So I was playing through my first village since getting back into the game. I’ve hit the default max cap of villagers and I guess one thing that I would like to see improved in the future is stat implementation. As things stand the only way to “buff” or improve a Hearthlings stats is through jobs. This is a fair system as it allows them the “progress” of doing well in a job and being rewarded. One small gripe I have though is Hearthlings are given with random stats, for better or worse. Some Hearthlings are Super-People and other are more challenged so to speak.
My remedy for this would be to have a few different buildings become available once you reach your town reward threshold. The monument building phase. The new buildings would give blueprints to allow the building of a small library, gym, and the re-purposing of the shrine. The library would allow Hearthling’s to increase their mind stat, while the gym would increase their body, and the shrine their spirit. This would allow any Hearthling to reach the pinnacle of mind, body and spirit through hard work and dedication. The AI should force hearthlings to improve their worst stat during free time only, as work should be priority. If your town is successful enough that there are hours of recreation you are rewarded with Hearthlings improving their skills.
With any proposed system there also needs to be a balance. I think in order to balance this proposed opportunity for improvement we need the looming danger of regression. While performing jobs that they are unskilled at Hearthlings should have the misfortune to experience on job accidents, these accidents should have the chance of causing skill regression. Did your farmer trip over some vegetables and bang their head, minus one mind. Did your inexperienced Knight get too dinged up in battle, I guess it’s time for some physical therapy because minus one body. Of course not all these events should be permanent stat loses but I think a balance between temporary and permanent stat loss/gain would make for an interesting dynamic.
Since Hearthlings are capable of cross-training professions this gives more purpose to having a level 6 Blacksmith/Carpenter as it lets the player plan for some Hearthlings requiring downtime to “recover” or improve.
I’m sure there are many issues with this suggestion but I think this can add a layer of concern over our villagers and town, which at the moment feels a bit disjointed. While I’m sure there are plans to improve on the conversation and relationship system, I think this dynamic could enhance those features as the little Hearthlings gossip, love, hate and cry for one another. So far the most concern I felt in this play through happened tonight when some dirty kobolds spawned close to my town and sniped at one of my villagers. As the poor builders’ health ticked down to two bars I thought two things;
That’s kinda cheap yo, he doesn’t have the correct line of sight to hit from there
Please don’t die
So while I don’t want to see my Hearthlings suffer to a cruel universe, these types of events are what make me more invested in the well being of Hearthlings. The upside is the triumph of producing a super intelligent, buff bod, spiritual troupe of Hearthlings. At least until the next workplace accident, we’re looking at you Mer Burlyhands.
Yeah well, except Old Man Jenkins, my farmers aren’t the brightest anyways.
This is a system where you CAN do it, but at a penalty, as their XP growth slows down with each level they take, regardless of the class.
Look, according to his lawyers, it wasn’t his fault. There weren’t proper safety signs or guards to prevent what happened. OSHA will be by next week, and we can make a final ruling then.
I thought of stat improvement quite a time ago when I sketched my Cartesians mod. I updated the thread with new ideas lately (Scholar and Artist classes), take a look if you’re interested.
Wait a sec, do hearthlings actually benefit from their levels in previous classes? I just kinda assumed that if an herbalist became a cleric, he lost all of his old herbalist job abilities. They’re still listed under job abilities, but as (retired), so I assumed that meant he’s no longer gaining the benefits from those abilities because he isn’t that class currently. Am I wrong?
It depends really. Some jobs can do the activities of their previous job, for example, clerics can do the herbalist jobs and cooks can farm too. (In my opinion they should not, as this makes the previous class less valuable)
But a farmer that than changes job to a carpenter will not be able to farm.
I knew about cooks being able to do farming, but the cleric one is new on me. In my opinion though, the cook one isn’t as big a deal. The cook won’t help out with the farming unless their queue is already cleared, and you do still need a farmer, or else you can’t plant any new crops. Cooks can help harvest and replant crops, but they can’t create new fields. The cool thing about this though is that it means you can have 2 cooks and 2 farmers instead of 1 cook and 3 farmers. That way you’ve got 2 guys that are doing most of the work while the cooks are preparing meals, but once all the cooking is done, they run out into the fields to help out.
Also, I’m not sure HOW a cleric would help out, since their job has them patrolling constantly. Even if a cleric CAN craft herbalism potions and bandages, the only time they actually WOULD is if you manually forced them to stop patrolling by suspending their job.
This may seem like a really oddball question, but what about health? Every time that someone levels up in their chosen profession, they gain a small boost to their max health. Do these boosts stack? Or do they go away when someone changes jobs?
Basically, does a level 6 knight who was previously a level 3 footman have less health than a level 6 knight who was previously a level 6 footman?
Health stack. I even level then up in all fighting jobs to have more health. They will always be a level 6 footman and level 6 archer and a level 6 knight. Fighting classes level up really easy in the end game because enemies gives a lot of xp.
Further just because they’re “retired” doesn’t mean they can’t be reactivated. If you promote a level 6 blacksmith to engineer and then demote him to blacksmith, he’s still a level 6 blacksmith. This is an interesting mechanic with little to no use in the game as it stands. The same stands for combat jobs, if you level them up for more health but want a different composition you can demote them into your preferred roles. This is more useful than the previous example.
That much I already knew. I will generally use my “laborers” (farmers and workers) interchangeably. You only need a single high level farmer to be able to designate new fields and change what crops you’re growing. Other than that, the rest of your farms are basically little more than glorified ranch hands. So if I’ve got a ton of construction or mining that I need to do, I will demote a farmer or two to worker to get the job done faster, and then convert them back. Or vice versa, if I don’t have enough farmers at the moment and they’re taking too long to bring in the crops (potentially leading to wheat and corn rotting in the fields), I’ll promote a few workers to farmers for the day.
