Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sarmatian123]

http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14973

Depressed only stress-weak? Focus not a cause? Lies!

Red arrow depression on Dwarf, who can handle stress very well.

The only issue here are some unfulfilled focus' needs, which supposedly are only for focus according to faulty forum's filthy lying !SCIENCE!

It rained on stress tolerant Dwarf, who has been in rain and sun from year 12 to year 29. In year 12 to year 17 even with cave adaptation still on.

What is wrong on this picture? The needs for the focus, which lying faulty !SCIENCE! from forum claims do not affect depression or stress build up.
Unfulfilled needs DO CAUSE STRESS SPIRALING BUILD UP!!!

The only in red on entire page:
She is badly distracted after lack of decent meals. (can't get it)
She is badly distracted after a lack of abstract thinking. (can't get it, because it is an old save. Library won't work.)
She is badly distracted after being away from family. (can't get it, because tavern not meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being away from friends. (can't get it, because tavern not a meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being unable to practice martial art. (beekeeper! not a soldier!)

Brown markings from focus generated stress causing depression.
Now, I have to kill a perfectly good Dwarf, who is stress resistant, because psycho system is not only unbalanced, incompletely implemented, but not even well planned and rain is playing mad havoc even on stress tolerant Dwarves. Good no dead bodies of sentient beings in sight or this would be a funky red arrow cancer embark.

[doublestrafe]

Dunno why anyone would say that unfilled needs don't cause stress. I've used dfhack fillneeds many times to get rid of red arrows.

[Salmeuk]

http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14973

Depressed only stress-weak? Focus not a cause? Lies!

Red arrow depression on Dwarf, who can handle stress very well.

The only issue here are some unfulfilled focus' needs, which supposedly are only for focus according to faulty forum's filthy lying !SCIENCE!

It rained on stress tolerant Dwarf, who has been in rain and sun from year 12 to year 29. In year 12 to year 17 even with cave adaptation still on.

What is wrong on this picture? The needs for the focus, which lying faulty !SCIENCE! from forum claims do not affect depression or stress build up.
Unfulfilled needs DO CAUSE STRESS SPIRALING BUILD UP!!!

The only in red on entire page:
She is badly distracted after lack of decent meals. (can't get it)
She is badly distracted after a lack of abstract thinking. (can't get it, because it is an old save. Library won't work.)
She is badly distracted after being away from family. (can't get it, because tavern not meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being away from friends. (can't get it, because tavern not a meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being unable to practice martial art. (beekeeper! not a soldier!)

Brown markings from focus generated stress causing depression.
Now, I have to kill a perfectly good Dwarf, who is stress resistant, because psycho system is not only unbalanced, incompletely implemented, but not even well planned and rain is playing mad havoc even on stress tolerant Dwarves. Good no dead bodies of sentient beings in sight or this would be a funky red arrow cancer embark.

I feel like you might have misread something. Trust but verify, my man!

This "filthy, lying forum" is actually full of genuine conversation and curiosity. I'm not sure random accusations will have much of an effect beyond stirring up the crowd.

[Dracko81]

Who says that focus needs don't affect stress?  Pretty sure the science shows that it does.

That dwarf I mentioned in your other thread which peaked at around 18k stress is now down to 1.2k with only family being their only long term concern.  Just from meeting the abstract thinking and military she desired - still missing family because she has none.

Why won't library work, what version is this?  If you are trying to compare an older version to 47.04, than you're going to get differing results.
Taverns work fine for making friends and lovers.  Meeting halls appear to work better.

Yes there is a hole in the stress mechanic which affects a minority of dwarves severely.  But it isn't beyond management levels of needing to meet the focus needs of every dwarf all the time. 

[EternalCaveDragon]

http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14973

Depressed only stress-weak? Focus not a cause? Lies!

Red arrow depression on Dwarf, who can handle stress very well.

The only issue here are some unfulfilled focus' needs, which supposedly are only for focus according to faulty forum's filthy lying !SCIENCE!

It rained on stress tolerant Dwarf, who has been in rain and sun from year 12 to year 29. In year 12 to year 17 even with cave adaptation still on.

What is wrong on this picture? The needs for the focus, which lying faulty !SCIENCE! from forum claims do not affect depression or stress build up.
Unfulfilled needs DO CAUSE STRESS SPIRALING BUILD UP!!!

The only in red on entire page:
She is badly distracted after lack of decent meals. (can't get it)
She is badly distracted after a lack of abstract thinking. (can't get it, because it is an old save. Library won't work.)
She is badly distracted after being away from family. (can't get it, because tavern not meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being away from friends. (can't get it, because tavern not a meeting room??? Really?)
She is badly distracted after being unable to practice martial art. (beekeeper! not a soldier!)

Brown markings from focus generated stress causing depression.
Now, I have to kill a perfectly good Dwarf, who is stress resistant, because psycho system is not only unbalanced, incompletely implemented, but not even well planned and rain is playing mad havoc even on stress tolerant Dwarves. Good no dead bodies of sentient beings in sight or this would be a funky red arrow cancer embark.

So, correct me if I'm reading this wrong, you went out of your way to stress out a stress resistant dwarf and you succeeded? You don't really go into the details of your exact method on how you got this result, only that you threw them out in the rain and cave adaptation and posted their (lack of) focus thoughts. So the waters are a little muddied by this extra stress put on top of the lack of focus. If you throw any dwarf into rain on the surface to annoy them, cave adaptation making them nauseous, and essentially doing nothing to take care of their mental/emotional needs then they're gonna crack after long enough exposure to stressing things. Plus this is kinda pointless in my honest opinion, as no dwarf is meant to actually be impervious to stress, just more or less resistant than others. That's how the system is supposed to work. I don't know where you got the idea that focus needs don't impact stress from. I suspect there was a miscommunication somewhere.

My suggestion would be to run the experiment free of stress causing events such as the above as well as seeing combat and corpses and all of those other distressing things. Essentially, make the focus the well, focus of the experiment.  And even in this instance this is a dwarf that you apparently got 17 in-game years out of despite all of that. That should go to show that being stress resistant really helps them not fully crack until it's all piled up to the point of being unbearable. So, the system is working at least a bit like it's intended to. It'll be the subject of numerous rebalancing and fixes for sure, but it's a lot better than it was before. And will hopefully get even better in future updates.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Have you even read the stress thread where all of this was scienced out for 35 pages?
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=171185.0

I mean, fine if you have your own conclusions. But to ignore all the work everyone else put in and shout lies! on a new thread is a little rude.

[Sarmatian123]

I have been faced in comments, time after time, when pointing to brown monthly notices from missing fulfillment for focus, with this claim that unfulfilled needs and resulting from that focus, have nothing to do with stress build up and nothing to do with causing and spiraling out depression. This claim goes that focus impacts only how fast Dwarves learn things and absolutely never nothing else. Especially never depression, insanity or tantruming. That this thing behind depression, madness and tantruming is something else entirely and that this was proven by the !Science!.

I find it refreshing, there are people doing another !Science! and proving that focus and its needs are the true and real cause of spiraling stress, depression and madness in contrary of this another filthy lying !Science!. Thank you all for your effort!

I could imagine, someone who is running embarks exclusively for 5 years, to be confused on this stress issue. I did run embark for 20 years on 0.47.04 to get this one unique picture proving above any doubt, that it is focus and only exclusively focus causing stress, depression and madness and not one lone thought "I get rained on, I feel dejected" after 20 years of being fine with rain.

[EternalCaveDragon]

I have been faced in comments, time after time, when pointing to brown monthly notices from missing fulfillment for focus, with this claim that unfulfilled needs and resulting from that focus, have nothing to do with stress build up and nothing to do with causing and spiraling out depression. This claim goes that focus impacts only how fast Dwarves learn things and absolutely never nothing else. Especially never depression, insanity or tantruming. That this thing behind depression, madness and tantruming is something else entirely and that this was proven by the !Science!.

I find it refreshing, there are people doing another !Science! and proving that focus and its needs are the true and real cause of spiraling stress, depression and madness in contrary of this another filthy lying !Science!. Thank you all for your effort!

I could imagine, someone who is running embarks exclusively for 5 years, to be confused on this stress issue. I did run embark for 20 years on 0.47.04 to get this one unique picture proving above any doubt, that it is focus and only exclusively focus causing stress, depression and madness and not one lone thought "I get rained on, I feel dejected" after 20 years of being fine with rain.

Except it's not just the one thought being dwelled upon for all those in-game years. It's consecutive "I got rained on" or "I was nauseated by the sun" thoughts and the dwarf in question dwelling on those types of thoughts that also cause these downward spirals. Dwelling upon things can cause personality changes that can cause a dwarf to be more or less fine with being rained on (though nothing will mitigate reactions to cave adaptation nausea as far as I know), and said changes can be a bit silly at times. Dwarfs will also be randomly horrified by bad memories that cause additional stress, I've seen the alerts for interrupted work myself on that front. And even then memories don't last forever and don't remain as strong as they become older. Look at the entry for May 18th 2018 on the main DF page or just search for the word "memory" on that page and you'll see that the intent for the system is very different. That's why it took so many in-game years for your example dwarf to go mad. It's not singular thoughts about anything, it's compounding changes to personality and accumulated stress over time that also have an effect on things. And these are either magnified or dampened by a single dwarf's resistance to stress.

I understand if you're just trying to cause a fight with this, and that this will go completely ignored if that's true, but spreading misinformation (by omission) like this is the opposite of helpful. Especially if all you want to do with it is call people liars and stir up an argument.

[delphonso]

Needs: the bottom of the dwarf bio. Effects focus (speed, basically).[yellow arrow]
Stress: top of the dwarf bio. Effects behavior if low enough. Causes madness. [Red arrow]

These are the things we are trying to make clear in other posts.

Yes, some needs can also cause stress (lack of decent meals, being away from friends, etc.) But not all do for every dwarf, and those are minor stressors.

The following experiment might help you learn:
To maximize FPS, set pop cap to 7, embark without trees (desert is ideal).
Build a small fort underground. Lock it in totally, grow, eat and brew only plump helmets. Set meeting area to tavern.

Wait years and they won't go mad, despite being bored and unhappy, the stressors are low compared to seeing someone die, getting caught in bad weather frequently, or retching on miasma. Just the good thoughts of a tavern experience will make them happy enough to keep going.
They will be very unfocused from not doing anything except drinking and talking.

[bloop_bleep]

Hey, maybe we should hold our horses here. I'm rather sure that the comment about lying was fully tongue in cheek, if a bit misguided, and I don't think anyone is trying to start a fight. Sarmatian123 seems willing to engage in meaningful discussion and we're just doing some friendly science here.

[Sarmatian123]

Let sum it up (on stress-tolerant Dwarf going depressed):

To remove red arrow instantly from such a Dwarf, you need to use DFHack to clear needs for focus.
Normally unsatisfied needs for focus are causing only yellow arrow.

Detected an error with testing: 7 Dwarves is insufficient number for testing. You need "mere" 100 Dwarves for statistical base and 1000 test subjects is the usual sample on which tests are carried on (like voting polls for example and those can give bad results). To test on every type of Dwarf with every possible setup is impossible in DF.

Why correlation?

Theory: Focus is a double edge weapon in fight with stress. On one side, focus decides how fast a Dwarf relaxes. On second side, focus due some of the unfilled needs adds additional stress. So fix focus, fix stress issues!

Proof 1: Use DFHack on red arrow Dwarf to just clear all unsatisfied needs. No stress, only needs. The result is the red arrow goes instantly away.

Proof 2:  Make embark with 100 Dwarves on aquifer. Dig in and wall in. Make them all live on plump helmets and water from well for 20 years. Make sure they are not making friends with each other thanks some fruitless jobs like loading constantly into carts, which are dumping on stockpiles, which are not accepting any items. See Dwarves go to fix their needs only when Dwarves really have to. Those should be working Dwarves, not tavern idlers! Here, in results so far, we have only my picture of a stress-resistant busy-working Dwarf going mad from stress accumulated from bad focus plus some additional factors like sun and rain for 20 years.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Yes, but rather than continue to ignore people, please compare with Loci's ten year experiment and explain why your theory is scientifically more robust.

Proof 1 assumes the Dfhack tool does what it says it does. (What's the command you used? Not fillneeds, obviously, as that description is "Use with a unit selected to make them focused and unstressed).

No idea what you're doing in proof 2. Dwarves get stressed without booze, always have. Dwarves get stressed if they eat the same meals all the times, always have. Look at the top of their thoughts screen. Read the words, they're telling you specifically the stress the dwarves are feeling.

[delphonso]

bloop_bleep and Shonai are both right. I apologize for being overly dismissive, but the burden of proof lies on you. I'm happy to see or even help with an experiment to test something, but your original post is far from proof and your goal remains pretty unclear.

The concern is presenting new players with false information in an already difficult to parse game.

[Sarmatian123]

The screenshot doesn't lie.
Questions should be: Are some focus's needs causing stress or all focus's needs are causing stress?
Is statement "focus is exclusively affecting only work efficiency" not spreading false information?
Even if focus would not be directly contributing to the stress from food, drinking, friends and family needs.
What if focus affects ability to relax from stress too and this way indirectly impacting stress build up as well?

The Dwarf, I presented screenshot for, was getting covered with all focus's needs causing stress, besides known friendship and family needs.
This Dwarf still flipped out on single drop of rain, which shouldn't happen. Unless Dwarf was already max-stressed out by other factors.
What other factors could it possibly be, when seeing this screenshot? These 5 remarks in shiny red color. All in focus. The only reason.

I never used DFHack. I always played vanilla DF. I am not an expert on DFHack.
So DFHack people clear not only stress from stressed Dwarves, but they do summarily clear all needs too?
Clearing stress from Dwarves works only this way? Is this choice from experience or from wrong irrational belief of theirs?

It seems to me the red arrow cancer is a simple problem with a simple solution.
For some strange reason for some time it is causing a lots of uproar among DF players.
Why? What's the purpose of keeping this uproar and bug unfixed?
Solution is: Remove stress from focus's needs and this way fix the red arrow cancer for ever.

When constantly every month stress-harden and stress-tolerant Dwarf is repeatedly hammered with wave of 12 brown notices from focus about unfulfilled needs,
then this Dwarf will flip out on 1 drop of rain or sight of 1 dead troll's body. It is easy to cause water in a bucket to overflow,
when bucket is full from monthly harvest of tiny droplets.

[Sver]

--snip--

Apologies, it seems I've misinterpreted the subject matter.

To put the post to good use, here's the link to Loci's test save, as well as the discussion around it:
http://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=14592

Far too many people are conflating needs with stress. Needs are a separate system, primarily resulting in distraction, not stress. Yes, difficult and impossible needs are annoying; yes, unmet needs add a handful of minor bad thoughts; but needs are quite unlikely to be a source of "game ending stress".

To illustrate that point, I modded dwarves with [NO_EAT][NO_DRINK][NO_SLEEP], disabled weather, invaders, and immigration, and removed the active season (and clothing) tokens from the mountain entity. I then embarked with sets of leather armor, assigned uniforms, isolated each dwarf in a one tile area, and let the game run for 10 years. Despite *actively not meeting* all of their needs, not a single dwarf complained about stress, threw a tantrum, or went insane. This is a worst case scenario; even a dabbling overseer can be expected to satisfy some of their dwarves' needs by, say, brewing alcohol and assigning work, so "real game" stress from neglected needs would accumulate even slower than in this test. Additionally, the moderate stress from unmet needs could presumably be offset by positive thoughts the dwarves experienced. If you want to see some heavily-distracted-but-sane dwarves, you can download my test embark or recreate the setup from the description above.

IIRC, there's supposed to be a mechanic where stress moves towards 0 the longer you go without a negative thought. The minor bad thoughts could be preventing stressed dwarves from cooling off.

Unmet needs thoughts get stronger when the general bad thoughts change their personality to be more stress vulnerable. Standing in a bubble not needing to do anything will probably save them some of the most common stresses (Which would probably halt the changes into personality) before the needs get so bad that they dwell on them, when they become strong enough that they manifest into bad thoughts that can effect their personality. I've had dwarfs that I overload with good thoughts while trying to save them but the solo thoughts from not praying to their 2nd god or lack of their favorite food get so strong its the only thing keeping him at the stressful threshold even when trying to baby him.

In a long running fort people are not conflating the needs system for stress they are very closely tied, especially with the new reflection system which I notice tends to gear towards the negative changes rather than the positives.

Okay - I'll bite. This is interesting. It implies that there's a source of stress that either we're not seeing, or that isn't being reported, and that what we're seeing reported is possibly not even what's causing the stress we do see.

Okay - I'll bite. This is interesting. It implies that there's a source of stress that either we're not seeing, or that isn't being reported, and that what we're seeing reported is possibly not even what's causing the stress we do see.

Stress is a running total; accumulated stress is not removed when a bad thought "drops off" the thoughts and preferences screen. A dwarf that goes insane in year 10 could still be riding a wave of stress from a rainstorm back in year 5. That dwarf might even go insane with no recent bad thoughts at all, particularly if a recent personality change reduced the ability to handle preexisting stress.

Unmet needs thoughts get stronger when the general bad thoughts change their personality to be more stress vulnerable.

Sure. And when a boat with a giant hole in the side sinks, do you blame the water? If a personality change causes your dwarf to go insane from the weakest of bad thoughts then the personality change is to blame, not the minor bad thought. (I pointed out that personality changes were problematic back on page 1.)

Anyway, my test dwarves are now up to 20 years without even complaining about stress from their chronically-unmet needs.

I went back to examine some of my more troublesome dwarves that were being driven insane by need thoughts and monitored their issues in dwarf therapist as to what their current stress levels where. Ultimately Loci is right when he says it isn't the needs system exactly to blame, in a bubble as his experiment goes the dwarves get bad thoughts from needs but do to the long drive time on needs to get really bad they do not get bad enough to start effecting most dwarves to stress immediately some don't build any lasting stress do to their own personality even with an abundance of bad thoughts related to needs.

What seems to be a problem is the effects of the number of bad thoughts and specifically the ones that cause people to dwell on them after "traumatic events"(rain too) dwarves start thinking and the personality starts to get hammered and it seems to be the not the needs themselves but how all bad thoughts that effect personalities seem to target the stress vulnerability long before anybody notices the problem and from there is where the needs system seems to catch the most of its bad wrap.

Once that stress is established on a small handful of dwarves out of so many the ones prone to violence tend to inflict trama on others and they too seem overly prone to having their stress vulnerability tweeked eventually as well and dwarf by dwarf they all get the sanity chipped away and banishment becomes really the best option.

While playing as a goblin civ in my recent games with the all races playable the need to eat didn't bother them too much but of the starting 7 one goblin who used to be at a more manageable stress vulnerability saw a few dead bodies starting with werecreatures and following into actual invaders and one day he changed to 100 stress vulnerablity when I checked him with dfhack.
From there no matter how much I tried to save a legendary axemen from his stress, stacks of positives thoughts only brought him down by around 1.8k. By this time he stopped reacting to dead bodies but the stress vulnerability was done.
Now the only thing that is ruining his life now is how a single bad need at that level of vulnerability jumps his stress back up by 2k-3k. Ironically its the need to eat or dring most of the time which a goblin won't willfully do.

Perhaps someone is more aware but is stress vulnerability just how stress is scaled up in power when its applied(Like the stress hits harder) or is it a reduction of the effects of positive thoughts(as if the value is to retain stress) its could honestly be either but I have never seen a single positive thought ever be a quarter as powerful as the strongest negative thought so every bad thought needs to be drowned in a sea of happiness.

As far as I know, [needs are not causing "game ending stress"].

Really? Huh, never knew that. Always thought it did. Having unmet needs can result in negative thoughts, and it seems that stress is a mixture of positive and negative thoughts. If some thoughts create stress while other thoughts do not create stress how's the player to know that unmet needs don't cause stress? How is the player supposed to fix the problem if they're not presented with accurate information?

The stress system is completely opaque and needs to be explained to the player far better.

Loci, I think Hyndis is referring to the thoughts about "same old food" and "lack of decent meals" - which are negative thoughts categorized in the stress side. Dwarf Therapist shows they cause a small amount (but consistent and unavoidable) of stress.

Your research into needs is important, though - and you're right about the two being commonly conflated.

The fact that this keeps coming up and needing to be clarified is exemplary of the issue: stress is complicated and not clear to new players in the least.

Some thoughts remove stress, some thoughts add stress, and different thoughts and emotions cause different amounts. Unmet needs cause very minor stress.

Personally, I inadvertently made a race that can easily be prevented from game-ending stress by just making them especially violent and having them all regularly do military training. This was sufficient, which surprised me.

I really do not think that there is no connection between unmet needs / distraction and stress.

The investigation by Loci is interesting

But there are too many possible explanations of the result due to the mods needed to run the test. We just don't know what side effects may have been disabled due to all the codepaths that were cut off.

I will try to do some more digging into my recent late game fort ( http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=175583.0 ) with dwarf therapist. See if I just had a lot of internal-ragers. But the correlation between multiple stacked different kinds of distraction and stress was just too big to ignore.

It's confusing because many "haggard" dwarves will have no bad thoughts in the top block except unmet needs.
I don't doubt Loci's result but it just raises more questions than it answers to me.