The Blacksmith (Poll)

[Jock]

Today while I was playing SP, I got an idea.
I just coulnd't find a Long Arming Sword. All I found was Rusty and Chipped ones.
That gave me an idea. What if some larger towns (e.g all faction capitals) have a blacksmith who can upgrade your weapon (which would cost a lot) to an enchanced one.

 

[AWdeV]

Ehh, long arming swords that aren't chipped nor rusted are around. Thing is, enhancing swords won't  work. You'd need to get them re-forged and all that rot, you can't just glue a new piece to it and hope it stays on.

 

[Grimmend]

What if you added time to the equation, like a 3-5 to upgrade weapons, or something.

 

[Jock]

The way I see it, it would be like this :
In every capital city there is a proffesional blacksmith. You take you weapon (e.g Rusty Sword) to him, and a few days or a week later, you get a reforged one. But you can't reforge a weapon more than once. You can pick the level of the repair, but the higher the level, more expensive it'll go.

 

[Mallissin]

I like this idea, but think it should go a step further.

Open up as many item types as possible for upgrade and use the player-owned industry system to do it.

So, upgrade a weapon, shield or metal armor, go to your blacksmith.
Upgrade leather armor, go to your leatherworks.
Upgrade cloth armor, go to your linen/wool weavery.
Upgrade your pimp suit, go to your velvet factory.

Toss in a requirement for the player to provide extra tools or materials and I think you have a winner.

To upgrade, dump the items into the factory's inventory and then talk to the NPC afterwards.

 

[Jock]

I like this idea, but think it should go a step further.

Open up as many item types as possible for upgrade and use the player-owned industry system to do it.

So, upgrade a weapon, shield or metal armor, go to your blacksmith.
Upgrade leather armor, go to your leatherworks.
Upgrade cloth armor, go to your linen/wool weavery.
Upgrade your pimp suit, go to your velvet factory.

Toss in a requirement for the player to provide extra tools or materials and I think you have a winner.

To upgrade, dump the items into the factory's inventory and then talk to the NPC afterwards.

Nice, I like that!
I hope the TW will make such upgrade sometime.

 

[Zaakjes]

It would be much cheaper if you just bought a new one. And saves some energy.

 

[Jock]

It would be much cheaper if you just bought a new one. And saves some energy.

Yeah, but I came up with the Blacksmith idea, because I couldn't find a new one.

 

[Amman d Stazia]

in principle, it's already in game: Think about it, you loot three rusty mail hauberks, take them to the armour shop, and sell them.  With the cash, you buy one standard mail hauberk. 

Is that different to taking in one rusty hauberk, handing over D.675, and coming out with a standard hauberk?

But I like the idea of being able to repair/upgrade equipment in the broad sense by investing in your fief. 

 

[Zaakjes]

It would be much cheaper if you just bought a new one. And saves some energy.

Yeah, but I came up with the Blacksmith idea, because I couldn't find a new one.

That's a realistic thing. Prosperity wouldn't be as high that you can buy anything you'd be looking for.

 

[Mallissin]

in principle, it's already in game: Think about it, you loot three rusty mail hauberks, take them to the armour shop, and sell them.  With the cash, you buy one standard mail hauberk. 

LOL!!

It's more like 20 rusties for 1 normal. The shop marks things up big time.

King's idea gives you another avenue to upgrade that involves fetching goods (iron, tools, leather, etc.) and building industry to help you upgrade your goods.

And as far as the "it'll be cheaper if you bought a new one" (which I thought was mostly an American concept, but obviously not), that might be the case in modern society but back in the medieval era it was not.

It takes a ton of work to hand-make armor or weapons.

Even if you don't like the idea of being able to upgrade to equal quality items (of the shop), it would still be nice to upgrade to reasonably equal (5% of stats).

To take King's idea further again, if the shop priced goods based off other comparable goods for sale, you could use the same system to coax the armor or weapon merchant to lower their prices on the really expensive stuff by dumping repaired goods on the town.

So, you have your eye on a really expensive hauberk but you can never save enough denar to buy it. Instead, you use your three blacksmith shops over two weeks to upgrade six pieces of cheaper hauberk. You sell them in the town with the hauberk (probably making a nice pile of denar in itself), which reduces the price of it enough that you could afford it finally.

It could open up another level of economy on top of what's already there.

 

[Jock]

@Mallissin

Really nice idea. That's what I'm talking about. It's about time somebody put this to a real game.

 

[Amman d Stazia]

in principle, it's already in game: Think about it, you loot three rusty mail hauberks, take them to the armour shop, and sell them.  With the cash, you buy one standard mail hauberk. 

LOL!!

It's more like 20 rusties for 1 normal. The shop marks things up big time.

and

if the shop priced goods based off other comparable goods for sale, you could use the same system to coax the armor or weapon merchant to lower their prices on the really expensive stuff by dumping repaired goods on the town.

So, you have your eye on a really expensive hauberk but you can never save enough denar to buy it. Instead, you use your three blacksmith shops over two weeks to upgrade six pieces of cheaper hauberk. You sell them in the town with the hauberk (probably making a nice pile of denar in itself), which reduces the price of it enough that you could afford it finally.

It could open up another level of economy on top of what's already there.

well, for the first point, the more points you have for trade skill, the lower the mark up, but yes, at first one new regular hauberk costs maybe 10 times what you get for a damaged one. 
My point remains the same:  there's not much difference between:
(a) taking in one damaged hauberk, plus some raw materials, and PAYING for an upgrade, and
(b) taking in 10 damaged hauberks, and SWAPPING them for one undamaged one.

It's a nice touch in terms of immersion or personalising the game, but it's not covering a glaring omission in the current game...

Your second point though:

Consider the real effect of your idea.  You make a fortune, currently, from selling off plunder.  If the item price decreased in relation to the amount of plunder you dumped on a town, you would end up NOT GETTING MUCH MONEY for your plunder.
and consequently, you'd still be unable to afford that shiny new item.

I agree, it would be realistic, and it would force a player to target ever higher-grade enemies, in order to plunder different and more expensive items.  Not a bad thing per se.  Just, not at all what you seem to want, which is basically a fast-track to better kit.

Personally, I would much rather see high-value kit being given out as rewards for the harder quests, rather than just cash.

And the blacksmith idea is a nice touch, don't get me wrong, maybe my first response didn't get that across.

 

[Jock]

Good, now all we need is someone to add the Blacksmith in the game.

 

[Mallissin]

I agree that on the bottom tiers it's reasonable because the loot you receive is near those tiers. But we're mostly discussing the progression up the tiers, since loot drops for better items is fairly rare and from what I've gathered most people never even touch the top tiers in their games. The repair system is simply a process to help you progress up the tiers faster if you're willing to do the side work.

I don't want to tie King's idea to the second idea I offered about the economy too heavily. It's not required for the first to work and for the sake of not weakening the repair system idea, I'm going to just drop it for now. If you think it's worth debating, I'm happy to start another thread to figure out if it's worthwhile.

 

[doomsayer]

A blacksmith that could make items for you on order would be nice.
I guess that's how it worked irl anyway, a knight goes to a smith and asks him to make a weapon for him, not "Show me your wares ... why that are beautiful sticks with nail in, but I was more looking for a crossbow."

 

[Mallissin]

That is a crossbow.

 

[Amman d Stazia]

on a side note, a smith back in the day - same as today - would have a bread-and-butter business of producing standard items.  Unlike in the game, it would be rare to find a smithy selling off so many different forms of weapon.  More normal would be a weaponsmith who would make 'standard' swords, axe blades, spearheads and arrowheads.  Other stuff, he would make to order, like a special sword for a really tall nobleman, or a morningstar, or a steel-shafted poleaxe.

I suppose, in game, all those 'reinforced watered steel greatswords' are meant to reflect a special, made-to-order item in some way.  I'm not too happy with it as it is though: There should either be
1) all weapons available, as in a menu of the smith's abilities - with a day or two allowed for the better items to be made,
2) only standard items, and one or two rarites that have been 'aquired' by the smith, eg sold-off plunder.

 

[The_Freeman]

If anything a blacksmith should be a guy you go to and tell what weapon/armor you want and he'll make it for you, after a few days and maybe costing more since it's a custom order.

 

[Jock]

If anything a blacksmith should be a guy you go to and tell what weapon/armor you want and he'll make it for you, after a few days and maybe costing more since it's a custom order.

Yeah, but he should also be able to upgrade it. And you should take the materials to him youself.