Mood effect need re balancing/re working

[Tynan]

I read things here all the time

Anyway, I'm trying to boil down your comments to understand what you actually want and I'm having a hard time. All I said was that the mood system isn't really about realism, but gameplay. But you don't really seem to disagree with that. Or do you?

Is it "realism" you want? What, specifically, would "realistic" look like? Would it mean that living in a filthy dark cave, eating off the floor, has no psychological impact? Do you want "ate without table" to be cut, or just reduced in effect? You want the mood system cut entirely? Or just made easier? What difficulty do you play on anyway?

It's obvious you've had some frustrating experience with the game as it stands, and are attributing that to the mood/mental breaks system. I just can't tell the change you're actually suggesting, or what specifically is the problem to be solved.

[Locklave]

I read things here all the time

Anyway, I'm trying to boil down your comments to understand what you actually want and I'm having a hard time. All I said was that the mood system isn't really about realism, but gameplay. But you don't really seem to disagree with that. Or do you?

Is it "realism" you want? What, specifically, would "realistic" look like? Would it mean that living in a filthy dark cave, eating off the floor, has no psychological impact? Do you want "ate without table" to be cut, or just reduced in effect? You want the mood system cut entirely? Or just made easier? What difficulty do you play on anyway?

It's obvious you've had some frustrating experience with the game as it stands, and are attributing that to the mood/mental breaks system. I just can't tell the change you're actually suggesting, or what specifically is the problem to be solved.

Sorry, I muddied that up a lot.

Basically I really enjoy gritty and brutal elements of the game, I by no means want it easier but rather I'd like that hard time to be focused around the real intense events rather then what I'd describe as silly stuff. If your friend died in a battle right next to you do you care that you slept on the ground in the dark or even that you are hungry?

Examples of Major mood effects as I see them, things that would effect your emotional state deeply
- losing friend/ally
- losing a loved one
- people injured and close to death
- losing a bonded pet

These sort of events feel like they should be the lions share of breaking stress points. That stuff should break people, I love it that way. I feel like you should be preparing for these events as best you can.

The issue I have is the way mood is currently being applied feels almost oppressive on a steady basis because of the quantity of minor mood effect and their relative power. Sleeping on the floor in a dark cave and eating paste off the floor sucks no argument here lol, it might make you bad tempered/depressed and act like a total ass. These events shouldn't break people however. What bothers me is that seemingly minor and major mood effects stack. This again is not to suggest only lowering the minor stuff, but also raising the major events that effect mood.

This is just off the top of my head. Having a terrible day to day life should effect how hard/fast you work, the quality/quantity. Also the kind of conversations they have with other colonist. Maybe that'd also start more fights. Does mood effect the conversations? Maybe mood and mental breaks shouldn't be a single system, if mood impacted other things I mean.

Boiled down I think the minor effect should be much smaller and the major stuff should be tests of character.

- A bad day shouldn't make you get Dazed or go Berserk.
- A good day shouldn't allow you to shrug off Family/Friends and Allies dying.

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad I came back to check the thread. I hope this post made more sense, these issues have slowly driven me away from playing the game. I bought it in 2014 in around june'ish, played it like crazy back then so this has been building in my mind for some time.

[Tynan]

It sort of sounds like you're just asking for all the smaller mood effects to be cut. (You've basically said they shouldn't have any effect, which leads to them being cut).

Would that be a fair summary?

Anyway, the obvious trouble with that is that it makes large segments of the game irrelevant. There's just no reason to make decent rooms or food or any of the normal trappings of a happy home, if the only things with actual psychological consequences are deaths and other extreme events.

So I really can't cut all the small mood effects, nor do I want to make them inconsequential and throw away a big part of the gameplay.

I suppose I could see some sort of complex way of combining thoughts, were big mood hits "shadow" small mood effects away and prevent them from applying. But that sounds both very complex and really, not realistic. I'm pretty sure a person is more likely to break down after their friend's death if they also have to sleep in a cold dirt cell eating nutrient paste, than if they have a  luxurious warm bed and fine meals.

I guess I'm just not seeing a viable path to address your concern. I'm open to clarification though.

[Listy]

Ate off the ground -4

I'll admit, that one does bug me a bit. Only a slight bit though.

Colonists self inflict it on themselves, and there's no way of preventing it, unless you build furniture across the entire map. I do, some times, feel like yelling "have you never heard of a picnic?"

I get why its in there, to force new colonies to have a table, otherwise you know full well the majority of players wouldn't bother.
Maybe it can be done like the "Need something comfortable" thought? Where you get a negative mood for only having stools, but if you build some cloth chairs that negative thought goes away?

[Locklave]

It sort of sounds like you're just asking for all the smaller mood effects to be cut. (You've basically said they shouldn't have any effect, which leads to them being cut).

Would that be a fair summary?

Anyway, the obvious trouble with that is that it makes large segments of the game irrelevant. There's just no reason to make decent rooms or food or any of the normal trappings of a happy home, if the only things with actual psychological consequences are deaths and other extreme events.

So I really can't cut all the small mood effects, nor do I want to make them inconsequential and throw away a big part of the gameplay.

I suppose I could see some sort of complex way of combining thoughts, were big mood hits "shadow" small mood effects away and prevent them from applying. But that sounds both very complex and really, not realistic. I'm pretty sure a person is more likely to break down after their friend's death if they also have to sleep in a cold dirt cell eating nutrient paste, than if they have a  luxurious warm bed and fine meals.

I guess I'm just not seeing a viable path to address your concern. I'm open to clarification though.

I don't want any of minor mood effects completely removed or made meaningless because they are realism elements. It's the system they are attached to. There is the productivity thing I suggested, a number of the mood effects could be moved into a new category that directly impacted how fast your people worked and the quality of said work. Because a number of them were added to create a reason for higher quality rooms/beds/knickknacks. Those could effect pawn productivity.

The whole a happy worker is a hard worker thing. Those minor mood effects would certainly matter if they effected productivity both positive and negative. By no means am I suggesting all minor mood effects be added to this, clearly some would be impacting your emotional state.

Someone with high ranks in crafting would be as important to have as someone with high ranks in social.

Emotional state

- Sleeping on the floor
- Sleeping in the cold
- Starving
- All things related to basic needs of a person
- Some traits
- All the death/injury and sickness stuff

Effects productivity

- Ate in impressive dining room
- Own impressive bedroom
- Did joy activity in impressive rec room
- Basically everything related to object value/quality
- Being hungry on any level but starving (not sure on this one)
- Food quality
- Ugly/dirty places
- Ate with no table
- Some traits

I get that I'm being a pain in the ass now, I just basically asked you to make a new system in the game. 

Assuming this idea is in any way workable it would make the whole psychological break thing less of a day to day issue being that there'd be less negatives/positives in total potentially effecting it and keeping all the features like room/item quality/value relevant.

Again thanks for the reply.

[stopkillingtheplanet]

Hi! First time posting. I love this game. For real. Probably the best game I've played in a long time. I thought I would way in on this as I find mood is a major factor of the game.

I like the posters idea of having some mood effects affecting productivity instead of leading to a poor or terrible mood. I think though any of the current mood effects could lead to a dazed colonist, but maybe of differing lengths or severity. I don't think that for everything a colonist should strip naked and wander the wilderness. On that note, why are their stripped items forbidden? Ive lost some good gear because I couldn't see where they dropped it and my haulers didn't pick it back up because it was forbidden.

Another related idea, I think berserk colonist should be toned down. A couple ways I had in mind are making only some mood effects lead to berserk e.g. family, friends, or pets dying. Or at least some types of colonist should be impervious to berserk and likewise some should almost always go berserk when in a terrible mood e.g. sanguine, optimist, strong willed, etc. shouldn't go berserk ever. Volatile, nervous, depressive, etc should berserk a lot.

Maybe I don't care that much. I do like the productivity suggestion though.

Great work Tynan! Thank you for an awesome game and your continued progress on improvement.

[Listen1]

What I understood from OP point of view is that not all the thought debuffs/buffs should count for the mental break threshold. Some of them should impact less on it and more in pratical issues.

From the top of my head (All examples):
"Disturbed Sleep" should count as a -5 Sleep each time.
"Slept on the ground" 50% of sleep effectiveness.
"Tired" Impact in the mental Threshold.
"Ate off the ground" Gives a debuff on the threshold
"Pain (little)" Reduce manipulation and movement also Mood debuff
"Impressive bedroom" Buffs sleep effectiveness and gives a buff on the threshold.

That is what I understood from OP.

Also, Another option could be that some of this thoughts will bring the Break Threshold % up, like Neurotic and Too Smart do. Say my brother Died, My break threshold that was 10% go to 25%. While the other thoughts would make the blue bar move like always.

[stopkillingtheplanet]

^this is good as well

[Mutineer]

What I understood from OP point of view is that not all the thought debuffs/buffs should count for the mental break threshold. Some of them should impact less on it and more in pratical issues.

From the top of my head (All examples):
"Disturbed Sleep" should count as a -5 Sleep each time.
"Slept on the ground" 50% of sleep effectiveness.
"Tired" Impact in the mental Threshold.
"Ate off the ground" Gives a debuff on the threshold
"Pain (little)" Reduce manipulation and movement also Mood debuff
"Impressive bedroom" Buffs sleep effectiveness and gives a buff on the threshold.

That is what I understood from OP.

Also, Another option could be that some of this thoughts will bring the Break Threshold % up, like Neurotic and Too Smart do. Say my brother Died, My break threshold that was 10% go to 25%. While the other thoughts would make the blue bar move like always.

BTW, i believe it is about 50% efficiency from sleeping on the ground. That why it is very helpful to build a bed for your colonist as soon as possible. you will notice how mach less time your colonist sleeping.

[Tynan]

Okay, I've done some rebalancing for A14 overall.

[Listen1]

Yay! Let this thread go on, maybe some helpful suggestions will pop up.

Also, maybe this thread should be transfered for suggestions

[Locklave]

Yay! Let this thread go on, maybe some helpful suggestions will pop up.

Also, maybe this thread should be transfered for suggestions

I've put in a request to move this to suggestions.

And thanks to the people posting that tried to understand the muddled mess in my OP, hopefully I've cleared up my thoughts enough to make some logical sense now lol.

[JonoRig]

Just my thoughts on how to mix it up, stealing  a bit of everyone's ideas quite heavily and would be a lot of work so I doubt it would happen.

But, remix the mood system into major and my minor, maybe one is just the colonists mood, the other is their emotional/psychological health.

The minor stuff is the food, sleeping in a dark cave all those sucky things. This affects work speed, social, but doesn't lead to breaks. However, it puts a soft debuff on the break point.

Now the major stuff is people dying, being captured, etc etc. This affects work speed and social, emotional state too. However, it also has the break point.

So what happens is, either your colonist is happy and their friend dies, they may be emotionally despondent (dazed) for a time, and they're depressed etc, but also have this sense of "our colony is great, look at what we have, we are lucky, and he died fighting to protect that"  compared to if they have a really poor mood and go berserk or leave (and one suggestion of suicide in a pervious thread) where they're now feeling "what did my friend die for? What is the point of living in conditions like this if all that happens is we get murdered and enslaved?"

In short. Minor debuff affect break threshold, not actually leading to breaks, major events lead to breaks depending on the overall mood of the colonist. Live in a dirt hole with raw meat or nutrient paste,  your threshold is 1 but a friend dying is a debuff of 20, living in luxury, your threshold is 50, your friend dying is still 20

[Neotic]

I read things here all the time

Anyway, I'm trying to boil down your comments to understand what you actually want and I'm having a hard time. All I said was that the mood system isn't really about realism, but gameplay. But you don't really seem to disagree with that. Or do you?

Is it "realism" you want? What, specifically, would "realistic" look like? Would it mean that living in a filthy dark cave, eating off the floor, has no psychological impact? Do you want "ate without table" to be cut, or just reduced in effect? You want the mood system cut entirely? Or just made easier? What difficulty do you play on anyway?

It's obvious you've had some frustrating experience with the game as it stands, and are attributing that to the mood/mental breaks system. I just can't tell the change you're actually suggesting, or what specifically is the problem to be solved.

Sorry, I muddied that up a lot.

Basically I really enjoy gritty and brutal elements of the game, I by no means want it easier but rather I'd like that hard time to be focused around the real intense events rather then what I'd describe as silly stuff. If your friend died in a battle right next to you do you care that you slept on the ground in the dark or even that you are hungry?

Examples of Major mood effects as I see them, things that would effect your emotional state deeply
- losing friend/ally
- losing a loved one
- people injured and close to death
- losing a bonded pet

These sort of events feel like they should be the lions share of breaking stress points. That stuff should break people, I love it that way. I feel like you should be preparing for these events as best you can.

The issue I have is the way mood is currently being applied feels almost oppressive on a steady basis because of the quantity of minor mood effect and their relative power. Sleeping on the floor in a dark cave and eating paste off the floor sucks no argument here lol, it might make you bad tempered/depressed and act like a total ass. These events shouldn't break people however. What bothers me is that seemingly minor and major mood effects stack. This again is not to suggest only lowering the minor stuff, but also raising the major events that effect mood.

This is just off the top of my head. Having a terrible day to day life should effect how hard/fast you work, the quality/quantity. Also the kind of conversations they have with other colonist. Maybe that'd also start more fights. Does mood effect the conversations? Maybe mood and mental breaks shouldn't be a single system, if mood impacted other things I mean.

Boiled down I think the minor effect should be much smaller and the major stuff should be tests of character.

- A bad day shouldn't make you get Dazed or go Berserk.
- A good day shouldn't allow you to shrug off Family/Friends and Allies dying.

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad I came back to check the thread. I hope this post made more sense, these issues have slowly driven me away from playing the game. I bought it in 2014 in around june'ish, played it like crazy back then so this has been building in my mind for some time.

sorry if i'm late but its not just one thing making them go berserk its a bunch of things.

[Locklave]

sorry if i'm late but its not just one thing making them go berserk its a bunch of things.

Please read the rest of the thread, that wasn't the point or really relevant to the central issue.