Is Painting Pointless?

[GamingNomad]

I levelled up my imagination skill twice and yet it still seems painting is a resource intensive job with very low profit. I keep trying to use notoriety and mystique to get more people, and every time staleness is up I use passion. Even so, sometimes I only get one fund back.

Am I doing something wrong? Or should I just work at Glover and Glover?

[kaymarciy]

Painting is a great source of Contentment (and Mystique for a certain route). It can also be used to hide or freeze some cards.

[Maina]

Painting is great, but I've never liked it for money. I never found it worth it for money even before the nerf. Good for Glimmering, sometimes Contentment, destroying Restlessness, and making a card last longer (though there are other options for this). Also for the Unique Paintings, which are often the earliest you can get Tools with Aspect 8.

[GamingNomad]

Originally posted by kaymarciy:

Painting is a great source of Contentment (and Mystique for a certain route). It can also be used to hide or freeze some cards.

Originally posted by Maina:

Painting is great, but I've never liked it for money. I never found it worth it for money even before the nerf. Good for Glimmering, sometimes Contentment, destroying Restlessness, and making a card last longer (though there are other options for this). Also for the Unique Paintings, which are often the earliest you can get Tools with Aspect 8.

I don't know about tools but you're both right that it's great for getting rid of restlessness. So I guess if I'm ever stuck that's always an option.

[Sintonir]

I'd say painting isn't bad job, but board position in Glover and Commissions are much better. But to get the most of it you need a lot of Notoriety, and sometimes take a pause to paint with Passion instead of reputation, which is quite dangerous if you have a Hunter on board.

[Kaz Dragon]

I usually get one unique painting per playthrough (to help me advance my cultists), and thereafter only use it to hide mystique and notoriety cards from the inspector if he has bad timing and Dorothy has bad luck.

[Twelvefield]

I think this game is equally Artist Simulator as it is Cultist Simulator. As an artist myself, I see so much of my own career in this game.

It takes forever to get anything done.
I do the same thing over and over again, hoping for a better result.
It costs at least as much money as time to produce anything.
You need the best materials and medium, and the stores see you coming.
You get pennies for your end result, unless you are some sort of media darling, in which case:
Someone else makes millions duct-taping a banana to drywall.
All sorts of weird people get into your business.
You end up with piles of everything except what you need or what you are looking for.

[Mister Veeg]

it's a safe and profitable way to keep notoriety tied up during the appropriate season at the cost of generating tons of mystique.

[eharper256]

If you can get your Physique up, Manual Labour is also pretty good. Eventually its 40 seconds for 1 funds, no risk of injury, and constantly giving you extra vitality. So long as you're constantly pausing and restarting to get the timing right, you can easily outpace the loss.

Painting is generally unreliable (as it is in real life, haha). I've found its main use is getting rid of Restlessness, and for making the Level 8 Paintings as tools.

It can also hide Notoriety as noted, but usually generates Mystique which kinda defeats the object.

[niddhoger]

You know how a heart follower can sometimes destroy notoriety, but they usually just end up eating a mystique? I like to time it so that a painting ties up the mystique, leaving just that notoriety on the board. The heart follower then scoops up the notoriety for you.

Similarly, if an investigator is on the board and you have just that notoriety sticking there, you can time it so the notoriety is locked in a painting while he's looking for trouble. It's a bit tricky to pull off the timing, but ideally he'll have given up before the notoriety is back in play. Then, it should safely time out before he starts looking again.

Rare influences you need to save, and just about anything else with a timer, can also be held with the paint job. Ultimtaely, Sulochana will talk to you about anything for a repeatable 60 second freeze on influences and the like, but this eats up the talk verb. Splitting the duty between the two, or holding two items at once, is possible with painting.

If not, just keep spamming hte paint job. You flood the board with mystique so badly that the notoriety times out before the investigator finds it.

If nothing else, painting is a great way to level your imagination with all the glimmerings you'll create.

The only way to make serious $$$ with painting, though, is to intentionally use x4 notoriety while painting. This is a very dangerous move that requires you to just constantly flood the board with mystique which keeps the hunter on the board. Or, just rely heavily on... other... means of staying safe. Dispose of the evidence, kill the hunter, drive them insane... but these are emergency measures and not really long term, sustainable strategies. Destroying evidence, even with a level 10 moth follower, runs the risk of failure. This wounds your follower, and happens way too often assuming a 90% success rate (or 70% for the level 5 moth)

Otherwise... painting is a great source of level 8 tools for all the lores. Those rare pigments you get from early expeditions? They can be used, with a matching influence/lore, to produce a masterpiece painting that counts as a unique level 8 tool. This is very useful early game if you get the pigment matching your cult type. This lets you create exalted with just a level 8 lore/influence.

[Sintonir]

Originally posted by niddhoger:

The only way to make serious $$$ with painting, though, is to intentionally use x4 notoriety while painting. This is a very dangerous move that requires you to just constantly flood the board with mystique which keeps the hunter on the board.

If it was only using 4x Notoriety, it wouldn't really be dangerous. But you need to use 4x Notoriety most of the time, but sometimes use Passion to make some good paintings, because otherwise your income would reduce.

Originally posted by niddhoger:

Destroying evidence, even with a level 10 moth follower, runs the risk of failure. This wounds your follower, and happens way too often assuming a 90% success rate (or 70% for the level 5 moth)

Destroying evidence is capped to 70% success rate. So it is always better to use summons.

[niddhoger]

Originally posted by Sintonir:

Originally posted by niddhoger:

The only way to make serious $$$ with painting, though, is to intentionally use x4 notoriety while painting. This is a very dangerous move that requires you to just constantly flood the board with mystique which keeps the hunter on the board.

If it was only using 4x Notoriety, it wouldn't really be dangerous. But you need to use 4x Notoriety most of the time, but sometimes use Passion to make some good paintings, because otherwise your income would reduce.

Originally posted by niddhoger:

Destroying evidence, even with a level 10 moth follower, runs the risk of failure. This wounds your follower, and happens way too often assuming a 90% success rate (or 70% for the level 5 moth)

Destroying evidence is capped to 70% success rate. So it is always better to use summons.

Your still keeping the notoriety active, though. They'll never decay/get destroyed by a heart follower if you keep them around for painting. Having x4 on the board in some form or another always makes me nervous. Like you said, you have to juggle some passion in to keep staleness at bay... so it's a rather risky play. Better to just sit back with Glover and Glover after you get your Imagination skill maxed out.

And about the evidence... yeah that makes since. I knew it was failing too much to be 90% like a challenge success rate. Guess I'll stick to those summons... raw prophet should work just fine, yeah?

[76561198042686546]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

I think this game is equally Autist Simulator as it is Cultist Simulator.

ftfy