No it’s not. It’s a long tedious process. I’ve never tried it still. Takes tons of materials. And it’s a long forge.
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I personally think that it’s okay to have something complex and hard to understand in games. Too many games get broken down to just basic simple mechanics and I think are ultimately the worse for it. It’s nice when there is some mystery and something to learn.
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Oh yeah, I see. The guy basically burned 60 invigorating pastes, 30 stability pastes 1 and 30 stability pastes 2 for… one hammer?
Daaaaamn, yeah, talk about expensive… O_O
Personally, I think it’s terribly bad when you feel like you gotta ask Google how to play a game.
Here’s something else.
I’ve been playing Divinity Original Sin 2 recently. I’m gonna say it, best turn-based RPG co-op game I’ve played. Having A TON of fun with my friend, especially on our second playthrough with mods.
Anyway, in DOS2, crafting works like this :
As you explore the world, you can find books and letters, and when you read them, your party learns recipes. But you can also learn the recipes on your own by randomly combining stuff.
The crafting lacks in options in the end-game, which is a problem in itself, but the early-game has a lot of cool things to craft, and crafting is pretty much instant (like 1 or 2 seconds, max). Every spell can be crafted as a scroll, and every scroll can be used to craft a skillbook that your character can learn.
I like how this works. There is something to learn. You can try to combine things and you won’t be penalized for it. You’re rewarded for exploring the world and reading all the books you see.
Maybe I’m the dumb one who missed some valuable tutorial, but last time I checked, in Boundless, there’s no way to know what gum = what boon unless you try.
In itself, that’d be ok.
But getting the components is way more annoying in Boundless because it’s also a long chain of things to craft and you often end-up waiting for the meta-components to cook, sometimes for hours.
So let’s say you wanna try to make a good hammer and you don’t know which gum = which boon, and you don’t wanna ask Google. Unless you thought about having solvents and deconstruction resins and stuff to reduce the risks, you’re likely going to waste components and tools in the process, creating a tool/weapon waaaaay worse that it’s baseline form, so worthless that you can’t do anything but throw it in the chrysominter (I can’t be the only one who managed to f@ck-up a gold hammer so much it was worse than a wooden hammer, when he was trying out forging for the few first times, right?).
To me, that’s just not a good crafting system.
I guess it’s somewhat realistic, as you can mess a cooking recipe terribly bad in real-life, but do we really need that in a ‘fun’ game?
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I don’t think you missed anything at all. There are ~3 objectives I can remember that start you off, but nothing much else.
My preference would be to help players learn the complex mechanics instead of making them easier. So I totally agree the game should do a better job explaining how to use the Centraforge.
Perhaps an additional UI, that had a grid of all the different boons. Mousing over each one would tell you what it did and how to get it. Anything you currently have the items to add would be lit up. Clicking the icon could even automatically add the mats needed.
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A long time ago there was a MMO known as metin 2 that was my first MMO game I ever played, and I kinda liked/hated the way they handled weapons.
You could upgrade the weapon tier from 0 to 9 iirc
Which improved it’s overall stats. (When getting to +7,+8,+9 would give the weapon a different shine)
Then you could get stones which gave special extra effects like more critical, speed, strength, etc.
You could add from 1 to 3 Stones depending on the kind of weapon.
BUT there was somo rng involved each time you tried to upgrade the tier, there was a chance of breaking the weapon (unless you used p2w item which only downgraded the tier instead of breaking it) as for stones there was a chance of breaking then and leaving the socket useless (which again you coul recover by p2w)
I think something like that could work but maybe with less rng involved.
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Forge is really boss monster that you need to learn by fighting against it 
This is a pretty common mechanic in many MMOs developed in Asia. The p2w aspect really sucks since the items can be traded it allows IRL rich players a huge economic advantage.
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Yeah I always hated that. You either were a poor peasant player or a shine rich as poop player
It’s not complex…It’s just random
Exactly.
And TBH, I’m ok with some reasonable dose of RNG in a monthly-subscription-based game like WoW, where they need you to try again and again to get the loot with the exact stats you want, that way you keep playing and you don’t just log on to do the quests once and bail.
I get why that exists, even though I still won’t participate in it like some hardcore players do, unless I was paid to do so like some livestreamers do.
But in a game like Boundless where the Gleam Club isn’t required, I don’t see the point of RNG.
Complexity can be achieved without falling into the realm of annoyance and/or RNG.
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