Dyes

[Flower Power]

Dyes fill me with existential horror. Dyes are a nightmare hellscape visited upon us by nested crafting demons.

You've got two types - we'll call them "composite dyes" (ones made by blending other types of dyes) and "base dyes" (which are made from lead ore, clay, gem dust and herbs.)

The problem is that every "composite dye" makes only 1 dye no matter how many other pots of dyes you're blending: want to make a pot of brown dye? You need 1 light blue (itself a composite of Dark Blue and Bleach) + 1 Yellow + 2 Dark Red - 6 pots of dye to make a SINGLE pot of Brown Dye.

And each of those pots of base dye takes clay, lead, gem dusts and herbs. It all adds up, really fast, if you ever find yourself in need of more than 1-2 pots of a composite dye.

Please. Please, simplify the dye system - or at least, make it so we end up getting more than 1 pot of dye out of a recipe that requires us to use 6 others to make it.

[Drogo Gyslain]

Or better yet... can we get a Dye Merchant that is more reliable than the Underdark Trader?

A Rotating inventory? Moderately expensive custom dyes... or at least a merchant that sells the base level dyes.

[LichBait]

Yes please. Dyes are /rough/ to acquire.

[Edens_Fall]

I like the Merchant idea.

[stoneheart-]

Adding a merchant would be nice, but it doesn't really solve the core problem of, "these are torture to craft". Even making a spreadsheet for a dye-heavy project is a pain. If it were me, I'd bring them all under a unified recipe called "dye" and adjust the value of ingredients/the amounts used in recipes accordingly, but that's probably an unrealistic dream at this point.

Instead I would suggest that a base recipe, "Dye" be added, and from "Dye" we can add color (this is how making dye and paint works anyways. you start with a base and add things.) For example:

Dye
2 water
1 lead
(and whatever, maybe one more ingredient)
Yield: 5 Dye

And then:

Dye (Dark Green)
1 Dye
2 strideleaf
1 black petal
(or whatever)
Yield: 5 Dye (Dark Green)

To my thinking, this is a lot easier to keep track of whilst maintaining the "aesthetic" of mixing things to make color, which I actually like.

[Maladus]

What are dyes even used for?

[LichBait]

Painter's Palettes for the new fancy pictures. Different colored wooden couches. Changing cushions to the alternate appearances. As well as a couple of other recipes for some table fixtures. So, mostly fixtures.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I've posted about dye recipes in the past, I'll re-post what I said because I do not want to go through the recipes again. It takes a lot of work to figure out what goes into what, and I want to illustrate the problem for people who haven't had to craft with dyes before.

While mixing dyes is logical, actually doing it in-game involves a lot of menu/recipe navigating because of how nested everything is. I think the new couches and the new pillows are worse than palettes, because you need to navigate through some very convoluted nested recipes.

For example, the gold damask couch takes brown dye, and gold dye.
Gold dye requires 1 dark blue dye, 2 yellow dye, and 1 dark red dye. Which means for that 1 single dye I need 4 lead chunks.
Brown dye requires 1 light blue dye (which requires 1 bleach and 1 dark blue dye), 1 yellow dye, and 1 red dye. Which is another 4 chunks of lead.
To make this single couch I need 8 lead, 8 clay, and a bunch of plants and gem dusts.

The new pillows suffer similarly.
Cushions 2 requires:
1 light blue dye (dark blue dye + bleach), 2 lead and 2 clay.
1 light green dye (bleach + dark green dye (1 dark blue dye + 1 yellow dye)), 3 lead and 3 clay.
1 light red dye (dark red dye + bleach), 2 lead and 2 clay.
1 pink dye (1 bleach + 2 dark red dye), 3 lead and 3 clay.

This is 10 lead and 10 clay to make a single set of cushions. And this is discluding all of the gem dusts and plants I would have to go find as well.

To even piece this recipe together I had to have 2 browser windows open to cross-reference what fixtures need what dyes, and what the dye recipes are.

I wouldn't mind this if dyes were easier to make, if the recipes to make base dyes were simplified to have fewer ingredients. I don't think the system is broken, it just needs to be tweaked a little.[/quote

[Definately Not A Mimic]

I still enjoy making the dyes and any other nesting recipe. It's fun for some people to have to go through the gathering and such. I do agree though that if you are combining multiple pots of dye they should produce more than one final pot. But since these things are for non-mandatory items, you don't need them to make your clothes look nice or anything, I'd hate to see the recipe change. The fancy furniture should be that, fancy.

[Curve]

I’ll ask here rather than start a new thread. What is the purpose of the dyes other than materials for other things? Do they change colors in ways that the appearance menus can’t? I don’t understand.

[Drogo Gyslain]

I’ll ask here rather than start a new thread. What is the purpose of the dyes other than materials for other things? Do they change colors in ways that the appearance menus can’t? I don’t understand.

Dyes are simply crafting materials to make other items. They have no other use aside from creating additional items from them. They are intermediary crafting items at best.

[Skibbles]

Minecraft ruined gaming forever when it introduced the mindless tedium of complicated processes for simple products. I can barely play a game these days without grinding through useless objects that make other useless objects to make a final product - like bad filler episodes in your favorite TV show.

I have a feeling these were introduced to low-key cut down on the amount of placeables in the game though that's a hunch and I don't think I've seen an official stance on why these things have become so wearisome to make.

Paintings for example used to require just a piece of wood and a medium cloth, and I brought it up a full year ago.

Here is a list of materials I need to make a SINGLE painting:

Three Different Crafters: Art, Herbalism, Carpentry.
3 Clay
1 Gem Dust (Sapphire)
1 Belladonna
3 Rock Chunk (Lead)
1 Gem Dust (Garnet)
1 Berries
1 Gem Dust (Fire Agate)
1 Lady's Tear
1 Hardwood
1 Charcoal
1 Cloth (Medium)
1 Softwood

Some of that is dye of course, and I've offered feedback similar to this thread: please just combine all dye into a single 'dye' item or better yet just simplify non-mechanical items. It used to be so simple!

This scenario has led me into some minor form of OCD trauma where I just buy all the staple dyes from a tinker on every character just because I don't want to deal with it in the future if I suddenly feel inspired to make a placeable.

It is my hope that one day we can return to the creativity of an item's description being the hard part.