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[Schmaven]

I have found atom smashing to be an excellent solution to stress.  In a world where multiple previous forts have either been retired or have gone down (in one spectacular case to a dragon), many migrant dwarves are re-migrating to new fortresses as I oversee them.  The current one is intended to be the capital of Dorf Island, and we will not tolerate dwarves who start fights over and over again.

Any dwarf who enters with a red status arrow is checked.  Any who are subsequently found to have personality traits making them susceptible to stress (almost 100% of cases, things like "doesn't handle stress well" or my favorite "is in a constant state of internal rage") are immediately sent to the garbage disposal via military conscription for atom-smashing.  It's clean, no bodies to worry about.  Engrave a slab, install it, and you're done.

It's been very, very effective thus far.

Expelling is just as efficient. And doesn't involve forcing players to kill their dwarves.
Gotta fix the "child not present" bug though.

For some reason the dwarves I expel always come back.  Death seems to be the only liberation from their stress induced mischief.

Are you expelling them, or sending them off to one of your holdings (like the dark pits which are now handily economically linked to your site  )? Just wondering if having them roam the wilderness near your site makes them more likely to try to come back.

I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed.  It's like they forgot they were expelled.  It's more of a timeout than an expulsion.  I don't even bother with expelling them now, it just kicks the can down the road.

[Loci]

I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed.

According to Toady's devlog on 6/15/18, expelled citizens should not return in subsequent immigration waves. (That likely doesn't apply to new fortresses, retired/unretired fortresses, etc.) If you have an example of an expelled dwarf immigrating back to your fortress, please report the bug on the tracker.

[Schmaven]

I was just expelling them, but they all come back a few seasons later, just as stressed.

According to Toady's devlog on 6/15/18, expelled citizens should not return in subsequent immigration waves. (That likely doesn't apply to new fortresses, retired/unretired fortresses, etc.) If you have an example of an expelled dwarf immigrating back to your fortress, please report the bug on the tracker.

They don't come back with immigrant waves at all, just randomly on their own.  I suppose I'll hold off on dumping them into the pit and see if I can get some more details about it if it is indeed not supposed to work this way.

[Rekov]

I think the two points that have been made in here that most strike home are the following:

1: The causes of stress need to intuitively make sense to the player.
Things like being rained on should never cause a Dwarf to have serious stress related problems. Stress should have to do with things like worrying about there being enough food/drink, or having a strong enough military to defend against the local dangers.  Being locked in a fortress under siege should cause stress. Being responsible for all of a large fortress' food might cause stress.

It's difficult, because these kind of higher level concerns would seem to require a lot more sophistication than stress that is the result of simple one-off events.


2: Dwarves with the ability to alleviate their stress need to do so without micromanagement.
If perfectly good lavish meals of favoured ingredients are sitting around in a stockpile, dwarves need to eat them at STFU about the food. If there is a temple to a dwarf's deity available, they need to pray and be done with it. If they need to socialize, they should do that without needing to be locked into a room with other dwarves.

The problem here is essentially that the player does their part (collective will of the fortress), but that isn't good enough. They currently also need to trick the dwarves into doing their part, and they shouldn't have to.

[GoblinCookie]

In other words, the AI needs improving.

[Scruiser]

I'll second the big things others have already repeatedly said: greatly reduced to negative response to rain/snow (maybe give immunity with hoods and cloaks?); cap out the effect of repeated exposures in the case of cleaning up goblin corpses... maybe even add a positive effect for seeing enemy corpses if the dwarf has the right personality; less micromanagement of emotional needs through more automation of dwarf's seeking their own needs; limiting factors that balance out the downward spiral of PTSD and dwelling on negative memories and developing negative personality traits.

This falls under automation, but it was really bothering me in a recent game, so I'll emphasize it further... in the previous version where dwarfs regularly held parties when given sufficient free time, it was straightforward for the dwarves to form friendships and relationships.  In this version, I've seen multiple dwarves that only have "passing acquaintances", no friends, no lovers.  I make sure they have wide swathes of time open... and they read books okay and pray/meditate and even "socialize" at taverns, but they never actually form friendships.  It seems like something about the new tavern system screwed up the socialization mechanic and/or the meeting hall mechanic so that dwarf don't properly form relationships.  I've seen some speculation that the radius at which socialization happens means that too large taverns/temples/libraries cause dwarves to never actually socialize.  The wiki recommends burrowing dwarves together to force relationships if the player needs babies (for instance in the case of dead civs). Whatever the mechanism, it needs to be changed to allow more friendships to occur more easily.  Also, even if the dwarf has friends/family, they never seem to proactively seek out interaction.  I had a dwarf that had a wife and three kids (came with him in the migration wave) and plenty of free time with worsening negative thoughts from never seeing friends and negative thoughts from never seeing family.

So make dwarfs seek out friends (and family) to socialize with during their "No Job" times and make them automatically do so if their need is bad enough.  Maybe even bring back the old party system and allow dwarfs to organize parties.

[Mephansteras]

I haven't had too many issues, but I will chime in that the thing that annoys me the most is dwarves with a persistent bad thought of a fixable nature that they just don't do. I have a dwarf in one fort who constantly feels sad because they don't get enough interaction. I have multiple meeting areas and taverns with people in them at all times. Just go take a break and hang out!

Or the other dwarf who has multiple negative thoughts from not praying...but I have a temple to that god. Just...go pray! It's what it is there for!

[Rumrusher]

do wanna say it's just Them remembering all the stressful moments in their life is causing the stress uptick. like I think taverns back before the remember update only downside were the spies, artifact hunters and probably the dwarves potential of getting so drunk they suffocate on their booze and/or get into fist fights killing each other, and most of that is manageable.

so before you need to like combo a series of bad emotional trauma to super stress a dwarf out, where now there's a bucket that just sits in the dwarf's mind and constantly pools over negative energy, and said negative energy can add negative energy that stresses the dwarf out. though now I wonder is it possible for an adventurer to calm down someone dealing with high stress? like the player can give gifts and talk about stuff and do performances which all these are mood boosters.

[âbirtobul]

New player, had about 5 forts now ranging from 1-5 years in duration.

If I see a dwarf is stressed I read their thoughts and feel pretty good about being able to improve their situation. Unless its after a bloody siege. I'm learning I have to quarantine those. If my dwarfs kinda ignore my commands tho it can be tricky. I do sometimes kill high stress dorfs discretely.

On the dwarf labor screen I have numbers that show stress 0, -5000, etc. I'm not sure if that is an addon or base game but it helps me a looot. If that's an addon I'd suggest something similar for new players to track the meta stress of their colony.

[Rumrusher]

New player, had about 5 forts now ranging from 1-5 years in duration.

If I see a dwarf is stressed I read their thoughts and feel pretty good about being able to improve their situation. Unless its after a bloody siege. I'm learning I have to quarantine those. If my dwarfs kinda ignore my commands tho it can be tricky. I do sometimes kill high stress dorfs discretely.

On the dwarf labor screen I have numbers that show stress 0, -5000, etc. I'm not sure if that is an addon or base game but it helps me a looot. If that's an addon I'd suggest something similar for new players to track the meta stress of their colony.

this depends are you using Lazy newb pack or just download fresh from toady links Dwarf fortress?
because I don't think the game legit tells you how stressed the dwarves are on a number standpoint or how happy they are going by the -5000.

[Splint]

New player, had about 5 forts now ranging from 1-5 years in duration.

If I see a dwarf is stressed I read their thoughts and feel pretty good about being able to improve their situation. Unless its after a bloody siege. I'm learning I have to quarantine those. If my dwarfs kinda ignore my commands tho it can be tricky. I do sometimes kill high stress dorfs discretely.

On the dwarf labor screen I have numbers that show stress 0, -5000, etc. I'm not sure if that is an addon or base game but it helps me a looot. If that's an addon I'd suggest something similar for new players to track the meta stress of their colony.

this depends are you using Lazy newb pack or just download fresh from toady links Dwarf fortress?
because I don't think the game legit tells you how stressed the dwarves are on a number standpoint or how happy they are going by the -5000.

It's a DFhack plugin.

do wanna say it's just Them remembering all the stressful moments in their life is causing the stress uptick. like I think taverns back before the remember update only downside were the spies, artifact hunters and probably the dwarves potential of getting so drunk they suffocate on their booze and/or get into fist fights killing each other, and most of that is manageable.

so before you need to like combo a series of bad emotional trauma to super stress a dwarf out, where now there's a bucket that just sits in the dwarf's mind and constantly pools over negative energy, and said negative energy can add negative energy that stresses the dwarf out. though now I wonder is it possible for an adventurer to calm down someone dealing with high stress? like the player can give gifts and talk about stuff and do performances which all these are mood boosters.

The memory system is definitely shouldering a huge part of it, and it's made worse with the currently-broken socialization not providing the relationships necessary to combat the bad memories without serious micromanagement or packing dorfs into a tiny space for a year or more with literally nothing else to do (not even pray or visit libraries.) All the "satisfied" and such thoughts clearly don't have the same weight to match a lot of the bad thoughts - I'm sure I'm not alone is seeing stressed out dwarves with almost nothing but positives but the one negative they remember (usually disgust, trauma, or irritation/dejection/embarrassment) is keeping them hyper stressed.

[Rekov]

What if instead of getting stressed for getting rained/snowed on, there was instead 'stress for lacking proper shelter from the elements'.

I think this fits in more with the other stress themes, in that it's long term, and not incidental. It fits with lack of place to pray, lack of proper room, etc.

This would also make it more possible to have human style villages, where your guys live and work in buildings, but occasionally walk outside to hunt or get from one building to another.

[Egan_BW]

I haven't had too many issues, but I will chime in that the thing that annoys me the most is dwarves with a persistent bad thought of a fixable nature that they just don't do. I have a dwarf in one fort who constantly feels sad because they don't get enough interaction. I have multiple meeting areas and taverns with people in them at all times. Just go take a break and hang out!

Or the other dwarf who has multiple negative thoughts from not praying...but I have a temple to that god. Just...go pray! It's what it is there for!

So they have a need, and are physically able to fulfill it, but don't and get stressed instead.
Seems like Toady added a simulation of depression as hidden fun stuff! 🤔

[Zebra2]

I'm showing up way late to the thread, but I've been having this issue a lot in my recent fort and had some thoughts about it. I think the core flaw of the stress system can be summed up in one thought:

I have never successfully sent a dwarf from a stressed state to an unstressed one.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But the fact remains that it is excruciatingly hard to un-stress a dwarf.

That coupled with the fact that so many mundane things lead to stress, and that higher levels of stress have a contagious nature (via tantrums etc.), means that stress basically rules the game at the moment.

A couple ideas on how it can be resolved:

Jailing should have a rehabilitating capacity. Right now it seems like there's no good thing that can come from jails. Having the chance for dwarves to reflect on their time and get a stress-nullifying thought would make a lot of sense for both features.

It really seems like a dwarven counselor is a thing we need. A fortress counselor could provide an outlet for stress-relief (like the mayor/expedition leader does now through meetings), but also could additionally promote positive turnarounds in personality traits to render dwarves more stress-resistant. To me, this seems like it would really round-out the stress and personality feature.

[Splint]

Funnily enough, it seems that jailtime often does have something of a rehab effect, but it's because of the isolation from any possible negative stimuli and the constant thoughts from being given food and water if I had to guess, at least in regards to long-term sentences, plus the strong one from being released when their sentence is up.