Are herbalists not healing?

Summary:
Herbalists in current unstable alpha seem to not be able to heal. Does anyone else experience this?

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Create a herbalist and a footman
  2. Create a stock of at least 1 healing potion
  3. Drop footman below 60% health (around half of a heart)
  4. Footman is on patrol or slacking (job turned off), herbalist has no job tasks

Note: my footman has a “Hothead” perk. Dunno if that has any influence.

Expected Results:
When footman’s health is low and he has no urgent tasks he should go and heal.

Actual Results:
Footman never goes to infirmary, preferring to heal naturally.

Notes:
Tried adding more healing items (like first-tier bandages), assigning beds to footman or herbalist. No effect.
I’m playing Rayyas, desert biome. It’s 14-th day and my herbalist still hasn’t healed anyone.

Version Number and Mods in use:
A22 r726 x64
Mods:

  • HOMF
  • Locks of many hair
  • Jomaxro’s Doorway mod
  • My “Lodewall lights” mod
  • My “More lights”
  • Unit frame activity mod
  • Unit frame health mod
  • Better stockpiles
  • My “Boxes” mod
  • Debug tools

System Information:

1 Like

I keep seeing these type of bugs, but maybe I misunderstand how herbalists work. I thought herbalists only treated folks that were incapacitated. If I recall correctly they were doing more healing before, but I think when they added the incapacitated feature they changed conditions (could be wrong). I assumed this was intentional, making a clear distinction between the job of an herbalist and the role a cleric plays. Would help if the devs could give us an explanation on how exactly the herbalist is supposed to work lol.

1 Like

I haven’t played in a while, but back in A20 it has like this:

  • A hearthling gets serious injury
  • A hearthling gets to bed (or is evacuated to bed if he’s unconscious)
  • Herbalist treats the wounds with bandages and tonics

Unlike herbalist, a cleric

  • Casts healing immediately, “in the field”
  • With no reagents required
  • Cast is more or less instant (where herbalists take time to treat wounds and put a debuff “bandaged” that prevents instantly bringing the injured back). This is alleviated by cleric having a cooldown on casting heal.

In other words, herbalist is an early “slow healing” class to support the town after the battle is over, while cleric is a late-game “combat-healing” class.

4 Likes

Okay, that sounds about right. I just never noticed my herbalist bothering to heal anyone who wasn’t incapacitated. Just thought it was working as intended.

I tend to wall off a large area around my settlements so I don’t have to deal with enemies until I’m ready for em lol. That may be part of the reason I never noticed. Would still like a response from the devs to explain exactly what and when an herbalist is supposed to be doing their thing.

1 Like

I thought the threshold for herbalist healing was something like 30% or below.

2 Likes

Curious. If it is so, it would make sense to tune it up - since hearthlings get mood hits from injuries quite early, one can expect herbalist to be able to fix this.

2 Likes

Thanks for that @thelegorebel I’m all kinds of confused about what the heck my herbalist is supposed to be doing all the time lol.

Noticed some interesting behaviour: wounded guards are sometimes healed at night when they are sleeping.

  1. This happens with hearthlings having non-critical injuries (more than 50% HP is left). Severely wounded hearthlings try to seek out herbalist’s aid straight away.
  2. Wounded hearthlings should go to bed as usual (night’s sleep)
  3. Herbalist should be awake

I have nothing against it, it helps. But I wonder if it is intended. And if it is, why isn’t it covered by any guides/help?

Yeah, healing currently isn’t feeling very good. I’ve got a general task to do a holistic design for all healing/health in the game. Maybe I’ll write the design during my next stream…

5 Likes

Okay, this doesn’t work any more. Rather unpleasant since it leads to city guard mostly walking around 10-50% injured and not getting healed.
Thankfully they at least don’t get mood hit from injuries any more (that would permanently turn them into sad pandas).