Hearts - have they changed?

I am still fairly new to the game and have a lot left to discover. I read a thread that is a year old, that included a post by a developer:
http://community.failbettergames.com/topic19495-suggestion-give-hearts-an-effect-outside-events.aspx

I am curious if hearts have changed at all with the release of Zubmariner? I realize that the DLC was just released a few days ago and that there probably has not been very much time, if any, for any testing to have been done.

From what I understand, hearts is one of the less useful stats, and I’m curious if that is still the case. In my playthroughs, I haven’t found a whole lot of use for it other than challenges.

My other question is if there are patch notes for Zubmariner anywhere? I suspect none have been released, other than just a brief overview of the most significant changes that this DLC brings to the game. All I could find was just brief overviews, not full update/patch notes:

https://www.failbettergames.com/lose-your-mind-eat-your-crew-dive-zumbariner-is-here/ (Steam store page has exact same description too)
https://www.failbettergames.com/new-content-in-sunless-sea/
edited by KocLobster on 10/15/2016

[quote=KocLobster]From what I understand, hearts is one of the less useful stats, and I’m curious if that is still the case. In my playthroughs, I haven’t found a whole lot of use for it other than challenges.[/quote]Actually, Hearts has always been pretty important imo since it’s always easier to do something risky if your crew trusts you. There are lots of uses for it in SS stories. It’s not used in combat, of course, but so is Pages, and that’s rather important too.

There’s definitely at least one new important use of Hearts in Zubmariner: diving into an abyss is a Hearts challenge and it’s made clear that your crew is doing it only reluctantly. I guess they outright refuse if you fail the challenge (my current captain has Hearts as her strongest stat, so I haven’t seen the failure results yet)

Failing the Hearts challenge still allows you to descend into an abyss. If I remember right, the penalty is 10 Hull loss, which is pretty minor. Some of the failures for gaining the rite are more significant (I’ve only seen Greeting failure give 1 Wound, and Feasting give 5 Terror), but those test a variety of stats. And again, the &quotfailure&quot still gives you the rite.

It certainly has way more uses now than before. It’s a good stat to have if you plan on visitng Anthe.