me, and a lot of other people (ranging from new players to long-time players) I know. Among local people I know who play DF it's been the main source of frustration and "I'll just wait for the next release..." attitudes I've seen lately, even though we all have different approaches to the game, and different degrees of familiarity with it, and different degrees of patience for it.
I'd like to see the differences between corpse-induced stress be a lot more marked. I don't see why it would be traumatic at all to see a goblin toe when you literally enjoyed killing that bastard. If anything you should get a good thought from that, "yep that s.o.b.'s still dead." However, it's entirely reasonable someone would be traumatized by, for instance, having their spouse and children rotting in their own bedroom.
repeat -time 1 -timeUnits months -command [ fix/personality -all ]
And if someone seems to be losing their mind despite this I exile them, along with their entire dumb family.This is probably the most effective way for most players to handle it without much effort or having to modify anything. It's good it works for you, but some players it doesn't work for-- They may not like having to hunt down entire families of dwarves to exile because they didn't micromanage their fort enough to avoid accidentally letting a dwarf have a bad memory. Or for players who want to make multiple forts in the same world, it's very possible for new migrants to be the already stress-spiralling dwarves exiled from previous forts, making the problem worse. To say it's inevitable for all or even most forts to lose everything to stress would definitely be inaccurate, but it's still a very common problem that limits potential and frustrates players.
And if someone seems to be losing their mind despite this I exile them, along with their entire dumb family.This is probably the most effective way for most players to handle it without much effort or having to modify anything. It's good it works for you, but some players it doesn't work for-- They may not like having to hunt down entire families of dwarves to exile because they didn't micromanage their fort enough to avoid accidentally letting a dwarf have a bad memory. Or for players who want to make multiple forts in the same world, it's very possible for new migrants to be the already stress-spiralling dwarves exiled from previous forts, making the problem worse. To say it's inevitable for all or even most forts to lose everything to stress would definitely be inaccurate, but it's still a very common problem that limits potential and frustrates players.
They may not like having to hunt down entire families of dwarves to exile because they didn't micromanage their fort enough to avoid accidentally letting a dwarf have a bad memory.
Am I alone in this? I am finding "game ending stress" just to be something I don't experience any more. Now, I do a lot of micromanaging, starting out each fort with a list of preferences of every dwarf, and continue this practice well into the game, also routinely checking everyone for stress, moving everyone who seems bummed out into a room of their own, with every dedicated set of quarters smoothed, engraved, and if at all possible, I move every dwarf into a set of quarters personally designed for them out of materials they like.
And if someone seems to be losing their mind despite this I exile them, along with their entire dumb family.
And almost all my dwarves are in like the high 10K+ happiness levels.
I think guilds really help too, turn off all the restrictions on them and let everyone use them.
Do you play the game as is or do you use third party apps?
Is Dwarf Manipulator part of dfhack or another programme? I usually download dfhack but I only use it to change the starting dwarves number to ten, so I am very unfamiliar with it.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the game should be designed from a stand point of players not using third party programmes.
New UI contains numbers of stressed/unhappy dwarves at the top of the screen, so that's done.
I agree that the time DF displays them an unhappy it's too late, as they're caught up in the "cry/yell at the expedition leader" cycle every second actions at that time, ensuring they don't have time to see to their needs as well as blocking the expedition leader from achieving much work either.You've played with the new UI with it's DFhack style happiness indicators. Amazing!
I wonder if the happiness count in the new UI is just like the one on the bottom right in DFHack: where it just gives you total counts, but doesn't directly point out which dwarves are at what level of stress? To save a dwarf, it can take several other dwarves and a focused effort to arrange the right conditions for them. So not knowing which dwarves of the fort need special attention, it would be a much grander undertaking to apply the same level of coddling to every dwarf in the fort. Other than Dwarf Therapist, what other utilities allow the player to see stress levels of individual dwarves?
I wonder if the happiness count in the new UI is just like the one on the bottom right in DFHack: where it just gives you total counts, but doesn't directly point out which dwarves are at what level of stress? To save a dwarf, it can take several other dwarves and a focused effort to arrange the right conditions for them. So not knowing which dwarves of the fort need special attention, it would be a much grander undertaking to apply the same level of coddling to every dwarf in the fort. Other than Dwarf Therapist, what other utilities allow the player to see stress levels of individual dwarves?
Is it actually wrong for dwarves to expect to live in conditions befitting their status as elite crafts-sapients and so on? Why shouldn't dwarves live in living quarters that are absolutely lavish, filled with objects creates by expert craftsdwarfship, made out of substances entirely to their liking? If you mistreat and neglect dwarves, why shouldn't they be unhappy with their conditions?
It's not that they should be happy with neglected conditions, but that to truly bring a dwarf out of the pits of despair, it takes way more work than just nice conditions. Crafting, praying, socializing, sparring, avoiding corpse handling, and more. To do that for every single dwarf in a good sized fort would require all other projects to essentially stop.
My suggestion would be to add something like trauma centers, psychologists, and/or rehabilitation centers as locations/professions where dwarves could go to recover and talk about their issues to make themselves feel better.
My suggestion would be to add something like trauma centers, psychologists, and/or rehabilitation centers as locations/professions where dwarves could go to recover and talk about their issues to make themselves feel better.
Priests and mayors are supposed to be able to help with that. I don't think it does enough to counter the effect.
Can't the stress vulnerability of your dwarves still end up increased due to personality shifts? It's a significant part of the problem.