Hearthlings Aren't Afraid

Summary:
Noticed that my Hearthlings don’t seem to be afraid of enemies.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Settle in fertile lands.
  2. Call it “This Land”
  3. Receive sudden, but inevitable betrayal.

Expected Results:
Hearthlings run in fear.

Actual Results:
<img src="//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/business6/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/1/7/17ce74a424ffb05be85730c66b99f68efc70c40d.jpg"">
<img src="//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/business6/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/8/3/83d595a48c43822843cad956de057e0f88705165.jpg"">

Notes:
I was going to call this post “Hearthlings Balls of Steel”, but I didn’t want to offend anyone. Also, points to whomever gets the joke hidden in the “Steps to reproduce”.

Also, I noticed that they ARE afraid of goblins though…
<img src="//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/business6/uploads/stonehearth/original/3X/6/7/67d3827b48a7fe350ce141ca66dd243de53eabf3.jpg"">

Version Number and Mods in use:
Release 537 (x64)

1 Like

On your first and second screens, the HL is hungry. But against the goblins, they’re not.
Do you think the food is the problem? Were they afraid of the Varanus after eating?

Makes me wonder how much spirit that first one has… and how much the ones in the last one have… hmm…

that was also my first thought… paging @linda to see if hunger could somehow be getting in the way of running in fear

2 Likes

Thank you for the feedback! We will account for this as we continue to work on combat. Fleeing depends on the hearthling’s courage and remaining health, and the enemy’s menace. I’m guessing this hearthling has somewhat high spirit and the monster is from a lower level raid.

So you’re saying being hungry doesn’t affect the courage right?

The hearhtling in question that didn’t flee has a spirit of 5, and full health. But he was a general worker. The monster in the picture was the first one to show up.

The second picture, with the goblins, had hearhtling ranging from 2 to 4 in spirit. All full health though.

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Yes, hunger doesn’t affect courage. We plan on making some changes to the flee mechanic, but for now fleeing occurs when you hearthling has lower spirit/courage than the monster or the hearthling is low on health.

2 Likes

I randomly run into the problem that a wounded footman isn’t afraid like I would expect him to be.

I’ll have him fight a bad guy and then he gets wounded down to less than 25% and he’s not attacking effectively because he starts to flee and then randomly decides to fight.

Then I’ll direct him back to camp to get away so he doesn’t get killed, but he just keeps wanting to go back and fight (to his inevitable demise). So I end up directing him to a location, which he then reaches and tries to return the fight, several times until he gets tired and falls asleep.

And this isn’t in a scenario where my hearthlings or camps are under attack. I usually have a good defense built up to prevent incursions of real threats.

It seems like maybe the footman needs a passive and active mode that you can toggle or maybe a passive, defensive, and offensive mode. And maybe a gender-neutral renaming like knight or soldier or warrior since the girls can be footmen too.

4 Likes