I took a break from the game for awhile and I can say I love all the new changes that have been made. The combat is by far more exciting now and you have to put more thought into pleasing your hearthlings, which adds character to the game.
A few things I didn’t like though was the new pet companion trait, spawns a pet with the new hearthling, but it just sat outside the town until killed by monsters. I couldn’t get it to come inside even opening gates and tearing down walls.
Also I think certain traits should be tied to a certain level of stats. I got a hearthling 1/2/1 with stamina being his highest. Yet the hearthling wanted to be a blacksmith. Yeah dude sorry but you don’t make the cut. So now I’m left with someone who’ll never be happy.
I think the happiness system could use a little work. All too often I found long standing negative modifiers, but nothing I could do to get some positive modifiers going. Shared room, check, build private house, not enough room, check, make bigger private house, neutral, ok. It was more of just trying to keep the negatives to a minimum.
Yeah the new traits do add a lot of character to the game.
The pet companion trait makes me very sad when I see a new hearthling with it. The hearthling should be carrying the pet, the pet should be riding on their shoulder/head, or on a leash at least until they’re safely in town. When the pets die it totally wrecks your hearthling’s morale, and makes me feel like I just lost another member of my town.
This one is an issue too lol. 4/1/2 pessimistic and you wanna be a Knight…yeah,no. 1/6/6 with the crafting trait so they get sad if they don’t build something everyday. WHY?! FOR THE LOVE OF RAYYA WHYYYYYYYY?! Sometimes I think these guys are secretly working for the goblins to undermine my growth. I’m gonna sound like a monster here, and your hearthlings won’t be happy, but those guys can always be given a sword and sent out to prove their worth to the town…alone. It’s tragic, but on the plus side you get a wonderful new decoration to make a graveyard for your town.
There is no bad side in a hearthling not having his desired job, only upside in case he gets it, so you can simple ignore it. That is not a problem. And a blacksmith does not use the mind attribute as it does not have any fine items, so even if you really needed him to be one, it will not matter if he is a 1 or 6 mind. (He can gain exp faster with higher mind, but that is not really useful in such a class where you will be crafting all the time anyway, the exp will never stop coming)
I always wondered about the “passionate” trait, I’m terrible at remembering to check them for buffs. So does it boost their morale or do they get an xp boost?
The passionate trait just moves the middle point. All hearthlings happiness start at half happiness. If they have no good things or bad things, it will always be in the middle. If you have the desired job, it will be a little more happy even when neutral. Like the optimistic trait, it also makes the default a little happier even when neutral.
I feel like this comment runs along the same lines but I haven’t found a post specific to it. I’ve noticed several times a Hearthling will be assigned two traits that do not support each other (e.g. Green Thumb, Passionate Blacksmith).
Can certain traits be linked and allowed to accompany those lucky enough to be assigned two traits? Can they be explicitly excluded from having certain secondaries once assigned a first?
We’ve generally avoided making negative traits. So, as an example, the Passionate trait has no downside if the hearthling does not have their preferred job; they just get a happiness bonus if they are performing it. Aside from the passion traits we’ve also tried to make the traits generally usable. So, yeah, green thumb is best on a farmer, but it also provides benefits when harvesting bushes, flowers, and trees.
As for the pet companion, I’ll see what we can do to fix the issue of pets standing outside and getting killed. My initial inclination was to have pets follow their owner, but that means that it’s super dangerous for a combat class to have a pet. I’ll give it a think!
Edit:
Also, I do want to add more positive thoughts into the game. That’ll be easier as we start building up more systems. At the moment there aren’t many levers to pull to allow us to describe a situation as “great”, but once we add things like social systems, beauty, a robust item quality system, etc. the positive ideas start falling into place really easily.
Thanks, I’ve really enjoyed watching this game grow and look forward to what’s to come. It’s also great to see devs taking so much interest in the community’s thoughts.
A thought on the pets might be leashing it to the village flag or an assigned bed.
@BrunoSupremo A blacksmith does use the mind attribute. All hearthlings do. As you say, it is the experience. And unless you want to keep leveling him until the end of days it is better to have a high one. Players do have minimum stats to assign proffesions.
The traits are interesting but they are possing some problems when getting new hearthlings. Now, not only do they have the “minimum” stats but also you have to keep an eye on the traits.
Why would you accept a Hearthling that may never be really happy?
