What do you think can be changed with how money works in the game to make it better?

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Totalgarbage

Sergeant Knight
Almost everyone can agree that making money is too easy because loot sells for a lot and smithing gives the player the ability to print money as it currently stands. While this thread is not about smithing, I think lowering the sell price of high tier weapons (maybe by putting a soft cap?) and making smithing actions (smelting, refining & crafting) pass time after exiting the menu would be a good start.

All equipment's buying and selling values could be decreased in price, with higher tier equipment's prices being cut proportionally the most (or maybe have an increased chance of spawning in towns to decrease the price?) while increasing the AI's loot/denar conversion rate to keep their income the same (or maybe even a bit higher), but then money would become even more useless for the player, not to mention the negative effects on the ironsmith and wood workshops.

If we decrease the player's ability to make money from selling loot, smithing and maybe mercenary contracts (but not trading because it's ironically a slow to make money), but then convincing lords to join our faction becomes much harder and the already tedious and grindy late game becomes an even worse experience. So then we would need to decrease the cost of convincing lords to join our faction as well.

I'm not going to talk about workshops, alleys, caravans, trading nor about prosperity, village hearths and item specific demand, because frankly it becomes rather complicated and I'm not that knowledgeable on these subjects. I think that @Flesson19 can provide better solutions than I can on workshop, alley, caravan and trading profitability in general so I'm leaving those subjects.

So, what do you think about the other sections? Do you think that decreasing the price of equipment (while changing the loot/denar conversion rate so that the AI can keep up) and the cost of convincing lords to defect (and maybe the profitability of mercenary contracts?), as well as increasing the time it takes to complete smithing actions, therefore decreasing the overall amount of money in the economy would make the economy make the game better? If there is something else you think can/should be done, or there's something I got wrong, please feel free to comment on this discussion.
 
the biggest issue with shops(not counting 1.1.0 issue) is buying price. If they cost 14k and you make 250, then it only takes about 50-60 days are your in the green and I am fine with that. Caravans are super simple, trade skill needs to impact the caravan leaders profits a lot more so investing valuable points into trade makes it with it as I showed in 1.0.3 caravan video going from 1 to 200 trade added 12% profit, that is nothing for investing 4 or 5 focus points. Alleys, they need to give a bit more or at least give a multiplier of the leaders roguery skill to make them worth doing.(other ideas but keeping it simple) All of these changes are super simple to do as I am NOT a coder but know someone and these are easy changes to simple ad a multiplier to the final values or lower the price of shops by 50% at end of the value. Like I said these are all super simple changes that could make a huge difference, IF, anyone at TW would care as I have made a couple of these suggestions for months and nothing is done.
There are about 4 or 5 adjustments that are "needed" to economy items to make the game glow better and I just wish someone at TW cared enough to ask me someone with over 7,000 hours into the game, who has the knowledge to make things better. I care, I just wonder, does anyone care, if so they would seem more interested in changes to make the game better overall. Just look at the steam numbers, they are falling each week. It's sad such an amazing game is being dragged down. If things were handled different as far back as 1.7, I know the numbers could be nearly 50% higher than they are now, I could explain my reasoning but won't. After all this rambling, all I'll say is I streamed 7 days to die tonight for over 9 hours and had so much fun. For someone that's poured 2 1/2 years and 7,000 hours into this, my life. It's sad to come to this. I have lives Warband/Bannerlord for over 8 years but things are getting so bad, think you need to look other places, and I am NOT the only YouTuber who is on this track. I can name 4 who have almost completely moved on, what does that tell you TW?
 
I don't think the problem is with prices. I think its the virtually unlimited horse-based inventory. Even the herd and overburden penalties can't stop us from being able to carry ridiculous quantities of loot. The cheapest crap is also the lightest so you can always carry enough garbage to make tons of money off of it.

Slot-based inventory would solve the problem, IMO. You'd only be able to take a few of the best items from each battle instead of all of it.
 
I don't think the problem is with prices. I think its the virtually unlimited horse-based inventory. Even the herd and overburden penalties can't stop us from being able to carry ridiculous quantities of loot. The cheapest crap is also the lightest so you can always carry enough garbage to make tons of money off of it.

Slot-based inventory would solve the problem, IMO. You'd only be able to take a few of the best items from each battle instead of all of it.
I think your observations about the possibility of having infinite inventory/infinite number of horses and how overburden penalty doesn't really stop the player are correct. I really think that a slot based inventory like in Warband would be terrible for the game though. The inventory system in Warband was one of my least favourite aspects about the game (along with battles ending after the player got knocked out and the sieges), it just limited the player too much in an unfun way in my opinion.

I would rather have a scaling cap on the number of horses we can have and the amount we can be overburdened; such as after having more than 1.5x the horses/cattle of our party's herd threshold, we start to lose a ton of horses/mules/camels/cows/sheep/hogs every day until we have 1.5x the amount of herd threshold (for clarity, let's say if we have 100 foot soldiers, and we start getting a herd penalty to party movement at 300 horse and cattle, our cap would be then 450 horse and cattle, and if we have for example 600 total horse and/or cattle, we then rapidly lose 150 of them over the course of a few days). We can have a similar application for items and 1.5x overburden threshold or something like that. I pulled the 1.5x number out of my ass for simplicity's sake and there's likely a better ratio, but hopefully you get the idea. We can also increase the weight of non-commodity items (any item besides food, production and trade goods) since we buy all commodity items at 10.00 weight (kilograms? pounds?) per piece. We could alternatively lower the minimum party movement speed to 0 as well, though that might cause other problems as well. What do you think?
 
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I think your observations about the possibility of having infinite inventory/infinite number of horses and how overburden penalty doesn't really stop the player are correct. I really think that a slot based inventory like in Warband would be terrible for the game though. The inventory system in Warband was one of my least favourite aspects about the game (along with battles ending after the player got knocked out and the sieges), it just limited the player too much in an unfun way in my opinion.

I would rather have a scaling cap on the number of horses we can have and the amount we can be overburdened; such as after having more than 1.5x the horses/cattle of our party's herd threshold, we start to lose a ton of horses/mules/camels/cows/sheep/hogs every day until we have 1.5x the amount of herd threshold (for clarity, let's say if we have 100 foot soldiers, and we start getting a herd penalty to party movement at 300 horse and cattle, our cap would be then 450 horse and cattle, and if we have for example 600 total horse and/or cattle, we then rapidly lose 150 of them over the course of a few days). We can have a similar application for items and 1.5x overburden threshold or something like that. I pulled the 1.5x number out of my ass for simplicity's sake and there's likely a better ratio, but hopefully you get the idea. We can also increase the weight of non-commodity items (any item besides food, production and trade goods) since we buy all commodity items at 10.00 weight (kilograms? pounds?) per piece. We could alternatively lower the minimum party movement speed to 0 as well, though that might cause other problems as well. What do you think?
That sounds very complicated. I get that nobody likes inventory slots and having to juggle out cheaper stuff to grab the better stuff. But there's a reason why slot-based inventories are the most common type you see in games. Its simple and it works.
 
That sounds very complicated. I get that nobody likes inventory slots and having to juggle out cheaper stuff to grab the better stuff. But there's a reason why slot-based inventories are the most common type you see in games. Its simple and it works.
Maybe a better solution than my suggestion could be found then, because I really abhor slot based inventory. Of course, it's also very possible that there are very good implementations of slot based inventories that I'm unaware of. If you have an example of a slot based inventory you like in a game (that at least vaguely resembles this game's genre) please do tell.
 
Maybe a better solution than my suggestion could be found then, because I really abhor slot based inventory. Of course, it's also very possible that there are very good implementations of slot based inventories that I'm unaware of. If you have an example of a slot based inventory you like in a game (that at least vaguely resembles this game's genre) please do tell.
Its not that I like any inventory systems. They're usually designed primarily to limit how much you can carry, so its not like you're supposed to like them. But I don't want to think about them too much either

But what really irks me about Bannerlord's system is how your inventory capacity, and by extension your speed, shifts wildly up and down based on your number of horses and troops and how many troops are wounded, etc. Its all overly complicated, and if you just want to throw your troops in a garrison and go hunt bandits with your companions, you have to go through a whole rigamarole of stashing away all your stuff and your horses. And then you can't carry barely anything, so what's the point? So it pushes you to run a bigger party because its usually easier to recruit some extra guys to carry the cargo and manage the horses than it is to find somewhere to unload them. And on top of that, it makes it too easy to get rich.
 
the biggest issue with shops(not counting 1.1.0 issue) is buying price. If they cost 14k and you make 250, then it only takes about 50-60 days are your in the green and I am fine with that. Caravans are super simple, trade skill needs to impact the caravan leaders profits a lot more so investing valuable points into trade makes it with it as I showed in 1.0.3 caravan video going from 1 to 200 trade added 12% profit, that is nothing for investing 4 or 5 focus points. Alleys, they need to give a bit more or at least give a multiplier of the leaders roguery skill to make them worth doing.(other ideas but keeping it simple) All of these changes are super simple to do as I am NOT a coder but know someone and these are easy changes to simple ad a multiplier to the final values or lower the price of shops by 50% at end of the value. Like I said these are all super simple changes that could make a huge difference, IF, anyone at TW would care as I have made a couple of these suggestions for months and nothing is done.
There are about 4 or 5 adjustments that are "needed" to economy items to make the game glow better and I just wish someone at TW cared enough to ask me someone with over 7,000 hours into the game, who has the knowledge to make things better. I care, I just wonder, does anyone care, if so they would seem more interested in changes to make the game better overall. Just look at the steam numbers, they are falling each week. It's sad such an amazing game is being dragged down. If things were handled different as far back as 1.7, I know the numbers could be nearly 50% higher than they are now, I could explain my reasoning but won't. After all this rambling, all I'll say is I streamed 7 days to die tonight for over 9 hours and had so much fun. For someone that's poured 2 1/2 years and 7,000 hours into this, my life. It's sad to come to this. I have lives Warband/Bannerlord for over 8 years but things are getting so bad, think you need to look other places, and I am NOT the only YouTuber who is on this track. I can name 4 who have almost completely moved on, what does that tell you TW?
Yes, I was the largest English language BL streamer for quite a while. I haven't played much at all since release. There's still potential for a 'no man's sky' situation that a lot of us are really hoping for.
 
So, what do you think about the other sections? Do you think that decreasing the price of equipment (while changing the loot/denar conversion rate so that the AI can keep up) and the cost of convincing lords to defect (and maybe the profitability of mercenary contracts?), as well as increasing the time it takes to complete smithing actions, therefore decreasing the overall amount of money in the economy would make the economy make the game better? If there is something else you think can/should be done, or there's something I got wrong, please feel free to comment on this discussion.
I think this would result in changes without disction; by broadly decreasing the silver value on things, you're just deflating the economy.

I think, outside of workshops, it's "fine" as it is; there's a clear progression loop when it comes to money; you start off rubbing two silvers together just to get your daily bread, and then eventually try to afford a decent set of armor and a proper weapon. Once you've won some tournaments or done some trading or some some bandit hunting (etc.) you'll likely fit in among the mid tier soldiers in terms of equipment and ability. Eventually, you'll be making tens of thousands of denars and saving for top shelf weapons and armor, and eventually you'll be making hundreds of thousands from fighting either large scale battles or many small ones back to back and then the next big thing to save money for is either uber-luxury money sink equipment or buying loyalty from other clans. If you're ambitious, then you'll want a nest egg saved away since you'll likely hemorrhage money during the period of the game where you're trying to establish a new country and might even risk bankruptcy if things don't go your way either in battle or in trade (etc.). It's not until you've secured a whole country that money (likely) becomes a thing of the past, and your reward is enough money to buy clans to your side and whatever fancy money sink you've been fancying all these decades. At least, that's the "conventional loop" for those who find the money potential of Smithing not worth the tedium of getting it going (of course, if you enjoy it, then it's fun and of itself but if you don't...) and those who don't know Bannerlord so well they can confidently unite the entire world with just themselves and their extended family.

But I think it's unreasonable to balance the economy with the top .1% of players in mind (I think it's more sensible to make is difficult as possible to cheese the game and thus make it so only the hardest of hardcore could possibly ignore intended gameplay loops like extended siege campaigns) since it'd likely result in having to play like them just to keep your head above water when, if they're exploiting, the exploits should be fixed and, if they're just REALLY good, they should have options to make the game harder for them (that's a huge and complicated subject that I'm not prepared for though, since I'm still an ignorant newbie for all intents and purposes, but harder difficulty options are always nice in strategy games).

I think the only area of the economy that should be given a serious look at is workshops (maybe caravans--I don't know yet); they're difficult to even be solvent with, never mind make a meaningful profit off of. Compared to their overpowered stature in Warband, Bannerlord workshops are not only easy to forget about due to their lackluster profitability but may even be best ignored since, having watched Flesson a bit for advice, it appears even veterans who know what they're doing can barely make money off them, never mind make bank to pay the bills or afford the luxury bling.

Aside from all that though, it may be interesting if the price of wages slowly increased over the years to reflect the inflation that I suspect (but don't know for sure since I have only one playthrough of evidence) occurs over the decades, but that may be too complicated to effectively code for and the impact might be too minimal for most people to notice (never mind how it might screw the A.I. far more than engage the player).
 
In early game tier 1-2 it should be the same. But later as vassal it could easy be that 50% of profits went to the realm.
As kingdom i can´t really say. Never played that far. But as vassal it cost only influence to make an army. As a king it should then cost both money and influence.
One can also ad more giving in the game. To boost the various traits. Like when you reach level 3 villages no longer pay in money. But a more buff for traits and skill.
 
1 Get rid of faction banks and any hidden money or related mechanic or cheats
2 Make all money come from actual sources and actions, this includes making AI lord DO THINGS in the world.
3 determine how much money lords/player/parties should be spending as the game progress and scale money sources to reflect that. This includes loot, workshops, caravans, fief incomes, smithing.... all of it. This is a game design thing, right now we can assume the design is WHATEVER as there is no balance where the garbage loot of a big battle can clean out an entire town's money but that same town only pays like 2% of that in taxes. Plus 12+ other similar things that make no sense.
4 scale prices of player only items and actions (although AI should also pay for actions) based on what was decided in 3 so high end gear is appropriately attainable, clans can be reasonably bribed during recruitment and such. IE: if it's much harder to get money then these cost need to be lower too to reflect this, but still be a worthwhile cost. Also the AI should be paying cost to recruit clans, make marriages and anything the player has to pay for.
5 as a last resort to make the game functional, include exceptions or AI cheats if absolutely needed, but not for the sole purpose of padding the game IE: DO NOT give land less faction cheat money or allow them to have troops and mercs they can't pay for, DO NOT do dum stuff like this. And I mean as last resort not "because it's easier then properly coding the AI to play by the rules and do XYZ".
 
DO NOT give land less faction cheat money
You are expecting way more than you have any reasonable level of evidence of delivery.

Not just TaleWorlds has problems with balance between AI & Player economy systems. Simulating around cutthroat profiteering is not going to be a win for meatspace, it is either weak, overpowered, or you need to inject controls.

In TW case, they are all-in on keeping them separated. One system for the player, one system for the AI. It would be 10 more years of development, for them, in a direction they're not looking.

Anyhow, it's a game about couched lancing, not financing.
 
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