Will smithing ever be fixed or at least rebalanced?

[StewVader]

That's a bit too much don't you think? we can complain about unbalanced/broken things to help them be improved while also enjoying what's there currently no? to me atleast the tedious bit comes late game where it's less fleshed out currently, the early/mid game are the best parts and i'm always starting new saves to replay them again in different scenarios (even more so with the bugs and constant updates of EA, not going to commit to a full blown playthrough only to lose it later in an update or something for now)

Vonbalt, I agree with what your saying to an extent, I guess it depends on how long you played. Initially, I enjoyed the beginning of the game, (the most) then I soon realized its literally the same exact motions every time, and there is very little do actually do, so the beginning has just become tedious.

 

[redmark]

I also think most of these guys who worship the game, use cheats on every new playthrough to skip the tedious bits. That's just my speculation though.

It is possible for people to enjoy a game others don't, without resorting to cheats. Or to use EA to experiment with different approaches - and even to report bugs and discuss balance issues with a view to improving the game in the long term.

 

[StewVader]

It is possible for people to enjoy a game others don't, without resorting to cheats. Or to use EA to experiment with different approaches - and even to report bugs and discuss balance issues with a view to improving the game in the long term.

I agree. And I said nothing against that. I merely speculated that many of the people who worship the game, and still play it religiously, probably dabble in some cheats to skip ahead of some of the redundant and repetitive things you have to do, to in fact, try out new things etc etc.

And I conceded that it was just speculation, not sure about the point your making.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

not true i dont like cheats just to get spoon fed and actually like to work to have an challenge towards my endgame taking pride with the achievements on the way Heck even totally fail on the way to because of my mistakes like Mario or most c64/nintendo/sega games back in the days
But i dont judge since its everyone's game (and cheats can be fun if you want to experiment) as long as it will stay that way (Ps. This makes me wonder what Battletoads (Nes) EA forums would had looked like today xD)

 

[Blood Gryphon]

First of all, doing tournaments is simply another example of exploiting bad AI and design, it may not be as ridiculous as Smithing, but its similar. You can win in tournaments with no gear, and no skills, right off the bat - so you're just exploiting really, its just not as egregious as Smithing.

Secondly, no one said just kill bandits and looters, trading was also considered. Trading is essentially the primary way to getting money early on without exploiting tournaments or Smithing, and also working on the main questline. You can make lots of money trading in 2 hrs, if you know what to do, its just tedious after the 3rd or 4th time - much like most of the game currently.

I call bull**** on all of you who claim to have never cheated. We can't demonstrate our positions, so their is no point arguing over it, i'm just stating that I think your full of it. Its just seems like total bull**** to me, especially you special folks with over 300hrs, haven't skipped a head a little bit, when really all your doing is saving time, not really missing out on anything new or different because the game is literally the same every time. (bye bye Sturgia and Empire, hello Khuzaits)

Lastly, this game is not complicated, there is nothing complex or interesting to do, don't act like their is a "knowing how to play". There isn't, unless your talking about knowing how to exploit the AI and piss poor design.

Hard to argue the tournaments don't feel like an exploitation with the current difficulty level (realism being easy). Although it is nice their rewards are drastically reduced after clan lvl 1.

I haven't cheated yet, but personally I feel like you would miss out on the whole mercenary/vassal rags to riches experience (if you aren't smithing) which while frustrating because you aren't in control can lead to a lot of interesting things. But lets be honest getting from tier 3 to tier 4 takes ****ing forever and I do spend most my time trying to keep the world as un-snowballed as possible, through being a mercenary and eventually a vassal.

You are probably right about your speculation for people not here to test the game and report bugs though. Which is totally fine.

 

[Apocal]

Lastly, this game is not complicated, there is nothing complex or interesting to do, don't act like their is a "knowing how to play". There isn't, unless your talking about knowing how to exploit the AI and piss poor design.

...

killing looters/mountain bandits for the first 2-3 hrs (if playing on realistic) just to get enough gold for your first Caravan/workshop

This might blow your mind, but I don't do that.

 

[StewVader]

Hard to argue the tournaments don't feel like an exploitation with the current difficulty level (realism being easy). Although it is nice their rewards are drastically reduced after clan lvl 1.

I haven't cheated yet, but personally I feel like you would miss out on the whole mercenary/vassal rags to riches experience (if you aren't smithing) which while frustrating because you aren't in control can lead to a lot of interesting things. But lets be honest getting from tier 3 to tier 4 takes ****ing forever and I do spend most my time trying to keep the world as un-snowballed as possible, through being a mercenary and eventually a vassal.

You are probably right about your speculation for people not here to test the game and report bugs though. Which is totally fine.

I agree its totally fine. I personally don't care if people cheat in this game, because you aren't really doing anything other than timewarping a few hours of tedious gameplay. - depending on the severity of the cheating -

However, I do take issue, and this doesn't apply to you Blood Gryphon because I think you are the most fair and objective forum goer, with an actual passion for improving the game, I do take issue with the people who disingenuously try to discredit people's criticism of certain aspects of the game, while sayings "ITS FINE" and also circumventing those aspects with cheating.

 

[HugoTheFrenchMan]

I agree its totally fine. I personally don't care if people cheat in this game, because you aren't really doing anything other than timewarping a few hours of tedious gameplay. - depending on the severity of the cheating -

However, I do take issue, and this doesn't apply to you Blood Gryphon because I think you are the most fair and objective forum goer, with an actual passion for improving the game, I do take issue with the people who disingenuously try to discredit people's criticism of certain aspects of the game, while circumventing those aspects with cheating.

To me cheating removes all the fun from the game if I ever cheat in a game i will not play that campaign again since i realise that the only reason i am at the point I am is because of cheating so basically it just makes me not want to play

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

I do take issue with the people who disingenuously try to discredit people's criticism of certain aspects of the game, while circumventing those aspects with cheating.

I got your message of thinking the game is tedious and grindy. But if someone want to make the game easier of which it already have become because of these arguments without mentioning an good solution or what this really is about or how it should make it more interesting i have a thing to say or two because its not the first time it made the difficulty settings easier without thinking about the whole effect for everyone but making it convenient for em selves or in some cases sometimes just even trolling just to see how long they can push it for the sake of it. However what i see is that your lacking creativity/imagination in the start atm or perhaps grown tired of the M&B concept and would be good with an break or some nice mods

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I dont think Stewvader sees anything wrong with cheating per se, neither do I. In fact I would encourage people to cheat rather than go through the motions just to get to the big battles. But what's ridiculous is when you get people saying that the grind is fine, or that the overall experience is fun, then citing their 300 hours. Forgive me for not believing you but I get similar vibes to what happened in the MP forums, loads of people saying "THE GAME IS FINE, STOP WHINING, IT ACTUALLY REQUIRES SKILL NOW", but then we found videos of them actually playing the game, and they were terrible.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

OH NO, what if they're not fixing smithing prices because somebody on the team said "This is just like the enchanted daggers in skyrim" and they all took it as a complement! Is there an invisible chest too?

I was actually suggestionen way back for some cool hidden caves and adventures in the world that you could do for a small reward or something

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

I dont think Stewvader sees anything wrong with cheating per se, neither do I. In fact I would encourage people to cheat rather than go through the motions just to get to the big battles. But what's ridiculous is when you get people saying that the grind is fine, or that the overall experience is fun, then citing their 300 hours. Forgive me for not believing you but I get similar vibes to what happened in the MP forums, loads of people saying "THE GAME IS FINE, STOP WHINING, IT ACTUALLY REQUIRES SKILL NOW", but then we found videos of them actually playing the game, and they were terrible.

So you think ex getting top tier troops after approx 5-6 quick easy looter battles from the start and that you can buy every armor top tier for everyone mid game like nothing even being a hero character soldier without cheese not even risking loosing gear is a grind in an M&B game ? Guess gamers gone to soft wanting everything served of which they already have. I remember it took aprox a week or more to play an M&B game but now its faster so excuse me not seeing the grind here ^^

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If the game required me to think then I would agree with you, but it doesn't. That's what grind refers to, it's the repetition of stuff where the only real investment is your irl time.

 

[Dr-Shinobi]

ah well second round i played Dark souls it was much easier for some reason since i already knew what to do and was more in sync with the game even if it was harder. But yeah i can understand those kind of grind to just for the sake of it but i dont see any difference from the Warband side to this except missing features that prob will come. You build an empire from the start but ive done it in many different ways to so sorry for not sharing the same experience and seeing it as an grind per say

 

[Eugene Shutto]

Why not tie prices with part tiers. A sword made of tier 5 parts will be expensive and sword made of tier 1 parts will be cheap.

 

[TechnoSarge]

While we're on a wish list for smithing, I wish more of the parts had some relationship to the battle value of the weapon. Why craft with a Tier IV pommel using your Fine Steel when you get the same damage from a Tier II pommel made of iron? TW needs to explain that to me a bit.

Also, if you play with the slider incrementally (rather than just throw it all the way to the right to increase the skill required) you see some interesting effects. At this point the pierce damage ticks up 1 point, but the next nudge ticks the Handling and the swing speed down. You have to decide what stats you want to optimize (and by "optimize" I don't mean "maximize", because you should consider penalties like the afore-mentioned handling and speed).

So the smithing has some subtlety, and I like that. The market value doesn't seem to appreciate that, however; it seems dominated by the primary damage. So what exactly is the point of having 50 different dagger guards to unlock when even a basic knife requires 4 parts and more skill than a beginning blacksmith will have, just to make a weapon valued in the barely-three-digits?

And there are parts combos or weapons that change literally none of the stats as you slide the difficulty slider up. I see no value in including effects like that.

 

[redmark]

Also, if you play with the slider incrementally (rather than just throw it all the way to the right to increase the skill required) you see some interesting effects. At this point the pierce damage ticks up 1 point, but the next nudge ticks the Handling and the swing speed down. You have to decide what stats you want to optimize (and by "optimize" I don't mean "maximize", because you should consider penalties like the afore-mentioned handling and speed).

So the smithing has some subtlety, and I like that. The market value doesn't seem to appreciate that, however; it seems dominated by the primary damage. So what exactly is the point of having 50 different dagger guards to unlock when even a basic knife requires 4 parts and more skill than a beginning blacksmith will have, just to make a weapon valued in the barely-three-digits?

The subtlety seems to work on some weapon types more than others (e.g. maces, where the optimal can be not where you might guess) - and speed/reach do have a slight impact on price (though I came to the conclusion that handling doesn't), though obviously nowhere near as much as damage.

Some of it is flavour. I do think there are changes needed in the valuation, and to make the part unlocking somewhat (but not entirely) less random. Perhaps unlocking parts fitting the culture of the town you're smithing in, gradual unlocks so you don't jump straight to a T5 part too early, etc.

 

[Gambles]

Vonbalt, I agree with what your saying to an extent, I guess it depends on how long you played. Initially, I enjoyed the beginning of the game, (the most) then I soon realized its literally the same exact motions every time, and there is very little do actually do, so the beginning has just become tedious.

This is what I realized after about 150hrs in game, playing, testing, crashing, starting new games every time a patch hit, testing some more, fiddling with sieges and camps... Basically it's all ankle deep and the what is there isn't intriguing or challenging past the initial hurdle of just figuring out the games sometimes weird balance issues.

Having said that. Some people can play absolutely repetitive crap forever. I watch my spouse play redundant phone games endlessly, the same ones for years and never seeming get bored enough to quit completely. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

[stevehoos]

I was all about playing when it first came out, now I know there's very little depth once you get your kingdom, I stopped months ago. I check to see what TW does each beta, it's so far below what I would have expected I hardly don't bother now to test anything.

 

[TechnoSarge]

While we're talking about smithing, I thought I'd display what happened when I decided to let yet another of my companions have a whack at it. (I have 4 others that regularly smith for me, with smith levels up to about 220! Mine is only 192.)

I reveal that ONE shot at a decent javelin is worth - not 1, not 2, not 3 Smith points, but...

On crafting his 2nd javelin, he went up a level.