The new troll rewards system is very nice, though the most expensive "Smith" option is rarely useful for armor.
The player can have the Blacksmith smith 3 items for them. They always get to choose from 2 random weapons and a random armor generated using Dwarven Metropolis tier distribution. The items have 15%/55%/20%/5% chance to be upgraded to +0/+1/+2/+3 respectively and are never enchanted or cursed.
At this stage of the game we are usually looking forward to a plate armor, and may have one at +0/+1. Often enough we can upgrade and reforge for 1500 favor and come out with +2/+3 plate.
Now the Smith option, for 2000, has a low chance of producing such an armor and often only produces a Scale mail, rarely a novelty at the troll's level.
Perhaps the armor item should be guaranteed to be a plate?
You have to keep in mind that the smith option is for runs which don't already have good gear, along with upgrade it's more equivalent to the rewards from the two previous quests, but gives you more overall chances for a T5 item than anything else in the game. Guaranteeing strong item drops from smith makes runs too consistent though, and notably boosts winrates. It's the primary reason why I nerfed the smith + upgrade combo in v2.2.1.
I see. Only a +0 plate mail per se is not really "strong". Most times not even wearable at this level.
As things are it is better to come back later with a couple of plates and do upgrade + reforge.
Smith is still great for a choice of strong weapons. Just not useful for armor IMO.
I want players to be able to make that choice, but you're talking from the perspective of a run that's strong enough to move deeper without any reward and come back later, not all players are in that position. The average reward from smith + upgrade is a T4 or T5 armor that's at least +1, often +2, and sometimes +3. For a run that badly needs armor that is an incredible boost.
Okay I thought +0 was also possible. If +2 is common then it is a fair gamble. How many runs arrive to level 13 without a +1 or better scale mail? That is the case where Smith is a likely improvement. I don't have numbers but playing Mage with 3 challenges I usually have such armor by level 14. And usually cannot wear a plate yet...
What is the typical depth where players get to Strength 16?
I'll admit that a run with challenges requires extra work anyway, so there it makes sense to seek 3 plates and backtrack.
+0 is possible if you only smith, but you can combine a smith with an update to get guaranteed +1 and high chance for +2.
I don't have analytics data for STR progression, but I would expect 16 STR to be floor 13 or 14, which is where the 6th strength potion is dropped. Possible floor 16 or 17 if the player misses a potion.