Why the hell is the Tannery so overpowered?

[xdj1nn]

There are massive economic problems in this game as of 1.4.1.x

On that note.

There is something to buy... peace.



My last play ended after 25+ hours of recording it when I had owned a town and a castle or two. Constant war declarations amounted to extortion and peace was costing 250 to 400k each time, with multiple wars. Eventually it was obvious that I'd run out of money with no way to defend against these 1000 man armies that kept coming. Largest army I could form with my companion armies and me was about 600 and we would get slaughtered. I'm sure some of you are better players and all that, but the 1 million denars I started a kingdom with wasn't going to be enough for me to get enough fiefs where the income from those fiefs would allow me to continue growing. I should have hit Tier 5 first, one more companion party would have given me an army of 700 and a chance. I also had no vassals and no hired mercs, since they wanted 1 million denars to join me. There's something else you can buy and these are big late game denar sinks.

A workshop making 400/day isn't game breaking at this level, it might be a little much early game. You cannot amputate a patient until it survives. If anything other workshops should be on the same level as the tannery, but that makes it where it's pretty lame if all of them produce the same income no matter what the player does, which is now largely the case.

It would be a lot more interesting if you had more involvement in what income the workshop produced, but at this stage of game development I doubt that's an option.

Your comments are welcome, here or there. I did not play Warband, so keep that in mind. There's a lot I don't know.

workshop wise, there were Enterprises in WB, not the same thing at all because there was only a single enterprise that generated decent income which was velvet, and we'd spam those in all towns (no limits for enterprises, and only a single one per town). Enterprises could not be lost, if at war against a nation where you owned one it would give no profits (get sequestrated) until the war was over. All payment cycles in WB were weekly (giving a "feel" of being less income, but in actuality it really wasn't, it was just "slower" given that everything was weekly). So you don't miss much by not knowing WB. Here they are presenting us with a new "proposal", and this one seems good, if it has layers to it, on this blunt state it just sucks to own a workshop, "fire and forget" much like WB, but the income is negligible, making it useless by early-game because in WB we would use enterprises to hold our feet before owning a fief, here it isn't quite the same, in fact in 1.4.1 it's just smoke, you invest 15k to make some small daily buck that doesn't cover a simple party that allows you to be relevant, that's basically the main issue. Now we've got Caravans, but if you invest into one and lose it before it pays for itself, it's a massive loss for early game. It can still be exploitable though, which reminds me

Uhmmm what? Exactly what have changed about income in 1.4.1?

The game is exactly the same for me. As easy as before.



This post clearly shows how OP passive income is in bannerlord. After having tons of workshops in Warband, one town and running without army (he is paying pretty low wages), he is getting 10K weekly. Meanwhile, in Bannerlord you can easily get 5K daily passively as long as you have a tier 4-5 clan. Seriously, you are blind people and It does not make sense to continue arguing about this with you. But yes, lets ask for more passive income and for making the game even easier.

 

[eddiemccandless]

This post clearly shows how OP passive income is in bannerlord. After having tons of workshops in Warband, one town and running without army (he is paying pretty low wages), he is getting 10K weekly. Meanwhile, in Bannerlord you can easily get 5K daily passively as long as you have a tier 4-5 clan. Seriously, you are blind people and It does not make sense to continue arguing about this with you. But yes, lets ask for more passive income and for making the game even easier.

You are missing the point. It doesn't matter how much money you make in Bannerlord because there is nothing to use that money on apart from buying equipment, since winning one single battle will pay your troop wages for forever.

In Warband I am getting most of my money from passive income at that point in my playthrough, in Bannerlord fighting battles always obliterates passive income. In Warband after working on setting up productive enterprises the player feels like they have accomplished something, and can rely on that that to cover all expenses (barring exceptionally major war efforts). In Bannerlord workshops and caravans are largely useless, since to bring in the big bucks you need to buy the insanely expensive equipment you need to play the fighting game anyway, and all other expenses are minimal and irrelevant.

It's not just about the raw numbers, it's about the fundamental unbalance between equipment value and the rest of the economy. Until they fix that any other kind of balance is pointless.

Edit: I also contest the validity of comparing weekly to weekly in Warband vs Bannerlord, since that assume that time passes the same way in both games, and it really does not (Bannerlord is much more fast paced). At the end, either way it is the same. The issue is that in Bannerlord in one day of fighting you can make more money that in a month of fighting in Warband.

Edit 2: let me put it this way. Compared to Warband, Bannerlord has had a colossal inflation on equipment prices (I think we can all agree that x10 is a reasonable ballpark estimation). Workshops and caravans are sitting at an inflation that is at the very most about x7, and that is not keeping into account the fact that you don't get an unlimited number of workshops in Bannerlord. Meanwhile, troops are not even at x2. So it appears that wages have not been adjusted for the global inflation! Just like in real life, except backwards in time .

 

[Mindstrip]

Wouldn't tweaking values à la buffing/nerfing specific things whilst the foundation on which it relies upon is incomplete/flawed/broken just be an exercise in futility?

I'm no programmer or anything, nor do i grasp how bannerlord's economy work.
Only going by the feeling(ikr) that some key building blocks within the economy system's core is missing.
Though i'd be glad if this isnt the case.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I guess I wasn't clear that most devs tend to way way overestimate the corrections they need to make. Most times a small nudge is all that is needed not a huge push.

Agreed. Best balancing practice is to make a moderate measured adjustment, evaluate results, then increase or decrease said adjustment. I feel like instead we often (not always, but often) see pendulum swings. Pendulum swings make it harder to evaluate results of balancing moves.

The fastest way to guess a number between two points if the only feedback you get is either "too high" or "too low" is to divide the number of possible values in half each time. Now they can probably be reasonably certain the correct balance is within a fairly small range, but you'll get to that sweet spot faster if you do the "pendulum swing" method.

Not to say that's what's happening here, they might just be nerfing it and moving on, but when you're zeroing in on a target value, and you're unsure where it lies, you don't make incremental steps in one direction. That's less efficient.

Wouldn't tweaking values à la buffing/nerfing specific things whilst the foundation on which it relies upon is incomplete/flawed/broken just be an exercise in futility?

Not if they want to balance the first layer of a feature before adding another layer on top. Balance "Level 1" before you add "Level 2."

 

[somethinglightthat]

Between workshops and caravans around Tier 4/5 I expect about 10k passive. That and loot allows a buildup of a few million before you get into kingdoms. Then you're buying vassals, peace treaties, and mercs. If you get over the hump of that with income from fiefs you can take everything else.

In a nutshell there I don't see the issue except that the other workshops don't give enough, lack of player agency in the workshops, and the fact that no one has ever said they'd like to spend more time looting bandits which is where a nerf leads imo.

Thanks for the insight on Warband.

 

[LewanaM00n]

The whole point of trading is to make money ... the workshop and caravans are already basically nerfed to uselessness.
Trading should be a viable route to winning the game. So trade should get more bonuses and workshops need to be better.

By making a few companion armies, they give you hundreds or thousasnds of gold each for simply existing. Caravans are expensive in comparison and are a big waste of money and companions when a compaion army is free and gives you WAY more money.

Fighting a few battles can give you many thousands of loot-money every day, so trade should be a equally strong playstile as fighting, instead of making all ways of playing equally bad and unrewarding.

Nerfing everything into the ground and leaving the players only one damned single choice to play the game is not the way to go. Giving the players different options to play the game is great, but if some of those gameplay mechanics are a total waste of time because they are made useless (because there are "exploits") then the fun goes out the window pretty quickly.
Like, every real-life company or businessman who got rich, found a profitable business loophole or wares that are in demand; bought cheap and traded high. Yes, that's how business works, so please keep it in game as well.

15K for a caravan or workshop is a big investment, for maximum 100-200 every day in profits. That's just not worth it.
All caravans and workshops should make at least 1k gold every day. They area a massive investment with a lot of risk (caravans) and you only can buy a limited number, so they should reward you correspondingly.

I don't know what version you are playing but I'm playing the 1.4.0 and my caravans give me 1000-2000 a day each. I pick companions with high tactics, stuff them well with a nice armor and nice weapons and pick the better troops choice and they almost never get attacked.

Also I don't think the tannery need a nerf. I get 300-500 a day from one. The other workshops need to give more so we have more choice to pick from. Like if the nearest village have sheep and they always have a supply of wool, the best workshop should be a wool weavery. Now it's just pointless... you make tanneries everywhere.

Money is very easy in this game. Between the taxes from my fiefs, my workshops and my caravans I get 10 000 passive income a day. After a few years you have millions.

 

[somethinglightthat]

I suppose it might not be obvious that late game you will need those millions.

 

[Brocephus]

The short answer to this whole discussion is "Because TW doesn't really plan or test" in a way that modern professional software companies do. They clearly have some talented people on board but the leadership is not up to the task.

 

[LewanaM00n]

I suppose it might not be obvious that late game you will need those millions.

You might be correct. I haven't tested creating my own kingdom yet because it's incomplete. But as a vassal I just don't know what to do with all this cash.

 

[somethinglightthat]

It (kingdoms) has problems but its playable. The imbalance is real though. I didn't keep testing last time but peace costs started cheap, like 30k. They kept going up where at the end they wouldn't accept less than 300-400k. I don't know if there is a cap, but the way they write code I bet not. Vassals and mercs are GTA V style expensive in my last play.

There's lots of talent, but when you ask a committee for a horse you usually get a camel. I'm pretty sure balance comes after the "does this actually work" part.

 

[TheShermanator]

The fastest way to guess a number between two points if the only feedback you get is either "too high" or "too low" is to divide the number of possible values in half each time. Now they can probably be reasonably certain the correct balance is within a fairly small range, but you'll get to that sweet spot faster if you do the "pendulum swing" method.

Not to say that's what's happening here, they might just be nerfing it and moving on, but when you're zeroing in on a target value, and you're unsure where it lies, you don't make incremental steps in one direction. That's less efficient.

I think the above formulation about balancing methodology is wrong because it fails to account for 1) the law of unintended consequences and 2) second order ripple effects - which are disruptive in and of themselves and also sometimes even recursively impact the first order target effects. Both of those things make it harder, not easier, to measure evaluate the effects of balance actions.

Lots to say here, but quick hyperbolic example: lets say all passive sources of gold income - workshops, taxes, and caravan income - get massively nerfed (the opposite of my own preference, btw) by 50%. That'd be a radical pendulum swing! (That may seem crazy, but remember, they nerfed the influence value of prisoners by 95%, so, not out of the question for this balance team). The player would be forced to get more money to support parties, garrisons, etc. from active sources - i.e. loot, one way or the other. At the same time, they would be motivated to reduce costs - maybe getting by w/out garrisons and trying to defect enemy armies in the field, which would require using influence to assemble armies, which would raise the value if influence, which would motivate further actions to farm influence - like farming enemy armies and parties for prisoners to donate to friendly garrisons. That increase in enemy army / party farming for influence would in term be reinforced by enemy party farming for gold, which remember you need more in this situation. That could create a situation of more war because of player instigation. That could, ironically, create a situation in which constant city ownership turnover caused workshops to be lost more often.

Let's say the dusts settles on all of those changes, and the devs go back to evaluate the results of their big 50% passive income re-balances. What, in the original context of their intended gold-income-targeted balance effort, could they even say the results were? Even if they could talk cogently about just the changes to player gold status quo and ignore all of the other changes, could they make a convincing case that their nerf was even the straight-line cause of the change in player gold status quo vs. some other 2nd order cause (see above)? I don't think so. I think they would know less than when they started.

If, by contrast, the devs incrementally march towards a goal - say, 10% changes per patch in the direction they think they should go - they limit the risk of affecting other variables, and it's easier for them to cogently measure the effect they are supposed to be targeting. This incremental progress feels slower, but it's actually faster because it reduces the chance of totally incoherent and unreadable results. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Please stop saying nonsenses...

1- Please show me a video or something which proves that you are able to get 3K every day defeating Lords... The map is large enough and I really doubt that you can find a lord daily to defeat.
2- Sometimes you can get 3K daily with just one Caravan. I have said 3k with 3 workshops and 2 caravans because I just do not want to overreact and say nonsenses, just to defend my point. The truth is that you can eventually get much more money with 3 workshops and 2 caravans.
3- I really doubt that you do not use workshops and caravans because they are great sources of money. If you are not using them, you just are missing great income sources in the game. Anyway I do not believe that you do not pay for them, periord.
4- To defeat Lords you need an army, you do not get a decent army since day 1. If you are abusing the game with Khuzait units, you are just using another unbalanced way to play on easy difficulty.

Anyway, the argument about "this is ok because there are other more OP things" is simply silly and unnecessary.

If you can't find a lord just besiege something and they come to you. You don't like Khuzait units because they function? How do you feel about Swadian Knights and Rhodok sharpshooters in Warband? If Vlandian knights could land a hit and had armor like that they'd rule the world. Sometime they do anyways.
I'm not going to make a video but in every game I rack up so much money just beating lords that I can never spend it all. Even taking a break from war to travel the world to buy as many warhorses as I can with no income at all,I still never go below 150K. There's not enough to buy in the world to ever go broke. As soon as I pick a new fight I'm back to cleaning out the money from all the towns.

I like workshops and caravans and I used them in earlier games, but they're not necessary or beneficial at all if you're a warmonger.

 

[AfLIcTeD]

Just though of an amazing idea that will solve everyones problems. For the people that think tanneries give too much. Heres what you need to do. You will kick yourself for not thinking of it. Ok... so here it is. What you need to do is...... ready? *whispers* Don't buy them. How amazing is that. Bet you feel like a complete idiot for not thinking of it.

 

[Badcritter]

So apparently everyone decided to vent their spleen about the macro economic balance of passive income into this thread while I was sleeping.

I guess the OP was unwise to use the words "overpowered" and "nerf" in his thread title and TL : DR, but I'd like to remind everyone that the scope of his post was actually IN THE CONTEXT OF WORKSHOPS, Tanneries outperform everything else.

Rather than dive back into everyone's arguments about things too complicated for them to actually solve (not to mention the fact people are arguing cross-ways about slightly different things, which will never achieve anything) I decided to do something useful related to the actual topic. Perhaps people could take their tangential arguments about passive income and loot income to a thread titled something like "Passive income is too weak, killing lords is too profitable".

On topic, useful information follows:

Leather's price in the market is always red, meaning always "above average". I double checked what I'd casually observed by running a test (on 1.3.1) and visited every town on the map with a new game, and with an established game (day 373). My anecdotal observations were confirmed: When Leather is available in a town, it is ALWAYS "above average" price in the market. Usually between 100% and 200% above average.

The reason Tanneries are out of whack with other workshops is probably not directly related to the Tanneries themselves. It is because there is a flaw in the game's base supply and demand for Leather. No amount is ever enough. If you can manufacture it, you will beat the economic average return on investment for similar mechanics - guaranteed.

Test concluded. Bug identified. Workshop income is low compared to loot income (and even tax income) and that needs to be addressed, but we don't want to make all workshops like Tanneries, because Tanneries are the beneficiaries of a bug which will get fixed at some point.

@TheShermanator you make valid points that dig deeper against the binary search principle @Bannerman Man mentioned, and I agree that swinging a pendulum wildly should be minimised. But you get better triangulation by going past the point you need than falling short of it, so fewer iterations are required. On average, the most efficient balancing method is to adjust to just beyond where you think it will be right so you can confirm the consequnences of going too far, then tighten it back in. To use a motor racing analogy, you don't know whether you've pushed a car to its limit until you've lost control of it. Then next time you know exactly how far you can go.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I think the above formulation about balancing methodology is wrong because it fails to account for 1) the law of unintended consequences and 2) second order ripple effects - which are disruptive in and of themselves and also sometimes even recursively impact the first order target effects. Both of those things make it harder, not easier, to measure evaluate the effects of balance actions.

To be honest, I don't think the devs are too concerned about their actions having disruptive effects on the beta branch; that's what it's for. And it's not like they can't push out a hotfix if something has gone seriously awry. But even so, I doubt this would be the very first step in their balancing process. They may have already ruled out 90% of possible values through internal testing, in which case they're using the public branch to gather more data for the last 10% of values. That data would include observing the shifts in money making tactics that players take in lieu of tanneries at various points in the game.

Let's say the dusts settles on all of those changes, and the devs go back to evaluate the results of their big 50% passive income re-balances. What, in the original context of their intended gold-income-targeted balance effort, could they even say the results were?

Well, if the balance changes don't work, they have now quickly eliminated half of the total range of values they could choose from. Now they can choose a value in the middle of that remaining range and they will have already eliminated 75% of the possible values that they could choose in just two steps. The whole idea is to quickly figure out what doesn't work, not to carefully observe and measure what minute effect every change they make may have had.

Pendulum swings is really not the proper way to describe what's happening though. Pendulums imply they are swinging back the other direction just as hard, but that's not what's happening; I should not have used that word. They are selecting the value that lies directly in the middle of the total possible range in every step, eliminating half of the remaining values. If you don't overshoot the target value at least once, how can you be sure you've selected the perfect number, and the proper balance point doesn't actually rest below the value you've settled on?

All that said, I'm not a game developer, so I'm really just speculating what their process is, and this may not be the best way to go about balancing a game. This is just a mathematically sound way of finding a specific value from a possible range as fast as possible.

Personally, I'm sticking with my hypothesis that they just want to get all of their ducks in a row before they push out Level 2 of workshops, which will then boost the passive income generated by them as a mid-late game supplement.

 

[Bannerman Man]

@TheShermanator you make valid points that dig deeper against the binary search principle @Bannerman Man mentioned, and I agree that swinging a pendulum wildly should be minimised. But you get better triangulation by going past the point you need than falling short of it, so fewer iterations are required. On average, the most efficient balancing method is to adjust to just beyond where you think it will be right so you can confirm the consequnences of going too far, then tighten it back in. To use a motor racing analogy, you don't know whether you've pushed a car to its limit until you've lost control of it. Then next time you know exactly how far you can go.

That's a nice way of putting it!

Also, I was looking at it from the perspective of game balance, but it's true that it may very well just be a flaw or bug in the underlying supply of hides/leather.

 

[eddiemccandless]

Rather than dive back into everyone's arguments about things too complicated for them to actually solve (not to mention the fact people are arguing cross-ways about slightly different things, which will never achieve anything) I decided to do something useful related to the actual topic. Perhaps people could take their tangential arguments about passive income and loot income to a thread titled something like "Passive income is too weak, killing lords is too profitable".

You are not wrong on the OP, but I wouldn't agree on the fact that the discussion was tangential or not useful. This is one of the biggest issues with the game and I think it is good that people are talking about it. Especially when that produces interesting posts such as the one from @TheShermanator. Also, having read your other posts I am sure that is not how you meant to come off, but to be completely honest that paragraph sounds a little more condescending than warranted (which admittedly is by no means the worst I have seen on this forum in recent times).

 

[Stratigo]

Tanneries are an anomaly among workshops, there is something wrong with them because they outperform other workshops in basically every circumstance. That seems like something that needs to be fixed.

The usefulness of how much workshops make in general compared to the rest of the game is a separate issue. I agree workshops are now useless and need to be more profitable, with the possible exception of Tanneries which appear to only be as profitable as they are because of a flawed ratio of production and consumption in their supply chain.

The anomaly is that TW hasn't gotten around to nerfing them yet.

I mean, pottery in a key handful of cities used to make bank. It was nerfed.

The problem is not with making money really, the way I see it the issue is that there isn't really anything to use that money for once you have bought equipment for you and your companions. And honestly when you can get easily get 30k from a battle with a single lord, well that to me looks more like infinite money than the workshops.

3000k from 3 workshops and 2 caravans does not seem that unreasonable, considering that you have to spend 75k and two companions to gather all of that. It seem like a lot because there is not enough to spend your money on. Now when each of them is giving you 2000 for a combined income of 10000 a day, yes, sure that is a bit much. But again, it pales in comparison of the money you can make from fighting. That is where the nerf hammer needs to hit imo (not to obliterate it, just make it a little more reasonable), together with an increase of long term expenses such as troop wages.

Ultimately I would also like to see more meaningful gold sinks (e.g. the ability to outfit custom troops for money, the PoP mod for Warband did a fantastic job with that), but I understand that right now there's other things in the game that need to be addressed.

There's actually a few really high ticket things to spend money on. Buying loyalty and fiefs. Those run into the millions of coins, and fiefs ALSO require what becames an intensely tedious grind.



But, like, the best way to make money is fully exploiting the crafting system. If you utilize a full party, the inputs of crafting are drastically cheaper than the outputs, and you easily end up with like a dozen 30 to 50k swords in a couple days(ignoring super priced javelins as an obvious bug). And those swords ARE worth that much and always have been. But, hope you like crafting.

Well, I think you are lying because there is no reason to do not buy Workshops, except if you want to make the game harder. You can get your money back in 30 days or so and continue getting passive money without almost any risk.

I am not saying that there are not other ways to make money, defeating lords are also a great income source but this has not anything to do with Tannery workshops being OP or not.

I do not have any agenda, I am just giving feedback and arguments about whay I find Tannery workshops OP, while you are just talking about how profitable is to defeat lords which is not the point of this threat. Getting 3-5 K passively is too much and It has not anything to do with your arguments about other things that are even more unbalanced. If you find loot income too much, just open a new threat and talk about It.

I personally combine both, passive money (because there is no reason to do not use them if you want more money) and battles, and the result is that I am rich in every campaign I play at day +200 and the game lacks challenge for this.

I don't buy workshops until I am in the endgame because I am neurotic about losing them if I go to war with the faction I put them in, so I simply wait until I literally own the cities I workshop.

I have never had trouble running a profit. But I also craft.

 

[ParagonWelken]

The anomaly is that TW hasn't gotten around to nerfing them yet.

I mean, pottery in a key handful of cities used to make bank. It was nerfed.


There's actually a few really high ticket things to spend money on. Buying loyalty and fiefs. Those run into the millions of coins, and fiefs ALSO require what becames an intensely tedious grind.



But, like, the best way to make money is fully exploiting the crafting system. If you utilize a full party, the inputs of crafting are drastically cheaper than the outputs, and you easily end up with like a dozen 30 to 50k swords in a couple days(ignoring super priced javelins as an obvious bug). And those swords ARE worth that much and always have been. But, hope you like crafting.


I don't buy workshops until I am in the endgame because I am neurotic about losing them if I go to war with the faction I put them in, so I simply wait until I literally own the cities I workshop.

I have never had trouble running a profit. But I also craft.

The real complaint is the lack of balance in the economy. I doubt many are complaining that crafting is a viable method of profit making. Hell, I'd argue that I'd love to see armor crafting as well, and perhaps the means to custom arm my elite troops as well.

The issue is, unless your intended playstyle is 24/7 warmongering, there remains a large gap in ways to properly generate income in the early stages of the game. I struggled for awhile to get enough money to start getting workshops, coupled with the desire to watch and see which cities were relatively safe in my playthrough before investing, as I wanted a more dedicated source, only to find that the 45k I sunk into 3 workshops struggled to keep me afloat when weighing in the armies of myself, my spouse, and my companion.

I'm not suggesting we nerf Tanneries, because as I've said before, nerfing one thing while ignoring the need to balance the rest is not a fix, its a bandaid or stopgap method. Why try to repair the wounded leg when we can just chop off the working arm and give a reason to cry about something else?

To truly be sandbox, all methods of income need to be viable, even if some are intrinsically better than others, that's all I'm saying. TW has been struggling to keep up the pace they're making, but have shown no signs of stopping, so I am confident they WILL address the issue. It is more a matter of when, I believe.

 

[Badcritter]

having read your other posts I am sure that is not how you meant to come off, but to be completely honest that paragraph sounds a little more condescending than warranted

I was probably guilty of venting my annoyance after reading 5 pages of arguments on (mostly) the related but different topic of passive vs active income in general, looking for scraps directly relevant to the topic of the OP. Those related topics are absolutely worth talking about, they just belonged in their own thread where they wouldn't bury potential resolutions to the question of what makes Tanneries different to other workshops. I apologise for speaking in a way that could be interpreted otherwise.