A suggestion about the dayly update.
What’s the “declne” button for? 
I can not even see the stats of a new hearthling who wants to live in my town!
I do not think it’s right. It would be more adequate to see the chhracter sheet and the decide if it’s worth to let such a candidate into the town.
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The “decline” button is mostly for players who know they can’t feed/look after another hearthling at the moment, or for some reason don’t want to rush to their max hearthling cap. I’d say most people don’t even use it TBH.
Part of me thinks this suggestion would be nice to have, but part of me doesn’t want it because it would lead to a ton of “min-maxing”, only accepting “the best” hearthlings. That’s not exactly in line with Stonehearth’s feel, but I suppose that it’s down to how players want to run their town.
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I think the Oxygen Not Included approach of giving you a choice has been suggested here as well. Same min-maxing problem, I suppose, maybe even worse, but I still would kind of like some choice on further Hearthlings. Maybe even a preview that let you know which of Mind/Body/Spirit were high or low, without showing the exact stats?
Of course, even basic workers are helpful when I’ve promoted most of my starters, so I generally don’t worry too much anyway.
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And why not? Any company wants to have the best workers and interviews them before applying to a job. This is natural.
My final idea is to make several stages of town growth.
- They just come as it is now.
- After compleeting the township quest you get a possibility to see the crude stats and perks.
- After compleeting some quests you are famous. The herthlings come in packs of 3 presons. You have to choose 1.
- You are the new google! Everybody wants to work for you. You get the posibilty to make job offers eg. “potter needed” and the candidates have perks and stats, good for the needed job.
But stage 1 will be very good for now.
And one more idea: the town’s stats influence the newcomer’s stats.
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I only take ugly criers who have no taste in decor and don’t care what they eat and aren’t flatulent. I just keep declining until I get what I want. By day 100 I generally only have 4 or 5 Dupes but it keeps resource use to a minimum. Hearthlings are a /lot/ more forgiving than Dupes where a bad/demanding one can really wreck your base.
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I don’t care the least about attributes, since I can find somewhere to put people with just about any combination of numbers.
Traits, on the other hand, would be nice to have an idea about.
I didn’t realize I even cared the tiny bit that I do, until getting three in a row with Animal Companions…
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I think I’ve suggested in a similar discussion that as your town gets better and more famous it should sometimes attract hearthlings that have already achieved some levels in a job. That way they wouldn’t always be so far behind and if you lost a high level worker you wouldn’t have to wait for a rookie to level up before continuing your big project.
Of course this would mean your high level workers are at least a bit more easily replaceable, which would make you care less about them, but as long as a new one does’t automatically shows up because the old one died then it shouldn’t be too bad.
If leveled up workers can join it would be more important to get to know their job before they join, since it would get harder to get them to level up in another job.
Another option is that you get skilled visitors that stay for a couple of days and work for food and maybe money. If they like the place enough they might consider staying.
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These are some great ideas folks, thanks for sharing : ). We’ve been talking for a while about how we don’t really like the way new hearthlings spawn into the game, how we would like it to be a little more of an interesting and polished experience. I will pass this thread along to the rest of the team to check out ; D, thanks again!
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If I may make the suggestion, it’s probably worth talking over a few ideas internally and then posting a thread calling for feedback on them. Probably worth doing a DT on it too exploring the different options, perhaps with visual mock-ups of how the different UI options would look alongside an explanation of how the system would work.
The reason I suggest this is that there’s so much interest in this suggestion that you’ll probably have a lot of opinions from players on whatever you choose. This is a great chance to remind players of the “good old days” when feedback visibly flew back-and-forth – while I know that hasn’t really changed, it’s harder to see now and this is an opportunity to get some people (who might feel like they’ve missed out on the chance to do take part in “the good old days”) involved and prove that you guys are still committed to the same ideals as before.
It’s never possible to keep everyone happy, but this is probably a good way to make the most people happy and find the “community preferred” solution 
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its a nice Idea but I would say no personally since as others have stated this would result in a lot of unbalance…
even if I get someone that is 1/1/1 they could make a great farmer or hauler since those are needed just as much as a crafter would be
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I’ll recommend it to the team and see what they say ; ), thanks!
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if this dose become I thing there would need to be an option to toggle it on of off… some people would want this and others would not
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That’s a great idea. Stonehearth need to make more rewards for completing the quests of township. That could definitely be one of them
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Of course, players could simply hold the policy “accept everyone who shows up regardless of their stats.”
Personally, I favour the idea that early on you get random settlers wandering into your town, at tier 2 you get more “advanced” migration where you’ll get small groups or some lone professionals (i.e. hearthlings equipped with a class token and a few levels in that class), and at third/later tiers you actually get some sway in who comes to town e.g. you can pick from multiple options or even put out a call for certain professions (with a chance that you’ll get who you ask for, and a chance it’ll be some other random pick.)
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hum I never would have thought about that +1 to this idea
for the choice how about something like
’strong mind, strong body, strong spirit’
you could pick one of them and the Hearthling would have 4-6 in that category the rest of the stats would be random?
Indeed, or it might even be “this hearthling is tenacious and resilient, but slow to make friends”, which gives you a clue about them having a high Body, and probably a trait like Stoic.
I think that giving a direct display of stats and traits would suck the fun out of the system; but that’s probably just my way of thinking – I’m sure there are plenty of min/maxers who would enjoy optimising the “perfect team” of hearthlings. I already spend way too long re-rolling my starting team, I can’t imagine how slowly my populations would grow if I applied the same rules in-game too! Then again, I’m usually trying to expand my pop as quickly as possible, so I’d probably take anyone who showed up and then worry about finding where they’ll be most useful.
There are a lot of ways it could be done, and each emphasises a different way of playing – story, efficiency, puzzle/problem-solving… my main desire is that you get a sense of progression as your town develops, so that you start off with anyone looking for a home but at the end you’re a popular destination and you get “higher quality” (as much as I hate that way of thinking) migrants both as a reward for tiering up, and to help alleviate the pressures you gain as you tier up. Particularly if you’re also losing hearthlings to raids or other crises; your high-tier town can be crippled by the loss of certain hearthlings (e.g. your skilled cook who is single-handedly feeding half the town after you’ve pulled two farmers into the militia… and that can actually do just fine, once you have a cook up they’re much more efficient than farmers); so having a way to replace those skilled hearthlings more quickly would be a massive benefit in the late game.
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training a new crafter, footmen, or cook can be a drain as well
tier 2 you can see the attributes
tier 3 you can chose between 2 or 3 Hearthlings?
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Since hearthlings show up the same moment you accept them it feels like they knock on your door and you choose to let them in or send them back home (through the wilderness). It can feel a bit cruel for a game this cute. Choosing one out of 2 or 3 would be even worse. I’m not that sensitive that it would be a problem for me, just saying that there might be a better alternative.
If they instead send you applications and it takes them at least one day to get there it would feel more… humane and convenient (at least for them). It could also give you the opportunity to save applications for later, though there should probably be a time limit on them. Could be the same for all of them (the cultural norm) or it could vary, with more skilled applicants more likely to need a response more quickly.
If some applicants take longer to arrive it could also give more interesting choices, like I really want this skilled one but it takes him 5 days to get here and I need more workers now, so do I take the rookie that can be here tomorrow instead, or do I invite both and hope that my food production have gotten better by the time the skilled one gets here?
Having the option to invite more than one also gives you the possibility to expand more quickly, with the risk of expanding too quickly so your production can’t keep up and the happiness goes down, which leads to less applications and even that saved applications might get cancelled (an application can include their current happiness and they only want to move to a happier place).
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I like this idea of variable travel time – skilled migrants might be attracted to travel a long distance if they know they’re needed somewhere, while more urgent cases (e.g. refugees, hearthlings who are down on their luck/looking for work, or “gold rush” seekers who have heard of a town of overwhelming opportunity nearby) are probably not going to travel as far; just to the nearest town that will put them up.
I love the potential that comes into the system if you’re seeking out migrants (i.e. post a message advertising that you’re looking for hearthlings with particular traits/professions/stats); you can put out a general ad and get people quickly or you can put out a more specialised ad and expect to wait a bit longer for the perfect candidate to come calling.
1 Like