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[Dwarf_Fever]

A master smith who has made 500 masterworks and loses one has a negligible bad thought because he has plenty more.
A dwarf who has a social network of 100 friends and loses 2 is worse off than a dwarf with only 1 friend who loses that friend to tragedy.

The latter should work like the former, instead.

[nogoodnames]

That's a pretty cold-hearted and simplistic way to look at things.

Also, talking with friends provides good thoughts, so the game already simulates dwarves with a strong support network of friends getting over loss easier, at least to some extent.

[Dwarf_Fever]

That's a pretty cold-hearted and simplistic way to look at things.

Not at all. It's common sense to see that a dwarf with a network of 98 friends left is not going to be nearly as devastated at the loss of 2, as a dwarf whose only single friend is now gone. It is even more simplistic and cold-hearted to say "that dwarf who lost his only friend in life should be just fine, after all, it was just one."

Also, talking with friends provides good thoughts, so the game already simulates dwarves with a strong support network of friends getting over loss easier, at least to some extent.

Any sort of practical experience with dwarf fortress should tell you that this impact is absolutely negligible in the face of current mechanics for grief. Currently, being socially well-adjusted and having a network of friends is nothing other than a liability.

[nogoodnames]

1. You are assuming that a dwarf with few friends has a deeper relationship with each than one with many friends. In reality, that dwarf may just have trouble forming strong relationships and be no more connected to each of their friends than a dwarf with 200. A better solution would be to introduce new friendship levels with differing degrees of loss depending on how strong the friendship is.

2. That is an argument for adjusting the benefits and risks of dwarven relationships, not for introducing an arbitrary system to lessen loss.

[Dwarf_Fever]

If you think that having a social network of friends should be equal to a murderous psychopath waiting to happen, by all means my suggestion would seem "arbitrary" to someone with that sort of logic.

That is an argument for adjusting the benefits and risks of dwarven relationships, not for introducing an arbitrary system to lessen loss.

However, lessening loss in certain circumstances is exactly what needs to happen in adjusting the benefits and risks of dwarven relationships. That being said, there can be different ways of going about it.

[nogoodnames]

To be clear, I agree that there is a problem with how relationships and bad thoughts work right now, but I think the solution needs to be more thought out than copy-pasting the masterwork destruction code in.

[Dwarf_Fever]

If you look up guides on how to cope with grief, nearly all of them will say that one, if not the most, important factor in recovering from grief is having the support of people around you, friends or family that you trust and who will listen and grieve with you.

The system currently works in an opposite manner, where having more friends is just a catastrophe scheduled to happen and they offer virtually zero effective recovery assistance. Practically anything would make more sense. There should be a benefit to having more of a social network, rather than have it be a penalty.

Time and attention are finite, and, ceteris paribus, someone who spends all their social time with a single friend will inevitably have a more significant connection to that person than someone who divides their social time between 100 different people.

"All my friends have died and I am alone in the world" should by all means be a terrible thought, but it shouldn't have nearly the same impact if all their friends have not in fact died, and some are still there for them to soften the blow even further. All this is why a fractional approach to adding grief makes much more sense.

You could come up with more complex or round-about ways of doing it, but sometimes Occam's Razor is the sharpest.

[Bumber]

Add a strong happy thought for being comforted by friends after the loss? Could even be in the form of a funeral.

Subsequent losses could be less tragic.

[Dwarf_Fever]

Add a strong happy thought for being comforted by friends after the loss? Could even be in the form of a funeral.

Subsequent losses could be less tragic.

Funerals! I really like that idea.

[King Mir]

Subsequent losses could be less tragic.

The only reason a second friend's death would have less of an impact then the first (all else bing equal) is if the dwarf willfully didn't allow himself to get as attached. That sort of mechanic could be modeled directly.

[Bumber]

The only reason a second friend's death would have less of an impact then the first (all else bing equal) is if the dwarf willfully didn't allow himself to get as attached. That sort of mechanic could be modeled directly.

It's essentially similar to "doesn't care about anything anymore", but I don't think that applies to deaths you haven't witnessed.

[Putnam]

This is all pretty moot given the complete thought rework coming next release. Let's wait and see about how that works out.

[Dwarf_Fever]

This is all pretty moot given the complete thought rework coming next release. Let's wait and see about how that works out.

On the contrary, this might be the best time to raise issues like this...

[smjjames]

Well, 119 new emotions, plus 48 more (or maybe he meant 48 of those 119) that haven't been finished yet, so we'll just have to see what mechanics are in place now.