As glorious as I think having to care about my dwarves feelings again is, I think this balance may have gone a bit far. I have a thriving fort with every good and pleasant thing a dwarf could want in it. I killed ten goblins two years ago, lost a Dwarf doing it, then cleaned up the bodies. A couple trolls attacked from the caverns. One doofus drank himself to death in the middle of the tavern. My fort teeters on the brink of collapse with a third of the population flashing red arrows, tantrums common, and borderline terminal insanity breaking out all over the place.
Almost every Dwarf in the fort has every single long term memory occupied by either watching goblins die or seeing dead goblins. Those memories are so strong they aren't getting replaced so my whole fort is constantly getting hammered with tons of negative thoughts. Even some stress-resistant Dwarves in my military are feeling the strain.
As far as I can tell there are only two things holding it together. First, my mayor has great social skills and likes helping people; there is a line out his office door for a chance to yell at/cry on him. He's brought several back from the brink of terminal insanity and is keeping many others moving. Second, I've turtled through the next two sieges because even if I won the fight I'd still lose the fort.
Yepp the "seeing dead body" thoughts are way too strong. Those thoughts alone are the reason why the system is imbalanced right now.
They should only happen when the dead body is a dwarf or a citizen of your fort. That would balance the system completely. I don't think dwarves should give a single fuck about dead goblins, elves or humans.
Here's the emotions list and their strengths btw:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:EmotionThe strongest happy thoughts (-1's) are
Adoration -1
Bliss -1
Delight -1
Joy -1
Jubilation -1
Love -1
Lust -1
Rapture -1
You need one of these to become a long-term memory to overwrite the dead bodies atm. Everything below (-2 to -8) are not strong enough to overwrite -1's. Easiest way to do it is by creating temples to pray in to get the enraptured emotion ingrained in their brains. But the other -1's are very hard to get, some like love and lust require social relationships (which don't form properly atm since socialization is bugged) and the others like adoration, bliss etc may require RNG like having a child or talking with a child etc.
Compare it with the worst negative thoughts
Agony 1
Anguish 1
Despair 1
Fear 1
Horror 1
Misery 1
Panic 1
Rage 1
Shaken 1
Shock 1
Terror 1
Wrath 1
It is way easier to get stuff like Rage (argument in a tavern, happens constantly) and horror, panic and shaken (getting attacked in a tavern brawl, or seeing a body).