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[thijser]

It might be a good idea if dwarfs making frends would actually be an advantage.
My idea is this if a dwarf doesn't have any frends he get's a strong unhappy though. If he got 1 or 2 frends he will get a slightly unhappy thought if he got 3 to 5 frends he remains neutral. If he has 6 to 9 frends he gets a happy though and if he got more then 9 he gets a really strong happy though.

This could be combined by the effect of a death frend. The strengt of a negative though gaint from a death frend is lowered by each other frend this dwarf has. This way if a dwarf has 50 frends and 3 of them die he won't go beserk and make all other 47 frends unhappy. This would also make parties a good thing.

[alamoes]

This would be good except in levels like good friend and best friend and so on.  Also, you should have dwarves go crazy and talk to inanimate objects.  Then those inanimate objects could be named and have friend levels and such.  Animals could work in a similiar way too. 

[thijser]

This would be good except in levels like good friend and best friend and so on.  Also, you should have dwarves go crazy and talk to inanimate objects.  Then those inanimate objects could be named and have friend levels and such.  Animals could work in a similiar way too.

that could be the more complex system. I don't know how much time toady is willing to invest in it but this would at least make shure it's no longer advantatages to have frendless dwarfs.

[snelg]

At least there's the good thoughts related to dwarves having friends. Like "Made a friend recently" and "Talked with a friend lately". And even "Talked with a spouse lately" apparently (but I haven't seen this one myself). So as long as you keep them alive they should be happier having friends. The problem is, as long as everyone is alive you most likely don't need that extra bit of happiness. And should they start dying they would get the bad thoughts instead. When you actually need the good ones.

In other words, there's at least an advantage to having friends as a dwarf. But the disadvantages seem a lot greater. Would be nice if there were more positive effects of friends.

[blazzano]

Another way to balance things out would be to adjust the friend death penalty according to how many other friends he has:

Negative friend death penalty = default penalty / no. of friends
With the final penalty rounded up, if it isn't a whole number.
^^^basic version, where a person with 2 friends gets half the normal penalty, and with 10 friends only gets 1/10th the penalty of a person with one friend.  For another possibility...

Negative friend death penalty = default penalty / ( ln(no. of friends)+1)
Again, with the final penalty rounded up.
^^^a more gradual reduction.  A dwarf with 2 friends gets about 60% of the normal penalty.  One with 5 friends gets 38% of the penalty, and with 20 friends it's 25%.

...and so on - you could do it in a million different ways.  This sort of adjustment makes sense to me, because the loss of one of fifty equally "important" friends doesn't seem as if it should be as profound as the loss of a dwarf's only friend.

You could add a "best friend" relationship, the loss of which would hit a dwarf as hard as always.  And the loss of a spouse or child should continue to have a nasty effect, since there generally aren't so many of those for any given dwarf.

[NW_Kohaku]

Urist McPopular: "Ooops! I just accidentally walled a friend into a sealed chamber, and basically sat around and drank booze instead of letting him out while his haunting screams grew fainter and fainter...

"Oh well, I've got more friends, anyway, easily replaced, and have you tried this legendary quarry bush leaf roast?! Eating it in that legendary dining room just plain makes me ecstatic!"

I think the problem lies purely in the way that the happiness system is set up, not that dwarves need more positives on their happiness meter.  Deaths of family members should not be easily completely counterbalanced by a really nice meal, nor should there be a simple tipping point of 0 happiness where tantrum spirals become so easily reached.

Basically, the entire happiness mechanic needs reworking, and Toady knows it.

[thijser]

Perhaps we could add a entire new system something with long therm and short term happiness. When long therm get's low a dwarfs goes into tantrum if short term goes low the dwarf will become less efficent and start taking more breaks.