Upkeep balance -wages, tools and healing

[=]

I am finding that the games economy is poorly tuned.

Every fight I take now (I have 5 guys at lvl 3/4 all wearing crafted light armour) costs me 2-3 repair tools per member and usually at least one healing potion (for 5 fighters this works out at around 50-100g), after harder fights, i.e. better paid missions, every one will need a healing potion which will cost me substantially more than 100g per fight. Yes I can go back to town after every fight for cheaper repairs/healing but that just means that I have to pay more wages so it is a false economy.

I am spending at least the money I make for each contract repairing damage I sustained completing the contract so I have to find money for wages from other sources and I am at the point now where I may well have entered a death spiral of debt.

I can make healing potions but the ingredients are relatively rare and only found in snow biomes so it isn't worth the effort to farm them (wages again). I haven't found a way to craft tools or self repair items, presumably there is a camp upgrade for this?

I would prefer the Battle Brothers system. Tools and healing items are not one use items, they are pooled for everyone in the party and they are gradually used up as they repair durability/injuries. This means that repairing multiple slightly damaged items would only require 1 tool between them rather than a tool each as it is now.

I also don't like how every time a fighter takes HP damage, even a scratch, they seem to take an injury. I would prefer to see injuries become more debilitating but only be sustained if a fighter reaches the 'dying' condition in a fight.

[Roy]

Tbf armor is nice to have but not mandatory, as in your guys heal to full after every fight. You need max armor before taking on a hard fight (like an elite or a tough band) bit you can easily take on easy to medium fight with all your armors destroyed.

Also, it's a lot cheaper to have one of your guy becoming alchemist and simply craft your own healing potion. It's two purple flower from the plain biome and two ice flower from the mountain for one.

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

it makes a lot of sense later when you can craft a lot of the things you use. Its not so bad after you give everyone better weapons and the blacksmith does repair your gear a bit cheaper(same for alchemist) than using the repair kits.
For example, if you have a pot and salt, you can designate a cook, hunt a pack of boars OR join someone else fighting boars and have enough food for a week or more.
Definetly and rpg game where you need mercs to fill other roles too.
The knowledge points really help managing this, -10% wages, auxiliary personel(blacksmith) and other mechanics help

[=]

Originally posted by Roy:

Tbf armor is nice to have but not mandatory, as in your guys heal to full after every fight. You need max armor before taking on a hard fight (like an elite or a tough band) bit you can easily take on easy to medium fight with all your armors destroyed.

Also, it's a lot cheaper to have one of your guy becoming alchemist and simply craft your own healing potion. It's two purple flower from the plain biome and two ice flower from the mountain for one.

Armour is basically mandatory as health damage leads to injuries which are more expensive to fix, and apply significant debuffs, while running no armour is more of a risk in general.

Purple flowers are easy to find, ice flowers less so. To the extent that you need to farm them to meet your needs and that just loses you money in wages.

I had no problems at all with food. Bread is cheap and easy to make and there is more than enough lootable food to keep you supplied without really trying. Money is the big pinch point for me and it definitely feels like some tweaks need to be made.

[Roy]

Originally posted by =:

Originally posted by Roy:

Tbf armor is nice to have but not mandatory, as in your guys heal to full after every fight. You need max armor before taking on a hard fight (like an elite or a tough band) bit you can easily take on easy to medium fight with all your armors destroyed.

Also, it's a lot cheaper to have one of your guy becoming alchemist and simply craft your own healing potion. It's two purple flower from the plain biome and two ice flower from the mountain for one.

Armour is basically mandatory as health damage leads to injuries which are more expensive to fix, and apply significant debuffs, while running no armour is more of a risk in general.

Purple flowers are easy to find, ice flowers less so. To the extent that you need to farm them to meet your needs and that just loses you money in wages.

I had no problems at all with food. Bread is cheap and easy to make and there is more than enough lootable food to keep you supplied without really trying. Money is the big pinch point for me and it definitely feels like some tweaks need to be made.

From my experience, you can take a few hits in your health without getting an injury, I still don't know what the specifics are (like, getting under half or full RNG on every hit). In the early game enemies don't hit for much especially with a few defense buffs (like swordman aoe protection buff) and I had no armor pretty much every fight after the first when I had patched it, as early armors have so little armor value. I got by just fine, tbh. Never really felt pressure or lacking in healing options. It's really easy to minimze damage in Wartale if you play smart. Snow flower is rarer but abundant if you spend a few days in the snowy mountain biome. Don't explore too far from a town early, until you get some momentum and you are safe.

Now I'm in a state where money is not ever a problem and I'm always full on healing potions and spare parts. I litterally just tanked the early game taking hits in the face without armor and survived just fine. I agree that later on, you want armor, but in the very early, I really don't feel you *need* it to get by.

I agree food is never a problem though, even without a dedicated cook.

(Playing on Normal/Normal btw)

[DeadSilent]

I have to agree with = on this. There needs to be some balancing of early game repair costs so you don't bankrupt yourself for having the audacity to wear armor .

[Kaserdan]

Tip to help you :

Don't repair your shield. (At least in the early stage of the game to save up)

That first shield you get is only 2 armor and takes up 1 tool every time you repair.
Remove the shield from your character and repair only their vest/rags. Put the shield back afterwards. Your character won't have the 2 armor from the shield (big deal if you can save 5 gold every time right?) but you still get that 10% bonus from the shield even if it's broken.

Also, if your armor lost some points but still have a few remaining (example : after a fight, it's at 3/8), just don't repair it. 3 armor should be ok for your next fight and you save money.

Lastly, if you're injured, what type of injury is it? Can it wait until you get back to the village? I've been running with a few guys with injuries for 2 or 3 fights just to save up some more gold.

If they want to keep the system "as is", maybe they should add an item type like "one half of a tool", cause it hit me too when I found out I needed 2 tools to repair my 11HP armor vs 1 tool only for my 8HP armor. Wearing that 8HP armor is ++Value actually.

[spuddy]

Originally posted by =:

I am finding that the games economy is poorly tuned.

Every fight I take now (I have 5 guys at lvl 3/4 all wearing crafted light armour) costs me 2-3 repair tools per member and usually at least one healing potion (for 5 fighters this works out at around 50-100g), after harder fights, i.e. better paid missions, every one will need a healing potion which will cost me substantially more than 100g per fight. Yes I can go back to town after every fight for cheaper repairs/healing but that just means that I have to pay more wages so it is a false economy.

I am spending at least the money I make for each contract repairing damage I sustained completing the contract so I have to find money for wages from other sources and I am at the point now where I may well have entered a death spiral of debt.

I can make healing potions but the ingredients are relatively rare and only found in snow biomes so it isn't worth the effort to farm them (wages again). I haven't found a way to craft tools or self repair items, presumably there is a camp upgrade for this?

I would prefer the Battle Brothers system. Tools and healing items are not one use items, they are pooled for everyone in the party and they are gradually used up as they repair durability/injuries. This means that repairing multiple slightly damaged items would only require 1 tool between them rather than a tool each as it is now.

I also don't like how every time a fighter takes HP damage, even a scratch, they seem to take an injury. I would prefer to see injuries become more debilitating but only be sustained if a fighter reaches the 'dying' condition in a fight.

What difficulty are you playing on? If i had to guess i'd say Hard/Hard.
Most of these replies seem to be from people on easy or normal so if you are on hard like me then not a lot of these replies are relevant to you at all.
You literally can't do no armour on hard ect or will be get annihilated.
I'm struggling as well as there a very few fights that are easily done on hard mode without getting wounds on every character after every fight.
I'm surviving but barely and everyone has at least 2 wounds lol.
That's hard mode for you i guess.

[Aviticus Dragon]

I'm playing on Normal/Hard, and I've pretty much had to reload most battles a few times, and lost a lot. You really have to pick your fights, and crafting is necessary.

Wages seem to be too high though. I don't think 18g starting out per person is right. I think they should lower the cost of wages to 9g-12g starting out. There's really not much room for exploration as you end up running up a debt really fast. You basically just have to run from mission to mission as fast as you can. I wish there was more time to explore the area.

[Question Mark]

I also play on hard and barely make the money to keep up with the repairs/heals and wages....

What is the solution ?
- higher number of soldiers ?
- taming animals ?

any suggestions ?

[Mora]

I agree with many points here I have 9 members now and I can't do nothing other that contracts non stop the upkeep is crazy even the food that was no problem early game now is becoming a issue, 200g for a contract, 85g of upkeep, 12 food units a crazy amount of repair kits very expensive medicine maybe I keep 50g if Im lucky.

Are the repair tools made out of paper? only potions why not bandages there is so many cloths around and how about crafting splints from wood and rope?.

The whole healing and armor maintenance systems in this game are very unbalance
They need a repair hammer with durability and other cheaper medicines depending the severity of the injuries.

[Superbus Rex]

Also the wage reduction perk "frugality" appears to not be working either, it is supposed to reduce the troop wage by 10%.

[cifrelettere]

The economy scales very poorly with party members. Unfortunately, the game also scales encounters to your current party. The end result is that having more party members is not beneficial in combat and a detriment to your economy.

The game needs to be balanced around the management aspect so that if you want to have easier encounters by having more and better party members then you might not make any money. Unfortunately, the auto-scaling encounters remove this and what could be an organic system of party management and economy instead becomes a scaling algorithm.

[Kaserdan]

Originally posted by tarksimmo:

Also the wage reduction perk "frugality" appears to not be working either, it is supposed to reduce the troop wage by 10%.

It does work but it's not easy to see (I thought like you at first).

Hover your mouse over the "Krowns" on the top right of the screen.

The stat "wages" remains the same, but when the wage is due that's where you can see the difference.

The 10% is applied for each member, it is not global. Basically you save 1 per 10 separately between your guys.

[Superbus Rex]

Originally posted by Kaserdan:

Originally posted by tarksimmo:

Also the wage reduction perk "frugality" appears to not be working either, it is supposed to reduce the troop wage by 10%.

It does work but it's not easy to see (I thought like you at first).

Hover your mouse over the "Krowns" on the top right of the screen.

The stat "wages" remains the same, but when the wage is due that's where you can see the difference.

The 10% is applied for each member, it is not global. Basically you save 1 per 10 separately between your guys.

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks!

[billy]

I am new so take my opinion with a pinch of salt but i think even starting you with more tools to repair would help a lot .

Tool usage seems excessive as a new player but maybe i will feel different later.

I've never been a fan of making the start of the game the hardest part or harder than when you get going a bit.

You should feel fine to explore a little as a new player at the start of the game.