Are Workshops even worth it? (Response to pottery nerf)

[YariAshigaru]

Sure, workshops are "safe" investments but there is a certain point between literally useless and paying the utility bills (troop upkeep) to profit.

Workshops require a hefty investment from an early game perspective and from what I've seen with only 150 hours of playtime in single player (I played >250 hours multiplayer in close beta). There is no point in dropping 15k for if your lucky 100 denars on good days. I'm just incredibly unhappy with workshops in general.

Your better off just investing that 15k into troops and making stacks of top tier units and building a war economy. A couple of lords here and there and you can get 15k in a snap. Who cares about land ownership when it gives so little unless you strictly want to roleplay sure. Caravans make more but with the current adjustment to making them targeted more often now I'll have to play more to see how much that screws up its profits.

Can anyone give their experiences with workshops? the cities in which i have the pottery shops have villages producing clay and with the recent changes it went from 450-300 denars/day to 80-40 denars/day (Update: 40-20 denars/day). They fixed the issue with 1 clay producing 2 pots but then nerfed the price of pottery. its gone from profitable to literally useless for me.

TLDR: Why invest in workshops when you make more money from just building a war economy?

 

[Odione]

Devs want us all to use the DeveloperConsole it seems.

They nerf everything that give us money so...

 

[Vespa]

Yes. I get close to a 1,000 for my brewery. Caravans and workshops are necessary to offset all the expense you incur (without having to exist off of the spoils of battle). This typed, I'd guess that only the barest framework has been put in place, as even with my highly lucrative brewery (well, it's my most lucrative workshop), it'd sell for less than I bought it for (I've never had a workshop sell price be profitable) and there are levels listed, but they don't seem to be functional ATM.

 

[Desert_wanderer]

Yes. I get close to a 1,000 for my brewery. Caravans and workshops are necessary to offset all the expense you incur (without having to exist off of the spoils of battle). This typed, I'd guess that only the barest framework has been put in place, as even with my highly lucrative brewery (well, it's my most lucrative workshop), it'd sell for less than I bought it for (I've never had a workshop sell price be profitable) and there are levels listed, but they don't seem to be functional ATM.

How did you manage that much? Max I can get with brewery is about 250.

 

[YariAshigaru]

Yes. I get close to a 1,000 for my brewery. Caravans and workshops are necessary to offset all the expense you incur (without having to exist off of the spoils of battle). This typed, I'd guess that only the barest framework has been put in place, as even with my highly lucrative brewery (well, it's my most lucrative workshop), it'd sell for less than I bought it for (I've never had a workshop sell price be profitable) and there are levels listed, but they don't seem to be functional ATM.

Nice, I've made brewery's before but never seen it go that high before (Highest being 600). Are the cities that you have a brewer in have villages that produce grain? I know some cities have 2 grain producing villages in which case should make the best profits because the raw material is so cheap, presumably. Workshops are just so completely random that you'd have to save scum to see if something is even worth it. For example, Jaculan has 2 villages that produce Olives but in multiple files Olive Oil workshops in Jaculan make pennies. You make more profit just buying the Olives from the town and villages and selling it at Sargot for a 10-20% markup.

 

[Vespa]

How did you manage that much? Max I can get with brewery is about 250.

Luck and time. I've since learned, via the VART mod, that certain workshops in certain settlements give a double minus up through a double plus rating for certain goods. I may have lucked out and gotten a plus or double plus on my brewery, although it started low and took a long time (tens of hours) before reaching a thousand.

Edit: The things you say about what the bound villages produce make sense. It's my hope that this is why certain workshops would have a plus or double plus rating. My brewery worked up to in the 230s after a few weeks, stayed there and then began to slowly raise again. Although it's possible the profit was impacted by a mod, I don't know that it was (as, after playing for about 10 hours, I used the same mods for the rest of my gameplay).

 

[YariAshigaru]

Devs want us all to use the DeveloperConsole it seems.

They nerf everything that give us money so...

Yeaaaa, too bad the game is built on the foundation of how much money you make. The only difference between Bannerlords economy and Warbands economy is that workshops actually made profit as well as raiding villages. But Bannerlord only beating enemies seem to be the only real way of making money.

 

[Staal]

It goes without saying that workshops need to be balanced vs loot vs troop upkeep vs taxes.

Assuming above is balanced, if you make 100 denars, paid 15k then it takes 150 days to breakeven. The question is, is that too long?

 

[YariAshigaru]

It goes without saying that workshops need to be balanced vs loot vs troop upkeep vs taxes.

Assuming above is balanced, if you make 100 denars, paid 15k then it takes 150 days to breakeven. The question is, is that too long?

100 denars on a good day it fluctuates harder than the current stock market. If anything the workshop would pay for itself after a year or the town gets taken over by a rival faction and u have to sell it so you dont lose all ur investment.

 

[Vespa]

It goes without saying that workshops need to be balanced vs loot vs troop upkeep vs taxes.

Assuming above is balanced, if you make 100 denars, paid 15k then it takes 150 days to breakeven. The question is, is that too long?

I think it is too long. This is a game. If it takes an in-game year for a workshop to pay for itself, as YariAshigura suggests, it's not worth it. An in-game year could represent dozens of real life hours. Again, this is a game. If a workshop doesn't pay for itself before you're able to conquer the entire world or until late in the game when you have a lot of money anyways, then it isn't worth the investment.

On a related note, much like companion limitations (which are severe), why have workshop limitations? It takes time to earn the money to purchase a workshop. If you decide to become a trade mogul, why not roll in riches?

The devs should consider making the default values less restriction and put in additional gameplay options (some of which we already have via mods) for those who want an easier or more difficult experience. The more ways the user has to adjust the game to their liking, the better.

 

[YariAshigaru]

I've updated my original response due to playing my file for at least a 2-3 hours now and my pottery workshops now are giving me 42, 26, 22 denars. Talesworld really wants the pacing of Bannerlord to be slower than Warband for sure but this is just infuriating.

 

[Vespa]

I've updated my original response due to playing my file for at least a 2-3 hours now and my pottery workshops now are giving me 42, 26, 22 denars. Talesworld really wants the pacing of Bannerlord to be slower than Warband for sure but this is just infuriating.

I'm all for a slow burn, but it'd be nice if there were options for which a single playthrough (with the same character) isn't going to automatically be 100+ hours. I mean, over 82 real life hours (I know, right?), my character has only aged a few years. As is, if I wanted to experience an in-game dynasty, my future grandchildren would need to hand down the save games to their grandchildren. Ha.

 

[YariAshigaru]

I think it is too long. This is a game. If it takes an in-game year for a workshop to pay for itself, as YariAshigura suggests, it's not worth it. An in-game year could represent dozens of real life hours. Again, this is a game. If a workshop doesn't pay for itself before you're able to conquer the entire world or until late in the game when you have a lot of money anyways, then it isn't worth the investment.

On a related note, much like companion limitations (which are severe), why have workshop limitations? It takes time to earn the money to purchase a workshop. If you decide to become a trade mogul, why not roll in riches?

The devs should consider making the default values less restriction and put in additional gameplay options (some of which we already have via mods) for those who want an easier or more difficult experience. The more ways the user has to adjust the game to their liking, the better.

My only take on them limiting everything well besides the companions part is strictly to just increase the grind time/slow down game progression compared to Warband. Due to the fact that factions change ownership of castles and cities so fast the economic stability of the game is absolutely ruine not accounting for bugs and glitches.

 

[YariAshigaru]

I'm all for a slow burn, but it'd be nice if there were options for which a single playthrough (with the same character) isn't going to automatically be 100+ hours. I mean, over 82 real life hours (I know, right?), my character has only aged a few years. As is, if I wanted to experience an in-game dynasty, my future grandchildren would need to hand down the save games to their grandchildren. Ha.

Oh god the meme returns with a new face. My clan will live on with my grandchildrens grandkids they will see my character bio in the family tree and know that I am a cruel lord.

 

[Vespa]

Oh god the meme returns with a new face. My clan will live on with my grandchildrens grandkids they will see my character bio in the family tree and know that I am a cruel lord.

Hahaha. I wasn't aware of this meme...

 

[YariAshigaru]

I'm all for a slow burn, but it'd be nice if there were options for which a single playthrough (with the same character) isn't going to automatically be 100+ hours. I mean, over 82 real life hours (I know, right?), my character has only aged a few years. As is, if I wanted to experience an in-game dynasty, my future grandchildren would need to hand down the save games to their grandchildren. Ha.

I've got multiple files that are aged at least 2-3 years with how much I've been playing and I care very little about the whole dynastic system Bannerlord has going on. This isn't Fire Emblem Awakening where the kids were billion times better than their parents and was a core function of the game.

Talesworld is forcing the player to progress the game at grinding slow speeds while the world is dynamically evolving in light speeds compared to the player if they dont rush a war economy.

I just hope they fix this cuz modders will but if they rely on modders to make their game well we know what happened with Skyrim and Bethesda.

 

[Grumpy Hermit]

Native Warband workshops were worthless. Not even enough of an income supplement to bother with, because most mid-tier troops cost more in upkeep than the workshops provided. Mods had to fix that too.

My current game was giving me 2k-3k profit a day with no fiefs. 6 workshops in Khuzaith territory, 2 caravans, and a 155 troop party. I started the caravans in Makeb and Odokh, both with Spicevendor companions. I do not have any economy mods. And this is in Steppe Bandit territory, which the villagers can never outrun.

Pre-patch
Makeb
- Smithy(Ironmonger), 608
Chaikand
- Brewery, 565
Ortongard
- Tanner, 280
Odokh
- Smithy, 253
- Wool Weavery, 112
- Pottery, 341

A week later ingame post-patch
Makeb
- Smithy(Ironmonger), 702
Chaikand
- Brewery, 619
Ortongard
- Tanner, 258
Odokh
- Smithy, 341
- Wool Weavery, 175
- Pottery, 154

So after a week, most of my workshops ticked up a little. My pottery shop dropped by far more than half and will likely continue to drop in value. And, of course, both of my caravans were destroyed, thanks to the other change, which it seems they also overcompensated on.

I would like to see some workshops get a buff(wool and linen especially, but I haven't had much luck with tannery or woodworker or olive press or winery either). Presently you have to figure out which workshops are absolutely useless in the current game environment, because they aren't all created equal, and plan based on your map situation.

For example, I built the smithy in Makeb when I saw it had hardwood from Tepes, bound to Tepes Castle just northeast of it, and iron from Syratos, bound to Syratos Castle to the west after the Khuzait took it from the Northern Empire. Can't only look at the villages bound to the town itself. Castle villages send their goods to towns too.

I don't think the pottery nerf was remotely necessary. Some locations have 2-3 Clay villages, so with that much supply of clay coming in, and the fact that some regions don't have any, of course it's going to be profitable. Then they cut both the production AND the demand for it in half, which is overcompensating to a ridiculous degree. To keep prices stable? Do they not realize that prices for all goods just rise and rise and rise through the game until all numbers are red on the shop screens and there's no food to be found most of the time and trade doesn't seem viable? With all the things that are bent or broken, they spent time 'fixing' one thing that was neither?

And that's one thing that constantly pisses me off about game developers. Players find something that works and helps us enjoy the game while it's still a buggy mess we could just as easily walk away from, so they nerf it as if it's somehow a personal insult to them. In another game players used a planned crafting system to make items that could be sold, so the devs just took out some of the crafting components to remove a way for people to make money. I don't understand why devs see this as appropriate. Small as this change is, the fact that they chose to do it at all was a huge blow to my faith in TW for early access.

So this is my request for the devs. Stop pausing to poke at tiny details that are going to get broken again anyway, and work more on getting the full game completed. Until then, everything you add or edit is going to blur the picture, and the modders won't be able to make a masterpiece of the game because there are too many holes in the canvas.

And with that, I'm taking a break from Bannerlord. Games aren't worth getting angry about, and there are other games I can build a financial empire in without being punished for doing so.

 

[YariAshigaru]

Yeah, I didn't give my entire full analysis on what I've seen so far considering each patch changes a lot but it is interesting that Makheb in my file i originally built an Ironmonger but it made pennies.

Interesting in my warband lifetime i didn't have much issues with workshops, off the bat they were bad but once u own a workshop in every city (i just built velvet producers didnt care about profits overtime i just wanted my army upkeep paid off). With how easy it was to get snowballing with a swadian knight doom stack the money rolled in harder but a workshop was able to do something for my upkeep unlike here.

The file I'm referring to was made with e1.0.11 so it had their latest updates for the game. my workshop experience with my molder files from older patch times have significant differences for workshops.

I do agree completely with how the devs are "fixing" these tiny details when the game is missing features left and right. They should allow something so the game is enjoyable without the need of getting the Developer Console mod or even mods in general during early access.Mods should enhance the game not be the game sadly.

 

[kingslomein]

I have 5 workshops. None pottery. All around 200 a day each

 

[pada]

the only game where devs nurf income and force us to cheat - but they let us cheat

is there a deeper conspiracy here?

Seriously though, I think it's best to nurf income right now, and then bring it up slowly. im in a vlandia steamroll right now pulling 5,000 a day from 7 workshops, 4 castles & 8 fiefs. inbetween that and battle income money is no longer an issue, so very likely we will see a lot of balancing over early access to set this where the devs want it.