The stats of our Hearthlings are all randomized, which can be pretty annoying at some times. Rerolling for better stats also isn’t a good feature; it wastes a lot of time for something that could be easily fixed. I am currently manually editing all my Hearthling their stats to 6 with the console (I dislike inferior stats), but I would love_emphasized text_ to put effort in their training and have them upgrade their skills.
So why don’t we implement a new zone (well, 3 different zones for all the stats) where Hearthlings can improve their skills? They can increase their mind stat in a school, their body in a gym, and their spirit in a sanctuary or a church perhaps. I feel like the zones would need a cost, not just free zones like the shepherd. The school would need wood for bookcases and furniture, the gym for equipment etc. The furniture needed should then be made by the craftmasters, like the rest of the buildings. But I can see how this would conflict with wanting to design your buildings your own way; maybe the zones will need the specific furnitures placed in them for them to become active instead. This adds more freedom to custom buildings as well.
I feel like this would reduce the need to reroll for good stats at the beginning of the game (it even could become obsolete), adds extra features for the game and gives more gameplay, because you’ll need to invest time in training your Hearthlings.
This is a debate that is ongoing, but i like this aproach with the zones. It seems like the furniture will have some kind of beauty points in the future, what if these furniture you describe could have an extra kind of bonus? So if the hearthling have a bookcase in the room, the room itself will be the zone of selfimprovement? Maybe a desk and a chair could up that bonus to the room, just like the beautysystem has been described.
Do you have an list of ideas, that in more detail describe what kind of furniture could fit in where?
Personally, I really like this idea, but channeling @Brackhar one concern I can imagine about this is that you’d be encouraged to spend a month just grinding your hearthlings up to maximum stats before the game even starts in earnest, especially if we go for the more opt-in approach to challenges. Perhaps it could be a rebalancing instead of pure improvement? So when someone spends all of their time studying, as their mind is increased, their body and spirit slowly go down (speaking from personal experience). Then you could optimize it, so if your hearthling dreams of being a footman, but started with low body, you could still help them achieve their dream and be effective by filling their house with weights to lift and training dummies to pummel, but you’d have to sacrifice their mind and spirit.
I like your take on the idea, although I think there should be a minimum that their stats can fall to – someone who is built like a mountain isn’t going to lose all that much bulk even if they stop hitting the gym in favour of hitting the books, and someone who is very sociable and outgoing and happy-go-lucky isn’t going to lose all their spirit just because they’ve started getting swole (although they might become more surly if they’re hitting the books hard at school/uni and have to study when they’d rather socialise, heheh…)
I’d say those minimums should be half of the hearthling’s maximum, rounding up – so if they were a Mind 5 and they spend all their time training Body or Spirit (or both), they won’t fall below Mind 3; but if they started out as Body 2 and spent all their time training another stat they could fall to Body 1.
Actually, I think it would be great if unused stats fell away even when there was no training taking place. It doesn’t matter if your settlers are all high in one score when you embark, if the town doesn’t challenge its citizens’ attributes then those skills will be lost/replaced over time. So, taking this idea forwards, I’d propose that instead of thinking of it as “you have to give up one area to gain in another”, it works as “if you don’t use it you lose it.” That’s a significant step away from your proposal; but it adds more of an “upkeep” element which encourages the player to build those amenities which the hearthlings need to keep their minds, bodies and spirits in top condition. Of course there’s the matter of balancing it so that it doesn’t feel like a chore, but I think this can be accomplished easily enough by having some passive boosters for each stat so the player can easily maintain their current levels; it’s training them further which would take a significant investment.
Another way to prevent the “obligatory new-Hearthling training grind” situation is to make it progressively more difficult to train each level, so you can go up to say 3 in each stat with only the most basic amenities (probably all made by the carpenter/potter/whatever the NA’s primary crafter is), but to get those stats up to 4 requires input for more classes and higher levels of those classes, and getting to level 6 requires rare materials (e.g. a shrine to increase spirit might need one of the Kobold gongs and some gold, the gym equipment for Body 6 might require varanus hide and other products associated with strength, and the Mind 6 training item might require rare tomes purchased from a trader as well as items looted from enemies), top-level craftsmen (and ideally different craftsmen for each one), and the recipes for the higher tiers might not even unlock until you have a few hearthlings trained up to those high levels as well as being a tier 2 town (so, for example, once you’ve reached tier 2 you might draw the notice of a famously strong hearthling who tells you their daily workout routine and challenges your hearthlings to train up and try to beat them in a contest of strength – with suitable rewards for winning, naturally…)
There’s a lot of potential to add to the gameplay further, and make players really think about how and why they’re investing in their hearthlings. It will definitely give players a deeper sense of attachment if they’ve helped their hearthlings train through different stats to become great at their jobs, and there’s a huge sense of accomplishment in that.
That’s is a good idea. It’ll force your Hearthlings into keeping the training/study up, instead of hitting 6 with their stat and never returning to the books again.
Although my idea wasn’t to have them grind for their stats, but more something they will do in their free time, I can see this being a good feature. The upkeep shouldn’t be too high though; the amount of time spent on keeping a stat on 6 shouldn’t be too time consuming, it will be frustrating.
On your idea that stats above 4 require more input than just the basic amenities; maybe they’ll also need a master craftsmen or footman to teach them. This could be combined with the rare tomes/materials.
Reaching 6 in your stats would make more sense with someone knowledgeable in professions related to the stat teaching them/helping them. Maybe we could have a whole new teacher class instead.
Furniture definitely needs more uses; it’s currently only used to sleep and eat on. They should be used to at least socialize, rest and study on. There could be more uses, but I can’t think of them.
Furnitures for the zones could be; bookcases, bookshelves, writing desks (which we already have).
Training weights, obstacle courses, monkey bars, sparring dummies.
Altars, church benches, colored glass and religious paintings (hail bunny god) and other church related furniture perhaps?
