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[Sarmatian123]

I have been playing for a while, for anew, my very first embark. Enjoying 4Ghz speed on it really.

One year ago, in Adventure Mode I was concerned with how satisfaction annoyingly fast goes away from fulfilled needs. This was such a burden that I re-started adventuring making my Dwarf super happy and supper focused with one simple smashing of two stones. It was so annoying. This was before stress mechanics was re-introduced with last two horror patches.

In Fortress Mode, I am noticing now the full impact of returned stress mechanic. Dwarves' satisfaction goes from fulfilled in green color  down to urgent need to fulfill it again in yellow color, by the very same season, the need was filled up to 100%. Every Dwarf has about 12 different needs, which can be fulfilled through activities. Making a craft in workshop can fulfill 2-3 of them near instantaneously. However to achieve 100% satisfaction from praying or from socializing or from thinking abstractly, it takes a Dwarf  1 complete month of such activity bound to a single location. This is clearly not thought through game mechanics, which makes Dwarves run around constantly distressed, unhappy, sad and unfocused even in fortress smothered with masterful art, furniture made out of expensive metals, masterful roasts and 12 different kinds of booze.

This is why Dwarves keep remembering not good events, but bad and are dwelling on them for ever and ever.

Every single month each Dwarf is hit with 20-30 different moods in brown color from this list of {self-pity, dejection, bitter,worry, restless, lonely, annoyed, resentful, frustrated, exasperated, uneasy}. Even if this Dwarf spent whole month only on fulfilling his needs, those few satisfactions in green color are sunk deeply in a brown sea of repeated hammering from missing satisfaction from unfulfilled needs during this same season.

This is why rain is such efficient Dwarf population killer. Rain is impacting the relation to depression. Rain makes even toughest and hardest against stress and depression Dwarves go at random into nervous depression breakdowns. I have seen Dwarf do that after 20 years being OK with rain and he was even thriving in nature. Rain depression alone kills yearly at rate of 5%-10% of fortress SAD Dwarven population. Expelling seems to be only and also partially broken (bugged) mechanics to avoid casualties and tantrums.

Unless Dwarven satisfaction from fulfilled needs is not prolonged from 1 season to 1 year, then all Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress have to go crazy and die! Eventually. All.

Dwarf Fortress with stress mechanics in, is just a depression simulator.

I never played DF with DFHack. However I can not phantom this game play-ability for long periods of time without disabling the existing stress mechanic. I think simple fix to this issue of this Dwarven depression simulator would be:

1. To make the whole month lasting prayer or socializing and such, not last a whole one month to fulfill just one need put in yellow or in red color!
2. To make satisfaction from fulfilled needs last not 1 season, but 1 whole year.
3. To make list of favorite foods and drinks larger by 2-3 times, so Dwarves can find favorite food easier.

I can not understand the reason behind, why Toady is insisting in not seeing this stress issue? It is so easily fixed otherwise. Players were complaining about it for years with Toady simply disabling it for a while and not doing anything about it during that pause. Toady promised fixes to this system, when it was reintroduced to horror of all DF players last year. 3 patches are out and even a new version of DF. Still, why I can not see any improvements in this still broken mechanics in my fortress? Toady forgot his promises? Is anyone seeing any powerful improvement in this stress system? Is anyone playing DF embarks for longer time then 3-5 years,
when first psycho Dwarf appears, or is it only me?

I am playing this embark for 12 years with this stress mechanic on and I see nothing else, but more and more depressed Dwarves every year. In overage 5 new cases every year. Population went from 180 to 156 due expelling. This is with around dozen workshops in shrine, so all stressed Dwarves can make 1 bone bolt every 1 month with entirely disabled hauling on them. BTW tantruming Dwarf killing another Dwarf results only in beating... Still, reloading an earlier save, can cost player 6 lost hours of spent time.

Hauling activity is connected with mechanic of acquiring items for personal possession. This is one of the Dwarven needs. So, if anyone ever wondered why those distressed and swamped by depression Dwarves work themselves to death by hauling, then it is simply because they try to become owners of some item, they have personal preference for. There are few Dwarves, who have no preferences for items though and are perfect candidates for barons. Majority of Dwarves have preferences for items, which can not be obtained. It would be much simpler, if this need's satisfaction was fulfilled with just 1 grab of 1 coin from stockpile (just don't build them any chests or bags in their rooms to get it back for smelting).

Cooking & Dwarves needs. The cooking system is clunky. Cooking special foods for special Dwarves is impractical. You need linked special stockpiles. To differentiate from automatic chains for producing booze, there you need 1 still for 1 alcohol type, here you need 1 kitchen for 1 Dwarf. There is 200 Dwarves!!! Unfortunately, Dwarves do not consume their preferred booze by drinking it, but through eating it in their food. Dwarves also often prefer to eat rather fluids over solid foods. Dwarves' preferred  foods are often unobtainable on the map or through caravan. I had one "dwelling over lack of decent meals" Dwarf to go into downward spiral of depression over just this need.

Edit:
I have distressed Dwarves becoming now haggard for no apparent reason. Like into 14th year of this embark with 0.47.03 game play.
One had wife and friends and still flipped out mad for no apparent reason, which I could see clearly.
He was complaining about the same things, as everyone else.
I understand depression -> rain thing.
I do not understand haggard -> . What is causing it?

[mko]

See http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=174931.msg8047476#msg8047476 - this is a recognized issue, and more likely to be fixed than many other gamebreaking issues.

See also http://mail.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/my_view_page.php

For better or worse, DF is focusing more on adding new features than fixing existing bugs.

[delphonso]

It was also greatly repaired in 47.04. I've lost zero dwarves to depression so far and all they eat is dog. I lost one goblin refugee due to stress, but I also couldn't control him or enable the labors he wanted to do.

Needs and stress are two separate systems. Needs are at the bottom, and deal with focus (efficiency, basically.) Stress has some overlap, but is a different beast. Stress doesn't pass on a monthly basis. It's a rolling total of pluses and minuses. Good thoughts lower stress and bad thoughts raise it. It's the classic "I saw my family die but I ate in a great dining room so I'm feeling fine."

Don't leave dwarves in the rain. Don't have 4 dwarves who do everything while everyone else sits in the tavern. Don't leave your dwarves outside to get attacked by bears. Bugs are getting worked out and stress, as mko pointed out, is getting directly addressed.

[Sarmatian123]

Someone has to get out and fetch logs for burning into charcoal or ash.
I need clear glass to make my fortress shiny and potash from time to time.
I moved slowly my fortress from caves into constructed from granit blocks above fort,
so Dwarves get less bad thoughts getting out into sunshine each time, but it doesn't work really.
I do get just few depressions, but when most gets cured by idling (hauling off + bone carving),
some are still thrown right down into downward going spiral.
I had depressed Dwarves hit my shrine-workshop areas for few seasons and returning entirely to normal. With hauling and such.
So, if this cure, is the improvement, then it works, but doesn't solve the issue of red arrows growing cancer,
which will kill in insanity about 5%-10%  Dwarves yearly.
Rain can suddenly depress even nature hardened ranger after 20 years of him being OK with rain. Rain being the Russian roulette.
Another issue is, if I do another embark on the same map,
then there is already one Dwarven hillock with 30 super-depressed Dwarves with legendary skills (some in fighting too) just patiently waiting for that.
Do you see the issue?

With the latest fix, I can play for 100 years. Expelling psychos and waiting for kids or new migrants. It is doable. I do so.
However, can you imagine a new embark after those 100 years on the same map? The third migrant wave.
12 fully depressed psycho Dwarves popping out at the edge of the map heading steadily into your embark,
just pausing from time to time to throw tantrum or stumble obviously.
There is a bug, when instead of sending them away to a hillock, you just expel them into wilderness,
as then they will come back with next wave of migrants.
Red arrow fun fun fun depression simulator.
Tbh, I am starting now considering to simply start killing under bridge all depressed Dwarves instead of expelling them.
Engraving memorial slab doesn't seem such a hassle.
However what will do my master clothier and master leather worker? I do not want to lose them too...

[Naryar]

Most of my forts are not really very violent those days. Or if they are, they usually fall quickly. Except for when I send squads into the overworld, because I never get sieged or ambushed. I rarely play with high dwarf numbers too but that must be the case.

I always end up getting some sad dwarves, HOWEVER, it is usually only one or two. And those are the ones that are prone to depression.

They are more of a nuisance than anything, but I can always exile them.

Now if you have sieges, violence, deaths and corpses *constantly* (or even just fighting) that is problematic, yes. Dwarves are probably too sensitive right now. Like... Seriously ? You kill a *child snatcher* and it terrifies you and gives you bad thought flashbacks for the rest of your life ?

But I've never had a real issue with dwarf depression.

[Sarmatian123]

It seems rain is a main dice for Dwarven depression. In my fortress, I have to regularly fetch tree logs for wood furnaces. Every time a Dwarf gets out and it rains, then the rain dice goes into spin. I have Dwarves with dozen changes in their character sheet from rain dice rolls and they are still fine. The thing is this rain dice can every season turn around result of its roll to new value and suddenly you got sad and depressed Dwarf. Then I had nature loving ranger, who went depressed over getting wet in rain after 20 years being ok with it and from whom i removed cloths carefully through military menu, so cloths wouldn't even rot on him. Now, that's FUN! However when your all Dwarves' mood is hammered every month with 20 brown notices of unfilled needs, then everything, what can happen, will happen. No matter that there is another 20-30 notices with blue and green notices, every month.

Without expelling there is no way to prevent fortress slowly turning into a depression asylum, where you can not do anything fun, but tediously manage boring mood of your mentally sick 200 Dwarves. So, what if new patches from Toady lets some nut cases to lose stress, if they go out, get rain, sun or maybe some feel bad from cave adaptation like miners and they are back with red arrow cancer into this boring and tedious mental-health care simulator for 200 mentally ill Dwarves, who can't haul.

[nimbus25]

In 47.0x I haven't had any problems with stress. In my current fort I have a temporary bare-minimum fort set up while my dwarves slowly build a giant outside fort inside a volcano. With a population of ~120 right now in my 4th year, I have one dwarf who's mysteriously super stressed out, with the rest content or better (even an ecstatic dwarf or two). That's all with no chairs/tables, a large dormitory instead of individual bedrooms, and very basic food supplies.

[Bumber]

In 47.0x I haven't had any problems with stress. In my current fort I have a temporary bare-minimum fort set up while my dwarves slowly build a giant outside fort inside a volcano. With a population of ~120 right now in my 4th year, I have one dwarf who's mysteriously super stressed out, with the rest content or better (even an ecstatic dwarf or two). That's all with no chairs/tables, a large dormitory instead of individual bedrooms, and very basic food supplies.

How long has your fort been running? I didn't have problems until after my second goblin siege.

[Naryar]

Rain is a problem, yup. Though it seems to only really affect the more depressed/sad dwarves. I've had my dwarves been exposed to rain a bunch on my last fort, and i've got only one sad dwarf, and this one has stress-prone traits.

[muldrake]

Tbh, I am starting now considering to simply start killing under bridge all depressed Dwarves instead of expelling them.
Engraving memorial slab doesn't seem such a hassle.

I have built an Aerial Faith Plate to cure depression.  I just put the dwarf on a specially designed bridge adjacent to the exposed top of a volcano, and pull a special lever to initiate the depression cure.  With no body there's no stress from seeing it, apparently pulling the lever causes no Milgram experiment type stress, either, and similarly, a slab is cheap.

I'm not on 47.04 yet, though, which someone mentions may have fixed this somewhat.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Just opened up one of my dwarves' brains.

"He was accepting remembering being caught in the rain, and mulling over the recurring memory changed his personal tendancies.

He has a calm demeanor, after being caught in the rain in 201."

Makes a nice change. Makes sense considering when it's not raining regular rain we get fetid goo...

[Laterigrade]

It seems rain is a main dice for Dwarven depression. In my fortress, I have to regularly fetch tree logs for wood furnaces. Every time a Dwarf gets out and it rains, then the rain dice goes into spin. I have Dwarves with dozen changes in their character sheet from rain dice rolls and they are still fine. The thing is this rain dice can every season turn around result of its roll to new value and suddenly you got sad and depressed Dwarf. Then I had nature loving ranger, who went depressed over getting wet in rain after 20 years being ok with it and from whom i removed cloths carefully through military menu, so cloths wouldn't even rot on him. Now, that's FUN! However when your all Dwarves' mood is hammered every month with 20 brown notices of unfilled needs, then everything, what can happen, will happen. No matter that there is another 20-30 notices with blue and green notices, every month.

Without expelling there is no way to prevent fortress slowly turning into a depression asylum, where you can not do anything fun, but tediously manage boring mood of your mentally sick 200 Dwarves. So, what if new patches from Toady lets some nut cases to lose stress, if they go out, get rain, sun or maybe some feel bad from cave adaptation like miners and they are back with red arrow cancer into this boring and tedious mental-health care simulator for 200 mentally ill Dwarves, who can't haul.

I do my best to build a roof system outside of the fortress and set the undercover spaces on a higher priority than the regular ground, so dwarves can get most of the way to any destination without going outside into the rain. Very, very occasionally dwarves do get affected by the rain, but it’s a lot rarer. It can be a lot of work at the start but it pays massive dividends over a ten-year fortress.

[Sarmatian123]

Anyone knows what is causing "haggard"?
I understand depression. It is caused by rain.
What is causing haggard?

[muldrake]

Anyone knows what is causing "haggard"?
I understand depression. It is caused by rain.
What is causing haggard?

It's the natural progression through stress.  It comes right after "has been under a great deal of stress" and right before "has been utterly harrowed by the nightmare that is his tragic life."

It seems anyone with either haggard or harrowed just needs to be consigned to the magma.  Nothing fixes them.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

It is probably the rain.
My current save is a ground fortress with lots of wooden cottages. Everyone is being rained upon and quite a few of them snapped.