Proposed solutions for crafting and weapon/armour economy.

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Lots of people are complaining about smithing, rightfully so, since it's pretty broken and lets players create weapons to sell for tens of thousands very easily. Problem is not however the crafting system itself. While the crafting system does have its issues the main problem which lets the previous thing happen is the core calculations for weapon (and armour) prices in bannerlord. And you cannot fix smithing without addressing this. The problems are as follows

The price of weapons are calculated primarily on damage stats as it's set up in vanilla. The materials used for the weapon and its crafting difficulty play almost no role in determining its price (they do, but so little it's not even noticeable). Raw damage statistics is what make a weapon cost go up. The problem is also that the price increase is exponential, not linear, and it's exponential to a ridiculous degree. What this means is that it will always be the most profitable to craft a weapon which maximises damage stat and nothing else.

This of course leads to the obvious problem that a low grade two-handed weapon will turn out way more profitable than a high grade one-handed weapon because the two-handed weapon has more raw damage. And because the price increase is exponential it will be worth way more. So you end up with an economy that has a ridiculous setup where a simple two-handed axe will cost 10x that of a finely decorated, crafted and gilded sword. Which obviously doesn't make any sense from a realism point of view. But it doesn't make sense from the game's point of view either because it means that there's no reason to craft high tier weapons when lower tier ones can be worth way more and are way easier to make. You cannot fix the issue in crafting without addressing this.

Solution is twofold. One is to decrease the price modifier, so that the change in weapon price isn't nearly as exponential as it is now. And the second, more important thing, is to reduce the impact on weapon price based on damage, and instead have the price be calculated primarily on materials used and crafting difficulty. This will mean that crafting a fine golden sword will in fact get you a very expensive weapon, and not one which costs several times less in comparison to a crude blade on a long stick.
Obviously I also think that the price modifier needs to be severely decreased for armour too. Why the hell does one suit of armour cost more than a goddamn castle? It makes no sense.

Anyway the solution above will fix the core issue with crafting, but it won't address some of the other issues crafting has so I will propose solutions for them too.

Unlock system is very bad. Pretty much everyone agrees with this, but how to fix it is another matter. In my personal opinion the best way to fix it is to tie unlocking an entire tier of weapons to your smithing skill. So for example 25 smithing skill unlocks all tier 2 options, 50 skill unlocks tier 3, 100 skill for tier 4 and 150 skill for tier 5. As an example, doesn't have to be those exact values.
The crafting XP needs to be reworked as well. It's as far as I understand pretty much directly influenced by the price of the weapon you create. However without creating a bunch of overpowered weapons worth above 100k leveling smithing is very hard, so the XP gain should be rebalanced imo. Perks should also be completely reworked and stuff like being able to create fine and masterwork weapons should be an automatic unlock.

And lastly I think that there isn't a rough enough penalty for smithing weapons you don't have the skill for. As it is now you can craft a piece which has 150 difficulty when you have 0 smithing and the only downside is that it loses stats. Crafting weapons above your level should instead have a chance to fail which increases drastically with how many levels you are away from it. And I think that being under a specific amount of levels needed to craft a weapon (as an example, say 50) should have a 100% chance of failing.

Anyway those are my thoughts on how to fix crafting, and also fix weapon and armour economy.
 
IMO, I hate the entire smithing system in this game - just a half-baked feature that is a sunk cost fallacy at this point; probably was in the game designs since early on and now both too costly to remove and too costly to 'fix'.
They should just decouple crafted items from the game economy and treat it just as a 'aesthetic/personal' feature only.
Smithing orders was a good step for using it to generate money, maybe enhance on that feature (ie. mass production ones or more quests).
 
A simple system is better in my opinion they way they tied it to XP is just a mess. They should just unlock parts based on weapon tier you are smelting. Smelt a tier 2 one hand sword then you have a chance(%) to unlock a tier 2 part. The greater your smithing skill the greater the chance to unlock. They need to nerf the amount of crafting materials received from items it should have some RNG not set values. The majority of crafting XP should be coming from finally crafting a weapon after salvaging enough parts and unlocking from smelting. Coal needs to become a resource mined from a few villages. Seems stupid if no one has coal. Finally your crafting level vs the level of item should be some sort of success calculation. For example if the item is level 100 and I am only level 5 I should only have a 5% to craft the weapon to prevent speed leveling the skill with low smithing level characters. If you do fail to craft item it should be destroyed not just -1 damage or some lame penalty. This will make some risk/reward when crafting high tier expensive items and thus can no longer be used as money printer and make the purpose of crafting to have that custom weapon you want to use in battle.

I doubt anyone from taleworlds will read this let alone take any of this into consideration but I thought id throw it in the mix..
 
My opinion on the matter is you just shouldn't be able to sell player-crafted weapons. You make them for yourself, and for your companions. That instantly removes any ridiculous 50,000 denar profit weapons that breaks the games economy.
 
A simple system is better in my opinion they way they tied it to XP is just a mess. They should just unlock parts based on weapon tier you are smelting. Smelt a tier 2 one hand sword then you have a chance(%) to unlock a tier 2 part. The greater your smithing skill the greater the chance to unlock. They need to nerf the amount of crafting materials received from items it should have some RNG not set values. The majority of crafting XP should be coming from finally crafting a weapon after salvaging enough parts and unlocking from smelting. Coal needs to become a resource mined from a few villages. Seems stupid if no one has coal. Finally your crafting level vs the level of item should be some sort of success calculation. For example if the item is level 100 and I am only level 5 I should only have a 5% to craft the weapon to prevent speed leveling the skill with low smithing level characters. If you do fail to craft item it should be destroyed not just -1 damage or some lame penalty. This will make some risk/reward when crafting high tier expensive items and thus can no longer be used as money printer and make the purpose of crafting to have that custom weapon you want to use in battle.

I doubt anyone from taleworlds will read this let alone take any of this into consideration but I thought id throw it in the mix..
I agree with this. Coal is certainly a resource that is much need as this would be used at forge for smelting and forging. I also think that there should be a cost to use a forge that is not your own - essentially this would mean you are paying more than just stamina to increase your smithing skill.

Items that are not made properly should either be destroyed, or potentially break in battle. Equipping items to generic troops should be allowed. If they are equipped with items that are not found in their area of expertise, there would be penalties. Quality of life feature for equipping generic troops based on type would be nice too.
 
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