DT: Personal Space

Development
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No need to apologize. Your post is very cogent and is exactly the style of conversation that should be welcomed on this forum.

When I joined the team two months ago as the new design lead, my focus started with trying to get an understanding of all the work that is currently in flight for the game. You are absolutely right that there are a number of features that have been discussed but not yet fully implemented. As such, I’ve been working with Stephanie to help develop a cohesive plan and ordering for how we should tackle each of the particular pieces. This plan is developing into a mixture of new feature work and system revisits, each of which are focused around a particular theme.

Initially, we’ve decided to prioritize revisits to some of the base systems of the game in an effort to create a deeper web of interactions between higher order features. This is how Happiness got prioritized as a piece of work (which basically is a revisit of the morale system). Once we have this new system working we can begin tying many things together that currently stand in isolation - for example, how much light your town has at night, how many decorations a room should have, what materials you should construct things out of, the relationships between individual hearthlings, and (as featured in this DT) how big you should make your buildings. The hope is that with systems like these in place we can create more of an arc to the player’s experience, so that even in very developed towns there are things that can still be optimized. The personal space discussed here is only a part of the larger ecosystem that we want happiness to become.

Our plan isn’t complete yet, but I do expect that both of the features you referred to specifically will be addressed in time. How exp and leveling works, along with the rewards you gain from it, are definitely something I want to look at. And as far as water goes I was just talking with Albert about it as recently as two weeks ago - we were trying to figure out if it made sense to improve things now or wait until we look at farming and consider features like irrigation improving crop yields (we hadn’t decided yet). I’ll talk with Stephanie about giving you guys more visibility into the roadmap once I’m back from the wedding I’m attending (wheee for delayed flights allowing me to post on the forum!) and once the plan has firmed up a bit more.

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@Brackhar
I always enjoy your posts, your insight into how the game is going is always interesting. I’m excited to see where all these tie-ins lead in the game.

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@Solus
Thanks dude, I always try to be helpful. A lesson I learned a long time ago is that anyone who posts in your forum is someone who has gone through extra effort to get their voice heard. You peeps here are our most invested players; it would be a disservice if I treated that fact lightly.

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Yeah, you are touching on something important here. Having a large room shouldn’t be the be all end all goal of making homes - we should want players to make homes that they themselves would want to live in. Cute, warm spaces with themes and decorations. My hope is to add additional systems soon that allow Hearthlings to start judging things like that, perhaps adding concepts of “beauty” and/or “comfort” and/or “wealth” as a thing hearthlings judge when they are in a space (just like how this system is adding a judgement on size). Once all of those systems are in place I think we will hit exactly what you are asking for, where a hearthlings could live in a smaller room but ultimately be really happy due to everything being made of gold, for instance.

We won’t have those systems in the initial release, but they are essential for the long term success of the feature in my view.

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I think an important feature would be, that the personal space inside of a room isn’t always the center of a hearthling. Because if you set the bed in the corner and the hearthlings sleeps in the bed, the two walls at the corner will heavily reduce the personal space. So i suggest that a hearthlings “knows” that he is in a room and he judges the space inside the room and not in relation to his own center (Example: Hearthlings enters a room and then the hearthling-centered personal space shifts to a room-centered personal space).

Ofc players could abuse this system, but that’s always the case. For example: With the current personal space players could just place the bed in the middle of a room, or they could buid dozens of windows into a small room, even if the room itself is small. No system will be perfect, but at least the system should allow for all kinds of different rooms for different tastes and not limit the player to much. :slight_smile:

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26

I feel kind of like I’m going off topic here, but, well…

I really like this idea of personal space, and particularly implementing a number of different aspects to the morale system beyond meeting the basic needs of a bed, a meal, and not being hacked to death.

With that said I would like to see it delve into more detail, with other things that have an effect on day to day lives.

For example, there’s fine goods versus regular goods, and all the decorative furniture that doesn’t do anything at the moment. I’d like to see something implemented along the lines of the bed, where Hearthlings can be assigned a room as theirs, and not only the space but also the contents play a part in determining how happy they are. The simplest method I can think of is calculating the net worth of all placed items in the room, although I expect it’d need to be modified a bit beyond that. Maybe a morale score. I don’t know what makes the most sense.

And maybe too, some items that have a ‘happiness aura’ around them, such as the fountains. Things where there’s a benefit to putting them in places that Hearthlings frequent. By the same token, maybe there’s a certain degree of averaging of morale when Hearthlings speak to each other or cross paths. Running across a grouchy person can ruin your day- or running across a cheerful person can perk it up.

Similar note: lighting. While there’s certainly times when a lack of light is nice (sleeping) I could see adequately lit paths and homes helping Hearthlings feel at ease, while working in a dark cave or having to walk though dark fields when there’s zombies out there can add some stress to your day.

Overall it seems like a great starting point, and I’d like to see it developed more. I already enjoy taking into consideration things like decorations (every Hearthling gets a bunny, and when I can, I put fur rugs down next to beds because a cold floor on bare feet is the kind of thing that makes getting out of bed miserable) and having that rewarded with a happier populace would be nice.

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Perhaps the simplest option to encourage a warm and cozy space is to have a concept of “too large”, where if the hearthling doesn’t find a solid wall or another hearthling within a set distance they begin to feel isolated and unhappy?

The effect here would be that one hearthling in an empty ballroom would feel out of place; but a crowd all hanging out in the same space would feel cozy and engaged without feeling cramped. For a bedroom-sized space, however, 2 hearthlings would find it a little snug and three would be absolutely crowded.

So the idea is to have furniture within comfortable distance, and to plan out the furniture for the number of hearthlings expected to occupy that room… you want to fill living spaces with furniture, but maybe keep plenty of walking-around space in communal areas.

I guess the assumed side-effect here is that hearthlings count as pathing blockers to each other… that could be very interesting when combat gets another pass later on, since it would make formations far more important.

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I would suggest looking at The Sims for this again. Their mood can / is effected by the condition of their environment in multiple ways.

So many dirty jokes, just so many…

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I did not realize the additional hires were in other areas (to be honest, I was just under the impression that people had been added, so I’m glad I was even right about that!), good point.

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So I only read the original post and and watched the video. It says you hope that the type of food they eat etc will play into their morale. But I was looking at morale earlier today and it seemed they were upset about eating the same veggies, or yay… that jerky tasted better than I remember when you don’t eat it for a while (something like that). So it seems some of this is already implemented?

***Just wondering, total noob… :slight_smile:

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It’s the EA tribute, for loyal fans… share, share, share! Get more people and they have to listen!

I actually just bought this game a few days ago after days of debating between this and another title. So I am not well-aware on early days, progress or as they call in a place starts with an “S” a fanboy.

But as for my statement above about getting the game more attention and players… I have seen the exact same calls for action in other games (one I put in like 2k hours on).

Ok so the point is, I agree… “I wish I had as much optimism to even start believing that a single individual, or maybe half a dozen, could make a company with a thousand employees and billions in revenue, owned by another company with ten thousands of employees and tens of billions in revenue, even remotely care.”

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from what i understand, even though the journal entries say that right now, the actual game mechanics for it aren’t there yet.

also, welcome to the discourse :smile:

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You are reading my mind sir. I’ve talked about every one of those features as things we should do.

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I understand, and really, he’s right on it, it’s pretty much impossible to think of it Actually happening, and i’m just on the thought that we can always give a game even a tiny bit of a chance, that’s worth trying

And for me, though, i don’t think StoneHearth is in immediate danger of such happening, i just wanted to spread the thought

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Im up for anything that makes my hearthlings feel more alive and less robotic. Right now I dont even flinch after watching a hearthling die when I can afford his death as I know another clone shall arrive come morning.

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Thanks for the explanation… and thanks for the welcome!

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Thought about this some more while on the way to work this morning, and figured I’d share.

The main idea that I had was to give beds something akin to the Personal Space radians, for two purposes.

The first one is to establish a room; basically send them out in directions up to, say, 40 squares, and noting any non-traversable obstacles or doors. I considered windows, but trivial as it might be, the tooltip for doors is “Privacy at last!” and the tooltip for windows is, “So much for privacy,” so I feel like windows shouldn’t be excepted. This gives you a volume that’s effectively belonging to the Hearthling, and placed objects in the room could be used to develop a ‘quality of life’ morale boost. Whether that’s gold value or some nebulous ‘morale value’ doesn’t really matter.

Might be worth it to have a diminishing returns value for items- the first decorative vase gives, say, 0.1 morale. The 2nd gives 0.05, the 3rd gives 0.025, and so on. Because even Hearthlings who collect vases aren’t going to have a room of wall to wall pottery.

The second application of these radians is bed detection. Basically, having your own private space is a nice thing, and while sharing is okay, there’s a big difference between your own space and living in a barracks. Mechanically, for each bed the radians hit, the morale bonus in the room decreases. Maybe it’s a flat, divide by n+1, where n = number of beds, maybe it’s another diminishing returns thing, whatever it is, having somewhere that’s yours and yours alone is more beneficial than sharing a bedchamber with a dozen other people.

Of course, this is a fantasy setting. The above may not apply equally or to all races. Maybe dwarves prefer more communal dwellings. Given the changes to the job tree, maybe pottery boosts Ascendancy morale more than it does for Rayya’s Children, and vice versa with carpentry. Maybe all of this results in too much code, object information, and CPU usage. I don’t know. But I thought it was interesting as ideas.

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One problem with area of effect personal space/mood detection.
Beds are always against a wall or a corner. It’s where they’re most aesthetically pleasing. When I stand next to the wall in a spacious room, the room doesn’t suddenly become smaller. I don’t want my hearthlings mood to plummet because I like putting beds in corners, I already have this problem in other similar games. cough rimworld cough

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That’s the nice side-effect of windows here – put one in above the bed and suddenly it doesn’t feel squished into a corner.

However, I totally agree that simply being close to one wall shouldn’t have a serious negative impact… in fact, I’m inclined to say that having the bed next to 1 or 2 walls should have a positive impact. Most people I know sleep up against a wall, partly because it saves space but also partly because it feels cozier to have your back or side up against something while you sleep. I know that some people prefer to spread out and have a lot of open space around them, and there’s a luxury about having a large bed in the middle of a clear room… but I reckon we’re naturally inclined to look for something solid to act as an “anchor” to our sense of space while we’re sleeping.

As such, I agree that the polygon could be improved a little so that it’s not just “obstruction detected, happiness slowly decreasing.” Ideally I’d like to see it be “solid wall/object, light source, comfortable furniture (this can be a bed or chair or possibly even a desk), cute decoration and space to move about all detected nearby, happiness increase set to maximum”, and to only get a happiness decrease if 3 or more of the rays are cut off by solid objects.

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Guys, just think about how long a hearthlings stays in a bed… It will not matter where ti is placed… They spend so little there, and there is multiple things that can speed it up even more, like good stats and potions.

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