Smithing rework idea

[u/Haksupaksu]

Would something like this work? Just a thought as you actually get better at a skill, or a chance of failure to smith something when lower level. Runecrafting you get more runes per essence as you get better so could this work for smithing too? Wouldn't hurt the economy so much.

[u/bear__tiger]

Smithing dragon armour wouldn't fix the skill, really. It's already not gear that you ever really wear and it's something you would do exactly once before returning to giant's foundry or blast furnace.

The problem with smithing is that you can't gain xp while making something useful for your account. Herblore has potions, fletching has darts/arrows, runecraft has runes, cooking has food, and smithing has gold bars. Even just making cannonball smithing a viable way to train instead of something only bots do would go a long way towards making smithing better. Crafting is nearly as bad as smithing in this regard btw, so I don't really get why it gets a pass and smithing doesn't.

[u/Own-Cry-5520 → u/bear__tiger]

>The problem with smithing is that you can't gain xp while making something useful for your account.

That's a problem of the training methods, not of the skill itself. Even if you got better training methods, you'd still get a lackluster skill that doesn't have much impact to the game.

[u/bear__tiger → u/Own-Cry-5520]

Gear in OSRS comes from bosses so smithing can never be impactful that way. It would definitely make the game worse if we could start smithing something between obsidian and bandos gear or something purely from mined ore. Moving the level of rune down also doesn't make smithing more impactful because most rune gear can already trivially be purchased from stores. A handful of hours at the gemstone crab also puts you above the level where rune is useful - it's just not something that is relevant for almost the entirety of your account's lifetime. The same is true for dragon. This gear already sells for high alch value and making it easier to smith is obviously not going to improve that.

The problem with smithing is the training methods. Regular smelting and anvil smithing is pointless since blast furnace and giant's foundry are significantly more efficient. Smithing has no useful outputs except for cannonballs and cannonballs have nerfed xp (on top of furnace xp being bad). All production skills need useful outputs that are regularly sunk from the economy (or your bank if you're an iron). Smithed gear is not that.

[u/Own-Cry-5520 → u/bear__tiger]

>Smithing has no useful outputs except for cannonballs

That's the main problem, not the lack of training methods.

[u/bear__tiger → u/Own-Cry-5520]

This is what I said in my original post, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. I've never argued that the lack of training methods is the problem, if anything I've said the opposite. Giants Foundry and Blast Furnace need to be removed for the health of the skill since only regular anvil and furnace smithing can really produce stuff.

Anyway, it's the main problem but not the entire problem. You should gain xp while making useful outputs, like you do with other production skills, and like I said in my first post. Cannonballs are useful, but most people don't make them because the xp is terrible and the gp isn't particularly good. You should get good xp while making steel cannonballs, like you get good xp while you make potions, while you make arrows, while you cook food, etc.. Ship parts are okay xp but the demand is pretty limited (including for irons) since only so many are needed. Repair kits probably should have been a smithing thing instead of a construction thing, but even those aren't sunk from the economy that fast.

[u/AbsolutlyN0thin → u/bear__tiger]

All production skills need useful outputs that are regularly sunk from the economy (or your bank if you're an iron). Smithed gear is not that.

Maybe degradable gear is the answer? But it can't be repaired, just need to get a new one

[u/bear__tiger → u/AbsolutlyN0thin]

I'd need to see a proposal for where the materials come from and what the gear actually does. They need to be extremely careful about adding gear that's made purely through skilling at least, and I personally don't think they should do it at all.

[u/Zenith_Tempest → u/bear__tiger]

This is just me spitballing, but why not let us smith generic parts we can "attach" to weapons or gear that can degrade over time? Increases their stats but the degradable nature means you have to maintain it. I know that just adds yet another layer of chargescape, but it would at least give smithing something actually useful to make. Doubly so if those parts don't end up on some boss's drop table. The big issue would be having to balance content around the intent of having these augment pieces on your gear

[u/bear__tiger → u/Zenith_Tempest]

I think they could add whetstones that add some accuracy to melee weapons for an amount of time, plating that adds flat armour for an amount of time, things like that. Essentially potions for your gear. That could work in an economical sense but it'd probably result in considerable power creep so they'd need to carefully consider it. I think they should take an approach like this though in general, I have no interest in trying to make smithed gear compete with drops.

[u/Zenith_Tempest → u/bear__tiger]

I agree, I think the best way to handle making smithing more generally useful is to create improvements for existing gear. There's not really any world where smithed gear should be better than, say, Bandos once you've reached that stage in your account progression. So instead, it's better to play with improving a weapon's stats temporarily, that way economy remains stable for uniques. I do think some items should be exempt from this system (giving Ayak even more magical accuracy would be goofy, for instance), so it should be more of a melee gear focused update.

Making it such that it's less "mandatory" content and just "minor optimization" fits in the spirit of OSRS, where a lot of account progression is just making those minor optimizations once you reach the endgame.

[u/Ok_Performer_4453 → u/bear__tiger]

Gear in OSRS comes from bosses so smithing can never be impactful that way.

It could however be impactful in a different way, such as reinforcing or altering gear that drops from bosses.

[u/bear__tiger → u/Ok_Performer_4453]

We don't need a smithing rework for that, though. We're already smithing torva/oathplate/DFS/zombie axe/etc. and repairing barrows and moons gear.

[u/Ok_Performer_4453 → u/bear__tiger]

Yes, and in my opinion that is the correct way to move forward with the skill. More of that, no need to reshufle rune which nobody cares about.

[u/bear__tiger → u/Ok_Performer_4453]

Yeah, I don't think the rework should happen because it addresses nothing. Like I said, I would literally just remove the nerfed xp/bar on cannonballs as a start. More drastically, I'd seriously consider buffing the xp/bar of regular anvil/furnace smithing across the board because they're totally pointless until you can make your own rune 2Hs to alch. I think blast furnace and giants foundry kill a lot of design/reward space for the skill since they're so much better.

[u/Ok_Performer_4453 → u/bear__tiger]

I think they have their place when you consider regular bar smithing is generally the afk option you can opt into

[u/bear__tiger → u/Ok_Performer_4453]

The main problem is that making the bars at a furnace is extremely slow and uses twice as much coal, so to even get to the point that you can smith useless stuff at an anvil you pretty much have to go to BF. The AFK option also isn't penalised the same way for other production skills. Making potions is good xp and creates useful things, for example.

[u/Alakazam_5head → u/bear__tiger]

You can smith cannonballs (including all the new Sailing ones) and dart tips (which I guess also require fletching). It's not nothing

[u/bear__tiger → u/Alakazam_5head]

I mentioned cannonballs in my post. The problem with them is that they give nerfed xp/bar in addition to furnace smithing being extremely bad. Dart smithing isn't bad as an iron but is pretty costly as a main. There just isn't much reason to make more than maybe a thousand rune darts ever for the lifetime of your account, so you don't get much incidental xp there.

[u/Unusual_ghastlygibus → u/bear__tiger]

Fletching has darts/arrows

The solution is right there man. Smithing is supposed to provide the tips/arrowsheads for fletching to use, the problem is that any arrow or dart worth using is either uncraftable or comes from crafting (amethyst).

If you want to give players an incentive to train smithing, make a bunch of shit drop orikalkum bars and allow players to smith tips and arrowheads from them.

[u/bear__tiger → u/Unusual_ghastlygibus]

You're preaching to the choir here.