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[SirPenguin]

There appears to be a pretty big disconnect with how much the game thinks I should value my masterpieces and how I actually value my masterpieces. Masterpieces are announced, tracked in Legends mode, and cause large amounts of distress when they're destroyed.

The problem is that masterpieces really aren't all that special or important. In fact, my stonescrafter is usually cranking out masterpieces within the first year for the first Fall caravan. Secondly, while masterpieces are 2x stronger/more damage/etc. vs. a normal weapon, it's only .2 better than Exceptional, the one below it. The difference between two soldiers wielding a Exceptional vs. a Masterpiece or even a Superior vs. a Masterpiece is so negligible I can not picture myself caring enough to min/max their weapons.

I want to care about masterpieces. Here are a few of my ideas...some might work in tandem with others, some might not, but I think they all serve the purpose of making masterpieces more interesting and worthwhile.

-Dramatically decrease the % chance of generating a masterpiece item. Any skill level below "Master" should have a <1% chance to produce a masterpiece item. Even legendary dwarves should only have a 5-10% chance.

-Make them a more obvious stepping stone between "normal" items and artifacts. Increase their value modifier to x30 (1/4 of an artifact) and increase their weapon and armor modifies to 2.5.

-Masterpiece items should come with images, text, and other decorations by default. A dwarf should get "inspired" and grab other items when they are making a masterpiece much like they would in a strange mood, only they cannot "fail" these.

-Dwarves should be able to differentiate themselves by their masterpieces. A "Is happy to be the proud owner of a <Dwarf Name> designed item!" thought when a dwarf owns a masterpiece, for example. Nobles can demand items from a specific worker if said worker is the known creator of a lot of master pieces.


Any other ideas to make masterpieces worth having or keeping?

[alfie275]

Technically shouldn't a dwarf only create one masterpiece and only then become a master? Isn't a masterpiece the piece of work that shows he has become a master?

[Footkerchief]

For anyone who wasn't aware, this came up in today's DF Talk:

Capntastic:   So will artifacts in the future have neutral effects that are mostly artistic or cultural in their value; like 'This is a painting that marks a very important time in art' and that sort of stuff, where it's not valued because it does anything but just because it looks cool.

Toady:   Part of it is almost like words in a sense, because what is an artifact in Dwarf Fortress when you already have the masterpieces they make? In a sense the masterpieces should become a little rarer and maybe get names themselves. Some of them have names - a lot of the engravings have names - but if you make a masterpiece painting or sword or something like that, then even if it's not through the artifact process and even if it's not through the attachment kill-the-dragon process then those things maybe should oftentimes be elevated to the semi-artifact status where they can be known. Because there are all kinds of stories about people stealing a named diamond or something; it's not magical, except for the fact that it's cursed, and anyone who has the diamond will die! But aside from that - the obvious curse that every stolen object has - then a lot of mundane objects should be able to attain that kind of elevation, and when we flesh out exactly what it is that the artifact maker is doing - whether there's a god involved or whether there's this perfection of nature idea involved, or that kind of thing - then those might not be neutral objects, but the semi-artifact status really needs to be expanded.

[SirPenguin]

For anyone who wasn't aware, this came up in today's DF Talk:

Capntastic:   So will artifacts in the future have neutral effects that are mostly artistic or cultural in their value; like 'This is a painting that marks a very important time in art' and that sort of stuff, where it's not valued because it does anything but just because it looks cool.

Toady:   Part of it is almost like words in a sense, because what is an artifact in Dwarf Fortress when you already have the masterpieces they make? In a sense the masterpieces should become a little rarer and maybe get names themselves. Some of them have names - a lot of the engravings have names - but if you make a masterpiece painting or sword or something like that, then even if it's not through the artifact process and even if it's not through the attachment kill-the-dragon process then those things maybe should oftentimes be elevated to the semi-artifact status where they can be known. Because there are all kinds of stories about people stealing a named diamond or something; it's not magical, except for the fact that it's cursed, and anyone who has the diamond will die! But aside from that - the obvious curse that every stolen object has - then a lot of mundane objects should be able to attain that kind of elevation, and when we flesh out exactly what it is that the artifact maker is doing - whether there's a god involved or whether there's this perfection of nature idea involved, or that kind of thing - then those might not be neutral objects, but the semi-artifact status really needs to be expanded.

Haha, really? That's crazy. I was gonna listen to it later tonight.

edit: Just read the actual quote - man, me and Toady are on the same wavelength!

[Julius Clonkus]

I think it'd be interesting to have 'Masters' sign their masterworks, say put their watermagmamark on it. Once they are widely known, his works are a little more valuable, but when there's more and more of them and the interest fades, their value slowly goes back to normal. And a few hundred years later you might dig up some of those in that abandoned fortress and realize they've become an antique and got another small rise in value.

For that to work, the masterworks have to be REALLY scarce though.

[zwei]

I suppoert this.

If only because masterpiece spam from cook/bonecarver/weaver/dyer/tailor is just plain annoying.

[HatfieldCW]

It bugs the heck out of me that a legendary carpenter can whip up ten masterworks per day.  I addressed this in a thread a while back, and it's still one of my pet peeves.  I still think along the same lines of what I said there, that there should be an economy between speed and quality, so an expert mason can either build more good cabinets per week or the same number of awesome cabinets per week, but not a greater number of more awesome cabinets.  I'd say let a Legendary+5 mason make +Rock Door+ at the current high speed, but if you want better than that, you have to let him take his time, and maybe give him his own shop, or a private study.

[Silverionmox]

It bugs the heck out of me that a legendary carpenter can whip up ten masterworks per day.  I addressed this in a thread a while back, and it's still one of my pet peeves.  I still think along the same lines of what I said there, that there should be an economy between speed and quality, so an expert mason can either build more good cabinets per week or the same number of awesome cabinets per week, but not a greater number of more awesome cabinets.  I'd say let a Legendary+5 mason make +Rock Door+ at the current high speed, but if you want better than that, you have to let him take his time, and maybe give him his own shop, or a private study.

If he's really legendary, feats like that are acceptable. It's the skill level that goes up too fast. I'd turn it around with regards to messing with the speed though: a dwarf normally strives for good quality, unless you make him rush at the cost of quality and unhappy thoughts. Apart from that, quantity and quality of tools, personality, workshop quality etc. ought to contribute to quality too indeed.

[Lancensis]

It bugs the heck out of me that a legendary carpenter can whip up ten masterworks per day.  I addressed this in a thread a while back, and it's still one of my pet peeves.  I still think along the same lines of what I said there, that there should be an economy between speed and quality, so an expert mason can either build more good cabinets per week or the same number of awesome cabinets per week, but not a greater number of more awesome cabinets.  I'd say let a Legendary+5 mason make +Rock Door+ at the current high speed, but if you want better than that, you have to let him take his time, and maybe give him his own shop, or a private study.

I like the idea of this. Would you have a sliding scale on the workshop?

[HatfieldCW]

I like the idea of this. Would you have a sliding scale on the workshop?

I didn't think of it myself, but someone else suggested it a while back, like you can set a shop's output quality the same way you set the skill of the workers in it, from the configuration interface.  If you just need a bunch of pig tail bags for sand, or you want practice bolts in a hurry, you set the quality lower and the workers churn out the goods.  If you want awesome coffins for your legendary champions, you set it up to exceptional and each one takes several dwarf days to complete, depending on the skill of the builder.

Remember, a +Granite Throne+ is "finely crafted".  It's not a bad chair, it's not uncomfortable or falling apart or wobbly.  It's really quite good.  A skilled mason can make one of these in under a day, because he works confidently and doesn't make mistakes, not because he just took a block of stone and scribbled, "butt goes here" on it.  When you get above that quality level, you're dealing with things like millimeter-precision in symmetry and smoothing parts of the stone that'll never come in contact with a dwarf's body, just for looks.  That sort of thing should be extra time-consuming.

[Footkerchief]

Just for context:

# Bloat298, IMPERFECT CONSTRUCTIONS, (Future): You should be able to intentionally build submasterpiece buildings and items.

[Pilsu]

Personally I think the "superior" quality level should be removed entirely due to non-descriptiveness and well- and finely-crafted moved a tier up. Exceptional and above work would require more time to construct and couldn't be mass produced. Seems fitting considering the rank names.

[Lancensis]

I guess the idea is that superior items are above and beyond what you'd expect from a chair while well/finely crafted are simply at the high end of what you'd expect? Couldn't say.
One thing that's always bothered me, is how you can have a masterpiece ring, without any adornment/decoration. Surely a circle of metal is either shaped correctly, badly, or unusably.

[G-Flex]

The quality is certainly abstracted out pretty heavily, but the way I see it, decorations don't include all aesthetic design of an item, just things that can be added on top of a base design.

So a ring can still have an ornate design in it, for instance. It just can't have, say, a gemstone, or bands of another materials; those fall under the category of "decorations" as used now.