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[Leonidas]

A major effect of building a fortress in evil surroundings should be that stress accumulates faster. Stress should accumulate more slowly in good surroundings.

[Shonai_Dweller]

A major effect of building a fortress in evil surroundings should be that stress accumulates faster. Stress should accumulate more slowly in good surroundings.

Why?
"Good" surroundings are completely alien to the way dwarves live and are full of vicious unicorns, booze stealing gnomes and Elves. Seems stressful.

[Leonidas]

A major effect of building a fortress in evil surroundings should be that stress accumulates faster. Stress should accumulate more slowly in good surroundings.

Why?
"Good" surroundings are completely alien to the way dwarves live and are full of vicious unicorns, booze stealing gnomes and Elves. Seems stressful.

New players could use Good Surroundings to learn the game with minimal risk of a tantrum spiral. Experienced players could choose Evil Surroudings to add an extra layer of stress difficulty in addition to the weather, reanimation, and difficult wildlife.

Besides, doesn't it make sense that dwarves would be less stressed when their surroundings are Serene, Mirthful, and Joyous? And doesn't it make sense that they would be more stressed in lands that are Sinister, Haunted, and Terrifying?

[bloop_bleep]

Dwarves hate serenity and mirthfulness and all that elven crap. The right place for a dwarf is in a cold stony hole, munching raw mushrooms in the dark.

[Shonai_Dweller]

This just seems like another misguided, "how to help new players with the broken stress system" post. When the answer is, fix it (planned). Besides, "good" and "bad" biomes are being phased out with Mythgen in favour of sphere based biomes.

Dwarves should get stressed when they see their reainimated arm throttle their pals. They should get stressed when gnomes drink all their booze leaving them dehydrated. They should get stressed when goblins start trying to dig them out, just as they should be stressed as elves do the same.

So, yes, awareness of the big picture, what's going on around them, and having that effect their mental health is something that would be good for the game. I guess some of the natural surroundings might contribute directly to that. Soothing trees might be something which grows in a dreams biome (until dorfs need to chop them down to make beds...).

[Sarmatian123]

This just seems like another misguided, "how to help new players with the broken stress system" post. When the answer is, fix it (planned).

There is already a temporary fix for the broken stress system.
regionX/raw/objects/creature_standard.txt
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
This fix makes it easy to manage stressed Dwarves, as you usually need to get them just focused. Focused Dwarves are efficient in relieving stress. It works in my game so long. It did stopped the red arrow cancer, but it does not remove red arrows or stress entirely from the game. Just makes stress more manageable.

[Uthimienure]

This just seems like another misguided, "how to help new players with the broken stress system" post. When the answer is, fix it (planned).

There is already a temporary fix for the broken stress system.
regionX/raw/objects/creature_standard.txt
[PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY:0:0:0]
This fix makes it easy to manage stressed Dwarves, as you usually need to get them just focused. Focused Dwarves are efficient in relieving stress. It works in my game so long. It did stopped the red arrow cancer, but it does not remove red arrows or stress entirely from the game. Just makes stress more manageable.

It might be a good idea to mention that your embark started in DF version 0.40.24 (released in January 7, 2015) when you post about stress, because my embarks in 0.47.04 seem to be a much different experience than you had. I'm just a little concerned that others who didn't see when you mentioned 0.40.24 will get the wrong idea about stress balance in the current version 0.47.04. There seems to be less need for adjusting PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY in 0.47.04. Thanks in advance!

[Sarmatian123]

It might be a good idea to mention that your embark started in DF version 0.40.24 (released in January 7, 2015) when you post about stress, because my embarks in 0.47.04 seem to be a much different experience than you had. I'm just a little concerned that others who didn't see when you mentioned 0.40.24 will get the wrong idea about stress balance in the current version 0.47.04. There seems to be less need for adjusting PERSONALITY:STRESS_VULNERABILITY in 0.47.04. Thanks in advance!

Good point. I made embark in 0.47.04 and after 5 years the largest embark zone's bug killed its play-ability. I did not provide any sleeping rooms and just basic Dwarven alcohols. Still, despite rain, I had not a single depressed Dwarf. Toady supposedly made test and run fortress with 20 types of booze for 5 years with not a single depressed Dwarf until sieges arrived with dead bodies and gore.

However, this old embark was already played for 5 game-years on 0.40.24. I played on 0.47.04 this embark then for additional 27 game-years. This is not covered even by Toady's tests. Majority of mechanics are working. I copied raws from 0.47.04 into my save and tweaked them, so I have functional library for example with 2 books so far and 1 copy and Dwarves keep reading those just fine. Guildhalls are working also as advertised for socializing. Still all 271 Dwarves are vastly affected in personality changes almost exclusively by rain. Maybe this rain issue has been addressed in last 5 years of DF development, but then why it still affecting my old embark, when I play it on 0.47.04? A rain is a rain, right?

I am sure some new players' embarks will have lots of noob issues, which will cause even more stress on Dwarves, then some stress relieving features missing from this old embark. Won't you agree? That is, specially if they keep playing it and playing it for a long time.

[Pillbo]

I don't know, hating nature you live around still seems a lot less stressful than living in absolute terror. You can hide in your happy rock fortress from unicorns, elves and gnomes, but that is no protection from the psychological horror of a reanimating biome. It seems logical to me.

[Uthimienure]

... I am sure some new players' embarks will have lots of noob issues, which will cause even more stress on Dwarves, then some stress relieving features missing from this old embark. Won't you agree? That is, specially if they keep playing it and playing it for a long time.

I don't know what to say, other than in general my forts are much better for stress balance in 0.47.04 than in 0.44.12 even.

In my latest, I'm deliberately making my dorfs go outside frequently, especially the military, who have to travel outside through rain and snow from the entrance to various castle towers to train. All the other dorfs go outside to haul wood and animals too. After 3 years of this none of them have a significant problem. The worst is my captain of the guard who is stressed by dead bodies to +2.6k. Of course, I'm still waiting for a siege, so who knows what will happen then.

I guess we will just have to see what happens with the noobs!

[Leonidas]

The point of this suggestion was not to fix the stress sytem.

The point was
1. to give players the option to add or subtract stress-related difficulty, and
2. to gives more meaning to the choice of surroundings. A terrifying area should feel like a horror movie, where everyone is on edge and you have to cook the lavish meals and put up the expensive decorations to keep everyone from going insane. As it is, a terrifying area is mostly just a "don't go outside" area.

[Bumber]

I don't know, hating nature you live around still seems a lot less stressful than living in absolute terror. You can hide in your happy rock fortress from unicorns, elves and gnomes, but that is no protection from the psychological horror of a reanimating biome. It seems logical to me.

That's already factored in by the bad thoughts from being attacked by undead, and then reliving it.

Not sure how dwarves feel about staring eyes and wormy tendrils. Maybe that's offset by the joy of seeing dead trees.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I don't know, hating nature you live around still seems a lot less stressful than living in absolute terror. You can hide in your happy rock fortress from unicorns, elves and gnomes, but that is no protection from the psychological horror of a reanimating biome. It seems logical to me.

That's already factored in by the bad thoughts from being attacked by undead, and then reliving it.

Not sure how dwarves feel about staring eyes and wormy tendrils. Maybe that's offset by the joy of seeing dead trees.

Yeah, everything which can happen to you in an evil biome gives stressful thoughts. No need for additional on top of that. Dwarves live in close proximity to floating guts and vicious sponges. Wormy tendrils probably don't bother them much more.

[Pillbo]

I don't know, hating nature you live around still seems a lot less stressful than living in absolute terror. You can hide in your happy rock fortress from unicorns, elves and gnomes, but that is no protection from the psychological horror of a reanimating biome. It seems logical to me.

That's already factored in by the bad thoughts from being attacked by undead, and then reliving it.

It's good enough because of those IMO, because I don't want more sources of stress which I find not-fun. But realistically speaking being stressed from events in your life isn't the same as being stressed from your environment.  If you live in a warzone you are under constant high levels of stress because of worry and uncertainty about what could happen to you and your loved ones, even if nothing has happened to them yet. Living in an unpredictable evil biome is comparable to that, logically speaking it should be stressful just being there day 1, because of fear of the unknown. 

But I hope that doesn't happen because evil biomes are hard enough.

Edit - Another logical stress source I don't want, stress from being under siege.