1.9.0 Too many horses. Still can't smith armor, but I got 153 and a half variants of a horse to choose from

[Totalgarbage]

This would feel too arcadey - "blue prints for armor" from totally unrelated activities!? No, never, that's just bad for immersion in a game supposed to emulate medieval settings.

Instead I'd be happy to see cultural locks and having special armorsmiths that have special armor knowledge (extremely rare hyper armor) - master smiths that have the t6 faction specific armors - and than a bunch of normies that have up to t5 gear at most - all related to both town prosperity and maybe lore context (although that would need TW to define). Placing the legendary dudes at corners ends would be interesting - could even slap in questlines to unlock them for their respective hometowns

Again, what's the point in adding such a system? I would rather we get these unique armors from a quest or a new system such as grand tournaments or idk being crowned the ruler of a faction rather than this. It literally adds nothing to the game, it just makes you a)travel around the world mindlessly (or if it's location is not determined by rng, it doesn't even do that) b)makes you use the smithing menu, grind to some level and craft it using materials instead of gold. You can't customize it's looks or values (granted what could you even customize with armors, the weight?), you can't do anything with it. You just buy it without actually "buying" it with gold. I would much rather have the armor dyeing system @Ananda_The_Destroyer proposed, it at least adds something meaningful in terms of player choice and aesthetics (unless they implement it like they did the clan flag customisation system, I shudder at even the thought).

The issue is that it'll be deemed "too complex™ to be pursued anytime soon™" (read signature for reference) - anything that requires actual work and represents actual good game design TW has refused to do so far

If anything, your proposal the one that's too lazy and boring to even mention. Wow, what an interesting system, you go somewhere, talk to someone and "craft" an armor that has pre-set looks and values, such genius. Maybe they make us kill 10 goblins and fetch 20 herbs as well, wowie. It literally adds nothing to the game, might as well add it to one specific town's store after they reach a threshold prosperity, this would at least give some additional reason for city management.

 

[xdj1nn]

Again, what's the point in adding such a system? I would rather we get these unique armors from a quest or a new system such as grand tournaments or idk being crowned the ruler of a faction rather than this. It literally adds nothing to the game, it just makes you a)travel around the world mindlessly (or if it's not determined by rpg, it doesn't even do that) b)makes you use the smithing menu, grind to some level and craft it using materials instead of gold. You can't customize it's looks or values (granted what could you even customize with armors, the weight?), you can't do anything with it. You just buy it without actually "buying" it with gold. I would much rather have the armor dyeing system @Ananda_The_Destroyer proposed, it at least adds something meaningful in terms of player choice and aesthetics (unless they implement it like they did the clan flag customisation system, I shudder at even the thought).

if done properly a quest has: story - lore - flushing of characters - the addition of interesting characters into the fold- explorable scenes - basically story telling quality + a reward against a interesting and engaging challenge. - I instead would rather have your suggestions + what I have suggested at the same time - for "Grand tournaments" or "faction prize" basically means boring mechanics giving better rewards. Nothing out of the ordinary and no depth's actually added to the game - yet I wouldn't complain for having variety, not at all...

If anything, your proposal the one that's too lazy and boring to even mention. Wow, what an interesting system, you go somewhere, talk to someone and "craft" an armor that has pre-set looks and values, such genius. Maybe they make us kill 10 goblins and fetch 20 herbs as well, wowie. It literally adds nothing to the game, might as well add it to one specific town's store after they reach a threshold prosperity, this would at least give some additional reason for city management.

makes for a more realistic scenario where if you want a specific special crafted item you must actually find the fker who knows how to craft it - if you want to learn a special forging secret, you must learn from the fker who knows how to do it... - it adds immersion and more depth - specially if with flushed out dialogue and lore exposure together with it.

What you said only makes me think of one thing really: you're a muppet.

 

[Totalgarbage]

makes for a more realistic scenario where if you want a specific special crafted item you must actually find the fker who knows how to craft it - if you want to learn a special forging secret, you must learn from the fker who knows how to do it... - it adds immersion and more depth - specially if with flushed out dialogue and lore exposure together with it.

What you said only makes me think of one thing really: you're a muppet.

It's not realistic, it's lazy, it's boring, it adds no immersion other than making you go into a town once. Call me a muppet, I don't care what you say.

You can't even form a coherent argument why what I said is wrong. No wonder you get rekt by every rando online in every discussion regarding game design. If you can't even argue properly when talking game design against a dumb idiot like me, despite you supposedly being a GD graduate, maybe you should start looking for another profession.

 

[xdj1nn]

It's not realistic, it's lazy, it's boring, it adds no immersion other than making you go into a town once. Call me a muppet, I don't care what you say.

You can't even form a coherent argument why what I said is wrong. No wonder you get rekt by every rando online in every discussion regarding game designs. If you can't even argue properly when talking game design against a dumb idiot like me, despite you supposedly being a GD graduate, maybe you should start looking for another profession.

depends on how it's done, since you're a muppet I have to draw it for you, but I won't, instead I'll give you live examples of which you can go there and try for yourself:
Brytenwalda and Viking Conquest both have legendary gear that can only be found in caves / which virtually makes for a questing - both also have specialized smiths that can forge special items for you in specific towns - nothing about these feels boring, unless you're doing it for the millionth time - but even than those are bad implementations because they did not craft a atmosphere for the questing, probably because WB was so limited.

BL instead offers plenty of potential depth material, as long as they curate it well - we now have actual interactable objects of which can be used to even place puzzles, those can also flush out characters better because they won't be standing still on nowhere doing nothing, they can actually interact with their environment strengthening immersion - with their intent of adding voice dialogues it can become an experience very akin to an ARPG - now if you hate RPGs and questing, no problem, doesn't make it bad, just shows you have very questionable tastes and begs the question why tf are you playing a sandbox RPG leaning game if you hate that. But whatever.

There are similar features in both Clash of Kings mod for WB and World of Ice and Fire for WB + VC. Try it, you'll probably come back here ranting like a mindless twitter woke zombie because at this pt you probably had your feelings hurt, than again if that's the case you can always check my sig for further instructions.

Regardless of this nonsense tantrum you've thrown, it's still a solid idea, founded a proved to work time and time again - BL lacks any sort of depth development, immersion and meaningful organic world atmosphere - almost anything's better than what it is rn, if you really believe not having such a engaging content's worse than the stale bot RTS match where we can get involved even after all my explanation, I feel sorry for you because that means you might be an eternal muppet

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

Every since MostBlunted was booted, I feel like everyone is now far more angry. We're all fighting with eachother and I honestly love it. It's the only entertaining thing TW have provided us.

We will all be banned or muted come next week when the game is released, and the mods come in for their weekly incursion,l and responding to very specific, easy questions and ignoring everything else.

 

[Totalgarbage]

depends on how it's done, since you're a muppet I have to draw it for you, but I won't, instead I'll give you live examples of which you can go there and try for yourself:
Brytenwalda and Viking Conquest both have legendary gear that can only be found in caves / which virtually makes for a questing - both also have specialized smiths that can forge special items for you in specific towns - nothing about these feels boring, unless you're doing it for the millionth time - but even than those are bad implementations because they did not craft a atmosphere for the questing, probably because WB was so limited.

BL instead offers plenty of potential depth material, as long as they curate it well - we now have actual interactable objects of which can be used to even place puzzles, those can also flush out characters better because they won't be standing still on nowhere doing nothing, they can actually interact with their environment strengthening immersion - with their intent of adding voice dialogues it can become an experience very akin to an ARPG - now if you hate RPGs and questing, no problem, doesn't make it bad, just shows you have very questionable tastes and begs the question why tf are you playing a sandbox RPG leaning game if you hate that. But whatever.

Finally, some decent examples. Like I said, I'm fine if they add some quests for these unique armors. It's much much much better than your boring example of going to a town, talking to a smith and using a menu to craft an item you can just buy. With these examples I can easily agree with.

There are similar features in both Clash of Kings mod for WB and World of Ice and Fire for WB + VC. Try it, you'll probably come back here ranting like a mindless twitter woke zombie because at this pt you probably had your feelings hurt, than again if that's the case you can always check my sig for further instructions.

Regardless of this nonsense tantrum you've thrown, it's still a solid idea, founded a proved to work time and time again - BL lacks any sort of depth development, immersion and meaningful organic world atmosphere - almost anything's better than what it is rn, if you really believe not having such a engaging content's worse than the stale bot RTS match where we can get involved even after all my explanation, I feel sorry for you because that means you might be an eternal muppet

Mate, you're the one literally crying over you constantly being dunked on every argument with every random dude. What happened, did it touch a nerve when I said you may need to choose another profession?

It may or may not be engaging content, you literally gave the vaguest example with:

if done properly a quest has: story - lore - flushing of characters - the addition of interesting characters into the fold- explorable scenes - basically story telling quality + a reward against a interesting and engaging challenge. - I instead would rather have your suggestions + what I have suggested at the same time - for "Grand tournaments" or "faction prize" basically means boring mechanics giving better rewards. Nothing out of the ordinary and no depth's actually added to the game - yet I wouldn't complain for having variety, not at all...

It's akin to me saying a good story is easy to write; just write a deep lore for your world, engaging characters, intrigue and good action. It doesn't mean ****. You crying because you don't have any imagination and then getting reasonably called out on it is not me "throwing a tantrum".

 

[xdj1nn]

Every since MostBlunted was booted, I feel like everyone is now far more angry. We're all fighting with eachother and I honestly love it. It's the only entertaining thing TW have provided us.

We will all be banned or muted come next week when the game is released, and the mods come in for their weekly tirade of responding to very specific, easy questions and ignoring everything else.

maybe, possibly. Though if I get banned at this pt without warnings they'd be breaking their own rules. My last warning is over a year old with a whooping list of 3 - and I basically am the same at all times - mockery, debauchery, spiteful jking, lightweight insults that are only insulting to those who fit the bill...
My complaints are there, but it's been a while since i don't actually openly and directly complain about TW, it's been a while (couple weeks after I got back from my last hiatus) that I've basically conformed to the idea that TW's both incompetent and openly ignoring feedback & suggestions since the very first time they've opened forums for BL specifically... I mean, if we dig these we'll probably find thousands upon thousands of solid suggestions which will often be extremely similar or even identical coming from multiple ppl, from veterans to newbies, from wiser older players to teens... The reality is that nobody was satisfied with WB as a base game, and BL's doing worse considering the big picture (longer development time, bigger team, actual budget, price tag, hype and topping it off having years of exemplary mods that added basic "missing" features to WB of which are nowhere to be seen in this sequel - even the few they've implemented like this odd version of Formations mod we were provided doesn't work not even a tenth close to what the OG mod did to a obsolete and exceptionally more limited engine).
Basically they have no excuses, and as such I'm already expecting zero action from their part other than more meaningless patching balance fiddling and some bug-fixing without ever fully fixing even the features they did promote and actually implemented to the game

But, yeah, I do find the conflicts and fighting to be much more exciting than the game... I admit it, hence why I've been here having endless arguments and posting massive suggestion/rants on mixed flavor replies and posts.

Finally, some decent examples. Like I said, I'm fine if they add some quests for these unique armors. It's much much much better than your boring example of going to a town, talking to a smith and using a menu to craft an item you can just buy. With these examples I can easily agree with.

also had that in the examples, no crafting menu, just dialogue

Mate, you're the one literally crying over you constantly being dunked on every argument with every random dude. What happened, did it touch a nerve when I said you may need to choose another profession?

wait, let me dry up my tears

It may or may not be engaging content, you literally gave the vaguest example with:

It's akin to me saying a good story is easy to write; just write a deep lore for your world, engaging characters, intrigue and good action. It doesn't mean ****. You crying because you don't have any imagination and then getting reasonably called out on it is not me "throwing a tantrum".

I can write the entire thing, add values, lore, story, charcter development, even charcter sketches... Surprisingly I'm a creative writer - - that I can do in under a week considering how shallow their lore is - just tell them to send me whatever they have documented as lore and written so far, give me time to read all of it and I'll come with stories for every single character in this cesspool of a game... No problem at all - what I don't see the point is adding lore just to be filler text, or as we like to call it, ipsum lorem in a irrelevant in-game encyclopedia that bares absolutely no meaning to the game what-so-ever.
Since I went for a full blow on you I expected this reaction, but I don't hate you, I just found all that you've said to be a muppet's stance, either you failed to understand out of "convenience" or you were just baiting, in fact you seemed to be baiting which I also consider a muppet thing to do. It's not as if I wasn't crystal clear with what I said, intentionally misinterpreting someone's not acceptable 3 digits IQ behavior.

But in the end, with persistent and repetitive explanation you basically got it - I mean, I shouldn't expect ppl to be able to foresee things in their mind like I do considering I am trained for it, but I was very thorough with my explanation so I wouldn't excuse you, still I don't care much about it, the continuing of the argument was about killing any possible gaslighting or strawman that could rise from your introductory borderline flaming attack - finally you didn't strike any nerves, I'm perfectly apathetic, just laughed a bit here and there during this exchange and had a few adrenaline rushes because I'm addicted to conflicts - already said that previously - in fact that's the reason why ppl try to dunk me and I start to react, maybe some find it fun too, love the conflict, or maybe they like my creative answers, or even you yourself secretly like it so you opted to bait me and I've fallen for it - which only thinking about the possibility made me crack here - just means I'm right, though, even picking fights in the forums are more fun than the game we've paid for...That's a really bad sign.

Don't forget, if you've ever felt offended by me, please refrain to the link on my signature!

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

maybe, possibly. Though if I get banned at this pt without warnings they'd be breaking their own rules. My last warning is over a year old with a whooping list of 3 - and I basically am the same at all times - mockery, debauchery, spiteful jking, lightweight insults that are only insulting to those who fit the bill...
My complaints are there, but it's been a while since i don't actually openly and directly complain about TW, it's been a while (couple weeks after I got back from my last hiatus) that I've basically conformed to the idea that TW's both incompetent and openly ignoring feedback & suggestions since the very first time they've opened forums for BL specifically... I mean, if we dig these we'll probably find thousands upon thousands of solid suggestions which will often be extremely similar or even identical coming from multiple ppl, from veterans to newbies, from wiser older players to teens... The reality is that nobody was satisfied with WB as a base game, and BL's doing worse considering the big picture (longer development time, bigger team, actual budget, price tag, hype and topping it off having years of exemplary mods that added basic "missing" features to WB of which are nowhere to be seen in this sequel - even the few they've implemented like this odd version of Formations mod we were provided doesn't work not even a tenth close to what the OG mod did to a obsolete and exceptionally more limited engine).
Basically they have no excuses, and as such I'm already expecting zero action from their part other than more meaningless patching balance fiddling and some bug-fixing without ever fully fixing even the features they did promote and actually implemented to the game

But, yeah, I do find the conflicts and fighting to be much more exciting than the game... I admit it, hence why I've been here having endless arguments and posting massive suggestion/rants on mixed flavor replies and posts.

I have recent warnings for saying tb QA team should be sacked and for saying the word "sh1te". Sh1te isn't even a word, it has a f0cking number in it. Also I stand by what I said.

And with that, I yield to you, Taleworlds. I can burden my heart no longer with thee.

Take me now oh sweet lord. Take me from this unholy sh1te grift land of sh1te development and an un-sacked sh1te QA department (because there clearly isn't a QA department).

End my suffering, and be rid of me.

Take me to see @MostBlunted.

 

[black_bulldog]

Overwhelmingly people have asked you all to let us smith armor. But no. We can have 782 horse variants to choose from, but still can't smith armor. I should be able to craft a bow and arrow for that matter.

We already have floating weapon pieces with weapon crafting. I can't imagine how bad the clipping would be if Taleworlds let us craft armor when we have 2 different genders and more importantly we can change the shape and height of our toon. You need to be realistic and think about what you're asking for not go on a tirade about how they're not giving you what you want. If it's that important start learning to mod or hope that some modder wants armor crafting in the game too.

 

[Apocal]

can i press "X" to doubt to that?

There was one patch released early in EA that literally resulted in every single town immediately spiraling into poverty and staying broke forever while starving.

 

[LyonExodus]

There was one patch released early in EA that literally resulted in every single town immediately spiraling into poverty and staying broke forever while starving.

Got into the game after that one i think. but recently 1.8. was by far the worst. it had so many issues and especially made the late game an unfair pain with vassals leaving without any reason.
Not to talk about some units becoming borderline AWFUL out of nowhere thanks to some calculations issues.

 

[fragtzack]

Adding some horses is very light on man-hour development costs. Adding smithed armor in would be very high on man-hour development costs.

Thanks for adding in the extra horses TW

 

[nibbler2345432]

Smithing is already terrible in its current form so I don't know why you'd want to add more to it. Orders were a good idea and an improvement, but the problems still remain. You do the most boring and tedious minigame ever until you are printing out two handed swords that clear out town treasuries like nothing, converting a few scraps of iron and wood into 100k. Why? Who's buying this crap and why is the cost so high considering how many I can pump out in a day? Where's the supply and demand? It's horribly unbalanced. You just tediously got this skill to 300 and now you have activated an infinite money code. Maybe we don't even have to mention how stupid the attribute system is mixed in with this: If you want to smith you get Endurance, an attribute which is tied to going fast (riding), moving around on foot (exclusive with riding however...), and not moving at all but rather sitting in town all day (smithing). Three skills that are practically exclusive in their use to one another. What?? Most of the "physical" attributes have this problem so it's difficult to come up with a coherent build, yet the "mental" ones all have plausible synergies or even combos.

Anyway, ultra armors are one of the few rare and desirable things left in the game. You don't want armors mixed up with this smithing system at all, not without quests or something like others have suggested.

 

[BigFat]

I'd at least like if they could unify some colors of armor or let us change it ourselves because a lot of it just doesn't match. Like you'll have a light grey chain chest, dark grey chain gloves and black chain boots.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

Pretty sure it was @Duh_TaleWorlds who said that the armor crafting wouldn't fit into the current system of the multiple pieces. It would be a huge development uplift and while visually the armors look like they are re-used assets underneath (look at the different types of lamellar from Empire/Sturgia/Aserai) I doubt that the system is code like that versus weapons which are built from various parts in the XML.

I would be fine with the system that everyone has asked for with commissions - but it's gated by cost (maybe 10% cheaper than the normal list price?) and you have the supply materials, you need a Smithy in the town, you talk to the Artisans to make it happen, and it takes X amount of days (but can be delivered) and it has to match the Culture.

So for example, you conquer Akkalat and build a Smithy (you don't need to own it, but maybe it can provide a discount) and you talk to the Artisan and it brings up a menu of every single armor piece tagged as "culture.khuzait" and comes with a cost in material, time and gold. So if you want to bum rush all of the T5 armor then you need a lot of cash and materials but it'd be better than building a Smithy and waiting for RNG to bless you with the armor you want. Maybe you can pay more money for affixes like Lordly, etc.

That would at least give one more thing to add into the gameplay loop and give a bit more usage to notable types & buildings outside of being a gate for issue types.

That said, not sure why we cannot craft bows/crossbows. I get the system but just zero out the other pieces and create a different view. Maybe you don't go to the smithy and instead it's a menu within a Wood Working shop but the thing is you don't need to own it and it can be any Wood Working shop. You can also add Shields to that. No idea how you'd handle schematics maybe it'll be gated behind Smithing or have extra things added to the Perks where you need to get to 150 or 175 smithing to unlock all Bow/Xbow/Shields. Hell, you can do the same Cultural gating as well so it fits within RP/immersion without being anything more than a time/material/money lift and gives reason to visit the scenes if you wanted.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Pretty sure it was @Duh_TaleWorlds who said that the armor crafting wouldn't fit into the current system of the multiple pieces. It would be a huge development uplift and while visually the armors look like they are re-used assets underneath (look at the different types of lamellar from Empire/Sturgia/Aserai) I doubt that the system is code like that versus weapons which are built from various parts in the XML.

I would be fine with the system that everyone has asked for with commissions - but it's gated by cost (maybe 10% cheaper than the normal list price?) and you have the supply materials, you need a Smithy in the town, you talk to the Artisans to make it happen, and it takes X amount of days (but can be delivered) and it has to match the Culture.

So for example, you conquer Akkalat and build a Smithy (you don't need to own it, but maybe it can provide a discount) and you talk to the Artisan and it brings up a menu of every single armor piece tagged as "culture.khuzait" and comes with a cost in material, time and gold. So if you want to bum rush all of the T5 armor then you need a lot of cash and materials but it'd be better than building a Smithy and waiting for RNG to bless you with the armor you want. Maybe you can pay more money for affixes like Lordly, etc.

That would at least give one more thing to add into the gameplay loop and give a bit more usage to notable types & buildings outside of being a gate for issue types.

That said, not sure why we cannot craft bows/crossbows. I get the system but just zero out the other pieces and create a different view. Maybe you don't go to the smithy and instead it's a menu within a Wood Working shop but the thing is you don't need to own it and it can be any Wood Working shop. You can also add Shields to that. No idea how you'd handle schematics maybe it'll be gated behind Smithing or have extra things added to the Perks where you need to get to 150 or 175 smithing to unlock all Bow/Xbow/Shields. Hell, you can do the same Cultural gating as well so it fits within RP/immersion without being anything more than a time/material/money lift and gives reason to visit the scenes if you wanted.

I myself generally dislike this commission system for armors, it literally has no point (whereas with weapons you could "order" any tier of specially customized weapon you want). It is the same thing as using the marketplace to buy something. I've never had a hard time finding the armor I want in shops anyway. I'm much more leaning towards vendors in town scenes being able to upgrade your item modifier to the higher tier for a cost such as upgrading a fine helmet to a lordly helmet (like in Viking Conquest). It would also be very good if we could choose the colour of our own (& companions'/family members' & army troops') armors.

Honesty crafting bows and crossbows would have the same problem anyways, you would only be able to select the wood and the draw strength. I wouldn't be against restringing bows in our inventory (or we could craft them from scratch if you prefer). Choosing the draw weight of the string to change the damage and the draw time is good enough for me (for example, if you use RBM, all bows have a specific draw weight associated to them). I have no idea how shield crafting would work though, I guess we could just buy them normally and upgrade their modifiers by talking to the vendor in a town?

 

[bunions]

They cant even keep male lords from putting on women's dresses. You want them to introduce armor crafting?!?!

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

I myself generally dislike this commission system for armors, it literally has no point (whereas with weapons you could "order" any tier of specially customized weapon you want). It is the same thing as using the marketplace to buy something. I've never had a hard time finding the armor I want in shops anyway. I'm much more leaning towards vendors in town scenes being able to upgrade your item modifier to the higher tier for a cost such as upgrading a fine helmet to a lordly helmet (like in Viking Conquest). It would also be very good if we could choose the colour of our own (& companions'/family members' & army troops') armors.

Honesty crafting bows and crossbows would have the same problem anyways, you would only be able to select the wood and the draw strength. I wouldn't be against restringing bows in our inventory (or we could craft them from scratch if you prefer). Choosing the draw weight of the string to change the damage and the draw time is good enough for me (for example, if you use RBM, all bows have a specific draw weight associated to them). I have no idea how shield crafting would work though, I guess we could just buy them normally and upgrade their modifiers by talking to the vendor in a town?

Yeah I mean for me if I get aggravated enough I whip open the console, not like the higher tier armors are meaningfully different at protecting you. That said, it gives more options to having tiers of Notables as well as the different workshops for different players.

For me, the more options to visit a scene/Notable the better, I'd definitely like the ability to "fix" bad modifiers since TW already noted that the new affixes drop way too frequently, as well as the option to upgrade above a "normal" set of armor to Masterwork/Lordly. I'd also like the crafting available even if I'd hardly use it.

Having totally new screens/systems for Bow/Xbow/Shields within one shop, and Armor commissioning or crafting in another, is the only unobtrusive way I can think to add it without having to overhaul Smithing which I actually enjoy using.

I'd love to see strings/pull weight being tinkered with but that doesn't exist now and would be a mod only as in RBM, doubt that'll be native but I suppose that would be some function of Speed & Damage as they exist now.

 

[xdj1nn]

I myself generally dislike this commission system for armors, it literally has no point (whereas with weapons you could "order" any tier of specially customized weapon you want). It is the same thing as using the marketplace to buy something. I've never had a hard time finding the armor I want in shops anyway. I'm much more leaning towards vendors in town scenes being able to upgrade your item modifier to the higher tier for a cost such as upgrading a fine helmet to a lordly helmet (like in Viking Conquest). It would also be very good if we could choose the colour of our own (& companions'/family members' & army troops') armors.

sure, so it's better to have nothing instead. I'll never get this logic. - unfortunately for you they can't manage to craft a system with "minecraft armor building" because, well, even to this date no decent graphic game has ever managed to pull that off - there are reasons - and the best compromise that can be done are commissions, like it or not. With such system it also makes possible to have "unique" gear that can only be acquired through commissioning, so your "market place" logic falls flat on it's arse - Adding commission with material options could go lengths too, default mat stuff you find on shops, but want some absurd high quality armor you gotta find an armorer that does it.
Makes sense, works in other games, and it adds a breath of life into the game, as is it's a wasteland...
Done well such systems can flush multifaceted gameplay and immersion boosters, yet I never saw TW do anything of the sorts so I doubt any sort of depth will ever happen, as such if we get commissions it'll probably be as dull as you imagine.

Honesty crafting bows and crossbows would have the same problem anyways, you would only be able to select the wood and the draw strength. I wouldn't be against restringing bows in our inventory (or we could craft them from scratch if you prefer). Choosing the draw weight of the string to change the damage and the draw time is good enough for me (for example, if you use RBM, all bows have a specific draw weight associated to them). I have no idea how shield crafting would work though, I guess we could just buy them normally and upgrade their modifiers by talking to the vendor in a town?

Just base it off real shield crafting and it's golden. Materials, build and layers basically change everything about them - the only thing we can't correct, though, is the fact that center grip shields had an entirely different function than what hollywood and games portray, so that part can't be simulated (grip altering shield properties & uses).

Roman Legion Shields (Scutum) had a horizontal center grip/ purpose being ease of carrying and providing standing protection - it worked as a body block / armor

Norse Round Shields had vertical center grip / purpose being that the shield was used as a weapon quite actively, not as a "blocker" - research and experiments show it's most effective use being shifting it's direction while the weapon strikes from behind it switching sides and as a tool to disable your opponent's weapon arm.

Medieval shields had straps and only bucklers remained having vertical center grips (funnily enough bucklers are used very similarly to what's believed to be the use of norse round shields - with much less reach and no "wrestling" capabilities). Other shields functioned mostly like what we imagine, mostly, because we still see very wrong use of it in games and movies.

do some googling on the subject, there's a lot of interesting stuff to learn.

 

[Boar Champion]

I would like to combine the face mask of the Guy Fawkes helmet with the wolf head.