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[RPB]

I really don't think strange moods are adding all that much to the game. You just randomly either get a legendary dwarf or a psycho and there's only so much you can do to influence which way it goes or when or where it happens. For a lot of skills it's already fairly easy to get legendary skill in a year or two, so all the legendaries you get from fey moods are just overkill. But since the alternative is death by craziness it's really only fair that you get such a great reward; possessed moods help cut down on the number of legendary dwarves you get, but they just suck because they're pretty much just punishment (if you succeed, you get an artifact you can't use, if you fail you lose a dwarf).

So I think instead of having so many fey/secretive moods or even possessions, there should be another more common type of mood with smaller effects. Like... the dwarf just becomes miserable and throws a couple tantrums if they fail to make what they want, and maybe they only make a fancy decorated masterpiece instead of a real artifact. Then they could get a couple of ranks in the skill when they're done, instead of going straight from novice to legendary. So you'd still have a bunch of dwarves going into moods and demanding that you scramble to find what they want, but it wouldn't matter quite as much whether they succeed or fail because they wouldn't always end up legendary or dead.

[Aquillion]

Making artifacts interesting is a planned feature.  Balancing the artifact creation process should probably wait until that is in and there's a concrete idea of what artifacts actually do.

[RPB]

I'm really not sure what that has to do with anything. The problem isn't anything to do with artifacts, it's that the process itself is too extreme. How exactly would better artifact effects somehow make the process less extreme? If artifacts were more of a benefit, then that just means you'd be getting even more great stuff randomly. If artifacts had drawbacks to them, then that just means you'd be getting even more big penalties randomly. So unless artifacts usually result in resurrecting dwarves who died to insanity, or removing legendary status from dwarves who just randomly achieved it from a strange mood, then the problem is going to still be pretty much the same either way.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: RPB ]

[Aquillion]

Because we don't know what role artifacts are going to play in the metagame yet.  Later on, it could turn out that it's important for dwarves to crank out at least one minor artifact a year to keep the game interesting or some such thing.

[qalnor]

I agree with you that one way or another, it's going to have to change no matter how good or not good the artifacts are. But the way in which it changes, I think, will probably depend on the way artifacts are implemented.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: qalnor ]

[RPB]

That doesn't really make sense, unless the rest of the game turns stupid. Artifacts don't really do anything now and the game is still interesting, right? Besides, if it turns out there's some point really late in the game like around year 10 or so when artifacts start to become necessary, then the fey moods can start turning up more often around then. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't just randomly have so many dwarves going insane or instantly turning legendary in the early years, because you end up getting way too much super high quality stuff too early. But I think there should still be some "lesser" version of fey moods around early on, so you still have that challenge of trying to supply dwarves, it just doesn't have such a huge impact on the early game.

And I don't just mean possessions, because it's not really all that fair that you get a lower reward while still having a penalty that's just as bad as a dwarf in a fey mood who fails.

[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: RPB ]

[Kjoery]

I really like the rate of fey moods; personally, I wouldn't mind it increasing. All it requires is planning; early game, fey moods generally dont demand much, and late games, you should have planned for them anyways; ie. dont cut all your gems, save some of your leather/cloth, dont chasm bones, corpses, etc.

My current game has 6 artifacts out of the 10 attempts, which is great, really, and the only reason why 2 of them failed was because I was chaming bones.

Other games have had the same ratio; 60-80% sucesses, which seems right, and a good side effect of fey moods is instant legendaryship, most of the time.

I dont think it should be changed at all.

[RPB]

quote:Originally posted by Kjoery:
<STRONG>Other games have had the same ratio; 60-80% sucesses, which seems right, and a good side effect of fey moods is instant legendaryship, most of the time.</STRONG>

Exactly. That's WAY TOO MANY legendary dwarves for free. I just had my first fey mood in my latest game: a peasant immigrant grabbed two chunks of stone and a chunk of wood and turned into a legendary stone carver in two minutes. That's retarded. I have a legendary stonecarver at the very beginning of the second year without having to do anything! Legendary status should be something you work at, not just get randomly dumped on you almost for free. But getting legendary skill is a fair trade off for the risk of randomly losing important dwarves when they demand something stupid, like wanting diamonds when you've just barely spotted the chasm. So that's why there should be a weaker mood that happens more often early on, where you don't actually lose so much if you fail (like having them just go sad instead of going crazy) but you don't gain so much if you succeed (getting a couple skill ups instead of instant legendary).

[Oboro]

I had four out of five possessions/moods fail in my most recent fortress because of poor timing. Without fail, they would come right after I discovered one of the geologic features of the mountain, meaning that the dwarves requests' incorporated materials found BEYOND that feature, materials I was not able to scrounge up in time to save the poor fellows.

And yes, that accounts for three of the four, and the fourth was because a metalsmith required a lava forge to work with, and I hadn't even discovered any iron yet despite my best efforts, so he was just a dead man walking.

[Kjoery]

RPB, I dont know how you maange it, but I've been playing for awile, and the only legendaries I manage to get naturally are miners, and my dungeon master turned into a legendary animal caretaker. I have had devoted drawves throughout the years, but it does take a long time, and sometimes they do have to do other things. I've never found the number of legendaries I get from moods to be "too many" so far, and I've beaten the game now (with a millitary force, not by squishing them like sissies do), which takes quite a bit of playing.

I like the feeling of excitement, seeing a dwarf running around, wondering if you'll have what he needs, and seeing what he makes, as well as the knowledge that my planning will pay off (via. a legendary), and it DOES take planning, like it does to naturally get a legendary.

[ September 01, 2006: Message edited by: Kjoery ]

[RPB]

Kjoery, go back and read what I said about my latest fey mood. I got a legendary stonecarver in Early Spring of the 2nd year. My miner of course was also legendary by that point, so that means after 1 year of playing, with a population of 25, I had 2 legendary dwarves. Almost TEN PERCENT of my fortress consisted of LEGENDS. How can you say that's not way too many?! And usually the % goes up from there if anything. In my longest-running fortress before I got bored, I had 6 of my 7 starters legendary by the end of the 4th year, and the 7th was a "Great Marksdwarf" so he was getting pretty close too. Plus all but the newest of my immigrant miners had gone legendary (although I didn't get very many that game) and about a third to half of my engravers had gone legendary, plus I had a legendary jeweler and a legendary woodcutter and a legendary craftsdwarf of some sort and a legendary metal crafter. Oh, and a legendary carpenter. That's like... 16 or 17 legendary dwarves, unless I'm forgetting some, and I stopped playing that game when it had a population of 130.

OK, so only 5 of those were actually from strange moods. Really mining/engraving get to legendary a little bit too fast, too. But still, having so many easy legendaries from moods just kills all the meaning of being legendary. "Oh yay, another legend. Toss all his masterpieces onto the pile with everyone else's."

These are supposed to be LEGENDS here we're talking about. They should be rare, not so common that your announcement box gets flooded with spam about them making masterpieces (and I didn't even have most of those legends doing anything that produced masterpieces).

[Aquillion]

quote:Originally posted by RPB:
<STRONG>These are supposed to be LEGENDS here we're talking about.</STRONG>

Hey, that reminds me of something.  Do dwarves who reach legendary level in a skill actually get a note about it on their legends page?  I haven't noticed, but it would make sense.  It could just say something at the top like "He was a legendary metalworker" or something like that.

[Toady One]

Anything like a "characteristic" rather than an "event" won't appear in the legends right now.  I think the site legend writeups will be much more interesting when it gives you stats and puts you in perspective with some of your other attempts.  Right now it's just a laundry list of meagre happenings that you can't uncover without chatting for hours in adventure mode.