Dwarfs not satisfying needs?

[dth]

So I played classic version a lot and as far as I remember, I was always able to see my dwarfs hanging around in dining room, or in statue gardens, now with the steam release those rooms are mostly empty, apart from a single dwarf visiting from time to time. If anything, I see some movement in tavern, but it's also mostly just visitors, and when I look at separate dwarfs they tend to complain that they don't socialise, or meet with family, or pray, stuff like that. Of course not all of them, but at least some. Were those mechanics tweaked somehow for the steam release? I even lowered down the number of jobs so that they have more time, but because I'm in evil biome, all of my dwarfs are part of militia and instead of fulfilling their needs they tend to just do combat drills... not really sure what to do, I have one dwarf that has an "ungrateful" personality and he's currently on the verge or starting throwing tantrums because he doesn't see his family and doesn't prey even when he has no job (prefers combat drills). I had similar case in other fort, with the ungrateful personality too and had to organise some heroic death for him, but I'd prefer some other solution if possible. Mainly because every dwarf counts, but also because I don't like zombies destroying my fort : )

On the other hand, is this coincidence that both my problematic dwarfs are "ungrateful"? Or is this some kind of "instant kill off" personality type? I can't find any info on that on wiki.

[The Trashman]

I use a 'recreation' burrow which covers temples, libraries, taverns, bedrooms, etc. but not work spaces or training rooms. Then I put low mood dwarves in it to give them a chance to chill out a little. I've found that's helpful for managing the moods of the more stressful dwarves. I also just disable general labours for them sometimes, but that doesn't help with the eternal training situation

It's possible that the ungrateful dwarves get fewer/weaker positive emotions from thoughts, so they don't balance out their unfilled needs so much. It's tricky at lower pop, but I assign those dwarves to roles that keep them getting good thought, like performer or priest depending on their preferences and personality

[dth]

The burrow sounds nice, thx! I'll try it this evening : ) Looks like I'll have to build a vacation resort for grumpy dwarfs and their families :D

[Erei]

They won't do much recreation if they are overworked.

Also, needs are not tied to mood. Being "bored/frustrated" is not an actual unhappy thought IIRC. And someone highly distracted might not get bad thought, while someone with all needs meet can still generate some. Needs are tied to their work speed.
If your issue is unhappy dwarves, target their mood not their needs. It's weird.

Some personality are indeed harder to please. The "easily depressed" people will basically always be at the bottom at the slightest unhappy though. Some don't care about easily provided happy thought (like alcohol) and as such, are harder to please.

To make your dwarves happy, you need ot build a temple (no deity for maximum coverage), a good enough bedroom (designated as such, with a single bed, a cabinet and coffer, in order of stuff you may add. I also add a statue eventually). Make a mug stockpile right next to alcohol. Keep them on alcohol (no water unless needed). Make meal with a good cook (or a dedicated one that will skill over time). Avoid stressful situation, the biggest one being rain, but also miasma and dead sentient bodies.
With that you should have happy enough dwarves. You can then add better bedroom, more temple, mist generator.... for even happier dwarves.

[dth]

As I said, I've played this game before, I have tavern and temples for biggest deities + one for the rest of them, I have smoothed rooms with full furniture. The dwarf in question is really happy about most of the things, he enjoys finely crafted furniture or armour he wears, but in the "unmet needs" section he constantly has the need to pray, to spend time with family, to socialise etc. and he doesn't do it even if he has no job assigned, he prefers to do combat drills. In role play I'd say he's just neglecting everything else and feels bad because of it, but in gameplay terms it's just annoying, because I do whatever I can in order to avoid him going berserk and changing my fort into zombie infested nightmare and he just ignores it and becomes angry on purpose. Truely ungrateful brat.

[Erei]

Some dwarves can't be made happy. That's just how it is. One of my starting 7 is literally the only unhappy dwarves of my 200, 7years in. He is grumpy and always get unhappy thought because he get into argument.

That's the way it is. If they are too annoying, you just expel them.

Basically, Karen McUrist. They'll keep asking for the manager.

[The Trashman]

Originally posted by Erei:

Also, needs are not tied to mood. Being "bored/frustrated" is not an actual unhappy thought IIRC. And someone highly distracted might not get bad thought, while someone with all needs meet can still generate some. Needs are tied to their work speed.
If your issue is unhappy dwarves, target their mood not their needs. It's weird.

You're mistaken on a couple of points there.

https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Emotion
Here's the DF wiki page on emotions. You can see that boredom and frustration both contribute to stress. They are both negative emotions, though their impact is among the lowest of the possible negative emotions.

Needs contribute to mood. To give an overview:

Dwarves experience thoughts as they live their lives. Some thoughts come from things they do, like 'eating at a crowded table' or 'sleeping in a very fine bedroom'. Some thoughts come from things they see, like corpses or waterfalls. Some thoughts come from memories, where they experience a previous strong emotion again. Some thoughts do come from having unmet needs, like 'being away from family' or 'not crafting something for too long'.

Some of those thoughts are universally good or bad, like experiencing trauma, but the thought itself doesn't impact the dwarf's mood. Instead each thought generates an emotion based on the dwarf's personality. It's these emotions which are positive or negative, as defined in the table in the wiki page I linked. As an example, I have a dwarf who was joyful after eating at a crowded table, when most dwarves are just annoyed by it. That dwarf had the thought 'ate at crowded table' and their personality made them feel the emotion 'joyful' about that.

Those emotions add up and if they have more bad emotions than good ones, they gain stress. Over time, the buildup of stress leads to tantrums and eventually fatal insanity.

The weak bad emotions from unmet needs can often be outweighed by all the stronger positive emotions from living in a well-established fort. If you look at your happy dwarves with unmet needs, you'll see negative emotions about those needs. You'll also see a lot of bliss, rapture, euphoric emotions which are strong emotions, but also weaker positive emotions like interest, satisfaction, wonder. Overall, these will massively outweigh their few 8 or 4 -level negative emotions.

The problem is that some dwarves have personalities which limit the strength of their positive emotions and increase their negative emotions. Instead of feeling blissful (-1), they feel elation (-2). Instead of feeling restless (8), they feel agitation (4). For these guys, the balance doesn't come out as being so overwhelmingly positive. Then, when they get a really bad emotion like horror or panic, that can cause them to spiral and become stressed. This is especially the case when dwarves are overworked and can't have positive emotions.

Fulfilling a need will generally give a thought that gives a good emotion, but it also stops them getting negative emotions from thoughts about not doing that thing.

As an example, consider a depressive dwarf who needs to pray to three gods, spend time with family, craft something, fight and spend time with friends. If all those needs are unmet, then they'll get the thoughts 'going too long without praying to (God name) ' (anxiety x3), 'too long without spending time with family/friends' (lonely x2), 'too long without crafting/fighting' (agitated x2). With weaker positive emotions as well, this can easily swing them below everyone else in the happy-face scale. If they have a tough season, say they get attacked by something and become traumatised, then suddenly they're in a very bad mood.

If you're trying to make dwarves happier, their needs will give you hints about what things will give them positive emotions. Not filling their needs will give them negative emotions. There are other things you can do in general, but they won't always have the maximum impact on each dwarf.

Happy to explain this further, or other parts of dwarves psychology, if anyone has any specific questions

tl;dr
bored/frustrated are weak negative emotions, meeting or not meeting needs will give thoughts that can be positive or negative to different degrees (so needs impact mood)

[The Trashman]

Originally posted by dth:

The burrow sounds nice, thx! I'll try it this evening : ) Looks like I'll have to build a vacation resort for grumpy dwarfs and their families :D

With the new labour system, it's possible to give most people in your fort a holiday by making a labour assignment with everything ticked, then setting it to 'no one does this' that should stop most general labours, then your guys will all go hang out in your taverns, temples etc and have a good time

[Erei]

It's difficult to parse the one you linked. That one mention a lot of needs are actually not impactful :
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stress
"Some things were ubiquitous in dwarves' short-term memories, but didn't appear at all in long-term memories. These are often the things that worry players seemingly more than the dwarves themselves. These were: being away from family; being away from friends; being sad at being separated from a loved one; not having decent meals; being unable to craft an item; and being unable to wander. "
Being with friend/family, unable to craft, unable to wander" are all needs. While crafting make positive thought by itself, not crafting won't do much harm.
The only need that seems to have an effect is doing martial stuff.

I never had a need turn into a "memories" which is highly impactful. While thye may get some minor thought from it, it's very minor and not actually worth the time.

In my fortress, the thing that hurt mood the most were : rain (as always, even post nerf), creating long term memory and "mulling over" including change of personality. Being in jail (I had a small issue with prohibited exports). Really dumped their mood, even though I have "luxury cells" all engraved, with superior+ gold chain, bed and statues. Also created memories. The obvious other was seeing dead sentients, but since the nerf a few years ago it's not as bad as it once was.
Wound was a mixed bag, and depend on personality. Some are sad because they were allowed to rest. Others are happy because someone saved them. The wound itself is a trauma, so it's best avoided, but my former wounded dwarves are all happy now, including one that will be scared for life (and run around with a yellow "wound" bubble).

Memories are extremely important because it keeps giving bad/good thought to a dwarf. They are also quite potent.

[The Trashman]

Originally posted by Erei:

It's difficult to parse the one you linked.

My bad, I should have explained a little. If you sort the table by the 'divider' column, it will group the emotions by how much they increase or decrease stress. The number is a fraction, so the smaller the number the stronger the impact. A dwarf feeling blissful (-1) would gain (1/(-1) = - 1) points of stress, so they would lose one point. A dwarf feeling bored (8) would get 1/8 of a stress point. So a strong good emotion can cancel out a lot of weaker bad ones. A dwarf who was lonely from missing family, bored and frustrated but who felt blissful from a nice bedroom would get (1/4)+(1/8)+(1/8)+(-1) so would be losing stress overall.

Keeping dwarves happy is generally about giving them more good emotions than bad ones. You could do this by giving so many good emotions it completely outweighs the bad, you could do it by stopping all bad emotions so even a few good ones make them happy, or you could do anything inbetween. For most dwarves, giving them a lot of good thoughts is enough to keep them happy. Some dwarves have personalities that this doesn't work for, though. For those dwarves, stopping negative thoughts by fulfilling needs can be more important.

I gave an example above of a dwarf who felt lonely, bored, frustrated and blissful and how they would be happy overall. Imagine a different dwarf with a depressive personality. They would have different emotions from the same thoughts. If all their positive emotions were reduced by one level, and their negative ones were increased by one level, they might now feel bitter, anxious, agitated and happy. The maths now works out different - (1/2+1/4+1/4-1/2)=1/2 so they would overall be gaining stress now. For some dwarves, avoiding bad thoughts is more important than getting happy ones. This is where meeting needs is helpful, since lots of unmet needs give bad emotions that add up. You're right that unmet needs tend to have a small impact overall, but for some dwarves they matter a lot more.

Originally posted by Erei:

That one mention a lot of needs are actually not impactful :
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Stress
"Some things were ubiquitous in dwarves' short-term memories, but didn't appear at all in long-term memories. These are often the things that worry players seemingly more than the dwarves themselves. These were: being away from family; being away from friends; being sad at being separated from a loved one; not having decent meals; being unable to craft an item; and being unable to wander. "
Being with friend/family, unable to craft, unable to wander" are all needs. While crafting make positive thought by itself, not crafting won't do much harm.
The only need that seems to have an effect is doing martial stuff.

That's talking about memories, not mood. Unmet needs tend to generate weak negative emotions, and since it's the strongest emotions that tend to get added to longterm memory, this means your dwarves generally won't remember being bored from not crafting (or whatever). That page does say 10% of the dwarves got negative long-term memories from not praying, though.

Originally posted by Erei:

In my fortress, the thing that hurt mood the most were : rain (as always, even post nerf), creating long term memory and "mulling over" including change of personality. Being in jail (I had a small issue with prohibited exports). Really dumped their mood, even though I have "luxury cells" all engraved, with superior+ gold chain, bed and statues. Also created memories. The obvious other was seeing dead sentients, but since the nerf a few years ago it's not as bad as it once was.
Wound was a mixed bag, and depend on personality. Some are sad because they were allowed to rest. Others are happy because someone saved them. The wound itself is a trauma, so it's best avoided, but my former wounded dwarves are all happy now, including one that will be scared for life (and run around with a yellow "wound" bubble).

I'm curious what your depressed dwarf had in their thoughts, especially the positive ones

I find a good way to avoid the trauma from combat is to put the emotionally fragile dwarves in crossbow squads. It keeps them away from the front line and hopefully helps them avoid injury... if they don't decide to just run in anyway

[Erei]

Praying is important. I always recomend to make a crappy temple early on.

I don't have "depressed" dwarves myself. No "red" mood, never had one. I have a dozen or so dwarves in "average" and below. It varies. I just had a siege with lots of bodies, so it dipped, for example.

I mentioned what was the biggest "bad thought". Rain early on is (usually) inevitable and will really hurt the mood. Rain is much less an issue now, after 7 years. But early on it was in pretty much everyone's bad though/memory.
My moody dwarves ATM (it varies) are soldiers (lots of bad thought because they can't find the time to pray, and they have little opportunity to get all the positives (tavern, library, mist generator....). On the other hand, they face constant trauma, death and possible wounds. I know that giving them off duty time would be good, but uniform was such a mess if you did that in classic I'm not tempted to do so in steam.
Soldier's happy memories are mostly about improving (martial) skill and putting good item (armor).
My biggest unhappy dwarves (not in term of mood, but time spent being miserable) is one of the starting 7. He is basically Karen McUrist and always whine to the manager/mayor. He is "anger prone" and get in argument all the time lowering its mood. Most of the bad memories are about bad clothing (I have a clothing industry, go figure) and getting in argument. A few dead bodies.
Another unhappy dwarf (not that much, he is in yellow) is the engraver who was sent in jail for export ban issue. He took it very poorly, and while the other somewhat recovered, he did not. I cannot stress (lol pun) enough how bad that jail situation was. I saw a dip of all the involved dwarves immediately, and they still recover from it a year after. He doesn't have alot of bad memories, a "being attacked" and "major injury". Possibly related to justice beating ? Not sure, I'm in savage biome, agitated animals are the norm.

The biggets positive memories in the fort are the mist generator (it came online a few years ago, took me about 3 years to make it), good bedroom, dining room and prayer. Also obtaining an item (I do lots of good craft) and putting a quality item (clothing industry + dye industry).
The top bad memories, ironically, involve lack of prayer. But lots of trauma and fight (savage biome, can't be avoided) and old clothing (it took some time to start the industry I guess).

I also have a lot of non memories happy thoughts for the dwarves. Like good cook, plenty of artifact/masterwork to admire....

[Helios]

Originally posted by Erei:

They won't do much recreation if they are overworked.

Also, needs are not tied to mood. Being "bored/frustrated" is not an actual unhappy thought IIRC. And someone highly distracted might not get bad thought, while someone with all needs meet can still generate some. Needs are tied to their work speed.
If your issue is unhappy dwarves, target their mood not their needs. It's weird.

Some personality are indeed harder to please. The "easily depressed" people will basically always be at the bottom at the slightest unhappy though. Some don't care about easily provided happy thought (like alcohol) and as such, are harder to please.

To make your dwarves happy, you need ot build a temple (no deity for maximum coverage), a good enough bedroom (designated as such, with a single bed, a cabinet and coffer, in order of stuff you may add. I also add a statue eventually). Make a mug stockpile right next to alcohol. Keep them on alcohol (no water unless needed). Make meal with a good cook (or a dedicated one that will skill over time). Avoid stressful situation, the biggest one being rain, but also miasma and dead sentient bodies.
With that you should have happy enough dwarves. You can then add better bedroom, more temple, mist generator.... for even happier dwarves.

ive read about coffers but how do you place them are they under chest too like you can place a throne and chair under chairs?^^

[Erei]

Yep^^ Coffer and chests are the same thing, but different material. Like throne/chair, and most item made from glass and clay (like a "pot" is a "barrel").
When you click on a location (like a library) it will tell you what they have and need. They only need one chest (same for tavern, hospital....) from my experience.