I have the same problem. I craft/smelt a few weapons (for example onehanded swords) and unlock a few pieces. Then I save the game, exit to menu and reload the save and all unlocked parts are gone and I have to start all over again. This bug is breaking smithing currently.
Glad to hear that this is on the radar and gets fixed
The roadmap says that there are plans for skill experience gains, what can we expect from this? I did create a thread recently about leveling up skills and pretty much everybody there agrees that skills in general level too slow with some of them leveling far too slow. Some of the really problematic skills to level up are Medicine, Rougery, Athletics, Scouting, Riding (it seems to level properly when using a bow but gaining XP with meele weapons feels bugged) and Trading.
You changed my mind, that sounds cool actually. At first I thought that you wanted to tie skill progress to stuff like caravan escort quests etc ^^
That's exactly the point. Something is wrong when it feels like a chore/grind (especially in a singleplayer game).
I'm not saying that the current system in Bannerlord can't work or can't be fun but it's a lot harder to balance and make it fun. It comes with so many problems which needs to be fixed and there needs to be a lot of finetuning.
I kinda agree, I don't expect them to rework the entire system. Making the skills level up much faster would be a good compromise.
While I love Skyrim I can't deny that the game doesn't have issues. Leveling up Destruction magic is insanely slow for example but the game gives a workaround with trainers (it's easier to just become the richest person in Tamriel and buy your destruction up to 100 than leveling it in the "intended" way). Fallout 4 leveling is completely different and is more like the traditional Warband: Kill stuff, do quests, get XP from it and put it into perks. Same as Elden Ring. Just kill stuff, get runes, use these to level up and stronger opponents give more runes. Pretty simple and gets the job done.
Not sure what to think about that to be honest. Most of the current quests are rather boring than fun, definitely don't want to grind them.
Exactly, I prefer doing that too.
Fair enough, WB leveling isn't good for roleplayers. Maybe a fair compromise would be to make leveling up skills much faster (at least some of them like Scouting, Medicine, Athletics, Riding, unlocking smithing parts...) and implement trainers into the game (similar to Skyrim) which allow you to buy your skill level up with money.
Yes, Athletics is another skill that's painful to level up. I just wish the level system would be closer to Warband where you just get XP for killing and doing quests and then just put your skill points into the skills which you want to improve. That's a lot less complicated and makes everything much easier to balance. With the current system they would have to fine tune everything so some skills don't take far longer to level up than others while also making the way of leveling up these perks fun instead of a boring grind. For example Smithing is a boring grind. At least it's faster than Athletics, Medicine, Scouting etc but it's still boring.
That's what I'm worried about. Instead of fixing the problem that Riding doesn't give any XP they might fix the workaround which allows people to level that skill up. I often see this when developers get tunnelvisioned on fixing bugs and instead of making the game more fun they end up as fun police. Saw a video which claims that a meele kill on a mount gives 10-20 XP towards Riding. With 10 Focus points in endurance and 5 attribute points in Riding I would need like 30-50 thousand (!!!) kills to get that skill to high level. Like yeah, that's not gonna happen.
I agree with that. In Warband rising your strength and athletics attribute also improved both ranged and meele damage at the same time, so building your character around combat makes you very powerful, meanwhile in Bannerlord I don't feel like it's worth to invest much into combat abilities. I put 5 focus points into Polearm and Bow usually and don't spend any attribute points there.
I think smithing needs an entire rework. I'd like to be able to level it up fast and use it to craft weapons for myself instead of making money with it. Right now smithing is very rewarding but also extremely boring (I usually love crafting in RPGs but this iteration is frustrating).