[Community Poll] A decision to take to cover more ground
Added 2024-05-26 16:10:52 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
Although the quality in Librarium designs is the highest it's ever been right now, I also share the concern of their production time requiring most of the month to be completed, leaving little to no time to advance through the full releases as I ideally would like to advance through them.
Earlier this year personal situations got in the way, but what particularly concerned me this period is that even in months like this running one where I got to be fully focused and working on these beyond full time (Which can be verified with a quick glance at my twitter updates timeline) the battler design production still demanded most of the month to be completed.
Taking the quality and required production time of Librarium Battlers these days into account and with the intention of cleaving through full releases and at minimum meet the ideal quota of full releases I want to adhere to, what I propose is to temporarily reduce the amount of battlers to either 12 or 8 in order to have more time to allocate towards full releases.
Broken down for instance, it would mean only 2 battler designs per static suggestion in the 12 scenario, or 1 battler per static suggestion in the 8 scenario.
As you may recall , ever since Librarium's early years I've had in the landing page how our community could expect up to 8 new designs per update cycle, all of these years and even in the rocky periods I've always actively avoided doing less than that amount, and in fact, I keep increasing the asset variety and the value of all tiers overall; I'm not looking for a way to work less, never the case for Librarium, I'm just looking for a way to cover more asset ground while keeping the quality and style we have arrived at these days.
Just for some perspective, through the years we've gone through this visual evolution:
With this temporary battler production per month reduction I also want to add a time slot to tackle updates to the Librarium Tileset, as well as updating archives around here such as our batch Libraries.
also adhering to full transparency, right now it is hard for me to gauge what Temporary means in this context, there's a lot of full releases and their respective 4dirs to go through, but being realistic I think this measure would last around 6 to 8 months, which could potentially be an overstatement, but I think it would also be an understatement if I said it would just be 3 months.
In the end however, All Librarium actions and directions are dictated by the demands of the majority of our community , so let us decide as we have in the past, with a vote.
As always I want to thank you for your patience and support through all of these years!
Comments
Hello Daniel! Glad to hear you like them! I feel 9 icons is viable with the design adjustments we made this month so you can look forward to them as they are!
Ækashics
2024-06-04 00:10:30 +0000 UTCI just want to say that Icons are some of my favorite part of each release, I really like them. I don't know how difficult or time consuming they are to make so I understand if you need to cut them to speed up things. If you wanted to keep them in some way maybe only do around 4 icons per set. 9 icons are great but with 4 icons (like the Michael battler) it can be enough. But that's just my perspective and suggestion.
Daniel Matias
2024-06-03 07:31:10 +0000 UTCThanks for providing this very valuable feedback!
Ækashics
2024-06-01 04:47:48 +0000 UTCI'm a recent subscriber, but I thought I would share my reasons for subscribing: - Static battlers (front and side view) - On-Map sprites - SV battler versions - Busts / Portraits as a snacky bonus Everything else I personally could live without easily. Also, 8 per month is fine with me, the quality if your content still justifies my subscription tier to me.
零気
2024-05-31 19:07:53 +0000 UTCHello Pen! Thanks for taking the time to write this and provide valuable insight! you raise a lot of points which I had actually not really thought about before and which leave me quite a few valuable lessons in just a few words. Thanks for bringing your experience here and sharing it with all of us! I feel what you wrote here will not just help me, but anyone who stumbles upon it :) Thanks for your interest and support through the years!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:52:07 +0000 UTCThanks for providing feedback! , it was taken into account :)
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:46:35 +0000 UTCHello EMpyrean! Once again, it didnt come across like that, no need to apologize :) Like I mentioned back then, it is important to express this kind of stuff so we can move in the direction the community desires! Thanks for the kind words and support! Hope you will continue to find Librarium mateirals useful!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:46:07 +0000 UTCI understand 4dir map sprites are very important so its time to deliver those in a timely fashion as well, which required some effort balance between them and the battler designs! Thanks for voicing your thoughts!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:44:24 +0000 UTCThanks for your support! Yeah the goal is for a more timely full version creation!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:43:14 +0000 UTCCertainly, my goal is to keep the current Librarium quality!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:40:40 +0000 UTCIndeed, timely fashion is also one of my sought after goals here, sorry you ahve to go through that extra effort :( ! The dragonbones are indeed a staple of Librarium, along the 4dirs, SVs and battlers themselves! Thanks for voicing what is important to you and helping shape Librarium's direction!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:38:03 +0000 UTCAnd movement sprites you will get!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:35:50 +0000 UTCThanks for voicing your opinion and vote Cris!
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:35:37 +0000 UTCHello blazing! yeah that sounds very reasonable, I'll be contacting you and the other May Winners tomorrow to know which battler out of the 3 within the suggestion you would like see produced! Thanks for the good wishes as well :)
Ækashics
2024-05-31 14:04:18 +0000 UTCNot really how I imagine my first ever actual post on Patreon to go, but whatever, I'll go back to lurking after this. I support you because you're a talented artist and I want to see you continue to grow. I'm not really using the assets in anything at present, just collecting them because I like collecting nice art. Your gradual evolution over time has been enjoyable to follow, though I'd advise you simply bite the bullet and more permanently lower your output in response to the increased workload and production times you've been experiencing. As someone who manages the creative output of themselves and others at a large company, I often have to remind my personnel that production is a marathon, not a sprint. Feature creep is a silent killer, don't worry so much about feeling like you have to do more and more all the time. Identify the core product, focus on it, excellence will be the natural consequence of focus and consistency over time. Having always been on the dragon tier, I do echo the confusion some others have expressed about exactly how much of the things paid for each cycle are actually being delivered upon. Perhaps consider tightening up and reevaluating the perks and prices of your tiers as part of a recalibration in output that can better align with your present circumstances. Speaking purely from a commercial standpoint, the increase in quality, detail, and overall usability of your present work warrants trimming some fat. The core product is simply better and more practical than it was in the past, and you can have confidence in that. What I mean is that things which no longer fit in your current workflow needn't hold you back if cutting them means the core product gets better. You yourself know best what works and what doesn't for you in this regard. I'd also strongly advise you not to use the freed up time entirely on work. If possibly, try to get your sleep average up to around 6-8 hours per day. Easier said than done of course, but this will be the biggest productivity gain that you can achieve. Your personal health and safety are your greatest asset as a creative, far beyond any new techniques or progression in terms of skill.
Pen Guin Gud
2024-05-31 10:18:38 +0000 UTCSounds like a pokemon version of SMITE. Gotta catch em all! All kidding aside, I hope you get all your needed assets. It's tough to make a game when your ambition and imagination grows tenfold over the availability of resources.
Fyoha
2024-05-30 00:30:51 +0000 UTCI actually feel the same about portrait/icons/tilesets But I don't want the people who actually use and love them, to feel like we actually feel right now by not having the 4-dir map sprite lol I think the best course of action after this poll ends, is to make a new one, and to see what people want to have in a full release, and discard the things that are less popular/have no votes at all
Empyrean55
2024-05-28 05:31:19 +0000 UTCI'm sorry I came across that way, and I'm sorry for being rude and entitled. I'll probally drop this patreon and either comission aekaschics personally like I wanted from the start (if he allows it) or make my own battler designs, as I have the talent to do so. As for my own game, I am focusing on it. I've been in developement for 5 years on and off and I just finished a huge achievement, getting a demo out of the 3rd and final version. The game is 20 hours long and I have 99% of the battlers done for it. I'm only missing sliefnir, wukong, agni, and a few others. Like 4 or so battlers out of a good 400-500. I have most of the battlers I need, but there's a few im still missing, most notably Sliefnir. I don't personally THINK my suggestions suck. but it probally comes down in the end of people not personally liking me and considering me entitled and avoding my suggestions intentionally. I was having a bad day and took it out on all of you. I'm sorry.
KrimsonKatt
2024-05-27 22:20:44 +0000 UTCquality >> quantity
Mario
2024-05-27 18:34:04 +0000 UTCEverything has been pretty much said already But basically, I'm 100% with reducing quantity rather than quality As for the false accusations that have been expressed in the comments section or the rather peculiar personal attacks ... Honestly I would say, don't bother I'm the one who expressed my discontentment about the current flow of release But I never intended to personnally attack you or whatsoever And if what I said on the previous post came out as like this, I truly apologize ( and I also apologize for bringing such an uproar from certain people ... ) I still love your work, love what you do, and as a fellow artist, but way less skilled as you, I definitely know how time consuming it is to do everything that you are currently doing, adding the fact to keep your patreon up to date Thank you for what you are doing and I hope you will keep up the work that you have been given us through all these years
Empyrean55
2024-05-27 17:50:19 +0000 UTCI’d say I don’t care much about quantity, rather have quality. It could even be two per month if they came with map sprites. I really miss having new map sprites every month
Murilo Bastos
2024-05-27 10:03:52 +0000 UTCI think it's a good idea to change to 8, I also think that having the full version more regularly will be more useful for everyone, Thanks for your work!
Vaiyat
2024-05-27 06:16:16 +0000 UTC8 is really good, the community is still going to get a lot of great quality with 8 full releases. Quality better than quantity.
Jeffrey H
2024-05-26 22:18:16 +0000 UTCYou honestly have been the most entitled person I've ever seen in a Patreon before. Aekashics isn't your personal artslave and you can't justify it by saying "I can't afford to commission all these battlers!!! Aekashics doesn't do commissions!!!" Constantly whining about how none of your suggestions gets picked and how if Aekashics even misses one of your suggestions in the poll had gotten SO aggravating. Like maybe your suggestions just suck? Maybe you should take a step back and pull a tighter focus on your game, instead of expecting to have 300000000000 of your battler ideas made in your schedule. There isn't a grand conspiracy to make sure your battlers don't get picked. You just have so many suggestions that you are your own worst enemy.
Christoffer
2024-05-26 21:55:50 +0000 UTCIt's kind of bittersweet that the first time I've suggested battlers (and won?) for the statics category that they're getting reduced to 1 instead of 3 but that's life lmao I'm fine with 8 per month. Honestly having battlers at the same artstyle and consistency is more important to me than having all of these battlers but they all are unusable because they don't have any 4-direction sprites. In my case though, can I at least pick which of the 3 from each "set" I suggested gets the art update? 😅 But yes, definitely getting more "full" packages is more important than making as many as possible. There were a LOT of really cool designs I wanted to use from the Librarium Catchup Megabungle that I can't use because their artstyle heavily clashes with the new style/they don't have 4 direction sprites. We (except one person apparently) understand that art takes an immense amount of skill and TIME to get out and we all would rather have SOME full releases done instead of none. I would also throw my 2 cents in that while the icons/portraits/tilesets are nice, I don't use them. The icons because they don't match the basic RTP or any of the other basic iconsets out there. The portraits because they don't work for my game and the tilesets aren't what I need either so if these go for now, the time it takes would be appreciated in catching up on the 4 direction sprites which a lot of us use more. As always, please take care of your health (mentally and physically) first.
Christoffer
2024-05-26 21:48:07 +0000 UTCI would rather see lower quantity per month if they were able to be delivered in a more timely fashion. I can't readily keep track of what's actually gotten a full release versus not without spending the effort to create an entire spreadsheet of original month poll win vs early access vs full release. I am a fan of the "bonus" materials like the tilesets and the icons, but not at the expense of the turnaround time for the main product aka the battlers. I disagree with another commenter that the Dragonbones are unnecessary though. That's what makes the statics vs the animated enemies really stand out. I could support pulling the tilesets, portraits, and icon files out of the routine rewards if that would take some of the pressure off. (Portraits at least I think can be met by using the fully-size files from... Minotaur tier I think? without being their own extra file download). Keeping the focus on the statics, the animated files, and the 4-direction sprites could help with on-time delivery. I don't come to the Librarium expecting my suggestions to win out or to eventually happen just because I've been subscribed for X months. I do however want to know that if I've sub'd for April, I'll see the full release of the content that I supported within the next 30-60 days :) Happy to see the poll being raised so that the Librarium can move in a direction that the community (and you!) can agree on.
Sarah R.
2024-05-26 20:35:40 +0000 UTCHey Krimson! Let's break this down since there's a lot to cover; A)Everyone here has a different focus to sub, in a community driven space there's no real room to request getting rid of what one is personally not here for, what may be irrelevant to you, might be important to someone else, which is why I'm always,even now aiming to reach a middle ground. B)Suggesting a lot does not trasnlate into everything being done soon or at all, it entirely depends on the polls and Librarium has never been advertised as a substitution for a comission service,or that it should be seen or treated as such, and it actually feels like many of the points you adhered to your post stem from that root. I also just checked particularly with your twitter account I have it available to send and receive DMs from you and I'm sure both of us don't have twitter blue, or you could have always just dropped a public mention at twitter or messaged me here on patreon to ask, not sure where those "$10 to access DMs"factor in at all, as they are simply not the case, or even if they had been over at twitter, like I said, you've always been able and in fact have consistently DM'd here on patreon. C)I don't feel it fair to dismiss any suggestion as lazy when people just have different ways to express the idea they want to see, if might be lazy to you, but everyone communicates this kind of stuff differently, for instance sometimes your descriptions redescribe monsters and characters from existing franchises and specific monsters, or you yourself have linked images from said games as a visual reference but nobody has ever called you or considered you lazy for it. D)On the botting thing, or suggesting that I "turn a blind eye on it because it benefits me"first of all there is literally no proof I can see of this being the case, I am able to check the results, see join dates of accounts and emails and detect at first glance for anything suspicious, second of all even patreon itself doesnt offer tools to do IP checks per user, I can only work with what they offer me to work with in the first place, I in fact have only ever had to block one user who did attempt to manipulate the polls by creating more accounts, and this block happened IMMEDIATELY the minute I saw the emails were basically the same and I even made a public post about it and requesting users to refrain from doing such things as eventually the designs are bound to be voted for as the community wills it. if I actually had wanted to turn a blind eye and ignore it I certainly wouldn't have blocked his acc and just charge them all awat, the precedent is right here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/polls-were-to-be-29912810?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link The main point here being,suggesting "I don't care" is frankly, out of place with the precedent being right there. The suggestion box is actually indeed used by more people other than you, and I even get requests through direct messages to add monsters to the poll derived fromuser specific-problems accessing the google form. E)I have never even heard of this "RPG MAKER Tavern" or know anyone called "Mr Evil". Answering to your solution points: 1.goes back to Point A 2.Goes back to point D 3.I don't do "Fun drawings" or do specific art for art trends on twitter, the only out of topic pieces I posted this month where A)A drawing of an adventurer which I worked on sporadically for months before completing back in early May. B)A set of pixel pieces where I wanted to try a different and faster coloring method before tackling the loot icon set for Ventoss Full release. C) A sketch of a mouse archetype I'd like to do for Patreon one day and D)A repost of a piece of fanart I did back in 2019 for NamcoXCapcom. It's acutally been literal years since I drew a lot of art that isn't related to work because my focus is there, work. F)I'm sorry to hear you're not pleased with the direction, but its also quite sad for me to hear that from you as I have actually also listened to you and your needs the same way I have been listening to everyone else, and if we're at this situation it's precisely because I want to meet those promises. Sorry for having personal situations every month, I'm the first one who would wish it wasn't the case. I don't disclose as much details as I used to in the past precisely to keep the focus on assets and their production. I also congratulate you on being able to crank out quality pieces in just an hour or two, I personally take up to 12 to 18 hours per piece with the current battlers and attention to detail, anatomy , theme and proportions, at a certain point its not even a matter of skill, its just not being able to rush the steps which demand the time they do for me, but I do find it odd you feel entitled to claim "I have 30 days to do 16 drawings"and that it is"not hard" when you know nothing about me, what running a platform like Librarium is like,my health or my circumstances; Yeah Librarium and art is my job and I love it, but I think you're not getting the main point here, I'm not complaining about the workload or trying to lessen it, I already devote an average of 16 to 18 hours EVERY day to it, 9 to 12 in the days where I have to take care of other personal matters that I can't overlook, in the past two years my average sleep time is 3 to 5 hours, usually 3 , that is NOT the problem, the problem is that in spite of that it STILL isn't enough to cover everything I need to cover, THAT is the main reason why Im bringing this up at all with the community in the first place . Like I also mentioned its not like i'm actually cutting you out of content as the original Librarium disclaimer clearly mentions "UP to 8 battler designs per cycle" not "ALWAYS 8" , it highlights "UP to 16", not "ALWAYS 16"So it's not like I'm pulling a clause out of my ass to save myself in this instance, if anything I've always been shooting to deliver the maximum, but now that the community has more needs and the battlers themselves take up way more time to get them to the quality I do, just I need to execute that wording for a *bit*. Yeah, back then it was easy to crank out entire sets of battlers in one afternoon, but you can't compare at ALL early Librarium battlers to modern ones. And nothing is on backlog currently, All April 2024 designs are completed and the May ones are currently beign voted for. G)Its not like I want to particularly see you go. I've never supressed or censored your voice, even though when at times, I've felt it was coming off rude either to me or other members of our community, at the same time I don't feel a lot of the reasons which cause you frustation are specifically rooted to Librarium core issues, like I mentioned, the poll system has been in place for years and nobody other than you has expressed an issue with it so far, as far as all the tools Patreon itself gives me to check over poll integrity, there are no red flags or anything suspicious going on, Librarium suggestions were never advertised as a substitue for commissions, Most of our active users, as far as I can visually and instinctively tell, are in fact NOT bots trying to manipulate polls or obscure your suggestions so that your ideas dont get voted for. I don't see any traces of a ring leader actively seeking to ruin you, using Librarium as their tool to do so. Even at 8 battlers, I'd still be meeting the amount of content which has been advertised in Librarium's About page, so you're still getting the amount of content listed that you should get, as far as battler designs go.
Ækashics
2024-05-26 20:34:47 +0000 UTCI'm literally only subscribed to this patreon for the battlers. All I care about is this: -Static Battlers -SV battler sprite sheets -Characrer sprites That's literally it. I do not care about the icons, tilesets, dragonbones, or any of that stuff. I only care about the battlers, SV battlers, and the characters. I just feel like there is too much bloat to librarium to "justify" the higher tiers. Like the dragonbones, icons, and tilesets. It's just too much for one person to handle to do all of them at once. The main reason I'm subscribed to this patreon is so I can see my battler ideas made into full releases. I'm one of the top suggestors by far, but my suggestions rarely if ever win. I basically treat this page like commissions where I pay $1 or $5 a month to get a CHANCE to make my battler ideas made rather than pay $100 per battler. I don't even think aekashics offers commissions anyways, and if he did you would have to do it through Twitter DMs which cost $10 a month to access. Plus Librarium already has a library of tens of thousands of "generic monsters" so the arystyles of existing generic monsters match well with my custom suggestions. This patreon is basically just a means for me to cheaply commission art, so all the unessessary additions to librarium that I'll never use in my games really annoy me. Now, for the real issue. The biggest problem with cutting down the suggestions to only 8 winners per month is the poll. My suggestions rarely if ever win, and if they do they win 3rd of 4th place by just 1 or 2 votes. It's super close most of the time, and this is while voting strategically and giving extremely detailed and in depth descriptions. I'm really frustrated when a lazy suggestion that's just a link to stolen art on Pinterest wins over my in depth descriptions and lore-filled posts even sometimes including entire boss movesets and strategies. If you cut down the winners by over half, that means by suggestions will NEVER win while this new system is in place, and like all the other "new systems" librarium has put in place it has been perminant rather than "temporary" like originally claimed. I won't get my money's worth and I'll feel like I've wasted tons of money that I could have been saving up for things I actually need when my suggestions don't win, and with this new system my suggestions will NEVER win with the requirements so much more strict and there always being the top 2 so far ahead ever since September last year. Remember when Elder Demonic Tree got 65 votes? It was super sus, so sus that I messaged aekashics suggesting that someone was botting votes. (or at least using a bunch of alts, like 20-30 or so) Aekashics said it was fine and there was no foul play, but I suspect that the polls ARE botted but after I raised suspicions the botters got smart. I'm pretty sure there's like one guy with 60 or so patreon accounts all paying the minimum price, $1 a month. They have 3 "main" accounts all posting the same lazy suggestions, just links to stolen art on Pinterest with no description, lore, or details. Then they have the other 47 bot accounts vote for their own suggestions, but ONLY so that they're only 10 or more so votes ahead of everyone else so that they don't raise suspicion. The botter only uses the bots that are required to win, keeping the other bots on standby. The only reason anyone else wins the polls is because they slip through the cracks when the ringmaster isn't paying attention. All these "bot accounts" are technically real accounts, which is why they're able to pass through the system. But they're all alts run by one guy and aekashics doesn't care since he's getting an extra $59 a month from it and that without the botter's suggestions I would only be the only one suggesting since no one on here uses the suggestion box to the extent that Aekashics has to remind people to use it. The moment when the botting started to happen also lines up with the time when I was banned from a discord called "RPG Maker Tavern." It was a nice server but the lead mod, who calls himself "Mr Evil", REALLY doesn't like me and considers me a "mass plagerist" because my series takes iconography and some weapon names from Fire Emblem. He hates my guts and probably hates me more since I announced I was going to finish his game for him (which he cancelled) and make him the villain, which he REALLY didn't like. He's likely the one behind all the bots. Solutions to the issues: 1: Cut out unessessary aspects of Librarium like the tilesets, icons, and dragonbones, which are too time consuming and take away from the original vision of Librarium which is a library of BATTLERS. 2: Investigate the potential poll botting situation by pulling up IPs and see how many IPs from what accounts match. 3: Stop doing "fun drawings" on Twitter. I saw your Twitter history. You spent a lot of time this month doing fun drawing challenges on Twitter than working on early or full releases. Sorry for the long and angry post. I'm just really upset about the direction Librarium is taking. Promises not being kept time and time again, delay after delay, bad addition after bad addition, the polling issues, etc. There can only be so many times you can say "oh personal issues got in the way" before it stops being a valid excuse. You have a job I and many others could only dream of: drawing art for a living. Yet you never meet your deadlines or your promises with the excuse of "oh I had personal/medical/family issues" NEARLY EVERY MONTH. Drawing is easy. While I'm not as skilled as you are, a high quality drawing FROM ME takes only about an hour or two to do. A comic page takes around a day. YOU HAVE 30 DAYS TO DO 16 DRAWINGS. It's not hard. Yet you can rarely even make 2 before it all goes to the backlog. I wanted to unsub for years after failed promise after failed promise, but this might be the final straw and Ill have to sprite all the battlers myself. (and they'll look like ass) It's especially frustrating to see everyone seemingly AGREE to lower the battler quota when I STRONGLY disagree with that idea. Majority rules isn't a thing when most of the active users are bots, and having a lower quote gives less work to the ringmaster trying to ruin me and my suggestions so I can't finish his game (Boundless;Domain, previously known as Tavernverse) for him once I get to it.
KrimsonKatt
2024-05-26 18:07:19 +0000 UTC8 is just fine, we need those movement sprites
Blue Dragon
2024-05-26 17:58:11 +0000 UTCHonestly, I'd be ok with 8
CrisR82
2024-05-26 17:41:57 +0000 UTC
