Dear Devs.
Or modders.
I would very much so appreciate a feature during party creation where we can select what traits we want on our hearthlings. We can already change our hearthling’s gender and appearance during party creation, but as someone who starts new play-throughs in many games I would really like the ability to physically choose my hearthling’s traits instead of re-rolling unto oblivion until I get desirable traits. I would be satisfied with only being able to choose one trait while leaving the second to chance, as this would drastically reduce the amount of time I spend in party creation.
I know that the devs probably do not want players to have that much control over what hearthlings they get, that they want them to feel more like recruits instead of perfect villagers, but we can already change their appearance, their gender, and roll unto oblivion, so please just throw me this bone. I already can spend and have spent hours in party creation just so that I can have a seven-slot of dream professions. Don’t believe me?
Please, I am dying here.
Also.
Can you let us preview immigrating hearthlings after we pass a daily update? Like “This hearthling would like to join us”? I am going to reload the next time that I get a 1 1 3 Glutton.
4 Likes
7? Don’t we start with 5 now? Did they change it back? I haven’t actually been playing the past couple unstable releases.
This is an older screenie. Once upon a time you started with seven lings, and this is from when you did. My point and my monotony still stands.
I think a good way to go about it would be to strongly limit what secondary traits you can get based on what primary traits you have, so that it’s impossible to start with super complementary traits on your starting hearthlings either by luck or intention. Then you can allow the selection of primary traits and people won’t still spend a lot of time rerolling for the perfect secondary traits.
You could still randomly get hearthlings with complementary traits during the game through town growth, and that would also play into the re-embarkation system, since you could still bring those hearthlings along with you to the next game.
1 Like
I would rather have complementary traits than uncomplementary traits, like Heart of a Crafter and Couragous.
2 Likes
The issue with that is that for min/max players you still end up with the same constant rerolling for secondary traits until you get the perfect one (as well as for high stats). And if rerolling individuals isn’t allowed, people will reroll the whole party until it’s what they want. And if rerolling the whole party isn’t allowed, they’ll recreate the game until they get what they want.
I dunno, I just think that in order to have a middle ground between everything being completely random and uncontrollable and everything being completely set-able (both of which have the same end result for min/max players but with less time wasted rerolling in the second), you need limits on how much it’s possible to min/max. Having things like a consistent number (somewhere between 10 and 12) of total stat points that’s the same for each hearthling, and then allowing primary trait selection but limiting secondary trait selection to non-complementary traits eliminates the whole chain-min/max-ing rerolling process while still giving well-rounded and interesting semi-random results. You’d do a couple rolls to make sure you had enough high mind/body/spirit stats, whatever you’re going for, and then assign the primary traits you want to those hearthlings and not try to reroll constantly for the right secondary trait.
1 Like
If min/maxers are just going to roll for days until they get the perfect setup anyway, IMO we might as well make it easy on them.
I’m one of those players who will spend hours setting up the “perfect” roster and map (there’s always some compromise, particularly if something really characterful comes up), load it up… then realise one thing is off (e.g. no bunny statues for my Cultists to worship at, or the lake I want to settle beside has no resources near it) and be in an agony whether to go back and try again or try to play when my town feels like it’s “missing something.”
I don’t see the point of forcing players into a middle ground in a sandbox game like this. Players who want control will always want control, and players who don’t care about it… won’t care about it. So players who are happy to take a random set of Hearthlings will generally keep doing that if it saves time over manual selection, or if it prevents “analysis paralysis” over what their starting roster should look like; they won’t have their experience diminished by the fact that other players can hand-pick their starting hearthlings.
Perhaps some incentive for picking a random roster would be a good idea though, to offset the “less efficient” start compared to a hand-picked roster? Perhaps the hand-picked parties don’t get as much help (bonus starting food and so on) from their Outpost Liaison, since they’re expected to have things more under control? So a random roster gets a boost once they start the game, or might even get the chance to request one of a couple of “care packages” once they land and see the resources nearby; but a hand-picked roster only has their starting loadout and their (hopefully) ideal skillset to work with.
1 Like
An incentive could be good for randoming, and would pretty much be necessary if it’s easy to just select ideal stats/traits. Otherwise, people would be at a disadvantage for doing the default randoming, and even if they’re not naturally min/maxers, they’d feel kind of silly intentionally playing at a disadvantage when all it takes is a few clicks to improve their starting lot.
I still think that randoming is an important part of the process though, at least for the base game (especially with how it plays into re-embarkation then, where you can take the best you got to the next town), and it’s simple enough to mod in max stats and ideal traits if that’s the way you want to play.
IMNSHO, if there’s already a mechanism to get the desired traits - keep rerolling - then some sort of system to weight, or influence, or otherwise have some non-random control over it won’t give us anything we don’t already have; it will just remove the annoyance of spamming the dice clicks.
Frex, I usually make sure at least one ling has a decent Body and Spirit, to make them the first Footman. Well, as long as I’m rerolling, why not wait until they also have one of the combat-job traits, like “always wanted to be a night” or “loves defending the town?” And since I’m still clicking some more, I feel silly accepting a 3 and a 4 when I could hold out for something like 4-5-6…
RNG isn’t really a barrier to us fine-tuning the lings we get; it’s just inserting a tedious task.
At the same time, randomly getting something cool or unusual is fun. So maybe some sort of selection like, stat or trait weightings being selectable (with some being mutually exclusive) that influences the die rolls?
@PyreStarite
you might like one of my mods. it would help with part of your frustration Steam Workshop :: Super Mod 6 but if that’s too OP for you I could make some modifications for you. I could make it so the minimum is 3 instead of 1 or something like that. I might be able to make a mod that removes Glutton so you have a higher chance of getting something else.
The 6 6 6 mod is neat and all but overall not exactly what I am looking for.
However, minimum of 3 and removing negative traits like Glutton and Gourmet sounds wonderful. Although you suggest this change instead because you do not know how to force traits, don’t you?
1 Like
More of a temporary solution. I’m not sure if I can or not. I will have to look into it when I get home. my first impressions is that it might be beyond my modding capabilities. but I will still try.
@PyreStarite
this is the glutton trait
{
“type”: “trait”,
“display_name”: “i18n(stonehearth:data.traits.glutton.glutton_trait.display_name)”,
“description”: “i18n(stonehearth:data.traits.glutton.glutton_trait.description)”,
“icon”: “file(glutton_trait.png)”,
“attribute_modifiers”: {
“max_health”: {
“multiply”: 1.2
},
“max_calories”: {
“multiply”: 1.2
},
“calorie_burn_multiplier”: {
“multiply”: 1.2
}
}
}
it looks like it just adds more health and more max calories
so its not a bad trait.
It seems as though they changed how it worked, or at the least it’s description. I did not know this, so thank you for revealing this to me.
