For the love of all that’s decent give us back the ability to use dyes from our inventory… Omg having to move each item in … it’s painful … whoever thought this was a good idea needs to accept that it’s not … it takes away from the game … just a painful obnoxious system to have to use
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You might not like it, I might not like it. But that argument does not really mean much when you post it like that.
What exactly is wrong with that design decision ?
See, I think it is not entirely good, yes, but I have a hard time thinking what makes not having to go to the station to dye your gear something that requires “outrage” among many other things.
I’ll take a shot at it.
First, and perhaps foremost, is that this is a decision that is a reduction in QoL - the previous system was undeniably simpler, more time-efficient and more convenient.
Secondly, it level locks all dyeing, while still leaving flasks of dye as common loot. While this could be argued as not being ‘objectively worse’, it is an irritation to (some) players, who now have to wait before they can add personalisation touches to their character/followers. (Remember also, not everyone plays at standard progression rates, so the level-lock can have a meaningful time impact for some.)
Third (personal, but I’m aware that there are others that feel the same) - one thing that the previous system allowed was to dye your equipment early game purely based on what dyes you found. This then added a pleasing randomness to the colours available to me, which I would use to inform colour and decoration decisions throughout that playthrough. While a comparatively minor thing, this is something that was a positive (with seemingly no downsides) that is now gone. And I would argue that ‘loss of feature’ without some benefit in return for that loss is just a negative.
Fourth - ‘realism’ - as Barnes has explained in previous threads on the topic - from the perspective of a professional cloth-dyer, there is no need for such a large bench in order to dye cloth.
Fifth - the reason given for the change is itself a poor reason - Funcom stated that they wanted to make the bench itself more useful (largely, it would seem, because many players actively dislike ‘spending’ space for such a large bench for so little function). That would seem to boil down to ‘you’re not doing things the way we want’, which for development of a ‘sandbox’ game is really not a good direction. (Sure, any game will have limits, ‘sandbox’ doesn’t mean ‘no limits’, but actively reducing player freedoms (that were previously present) should only happen for a good reason.)
(Five and a half - a big part of why the bench was viewed as of limited use was because Funcom previously removed the Functional Warpaints from the game - again a feature removed with no real explanation offered of why.)
Sixth - the change does not ‘add’ anything. There is no benefit to the player (and no reason to believe that there is any sort of benefit to the game, performance or otherwise), only a reduction of convenience. Especially in an established game, that would seem like bad design - changing features might sometimes be necessary, features certainly can be added, but features should never be removed without good reason or something to replace them. (If dyeing in the bench improved the process in some way - save-able presets, dyeing multiple sets, previews for the opposite sex, improved preview generally, whatever, just something that added - then I don’t think there would have been the same level of complaint - still some, but not the same level.)
Seventh - the whole thing adds more unnecessary time to the process. Any dyes found have to be brought back to base before they can be used. And even if just using from an existing stock, the process involves multiple extra steps - instead of ‘1.place dye flasks in inventory 2. dye 3.put any remaining flasks away’, it is now ‘1.remove armor, 2.place into correct slot in bench, 3. add dye flasks 4. dye, 5. re-equip armor 6. put any remaining flasks away’. When this is combined with the comparatively poor and often inaccurate preview function the game has for dyed items - which can often lead to needing to dye a piece then see it actually worn before being able to be sure it has the intended appearance (even more so if it is for the opposite sex) or that it matches as desired with the other items worn - these steps may need to be taken multiple times per item dyed.
Eighth - Those multiple extra steps, and the time they add unnecessarily to the process, are multiplied if you need to dye multiple pieces of equipment - equipping several thralls could already be time consuming before the change, now dyeing times are in effect doubled.
The actual result of the change for me is that I no longer bother looting dyes, or crafting them. The change did not have their stated aim of making me view the oversized Dye bench more favourably - instead it has had the effect of making me no longer interact with the dye system. So, for me, they have in effect just removed the feature. But at least I no longer need to craft the oversized bench (or waste feat points on it…).
In all honesty, I don’t view it as the most important change (or the worst failure among these changes) - but I do see it as one that is entirely negative. I also view it as a change that was entirely unnecessary, and that seems purely rooted in reducing player freedom, which is never a good thing in a sandbox game.
(Edited for minor spelling errors)
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Admittedly, I was half expecting them to discuss changes to the bench in the stream. I’m pretty disappointed they didn’t even acknowledge it. I know they’ll likely make changes at some point, but come on… this is a bit ridiculous, especially when we’ll be able to make custom outfits for our crafters pretty soon. One would assume we’ll be dying a whole slew of new stuff at once.
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I always imagined being able to dye your rags on the fly as just pouring the dye all over the item in a haphazard way. It’s what I would do if I was left in an inhospitable land and found some fun colours XD
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Meh. I don’t get the big deal over it. Does it limit us? Yes. Is there now a level block? Yes. But no more than weapon handles limit gear to level 60 and I didn’t see the same outrage then. I was miffed when they did that since ancient lem axe was a quick way to get a nice axe for starting the game.
There is a balance between QoL and survival aspects of the game. Dyes don’t affect function and are cosmetic only. I don’t see the big deal in level locking them. Nor do I see the big deal in having unusable loot until a certain level.
The problem with this change is the fact that it really screws up the RP and customization processes in this game when they’re suppose to be a big part of the enjoyment. There’s no reason to make it more troublesome. They just wanted to rationalize the large bench they created that no one asked for in the first place. Is it more realistic? Sure I guess. Does it add to the game’s fun factor? Not at all. It’s like managing your character’s bladder. Would it make the game more realistic? Sure. But does it make it more fun? Nope. It’s a pointless addition to the game that takes time away from the more fun aspects by creating a whole process just to create your ideal look. Now add to the fact that you may wanna customize your whole crew. That’s tons of outfits, one piece at a time. Add to that, if you wanna see how one piece looks with a whole outfit, you gotta dye it, take it out, try it on. If it looks bad, you have to remove it, put it back into the bench, dye it again, try it again with the outfit. Rinse and repeat until satisfied with the look.
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The very fact that they “don’t affect function and are cosmetic only” is exactly why it was a stupid decision to level lock them. FC spent time & money making a change that no one wanted and that didn’t benefit the game at all.
Dying worked just fine before the change, a change that no players ever asked for, the reasons FC gave were false and/or insulting, and the new system is inferior to the system that existed for years. What they did was take away something, that was working just fine, for no good reason at all (emphasis on “good” reason).
Even if we ignore the question of level locking, the previous system was superior and the current system is inferior, a reduction in QoL made for no good reason (at least not one that they communicated to us, the reasons they did give were bad).
Consider this, what if FC changed the entire game to have graphics that look pixelated like old Minecraft graphics but didn’t change anything that affects function. Would you also argue that change isn’t a big deal?
Changes need to have a reason, even more so when no players have ever asked for it. When the developer gives reasons that are blatantly false that rightly causes people to complain.
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Oh I knew they were not going to touch that issue with a ten foot poll. They KNOW that the screwed that system up and they KNOW that their players do not like their system. However, they frankly don’t give a shyte and as long as they do not bother to actually mention it or respond to any of the threads discussing it (which you will notice they literally have never done so yet), then they can just keep pretending that everything is fine as is.
I wouldn’t put money on that if I were you…
I agree, this new abomination of a system is ridiculous. 
Oh you meant their lack of response. That too!
Oh no, certainly not at once. It will be a slog and a half!!! Frustration levels will be off the charts, especially with the lack of gender representations for your outfits!
It might not be pretty, but it’ll get the job done! Especially in the beginning when all you have are course fiber bindings. OH RIGHT! Now you can’t even figure out how to open the lid on that bottle until you have reached level 25. FVCKING CHILD LOCKS!!! 
Exactly!!! Now imagine if they took that time, that effort, those man hours and money and put all of that into working on something that actually had BENEFIT to the game instead? What if those resources went to… fixing bugs? Improving weapon balancing? Introducing a new weapon type? Or hell, even fleshing out the existing tier sets (obsidian, dragon bone, star metal, black ice and what-not) so that all weapon types were represented and all of their stats were in proper alignment with their tier and difficulty to acquire / craft? Now THAT certainly would have been money and time well worth spending rather than THIS MEANINGLESS AND UNWANTED CHANGE TO A SYSTEM THAT WAS BETTER PRIOR TO THE CHANGE.
Does that makes this a little clearer to you @erjoh ?
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I actually think they will, but doing it when? I couldn’t say. I think some of the other fires they have to put out take priority. They’d have to be blind to not know everyone hates the system. Usually they try to make modifications to some of the stuff we didn’t like, but I agree it’s not a high priority compared to say the fighting system that HAD to be done asap.
See, that is the issue. They changed the fighting system (mainly the way the camera followed the mouse) and it was hated! So they changed that. They changed the precise stack splitting (because they never used that anyway 
) and it was hated! So they changed that. They changed the inventory system and it was hated! So they changed that (though not very much and it is still hated!). But the dye system…RADIO SILENCE!! They have not ever once acknowledged that there has even been one complaint made about it nor that they have even made any attempt to look into it or consider anything about it. For how long now? That is the key difference here. They have acknowledged the displeasure of the other systems that were changed, and they have done something to “attempt” to correct their error (though they have not actually fixed them in any of those situations). But the dye bench? NOTHING!
Now that is something useful. That is what I talk about. Saying something is “wrong” is not feedback. It is whining.
Making the case as to why they should do it as you say, not as they made, then it is feedback. I would work as Devil’s advocate, but I do agree with some of the points.
First I would point out that while the Hyborian age is assuming humans of thousands of years before the Buddhist Era (we use BBE, not BCE, of course. It is around 500 years earlier than the C, but, no matter in a frame of tens of thousands of years) had “chemistry” in the form of alchemy, metallurgy, complex systems of politics, commerce, etc. They had boats, pulley machines, etc. So it is not THAT advanced, but it is advanced.
As the devils advocate and modder, I would say: Simplicity is not always the goal. We are not making an Idle game here, so we are not favoring “point and click” just because it is simpler. It has to be more than it. Otherwise, you would not crafting stations of any sort because by system, ANYTHING can be crafted by hand. We dont need crafter thralls, because ANYTHING can be crafted by the player character, we dont need to have the materials on the crafting station or on the inventory because the system can get the materials from ANYWHERE, so it is the age old wisdom: If anything can be anything, then everything means nothing. That point of “simplicity” by itself is not a point.
“Realism” - here there are two counters to be made. First, the age old wisdom of game development: “In real life no one double jumps”.
People should not excuse any design decision in realism, because this is not reality. Immersion is not realism, is a balance between suspension of disbelief and world building. You can immerse yourself in a SciFi World as “real” that has nothing that is actually “realistic”. Example: Everyone just take “Johnny Silverhand” as a product of Cyberpunk. It works because it is “Cyberpunk”. But if you, like me, had experience on robotics, you would know that for the Silverhand of Johnny to work, technology, contrary to what Elon Musk get the gullible to believe, had to have a high degree of knowledge we dont have in electronic materials, components and processes to even conceive a system that can seamlessly integrate with the human body as to work like Silverhand works. So for that reason, to have Silverhand to exist, the World had to be, in a realistic setting, Millennia more advanced than 2077. I guess not even 2277 would herald such technology if we still apply the exponential evolution of tech, which is not also realistic because there are things that require “renewed designs” as they cant evolve indefinitely. On a word: Realism cannot be an argument. Immersion, which is the appeal that what we think CAN BE REAL is considered, that yes, but trying REALISM as in “what we have” does not.
Since without admin or someone to give you dyes, it is already level locked. The same way someone can give you dyes, someone can give you access to a dying bench. Still the same nature of level locked to someone who has the level to facilitate to those who have not. So, there is no real challenge there.
Idk about the functional warpaint part. Did not get what you aimed at there.
The bench does add something. While dyeing in your inventory requires that you use your inventory and your process UI to handle it, the bench is a separate UI, a separate process that allows for versatility to be build up in the future. For example, I can see this, like many things were, a step into making “mass production”, which is not possible using the already convoluted personal inventory UI. I can see that as a step to be able to craft already dyed armor from schemas you store in the station. I can see that as a step to allow thralls to do it. etc.
I always mention the SOC, Smart Object Component. It is a wonderful system that allows today a lot of things, but it had to be developed over years in steps, and without the first “bad” steps, it would not be possible to be good today. My peeve with how players today face game development is that. It takes time to make something good. It is even an argument as to why evolution as it is mentioned by the layman is wrong: To get to a really good state of fitness, something HAS to endure a transformation that leaves it unfit. Like the caterpillar that needs to be vulnerable, unmoving, unprotected, disfunctional, to become a butterfly, because it would take much more “unfit” states otherwise to seamlessly become a butterfly. People just dont have the patience. Like if someone sees a butterfly leaving the chrysalis, and “helps it leaving”, it will die soon after, because it is the struggle to leave the chrysalis that force the circulatory system to unfold and develop the wings enough to fly. I am not making that point based on “thought”. I can cite dozen systems in Conan Exiles besides SOC that have been coming from long development and just exist because it had “bad steps” but steps taken nonetheless, in the game.
“Unnecessary time” is a concept that games cant use lightly. Every time is unnecessary. YOu dont need to level, the game would work fine if you was just born “max level”. Leveling is not made to facilitate your life, it is made to impose a challenge. Many things in game are desgined to not be possible to do immedialtely for a reason. Being unnecessary is, even in most players arguments, the whole of a game. It is unecessary to play the game, and if you play it is unnecessary to do ANYTHING in a game. Things are there for many reasons, but being necessary is reserved only for system requirements, like you having to be a certain distance to something for it to load and show up to you. That is necessary given the system you use, but it is not necessary “per se”. You could have “sight-beyond-sight” of lion-o.
Personal observation from the point of view from me, who have been a DM in DnD since I was 17 to when I was 30, and I create adventures for group to play in a Unreal Engine system we build since then. I like to study the medieval and ancient stuff for creating some interesting adventures, and I love some channels on YouTube from people who can research it more than I can. I lived in Asia from my 27 to my 43, and before that, I lived in Africa from my 23 to my 27, I never spend significant time in Europe, so I rely on YT to give me the “on the ground” history facts of Europe. Even though, by my experience on the ground in the places I could, and YT reasearch, nothing tells me at any point that can be related to Conan Exiles, dying armor was not made in a very BIG and COMPLEX set of chemicals and machenical machines (like stretchers and presses). So Idk what “specialist” you pulling, but it is not what I see in reality. You dying a piece of linen by hand is one thing. You dying the bulk leather or dense cloth of armor by hand, is kind not what research has shown me.
I agree to an extent… I think they’re trying to see how long it takes everyone to stop complaining about it. You know, hoping we’ll get over it. If we keep reminding them, it’s likely only a matter of time before they admit it was a bad idea. We all saw through their poor attempt at explaining it, so they can only defend it for so long.
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Yes it does. However the fight you all have is with the diverse bench update of 2… something. The one that split out all recipes and gave us a multitude of benches, some specifically created for this split. Yeah this is just finalizing the dye aspects. All of the complaints about senseless updating can also be seen with that update.
Now for the specifics I think they will find tempting to address.
You make a very valid point that we get dyes we cannot use until we have the ability to craft. One of two ways I can see them working that into the system
- The easiest is to just remove the free dyes that are everywhere on the maps. Problem solved in that aspect. Not what players really want though.
- Work it back to able to self due but that dye is temporary and goes away (like warpaint). The only way to set the dye in your clothing is to use the dye bench. This makes the bench have value that was originally intended and given you the option to dye without it but at a lesser rate
The point here is that this battle was lost before the ages and this is just showing up the loose ends from that.
Yes and no. There is some validity to this, but at the same time this is also not the cause of the issue either. For one thing, there was no reason to split the dyes out of the alchemist cauldron in the first place, or to make all of the benches so much larger than they were before (well the T1 benches are still the same size but the T3 benches…bloody hell they are HUGE!). However, this update has more of a ramification on the issue of suspensions / bans for land claim than anything else. This has absolutely ZERO impact on the most recent update to the dye system.
You see, the dye system was being used in that gigantic waste of a space bench since 2021. If you really think that it took them over 3 years to figure out that they had to overhaul the dye system just to “justify the size of the bench” which has been in the game since 2021, and that the update that introduced it in 2021 is the CAUSE of the issue, then you have some convoluted sense of reasoning here. That update did nothing to cause this new updated system.
They did not have enough time to finish the Age of War within their 3 chapter allotment, which they admitted to and so they announced that there would be a fourth chapter. But at the same time, there was not nearly enough “left over” stuff to work on to constitute an entire chapters worth up update, so they HAD to update things to flesh it out. So what did they do? They “updated” the dye system. And they “updated” the inventory system. Did either of those system need to be updated? NO!!! Did anyone who plays this game want either of these system to be updated? NO!!! Could I have come up with 15 better ways to spend their time, money resources to use to flesh out that update? YES!!! I already mentioned a few of them above and I didn’t even have to think about it, they were that blatantly obvious. Yet, in spite of that, Funcom CHOSE to make these idiotic changes that no one wanted, are not liked, and worked VASTLY BETTER prior to their changes. And their reason for this specific change?
“To justify the size of the bench”. What a load of shyte! They could have simply adjusted the modle and made it smaller FFS! Or …I don’t know…made a new smaller modle bench… Either one would have taken less time, less money and less resources and neither would have pissed off their players like the choice they went with.
Yeah, that will just enrage people even more than this craptastic new system already has. 
Although this is a “better” solution, they could also put a limit on them. Perhaps make it so that you can only “hand dye” armor of “iron level quality and below”, then anything higher quality you have to use in the bench as it would require far more intricacy to dye. That would be a more justified reason then…apparently it has a child lock on it now…
On that you are wrong, and I already explained why above.
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- It level locks using dyes
- The bench inventory can’t accommodate all the dyes
- The process to dye thrall armor becomes onerous
- It was a solution looking for a problem and the time to develop it would have been better spent fixing critical bugs
I suspect you will fanboi these, not interested.
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The problem with the dying bench is not the mere fact of its existence, this issue doesn’t go back to version 2.x. The problem is that the recent change was based on bad decisions about how dying should work.
- Dying was fine before this most recent change.
There was nothing wrong, from a game-play point of view, with being able to dye items in our inventory. Any arguments about realism are nothing more than silly. Hit points aren’t real. Levels aren’t real. Magic isn’t real. Stygians aren’t real. And so on… this is not a game about what’s “real”.
Debating over whether being able to dye items in our inventory fits into realism game is sheer nonsense, the only thing that matters is whether it fits into the playing of the game. The fact that we can craft items in our inventory means that anything which fits comfortably into game play can also be done in our inventory, like dying items with dyes that we have looted.
We have crafting stations for multiple disciplines, and yet some of the items from almost every discipline can be made in our inventory. Anyone who tries to argue about realism is following a red herring and is missing the point.
From a game-play point of view, dying was working fine and there was no reason to change it.
- FC claimed that they were making the changes to the dying system as a QoL improvment - false.
That was either a blatant lie, intended to fool the gullible, or it was severely blind to reality and ignored feedback they got from players before implementing the change. It was not an improvement to game-play QoL.
- One of the reasons FC gave was that the dyer’s bench is so huge that it was reasonable to move all dying into the bench - obnoxious, insulting and patronizing.
A much more obvious and reasonable solution would be to admit that the bench is unnecessarily large and to make it smaller (which many people pointed out at the time). But instead they tried to use an argument that only an idiot would fall for. Insulting your own players with a bad argument and claiming it’s a QoL improvement is the opposite of what a dev should be doing when they communicate with their players.
- FC chose to keep the dyers bench huge, but it still doesn’t have enough inventory space for all of the dyes - insulting again.
If it was so important to keep the bench large, then the least they could have done was to give it more inventory space. Almost every tribe & player puts chests around their base in order to hold extra materials, raw materials or finished products or both, because no crafting station has as much inventory space as we would like them to have. Even so, this is a different case - in this case FC told us they were making a QoL change and that one of the reasons for the change was that the dyers bench is so big it needed to have changes made to help justify the size - if they really believed both of those points then the only reasonable thing to do would be to make the inventory large enough to hold at least one stack of every dye color and at least one stack of every component needed to make dyes. That’s the minimum number of slots that the dyers bench should have, if FC was being honest about their reasons.
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In patch 2.02 they changed the inventory UI, all buttons are now in the same place and there are no more submenu’s. (I found the button shifting annoying when looting enemies).
So in your inventory, when looking at the buttons, with armour selected, its always “use”, “repair” “drop” and “quickstack”(if not avilable they are greyed out). From what I gather this was done for controllers(but dont quote me on that).
If all the space it taken by the above, there is no more space for the “dye” button so they moved it to the dyers bench.
What I’m saying is that they intended it as a QoL improvement, an improvement to the inventory UI that is. If the inventory UI didnt give you issues, its not an improvement obviously.
I prefer the button in the inventory, btw. Having to go through the dyers bench is annoying. No need to convince me.
But it seems they intended it to be an improvement for controller users. And maybe it is for them, anyone use a controller?(I’m mouse and KB user only)
As a controller user, this one assures you the UI update gave us nothing but took from us the same things it took from everyone else.
That being precision splitting and the ability to use dye.
There’s other things that the UI update enshittified.
There may have been noises about it helping controller users, but this one saw no improvement whatsoever and doubts any controller users were consulted before making changes “for us”.
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Only new feature I liked was the ability to put copies of the same item into a container. Everything else was unnecessary. Even the “fixed” split feature doesn’t work correctly except under specific conditions, and not even in the player inventory… and it moves the item to the last row in a container inventory, so I gotta scroll down to get it.
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