Smithing - Is the player supposed to easily get +5 millions before day 500?

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Dabos37

Sergeant Knight at Arms
This is something that I am curious to know, what is the TW's vision about how should be the player's economy in this game. Both, melee weapons prices and smithing have been already revamped and re-balanced according to what I have read, but I am still getting millions really fast with smithing. Once you reach smithing skill to 220 or so, it is pretty common to find smithing orders giving 160K or so, which can be completed and get an insane amount of dennars. I am shocked because smithing and weapon balanced have been revised, and I have the feeling that TW actually wants this happening in the game.

This really bugs me because I am loving the new smithing system and I find it pretty enjoyable, but even if I buy expensive weapons for Smelting, I am getting insanely rich really fast in all my campaigns. So my question is, is the player supposed to become rich really fast in this game?
 
Well, with a good unlock you can make 100K+ per day with regular forging so what you're describing isn't out of line with that, I don't think.
 
Why? I like crafting side games. If you don't like it don't do it. There are shops, caravans, smithing, and trading games to play or not to play. Something for everyone.
 
Why? I like crafting side games. If you don't like it don't do it. There are shops, caravans, smithing, and trading games to play or not to play. Something for everyone.
I enjoy smithing in most games too. The ability to create your own weapon to with whatever stats you want and maybe it's epic or legendary to boot is nice. But in this game you're suppose to be a lord/king not someone whose doing a dirty peasants job. I know TW will never get rid of it because they have a whole skill tree devoted to it. But I have to wonder whatever happened to the original premise of smithing, where you go to a blacksmiths shop to custom order sword/axe/whatever to be made for you? That made sense, what we have now is not only very gamey it's also a serious exploit because of how much money you can make in such a short time.
Obtw whoever thought random unlocks was a good idea can go f&%k themselves because it's quite possibly the worst thing they could've done. :facepalm:
 
I enjoy smithing in most games too. The ability to create your own weapon to with whatever stats you want and maybe it's epic or legendary to boot is nice. But in this game you're suppose to be a lord/king not someone whose doing a dirty peasants job. I know TW will never get rid of it because they have a whole skill tree devoted to it. But I have to wonder whatever happened to the original premise of smithing, where you go to a blacksmiths shop to custom order sword/axe/whatever to be made for you? That made sense, what we have now is not only very gamey it's also a serious exploit because of how much money you can make in such a short time.
The point of the game is to be whatever you want to be, not just a lord or king. You’re are meant to be able to play your character how you want to.

Prices should be addressed, and I believe they have been touched upon as of late, but there is no reason to remove smithing from the game due to an exploit you can just not do.
 
This is something that I am curious to know, what is the TW's vision about how should be the player's economy in this game.
I'd like to know too. It seems like conflicting ideas with the trade, loot, passive and smithing as far as how much money the player should have.
Smithing: you trade campaign time for making sellable items, you can max this by using all your clan to smith and really push it, even after adjustments. It seems to me most player do this from a position of leisure, meaning they aren't worried about intercepting enemies or breaking a seige at the time they sit around resting and smithing and peddling weapons.
Loot: very good income and if you don't drag around a huge expensive army it's even better. The only issue is when you have a large expensive army but the amount of enemies you can defeat doesn't increase and some smaller parties will hide. You can still make lot of money even spending 2k+ a day on troops. The best thing is that you gain loot money at the same time you progress martially. If you're good at winning you don't need any other active money sources.
Fiefs and workshops: It's okay, but I think the lack of a strait 1/2 wage for garrisons makes fiefs seems crappy to warband players. Hopefully with the auto recruitment bugs worked out we can set them to be secure and profitable. Workshops I feel like there needs to be more done insure that all towns can have reasonably profitable workshops. IME I need to make wool or silver if I want decent payouts and that's just not always a good idea depending on what faction you join.
Trade: I don't do it, but it's an all in play style and should be rewarding if players grind it up. I was a little taken aback by the nerf to spring of gold. Seems kind of a weird concern to nerf and the resulting perk seems pretty weak.
Caravans are okay money wise but I don't like that it eats up a clan member.
IME you can stabilize a t6 100 guy party on 1 town, 4 workshops and 1 caravan with a 300-500 daily income. That's pretty good, however if you go bigger like as a vassal with an army your daily wage triples and it's too much to really expect passive income to cover until mid game when you just have so many fiefs it adds up to a lot.

I basically go hard and save up battle loot money for dry spells.
 
The new smithing system is pretty damn fun. I hadn’t tried it before, and now after playing with it, I find it really great and enjoyable. The only problem with smithing is balancing.

Even if TW would halve the orders’ rewards, the players would still be able to get an insane amount of money. I am getting now tons of 200K orders which is a crazy amount of money for getting in a pretty short amount of time. Even if you cannot craft a good weapon, you can still get 60-80K.

Part of the problem is that equipment cost is still totally disconnected from the rest of the economy. Troops’ wages, taxes, workshops, caravans, and manual trading, all of them while not perfectly balanced, feel pretty much connected and make sense, but equipment prices feel like if we would be playing a totally different game. Talking specifically about every income source in 1.6.1:

  • Fiefs’ income: it got nerfed in 1.6.1. Fiefs’ income is the main income source for the AI, while mediocre income for the player if we compare with smithing, battle loot, and even workshops, and caravans. I think that fiefs should be much more relevant and also the main income source for the player, but for some reason it has been nerfed which hurts a lot the AI, and make it less appealing for the player compared to other income sources.
  • Workshops: they were slightly OP in 1.6.0, but now feel pretty much balanced in 1.6.1. Getting 150-200 dennars daily or so from a workshop feels fine. Yes, not all workshops are equally profitable and some of them provide a low money, but it is a different thing.
  • Caravans: they feel pretty much balanced in early/mid-game, but the bandits infestation in late game makes them feel too risky.
  • Manual trading: it has always been profitable in my view, and got improved in 1.6.1. It is now easier but still feels balanced and make sense. The amount of money we get compared to the time and preparation it requires, make sense and feels balanced.
  • Battle loot: is still too high and OP. Part of the problem is how much exploitable some units are, which makes the battles too easy. We are able to defeat 10 or more “strong” lords in a row without getting almost losses, and then getting like 100k selling loot. Once ranged units get balanced and equipment prices get balanced too, loot income will feel less OP.
  • Smithing: it is simply the most OP income source in this game by a huge margin. I was talking about defeating 8-10 lords to get 100k before, but with smithing, you can get 300K or even more just visiting one town and crafting two weapons. Smithing feels like if we would be playing totally different games which have no relationship between them. As I said before, even if smithing orders rewards would get halved, smithing would still be the most profitable income source by far. And it is sad because smithing is pretty much enjoyable but it makes feel the player he is cheating, and it makes all other income sources pointless.

So, my suggestions for balancing economy:

  • Fiefs’ income: please revert the nerf. Fiefs’ income has never been great, especially for castles that barely provide money for paying small garrison wages, and it is the main income source for the AI which is having issues with economy currently (most of clans are poors in 1.6.1).
  • Workshops: they are in a pretty good spot now, and it is just necessary to check these underpowered workshops which do not gives more than 50 denars daily. Workshops giving 150-200 as now feels perfectly fine.
  • Caravans: once the bandit infestation gets toned down, caravans will feel perfectly balanced during early/mid/late game.
  • Manual trading: no necessary changes. It is working fine as it is now.
  • Battle loot: currently OP, especially thinking about how easily we can farm AI lords due to ranged units. Aside from checking troops balancing, I think that battle loot should be reduced. Something like -15% or so.
  • Smithing:for smithing, I have several suggestions because it won’t be as simple as reducing orders’ rewards:
    • Please re-visit melee weapon prices and reduce them even further if possible.
    • High-tier orders' rewards should be halved. The most expensive two-handed sword I have found cost 110K or so, why the players should be able to sell their two-handed swords for 200K? Please do not give the player unfair advantages which remove any kind of challenge for us.
    • High-tier orders should spawn less often and should be rare. Currently, I have found towns asking for 2 or 3 two-handed swords at the same time, and paying 200K for each of them. Please reduce the spawning chance for these orders.
    • Check some weapons requirements. Some weapons are pretty easy to craft like two-handed maces. I can easily create two-handed maces which required few materials, and sell them by 20K or so.
    • (Even with all these changes, I have the feeling that smithing would still be OP, but at least it would feel less crazy)
 
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This is something that I am curious to know, what is the TW's vision about how should be the player's economy in this game. Both, melee weapons prices and smithing have been already revamped and re-balanced according to what I have read, but I am still getting millions really fast with smithing. Once you reach smithing skill to 220 or so, it is pretty common to find smithing orders giving 160K or so, which can be completed and get an insane amount of dennars. I am shocked because smithing and weapon balanced have been revised, and I have the feeling that TW actually wants this happening in the game.

This really bugs me because I am loving the new smithing system and I find it pretty enjoyable, but even if I buy expensive weapons for Smelting, I am getting insanely rich really fast in all my campaigns. So my question is, is the player supposed to become rich really fast in this game?
From how I see it, smithing has always been broken and is kept broken for the very simple reason the others methods for making money are either just as broken, unreliable or simply not good enough. It's basically a cheat code they expect everyone to use so we won't complain about the broken economy. Has I used the word "broken" already?
 
From how I see it, smithing has always been broken and is kept broken for the very simple reason the others methods for making money are either just as broken, unreliable or simply not good enough. It's basically a cheat code they expect everyone to use so we won't complain about the broken economy. Has I used the word "broken" already?
Definitely some truth in what you say. Smithing could be fixed with logical unlocks and some price balancing but it's part of a larger economic system that needs a comprehensive rethink. I don't think we'll be seeing a good answer anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong.
 
The point of the game is to be whatever you want to be, not just a lord or king. You’re are meant to be able to play your character how you want to.

Prices should be addressed, and I believe they have been touched upon as of late, but there is no reason to remove smithing from the game due to an exploit you can just not do.
No it's not, the game is focused on being a military leader and a lord or king all the other stuff is just fluff. Can you be a merchant? Sure, but besides simple buying and selling there are no other systems in place to add to the immersion of being a merchant. You can't make backdoor deals or supply armies and lords, etc. There's no way to form relations with specific merchants and curry favor with them. This is why this play style becomes so dull so quickly.

Can you be bandit? Sort of, but this play style is really bare bones, with no black market you're really just a rouge lord or mercenary because you're going to have to keep from pissing off at least 1 faction. There's no way to take over gangs or influence gangs it towns. You can't take over or make a bandit base. If you want to play with a second generation character you're going to have to be neutral with a faction to marry.

The game is focused on individual combat and being a commander with some elements of being a lord/king. If you actually think there is any real depth in the game besides that then you're deluding yourself. This game is open world, but any sandbox elements are very, very limited. Smithing was thrown into the game but it's pretty clear they had no real direction they wanted to go with it and it was a complete cluster****. It's gotten better but honestly there was no where to go but up with it. Iirc this was something that Armagan put together at the 11th hour before ea release. Please stop acting like this is some well thought out system.
 
From how I see it, smithing has always been broken and is kept broken for the very simple reason the others methods for making money are either just as broken, unreliable or simply not good enough. It's basically a cheat code they expect everyone to use so we won't complain about the broken economy. Has I used the word "broken" already?
Definitely some truth in what you say. Smithing could be fixed with logical unlocks and some price balancing but it's part of a larger economic system that needs a comprehensive rethink. I don't think we'll be seeing a good answer anytime soon. I hope I'm wrong.

Aside from equipment prices which are too high and smithing which is pretty unbalanced, what do you find broken about economy?
 
This is something that I am curious to know, what is the TW's vision about how should be the player's economy in this game. Both, melee weapons prices and smithing have been already revamped and re-balanced according to what I have read, but I am still getting millions really fast with smithing. Once you reach smithing skill to 220 or so, it is pretty common to find smithing orders giving 160K or so, which can be completed and get an insane amount of dennars. I am shocked because smithing and weapon balanced have been revised, and I have the feeling that TW actually wants this happening in the game.

This really bugs me because I am loving the new smithing system and I find it pretty enjoyable, but even if I buy expensive weapons for Smelting, I am getting insanely rich really fast in all my campaigns. So my question is, is the player supposed to become rich really fast in this game?
High-tier gear is absurdly expensive, so crafting it is absurdly profitable. There are other knock-on effects of this too, such as the best armour almost never appearing in shops because the merchants cannot afford the 500k price tag. This mod changes the formula for equipment price to something saner and smithing becomes more balanced, though still lucrative enough to make recruiting a smith companion worth it. Likely TW will do this eventually, because they had already nerfed the price formula for javelins because smithing javelins to break the economy became such a meme.
 
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Aside from equipment prices which are too high and smithing which is pretty unbalanced, what do you find broken about economy?
Equipment prices make absolutely no sense and that's the issue. They are integral part of the economy.
They're far, *far* too high considered what the price of other expensive goods is. The fact spices, silver and other valuable goods are worth so little compared to weapons and armor is absurd.
Also, towns that are literally starving after being sieged twice are paying... a little more than the usual for foodstuffs. That makes no sense, they should be throwing you money for them NOT to starve.
It doesn't matter how good the craftmanship on a two-handed sword is, it cannot be worth two castles or 1500 tons of spices. This is supposedly some medieval-inspired world, a good smith - no, a legendary smith should be able to spend a month crafting a sword so magnificent that a king might pay him a small plot of land and a bag of coins for. Maybe a minor title. Here you can just "plop" a weapon worth a kingdom into existence and ignore every other money-making activity.
A horse can cost as much as ten Lords' ransoms.
The hand of the most sought-after Lady in Calradia can cost 1/50th of a masterwork leather armor.
The economy (from the point of view of the player) will always be broken if the enemy Lords can respawn indefinitely with a hundred troops while we multitask caravans and workshops and tournaments and war parties in order to keep up *or* abuse smithing and looting in order to never worry about money again.
Looting is another huge issue: it makes roleplaying as merchant pointless, you will always profit much more from a couple battles with weak lords than you would from a ten-days trip carrying spices.
 
Smithing needs to go. It's this side game that lives in its own fantasy world that just gives you mad money if you grind away at it.

I don't see why it would have to "go". It's a fun side game and I've always loved creating my own weapons. Nobody is forcing anyone to smith - a case could be made for changing weapons prices of what is smithed, but that is an issue with the pricing in general, not smithing itself.

If anything, I'd like to see it expanded to armor and other equipment like arrows (fletching) too.
 
. There are other knock-on effects of this too, such as the best armour almost never appearing in shops because the merchants cannot afford the 500k price tag.
Which armor? I don't think this has been that case for awhile now. AFIAK all the tier 6 ultra armors that lord have can spawn in shops with smithy. There could be some missing for some other bug, but the "too expensive for shop" thing was changed.

From how I see it, smithing has always been broken and is kept broken for the very simple reason the others methods for making money are either just as broken, unreliable or simply not good enough. It's basically a cheat code they expect everyone to use so we won't complain about the broken economy. Has I used the word "broken" already?
Yeah that's good take on it. It does annoy me that it's many people's go-to advice for starting the game is "abuse smithing". And more so that they don't even give the best smithing advice. There's plenty of ways to get starting money and managing you expenses as you progress is a core part of the gameplay, so it sucks that it completely undermined with "you gotta smith and make 10 million money, how else will you buy 1 vassal....der der der". It's gotta be a bad impression for so much of the game to spent on the smithing screen.

Aside from equipment prices which are too high and smithing which is pretty unbalanced, what do you find broken about economy?
I don't like how towns will sell food even when doing so will cause a food shortage then or very soon. I don't like how stunted the food economy is and how it's capped. People know how to build more farms and fishing boats and more caravans, they're not going to just "oh no there's too many people in town now, I guess we'll get really mad about it and starve." It's really stupid.

Equipment prices make absolutely no sense and that's the issue. They are integral part of the economy.
They're far, *far* too high considered what the price of other expensive goods is. The fact spices, silver and other valuable goods are worth so little compared to weapons and armor is absurd.
Also, towns that are literally starving after being sieged twice are paying... a little more than the usual for foodstuffs. That makes no sense, they should be throwing you money for them NOT to starve.
It doesn't matter how good the craftmanship on a two-handed sword is, it cannot be worth two castles or 1500 tons of spices. This is supposedly some medieval-inspired world, a good smith - no, a legendary smith should be able to spend a month crafting a sword so magnificent that a king might pay him a small plot of land and a bag of coins for. Maybe a minor title. Here you can just "plop" a weapon worth a kingdom into existence and ignore every other money-making activity.
A horse can cost as much as ten Lords' ransoms.
The hand of the most sought-after Lady in Calradia can cost 1/50th of a masterwork leather armor.
The economy (from the point of view of the player) will always be broken if the enemy Lords can respawn indefinitely with a hundred troops while we multitask caravans and workshops and tournaments and war parties in order to keep up *or* abuse smithing and looting in order to never worry about money again.
Looting is another huge issue: it makes roleplaying as merchant pointless, you will always profit much more from a couple battles with weak lords than you would from a ten-days trip carrying spices.
All good points.
 
I think too, that the prizes for crafted items are too high - even with the gambling on random parts revealed. The smithing contracts should be way more profitable than any free forged item.
 
Equipment prices make absolutely no sense and that's the issue. They are integral part of the economy.
They're far, *far* too high considered what the price of other expensive goods is. The fact spices, silver and other valuable goods are worth so little compared to weapons and armor is absurd.
Also, towns that are literally starving after being sieged twice are paying... a little more than the usual for foodstuffs. That makes no sense, they should be throwing you money for them NOT to starve.
It doesn't matter how good the craftmanship on a two-handed sword is, it cannot be worth two castles or 1500 tons of spices. This is supposedly some medieval-inspired world, a good smith - no, a legendary smith should be able to spend a month crafting a sword so magnificent that a king might pay him a small plot of land and a bag of coins for. Maybe a minor title. Here you can just "plop" a weapon worth a kingdom into existence and ignore every other money-making activity.
A horse can cost as much as ten Lords' ransoms.
The hand of the most sought-after Lady in Calradia can cost 1/50th of a masterwork leather armor.
The economy (from the point of view of the player) will always be broken if the enemy Lords can respawn indefinitely with a hundred troops while we multitask caravans and workshops and tournaments and war parties in order to keep up *or* abuse smithing and looting in order to never worry about money again.
Looting is another huge issue: it makes roleplaying as merchant pointless, you will always profit much more from a couple battles with weak lords than you would from a ten-days trip carrying spices.
High-tier gear is absurdly expensive, so crafting it is absurdly profitable. There are other knock-on effects of this too, such as the best armour almost never appearing in shops because the merchants cannot afford the 500k price tag. This mod changes the formula for equipment price to something saner and smithing becomes more balanced, though still lucrative enough to make recruiting a smith companion worth it. Likely TW will do this eventually, because they had already nerfed the price formula for javelins because smithing javelins to break the economy became such a meme.

We are in the same bote here, and I am one of the people who has complained most about high-tier equipment being too overpriced. Devs have said that they are already working on it, and melee weapons have been revised and prices have been lowered, but +100K still does not make sense for me to be honest. I think that the most expensive armors/weapons should cost 40-50K as much. I always modified the game's files after every patch to reduce these prices myself, because the current prices are simply game-breaking for me. I like a lot roleplaying during my campaign and it is just impossible with vanilla where all my troops have better equip than me (assuming that I have not stolen my wife's armor or cheating the game with smithing), while I am the guy paying the wages.

So yes, this is the reason because I was asking "Aside from equipment prices which are too high and smithing which is pretty unbalanced, what do you find broken about economy?"

I would also love to know how to modify the game's file for nerfing smithing orders' rewards. Otherwise, I am not going to use it anymore because it feels like cheating.
 
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