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[Crossroads Inc.]

AHOY!
Long time D40 Poster, 1st time D-2022 Poster!

Did a couple forts just to get used to playing the game again, and am currently on my first "Real" fort which just entered its 4th year.
Midway through the 3rd year, I started seeing people flagged with "Missing time with family" now, I know there were many dwarves with family that had come to the fort, my military commander had two kids, and I figured "AH silly me! I'll give them another job so they can play with the kids!" seems simple right? nope...
The tag persisted, and as time went on I'd see it more and more. Eventually with people who don't even have family at the fort, but just have "family" And I start thinking "WTF mate?" are they just doomed? If someone has a huge family, moves to the fort, are they forever going to be sad and mopey unless THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY moves to the fort somehow?

But, as we may know, this is FAR from the only 'unmet need' that plagues our Dwarves.  I mention it, as it seems to be the most numerous.  But there are a whole host of other, rather, 'Ambiguous' things... "Has not helped someone" or "has not done something creative" and such...

Now, before it is said, Yes, I did google this, and there seems to be a good deal of debate about just how important "needs" are, if at all, or that some needs can't be met without an insane amount of micro-managing...

that said... I am curious how some of you out in Dwarf land deal with these issues?
So,

[Crossroads Inc.]

On another note, I totally posted this in the wrong part of the forum ;P
can a helpful mod move this to the general DF area?

[Telgin]

Can't help with moving the post, but for this and the other largely unsatisfiable needs I unfortunately just ignore them.  From experience they seem to have very marginal impact, so sweating over them isn't really important.  I make an effort to set up taverns and temples so that some of those basic needs can be met, and that does it for most dwarves.  The ones it doesn't keep happy are usually unpleasable.

While I think it's fine and realistic that dwarves can perpetually miss their families, I do wish that there was a way to let dwarves make crafts as a hobby though, to satisfy those needs.

[A_Curious_Cat]

On another note, I totally posted this in the wrong part of the forum ;P
can a helpful mod move this to the general DF area?

Near the bottom left corner of the page there’s a button labeled “Move Topic”.

[Saiko Kila]

Not all unmet needs are worth considering. It depends not only how realistically easy to fulfil they are, but also if the dwarf in question is stress resistant or not, and if that need is important to him or not. Ultimately also if the dwarf is important to YOU.

Regarding stress resistance, if you use Dwarf Therapist, you can check Depression Propensity. Low value most probably means the dwarf will be perpetually happy, high value means he will be perpetually unhappy, even if most needs are fulfilled. You don't need to check these values in DT, if they are way below/above average, Dwarf Fortress on its own will give info in their description (In Overview and in Personality/Traits). For example one with high Depression Propensity will have "Depression-prone" in Overview and something like "She is frequently depressed after experiencing trauma" in Personality/Traits. There are also similar traits, Stress Vulnerability (Easily stressed) and Anger Propensity (Anger-prone). High values are bad, and you may need to manage the dwarf (or goblin) more.

Whether the need is important you can see in Thoughts/Recent Thoughts (thinks like "dejected" or "self-pity"). You can check how important the emotion is here: https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Emotion, if it's closer to 1 (or -1 for positive emotions) it's more important than when it's closer to 8 (or -8). So the lack of family member or lover may be not that pressing as it seems.

Now, if you have an important dwarf, who is prone to depression, and don't wont to ignore it, you need to manage the dwarf. I have such a dwarf in Military Commander, who unfortunately has Depression Propensity at 98 (had lower before some bloody event increased it). Apart from general things (like good bedrooms with items made from liked materials, good food and drinks available, clothes, tavern etc.) I micro-manage only two things: workshops for dwarves who want to be creative, and temples.

I make individual workshops for certain dwarves (they need to be "master" and only the master can work in such workshop), and order to make item or a few per month in these workshops.

Temples are more involved, but apart from general temple, I make temples for popular gods, as well for popular religions (which can be dedicated to these same gods, but require a different temple). In temples I make displays, where I put stuff like menacing steel spikes to increase value if necessary, but this only if the worshippers want such big temple.

Now, I noticed that most dwarves who are unhappy in a generally very happy fortress are military dwarves, like my commander. The reason is often that they don't fulfil they need when off duty, because they train instead. These needs are like meeting with family, friends, socialising or praying (quite religious dwarves are notorious for that). The way to make them fulfil they need is to move them, temporarily at least, to a squad which doesn't have barrack assigned. When the dwarves are off duty, they will try to fulfil the need.

[Mobbstar]

Addendum regarding stress resistance:  Also beware that Anxiety Propensity makes it more difficult for dwarves to lose stress if they build it up somehow.  Some dwarves may well swing between stressed and tranquil on regular basis and are fine that way.  "Nervous wrecks" were often a lost cause for me in v0.47.05, especially if they were "often sad" about a missing family member.

[Salmeuk]

three thoughts:

1. the relative popularity of premium has lead to a increase of fresh eyes, and thus increased bug reporting
2. DF has never not contained bugs, and in the current cycle it would be a bit ridiculous to expect immediate fixes considering the tectonic changes occurring under the hood
3. extra protein ;]

DF dev cycles are not for the impatient. if you find the rate of progress frustrating, well... we've all been there. just forget about the game for a year or two and *maybe* something major will have changed upon your return

this great pile of bugs is THE elephant in the room here, and no rapport will be earned on these forums for highlighting its existence

[pganon]

I have the same issues, and for the first time. The likely reason is that I played with "very short history", trying to conserve FPS. Almost all dorfs are now "one of the first of their kind" and have no family at all. But still want to spend time with it... That said, the impact is negligible.

According to my observation, "practise a craft" is the most impactful need. It also has a few follow-up complaints: doing something creative, staying occupied, practise a skill. I have a row of forges for non-legendary smiths where bolt forging is on repeat. Whenever some task gives me a daisy chain of dorfs, like collecting goblinite or cleaning a cavern, I switch on weaponsmithing for them. I then move to the copper stockpile, and as soon as anyone grabs a copper bar, I switch the task off again.

That has two neat side effects: I always have enough bolts, and 80% of artefacts are weapons.

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

As for the "be with friends" need I noticed some dwarf that got it dien't really have many friends. So if a dwarf is depressed and not seeing his friends seems to be important, I make them tavern keeper - as I noticed the tavern keepers make a lot of friends.

My idea is to sort of circulate the tavern keeper function to create many friendships. This also increases the chance of a positive mood boost from socializing if they run into their friends.

[Telgin]

That's a good suggestion I hadn't considered before.  It seems like it's probably a good way to work on relationships between dwarves in general, and I'm going to try it out when I boot the game back up to see if I can get my expedition leader married.  She's just been a lover with a farmer for 4 years despite me periodically locking them in a room together to chat.  I think they may not be triggering a marriage due to the burrow restriction, but if she's the tavern keeper that would make her come into contact with him more without that being a problem.

[FantasticDorf]

I see this a lot with visitors, but that's sort of attached to the plague of having 12 cousins, 15 aunts etc all living in other fortresses or world settlements being common the entire game-world over.

Interestingly when you accept citizenship for a long term residency, it seems to bring more of their family to gravitate towards you as a visitor in a profession, so it is possible to rebuild a newly emigrated visitor family (including the spouse, who joins a rented room/citizenship application for free if they arrive), compared to just waiting for migrations for your own dwarves feeling lonely.