This is another one I thought would raise more ire then the change to the UI/menu. I’m sure that’s because the change really didn’t effect my game play that much.
The change to the dying bench is pure I’ve read the explanation as to why, flippant doesn’t play well with me.
So you took me, grabbing the dyes out of a chest/bench, opening my thralls menu, selecting a piece of armor and dying it to.
Taking the dye out of the chest, putting it on the bench.
Opening the thrall’s menu and removing all their armor; with out a remove all option.
Then going to the bench to dye each piece one at a time; place, dye, remove, next piece.
Then back to the thrall to redress them.
Why?
More over the dye preview is often wrong; wrong color, wrong shading, wrong dye zone. And isn’t an actually preview of the finished item.
So what to do?
I’m a progressive, always move forward. So my suggestion is 2 benches, one for making dyes/paints. And one for applying dyes and tattoos.
Or
T1 -3 dyers benches like most benches. What dye colors you can make and how much storage on the bench you have is level dependent.
But give us a way to dye a full set of armor like we would on a thrall.
Suggestion 1: Scrap this whole idiotic change. There is literally zero need for it. Why on earth should a new character who just hit level 5 and opened a chest containing 4 bottles of, for example, blue dye have to wait until level 25 and then craft this behemoth of a bench just to go through this crazy process of dying their armor? And should they be female, well forget the fact that , as you pointed out the dyes do not always match, the armor itself does not even match! The image below are of two completely and utterly different items…except they are the EXACT SAME ITEM, just one is when you put it on a female and one is when you put it on a male. How the hell are you supposed to dye this properly if you can only preview ONE VERSION OF THIS ITEM?
Then there is the fact that this whole change was “to justify the space the station takes up”. The most simple, and most logical solution would be this. MAKE THE FVCKING BENCH SMALLER! There is no bloody reason the dye bench needs to be this god damned big to begin with. Why would you need to completely re-invent an entirely new, and horrific, system which reduces players abilities just to justify the SIZE OF A BENCH. That is the most idiotic excuse I have never heard!
But then again, dyes used to be crafted in your firebowl cauldron. There never used to be a dye bench. There is NO NEED for a dye bench to even exist.
This entire new “system” for dyes need to be abandoned post haste. It is an abomination and it deserves to be put into that thread.
I think the suggestion I’ve seen that I liked best was the idea that the dyers bench should include a pair of mannequins (one male one female) - that way we could see proper previews of full armour sets. (Also, making sure the dye previews actually represent the final result would be a good thing…)
I don’t think that’s good enough. I don’t think that limiting people to wait until level 25 to use the dye they find from enemy drops, or chests, and then to build this specific station and remove your gear and go through all of this rig-amoral is the right approach at all. Nor is the devs excuse of “give the players a reason to return to their base” a valid excuse.
You’re right - I was kinda skipping over that point. I agree that it shouldn’t be level locked - in fact that was what I originally complained about when they initially announced it (I like to have the dyes I find early on influence my character’s colour scheme going forward - just adds a bit of randomness to it) - given that I prefer significantly reduced xp/slow progression, the level-lock could be quite a long time for me. I guess I just slipped into that stockholm syndrome thing some of us develop with CE where I just accepted the initial problem as fact and over-focused on trying to make it better afterwards…
Jeesh I never even thought of that. It’s not a very welcoming change, is it?
For the record, I am a professional dyer. We do thousands of yards of specialty textiles a year, all by hand. You can make the dyes in the space of a mortar and pestle. I won’t say how easy it is or how hard it is to dye a piece of clothing-sized material, but it does not take anywhere near the physical space of a standard armorer bench.
The whole issue has been handled distastefully. Strange things bring people back into games, and the free ability to dye clothing and gear was very attractive to me, after I saw VintageBeef doing poorly at it. This freedom brought me back into the game after a long pause, back in 2017. We’re losing freedoms for “declutter.” Is that the state of things?
Left trigger on console removes all gear from thralls. As for the new dye mechanic combined with the ridiculous new inventory system? It’s an absolute nightmare to keep track of specific armour sets when you’re dyeing in bulk.
I am glad to hear your replies, and to see that it is easy to overlook how disastrous this change is to newer players. As someone who actually enjoys making new characters to RP (and my main server wipes for each new chapter for a fresh experience for the new update) everyone on the server is now level locked in order to use dyes. ON AN RP SERVER! Just imagine how well received this change has been.
This explanation is difficult to accept. This game is how old? And you are just now thinking of unifying the button layout? The old UI worked just fine, and I cannot recall ever having a new player getting confused over it.
Plus, you want to “justify” the physical size of the bench? You do realize the bench doesn’t have to be that large. Just make a smaller tier 2 bench and let players go back to using looted dye when they find it.
This one has expressed contempt for this change from it’s announcement.
Then came the “immersion” argument.
Applying pigment to leather, textile, and metal in the same way at the same station is as immersive as baking bread in your smelting furnace.
Then came the “it’s a survival game” argument.
Because heavens forbid anything get easier to interface with in the game, rather than harder.
And of course, the I don’t care/use dyes so screw anyone who does crowd needed to chime in.
This change was, is, and shall remain enshittification.
Adding “another reason to return home after picking some new items” is an insult to player time.
They blocked the use of clean water to bolster the usage of toilet water.
Every update enshittifies something else about the game. In this case, not only did it make the process more odious, but it also, due to the jank of the bench and inventory UI, made it worse as now the preview window is far less reliable.
If there has been any way this was actually an upgrade, this one wouldn’t be so vitriolic.
Moving the process to the dye bench could have been an opportunity to let us adjust armour seeing how it would be on male or female characters, as has been mentioned above. It could also have been the opportunity to ditch dyes altogether and let the bench have the colour selector system like the clan banner bench does.
At the very least a bench this clucking oversized should have room to hold all due colours at once.
But no, of course not.
It just makes the process a hassle while adding nothing. A complete and unmitigated downgrade.
Coupled with other recent developments, it’s a fine indicator of the trajectory of this game’s future development.
Edit: I replied before reading the whole thread, other people have proposed some viable alternatives that would be equally good at solving a couple of the issues with the bench (like it should be unlocked at Lvl 1). I’m still of the opinion that it would be easier & more effective for them to add slots than to shrink the size of the bench, but both are viable answers.
Agreed, the change was bad and the “explanation” was patronizing/insulting.
If they were honestly concerned about justifying the size of the bench the obvious answer is to significantly increase the inventory slots. There are more dye colors available in the game than there are slots in the bench, which is silly for a bench that is used entirely for cosmetic purposes. The constant juggling of dyes between the bench and storage chests on the ground accomplishes nothing more than wasting the time of players over-and-over again, ad nauseum.
Personally, I suspect that changing the size of the bench at this point is (probably) not a good idea since it would be nearly impossible to know what sort of knock-off affects there would be if they changed the size. I envision graphics glitches galore and maybe even bizarre structural problems. So to me the obvious solution is to add enough storage slots that the bench can hold every possible dye color in the game, as well as holding 10 slots of materials that are used to make the dyes.
Beyond this, if they want to require players to use the bench for coloring their items, let them put multiple items in at once. I’m thinking 5 slots, which would be enough for a full set of armor at once, or a handful of some other types of items.
And for armor/wearables, they need to add option to choose whether the gear looks male or female when it’s being dyed.
[ Edit: or having the male/female dummies built into the bench as others have suggested. ]
To summarize:
Keep the same size.
Add enough storage slots to hold all dyes and some materials to make dyes.
Add 4 more dyeing slots, for a total of 5.
Add a method to show what the gear looks like as male or female.
The change was literally made to move the Dye button ‘somewhere’ else. Anything else was just a side effect.
What they should do here is take out the dyes and implement a color picker system on the dye bench. As well as allow us to preview while dying armor the male or female option based on our choice so we can apply dyes to armor for others and our followers.
I’ve read the explanation as to why, flippant doesn’t play well with me.
