Arelith

As someone who makes probably more fixtures than your average player I want to preface this feedback around my opinion that the most important part of a fixture is the creativity and work that goes into the description rather than the in game gathering of materials to make the placeable.

After spending some time drawing up a description and going to an art station to put it together I have come across the realization that art (paintings specifically) is gratuitously difficult to make.

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

It's going to take me days to coordinate a whole team to make a single painting. What was a fun attempt at RP is now a massive RP-free grind. Not a lot things upset me but I just can't pass this one up.

Please, please, please think of the fixture makers and reverse or take a fresh look at these requirements.

Some back and forth with some other players has made we want to add a further suggestion.

Now that we have the fancy paintings through hak content - maybe there's a middle ground. The basic vanilla fixture could go back to the cloth and wood requirement, while the fancy ones could require all the extra fuss of the dyes and the extra crafter PCs to have the upgraded image of choice.

It is very annoying and has ultimately put me off wanting to make any more due to how annoying it is to do so now. Before, was a quick and easy job.

Now, I've got to frustrate others with tedium and makes me want to do it even less.

This seems like a rather transparent attempt to create more interdepencies between the trade's, but it came at the cost of QoL and fun

Didn't even know about this until I read the thread. Throwing in my hat on the 'please make this easier' side. The fun's in making descriptions or making other PCs sit for paintings, not playing component hunting (particularly for an item with no mechanical advantage at all).

This proposal seems very reasonable. I think interdependency in general is good for things that have a mechanical benefit, in the case of creative items, on the other hand, it represents more a hindrance to creativity than anything else.

The fact that it requires lead means people in Skal can't even make paintings - unless our lead is just absurdly well hidden. Been searching for the past week and couldn't find a single lead deposit.

Another way to look at it, is that it has opened up a method for certain tradeskills to be able to sell consumable goods, where they previously did not have much of a market.

I have personally seen these items for sale in multiple PC shops.

It would also be great for either:

1) dye recipes to make more than one dye for the amount of material needed.

or

2) peddlers on the surface to sell them like Andunor tinkers do

Anatida wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 3:55 pm Another way to look at it, is that it has opened up a method for certain tradeskills to be able to sell consumable goods, where they previously did not have much of a market.

I have personally seen these items for sale in multiple PC shops.

I understand the intention, but is it possible this type of inter-dependency can instead be moved to powerful items that have a mechanical advantage such as Archmage Staffs, Moonblades, etc? It's less of a hassle to find an Elf in Andunor that can put together a moonblade than it is to put a brush to canvas at this stage.

All I wanted to do was commemorate some good RP in a fixture as a gift to another character, but instead I got a wild gnome chase through the Underdark looking for Tinkers.

Edit: another (accidental even) suggestion I heard from a player was that the Painter's Palette could be a permanent item that you can use repeatedly. That way you only have the headache once and from there you can paint to your heart's content.

Anatida wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 3:55 pm Another way to look at it, is that it has opened up a method for certain tradeskills to be able to sell consumable goods, where they previously did not have much of a market.

I have personally seen these items for sale in multiple PC shops.

Yea, but for paintings???

A concern that came to my mind is that the crafters who can't be bothered to go through the trouble of cobbling together the resources over the span of a week (or more) will be more tempted to simply steal a painting off someone's wall and erase those efforts to substitute their own vision.

magistrasa wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 4:56 pm A concern that came to my mind is that the crafters who can't be bothered to go through the trouble of cobbling together the resources over the span of a week (or more) will be more tempted to simply steal a painting off someone's wall and erase those efforts to substitute their own vision.

This was a brief temptation, and I say that as someone who has never once stolen a fixture to remake out of at least fifty I've made on Arelith.

When I brought the softwood and medium cloth to the artstation, immediately discovering just how much work it was actually going to take to make the fixture itself (after spending a day or two pondering about the type of art, the scene, how I'd describe it, and ultimately write it out) I was prepared to just send the player the description through discord and be done with it.

magistrasa wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 4:56 pm A concern that came to my mind is that the crafters who can't be bothered to go through the trouble of cobbling together the resources over the span of a week (or more) will be more tempted to simply steal a painting off someone's wall and erase those efforts to substitute their own vision.

This is exactly what will happen.

Anatida wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 3:55 pm Another way to look at it, is that it has opened up a method for certain tradeskills to be able to sell consumable goods, where they previously did not have much of a market.

I have personally seen these items for sale in multiple PC shops.

I understand that's a popular motivation for making crafting complicated but I'd go back to that moonblade example. If you're seeking out or trying to craft the epic and ultimate weapon you or another character is going to be using for the the rest of their time on Arelith then any amount of hoops you have to go through are going to be worth it (and maybe part of the fun.) There's plenty of RP to be had there because the destination is worth it and the item is so important that the hoops will make it feel earned.

If the hoops are to get something of little value beyond a bit of RP, you're just going to annoy and discourage. Especially part-timers. If I only have four hours Saturday to play and want to make a painting I'm not even sure I could pull it off with that material list. There's so many other things I'd rather do. I really don't think Arelith is a server that's so starved for RP opportunities we need to force people to deal with each other that way. That's just not a good direction for minor crafts.

Skibbles wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 4:48 pm Edit: another (accidental even) suggestion I heard from a player was that the Painter's Palette could be a permanent item that you can use repeatedly. That way you only have the headache once and from there you can paint to your heart's content.

That would be a nice compromise, if a compromise is needed.

Alternately or in addition, perhaps art crafting items could have a few tiers of recipes and if you want to make the extra-fancy version of a painting or statue or furniture that requires a ton of hoops you'd get something in the end that has a permanent description element that indicates this is the top shelf luxury version. But let the starving artists churn out their el cheapo paintings on cheap canvas too!

I’m selling the new carpentry items. But I, too, loathe the added complication. Please revert the recently added carpentry complications, as the OP is requesting.

It is in no way worth being able to sell a couple new items to have to suffer so much for one painting. Carpentry has insane complicated requirements anyway, why it was made even more complicated is a mystery.

Carpentry is by far the most torturous and unfun trade skill because of all the nested matryoshka-doll recipes that demand a million steps and cross-tradeskill interaction to make things.

I'm far in the minority here I'm sure, but I personally like the convoluted steps. I'm also playing a carpenter currently.

Nitro wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 12:08 pm Carpentry is by far the most torturous and unfun trade skill because of all the nested matryoshka-doll recipes that demand a million steps and cross-tradeskill interaction to make things.

They've even been simplified. They used to be far, far worse (Enchanted Shields requiring the creation of every type of wooden shield in sequence; charcoal only produced as a byproduct of pine tar; etc.)

Playing someone who is well-connected enough to simply pay people to go get the needed materials, even I'm put off by this. I adore making paintings and creative descriptions, but every time I've looked into setting one up with this, I've been like, 'let's just do that another time, that will take longer than an accords meeting...'

I understand the intent is to make it to where lowbies get involved, but this:
is a little much. Dial it back to half or maybe three-quarters of this?

I believe most of those materials can be bought and sold by the expanded warehouse system. At least in their raw material forms.

What if one settlement decides to dedicate themselves for art, and makes an effort to keep the ingredients needed to make paintings in stock, both in stores and in the warehouse?

Would the artist characters then flock to this new "capital of art"?

Or could there be a market for a PC run shop that just specializes in paints, inks and the likes to save you the effort? How much would you be willing to pay for these rare, expensive paints and pigments?

When I see this list I think the intent is to make it extremely difficult and time consuming to make a painting to keep people from making too many paintings. I am not being facetious with that.. I could see a case to make it difficult to create decorative objects for the simple reason they don't want too many of them littering the server. If that is the case, then this is working.

I think complication is good for some objects. Knowing a very special item is a pain in the butt to make increases its value (in gold, in RP) and some furnishings like say a throne for royalty should require time and effort. Epic armor and weapons should require epic effort. But these are all things you don't need to make often. Maybe you'll only make them once in a characters lifetime.

A painting is something an artist character would want to make a lot of and it is (usually, ideally) created because someone has a great idea or inspiration and (usually, ideally) the character works up a description and that in itself is already time-consuming. The canvas itself should be a pretty easy thing for an artist to make, IF we want to encourage people to make art.

Absolutely, the essence of a creating a painting should be in the writing, the description of the fixture, the creative vision of the player and maybe the flowery language used, I don't see what good there is in gatekeeping players from creating art with such material requirements. Does it increase the value of the painting by the sheer artificial scarcity of them? Or perhaps the extra labor involved in its creation? Well, maybe, but is that necessarily a good thing? It clearly adds a layer of tedium to the process that just makes the whole thing less fun, and that's never a good thing I'd say :/

Skarain wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 5:30 am I believe most of those materials can be bought and sold by the expanded warehouse system. At least in their raw material forms.

What if one settlement decides to dedicate themselves for art, and makes an effort to keep the ingredients needed to make paintings in stock, both in stores and in the warehouse?

Would the artist characters then flock to this new "capital of art"?

Or could there be a market for a PC run shop that just specializes in paints, inks and the likes to save you the effort? How much would you be willing to pay for these rare, expensive paints and pigments?

This is way too optimistic, I've never ever seen a thorough economy stabilize around fixture making.

Even if that was to happen, it's silly to ask so much for a simple painting.

What is more likely to happen is that people will just stop bothering to make paintings, me among them. Which is sad, because I like making paintings about IG history, and must have contributed at least ten on my last major character alone.

The most reasonable way to address this is to remove the palette for the basic painting models. Or give the palette multiple uses.

Skarain wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 5:30 am What if one settlement decides to dedicate themselves for art

What if we just removed the ridiculous requirements for creating art