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and the way they did it was more simplified, as there were different tiers of disrepair and qualities that could be improved upon by a specific smith that would do the work for a price
that worked fine for what it was
this system they have isn't actually that bad, but it does lack some of the appeal of how things were done in those mods back in the day, I think both could be accommodated and it would basically give your smithing an extra function, so you could invest in upgrading existing weapons and gear
just a thought though
there is a mod that helps you with materials becoming more accessible to help speed smithing along
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2880604887
now, you have to smith 10+ h only to get accass to T2 weapons. and again 10+ h for T3 and again, and again .... for EVERY weapon-typ like spear or sword.
i was laughing so hard as i have seen this "improvements" and sayed to me "this will never come to release version". i simple ignore smithing, it isnt that important to me. there is enough i can do in bannerlord that makes much fun and is not boring as hell.
You're not missing anything at all - You are entirely correct.
In order to speak on it, I tried it full-force, once... It's like watching teeth grow. I can think of a few less rewarding activities, like folding blankets or vacuuming up toenail clippings. But, they're really not that much less rewarding...
The problems are manyfold in what has always seemed to me to be a bad idea that someone in development fell in love with and had the power to prevent any sensible changes to it...
I've complained on it endlessly during EA. Here's just a brief rundown:
1) There is no reason for deep raw materials mechanics that require "busy work" to "refine" precursor materials in a game that is not a "crafting" game... It's thoroughly out of place in Bannerlord and needs to be simplified.
2) Grunt Work is for gathering/crafting games. Materials needed for simpler crafting in games that are not "Crafting" games should be closely tied in with progression and other gameplay activities that do not stray too far from what the main gameplay is.
3) Crafting materials, bllueprints, unlocks, and other metas should mostly be tied into other gameplay than "crafting" in a game that is not about "crafting." So, "loot drops" is a choice and Bannerlord does provide interaction there, but not much... Special drops are non-existent, so there's no motivation being capitalized on by the gameplay to pursue Blacksmithing related goals. Or, rather, very little since it's tiny and rng (Special materials).
4) Unlocks tied to "how many times did you press this button" are... a universally bad idea suitable for a twitch game... Gaining points is one thing, waiting to see whether or not some random thing, and I'm gonna get to that next, is "discovered" while clicking a button is a dumb idea. These should largely be discovered while doing what? Pursing other gameplay activities in the game's main genre. Why? Because it rewards the player that enjoys crafting and may motivate the player who hasn't tried it to try it out if they get a "blueprint drop" for instance.
5) Bannerlord's Blacksmithing system is full of "moar stuffs is moar betterer." It uses the "complexity by volume" method...
"Sand" uses a similar method at the beach in order to make itself look impressive.
There are simply "too many" of everything in a game that is not focused on Crafting. Bannerlord is not a game that is focused on crafting or, rather, it shouldn't be. That leads up to the last point:
The number of individual pieces that can be unlocked are ridiculous. They're there largely to give players the means to customize their weapons to look "cool." But, this isn't a weapon-crafting-cutomization game. NO game that I know of gets this pedantic with offering "variety" outside of "Galactic Civilizations" by Stardock, that allowed a huge variety of customized pieces one could attack to nodes on the ship model and had a user-submitted feature there, too... and that was neat-o, but.. not heckin' amazeballz.
If one could get a database of all components, once would probably find a hundred-thousand or more possible combinations for each weapon (maybe, I dunno, I can't find such a list to figure it out) and that doesn't include the "length slider."
That's... obnoxious when most players are going to only ever craft a handful of weapons for themselves and Companions and they'll be min/maxxing as hard as they can when they do it. They'll comfortably ignore most items and will willingly accept an inferior one for most crafts if they can't get it. It makes little sense, but looks impressive...
6) In "principle" being able to craft some cool things in Bannerlord is not a bad idea. It's really not.
Many Warband mods included their own crafting-like elements, just not very complex ones. (Item list restrictions and the like contributed to that) However, what most players use Blacksmithing for is to make currency and TW hasn't fully balanced against that, ever. (I don't now that for sure with this latest patch.) Again, it's a crafting mechanic that is good in a crafting or survival game, especially, but not necessarily great in a battle-fighting RPG game where you can outright buy an entire Town by selling really shiny steak-knives.
Note: TW added a Blacksmith Order system for some reason, likely as a reason they could give as an excuse for having such a complicated crafting mechanic... This is just so very much like a "do your dailies or else" mechanic that it makes me nauseous. But, there it is: Now, you, the King of a faction that is one day from conquering the entire world, can complete orders to produce steak-knives for Willy the Peasant. /sigh
The reason that it's so tedious is that if it was faster and easier than rolling a bucket of dice to unlock a space-shuttle by hitting all "1's," its bad design and lack of sense in this game's genre would leap off the page. It must be slowed down to fit in the long-play "epic" of Bannerlord, else you'd be a master smith wielding a giant Mastercrafted Two-Handed Halberd o' Death without having any two-handed Perks that helped you to use it... or a hearth on which to hang your weapon...
PS: This criticism is only about Blacksmithing, which I do not attempt to hide my contempt for, ever... :)
I dont know what can improve it but what wont make it as much of a slog I can think of one thing. Add in master smith that can sell you parts for a stupid high amount of denars like 100k- 250k per part for tier 5. so at least everyone can make their custom weapon and people that want it for min max they can casually lvl it up without going insane. As well for the people that actually take the time to earn it they get to save alot of cash.
Do it.
There is absolutely no reward at all worthy of having to suffer through RNG button clicking that you have to pay for with your efforts at refining and collecting materials in a game that is not a crafting/survival game. There just isn't.
If you Mod/edit your way to Blacksmithing knowledge, you still have to acquire the materials. I do not see any gameplay design problem with that at all - You don't get the items for free, you still have to collect the mats.
This is probably the only possible way to get enjoyment from Crafting. It will one day be a mod/edit that is as often used as the "make cows follow me" in Warband.
See, this kills me. The way it is takes far too long. It's ridiculous, actually. I would much prefer if it was sped up. That relates to yours and Mork's posts though where you make the point that you could then make extremely high-tier items too fast, and the crafting has been slowed down to match the "epic" pacing of the game. How to fix that, I don't know. The more I think about it, the more I come around to Morkonan's idea that this shouldn't be a crafting game. On the other hand, custom weapons are awesome. Idk
I almost wish I could just automate the process and watch time pass sped up, maybe dealing with "problems" as they arise. Instead of having to actually make the ♥♥♥♥ every time to train, just let me click "smith" and travel around to different towns chasing opportunities. I don't know. The way it is is fundamentally unsatisfying.
Thanks again everybody. I look forward to reading more ideas if anyone has any.
Pacing in crafting games as in the actual "making of the thing" is largely mitigated out of the "boring" level of gameplay by... having other crafting things to do. Take something like "Minecraft" for instance - You put a stack of coal and a stack of iron into a smelter/whatsits and then click the "do" button. So, are you standing there watching the stuff slowly melt itself into a new thing? Not likely... You'll then go do... what? Some other crafting thing while your iron ore magically bakes itself into something else. Why? Because watching teeth grow is boring.
In Bannerlord, while you're there crafting your weapons, you must eventually allow time to pass, which means that the game is still playing "outside." So, who knows if your faction is still going to be around after a few days of you blacksmithing steak knives?
You can use Blacksmith-capable companions to help speed up certain things. They can smelt/etc for you. (I stopped mucking with Blacksmithing before they added that capability, but it doesn't let you Blacksmith anything "unattended" AFAIK. You still have to sit there at your PC watching a progress bar AFAIK. /shrug
Look for Blacksmith mods that bypass a lot of the design intent of TW here with Blacksmithing. I think that's the best advice you'll be able to act on. :) If you can find a stable, well stewarded, Blacksmithing QoL mod, that'd be your best bet.
However, I would wait on that for awhile until the first "release patches," if any, get applied. Blacksmithing items ends up adding those items to the potential wares any Market can carry. Some of your creations may eventually show up in these markets. So, any changes there mid-playthrough" might have unpredictable consequences if you've got modded weapons in your game from a Blacksmith mod. (I don't know that the game will clean that up in a saved game file or not, but it's just a sensible precaution atm, IMO.)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882064139
I remember some time early on when the game came out, someone actually took the time, studied and explained how badly this system works, and how it calculates worth based mainly on some damage modifiers. That was more than a year ago, and the smithing worth calculator still functions the same and favours weapons which deal more damage, albeit with overall reduced weapon worth and stats.
Other things have also changed for the worse in my opinion. Taleworlds so occupied with making this system less economically broken, all they could very well do is deny you easy progress. Making smithing a pain to do with an anti player mechanic called "stamina", reducing discovery amount gained, and forcing the system to discover the lowest tiers first no matter if you're smithing tier 1 or tier 5 weapons. All those changes just made everything excruciatingly tedious and boring.
I wish they would have just gone out, realized their error and changed the system completely. I'm not a game designer but I think even I have some ideas that could be better realized. For example, for people who just want to craft a specific weapon without the tedious grinding involved, how about just being able to access a blacksmith who charges you more for a specific weapon? That way you also can't abuse the system and profit from those weapons, and you can have some cool weapons designed specifically for your companions. by that point a player would be able to access strong weapons anyhow so it's not even an issue of balance in that regard.
+1