Please Remake the Forging System

I think a lot of people just think RNG = bad. In my view, it isn’t that simple.

The randomness in Boundless’s forging creates risk and unpredictable situations. That’s what makes it fun. Forging is a mini game, and it plays smartly with RNG. If you just slap some compound into the machine there is a ton of RNG, but there are lots of ways you can spend resources to tip the RNG in your favor. The whole balance of forging is weighing the cost vs the benefits of putting your fingers on the scales. Every bit that you bend that RNG in your favor generally reduces the over all power level of the item.

The reason why those of us who like forging don’t want it changed is because the process is fun. The process of crafting isn’t fun. Sticking stuff in a machine and pressing “go” isn’t fun, which is fine for most crafting. Most of the time you don’t need crafting to be fun, it’s just a mechanic that drives gathering and produces tools necessary for other aspects of the game. Forging, on the other hand, is a game unto its self. It is a game driven by RNG and one that handles it very well in my opinion. Reducing forging to simple input/output would mean the game losing one of its most interesting and fun end-game activities.

I sympathize with those who don’t like it though. It would be frustrating to have an aspect of the game you don’t enjoy standing in the way of some of the best items in the game. I feel the same way about coin being necessary to run guild buffs. I find buying and selling in this game to be a giant unfun headache, but there is no other reliable way to make coin, so I have to either engage or give up on those buffs. My only thoughts would be to find someone who likes forging, there are plenty of them in the game, and see if they will do the forging for you if you farm the mats and/or craft the components. After all, one of the great things about this game is that it is multiplayer, so with a little cooperation you shouldn’t have to do the things you don’t like to.

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Would you object to AOE hammer recipes then, so those of us who think the forge is boring don’t have to use it?

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I still stand by the idea of crafting an item that you can equip to an item that gives it a buff that lasts the life time of the item.

Items can even have essentially sockets that these items are placed in and once the socket is filled you can’t remove it.

It’s already time consuming enough to go on meteor hunts, hunt solo, and mine and gather for the materials to forge a single tool or weapon. I don’t care about that. I care about going through all that effort and then attempting to forge an item to have a high probability of it being lackluster at best.

At least if you can craft forging items that apply the effect directly to the item it makes it possible for those that want to create them on their own the ability to do so. If I knew that I would get something that’s a clear decent upgraded item at the end of gathering up the majority of the crafting materials to craft the buffing item, I would totally grind that stuff out. It would make it worth it cause I know what I am going to get at the end of all of it.

There are a lot of things I’d love to see changed in this game, this just happens to be something I think is critically important. I honestly don’t see the forging system the way it is looking at all better with its RNG when we have twice as many boons, quirks, and defects 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 years from now. Hard to say what will happen but looking at it from the long term and trying to prevent a nightmare from coming to the surface has more value than whether or not you’re enjoying the system now.

I care about the long term. Not short term.

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I can understand long waiting times for the games I play on my phone because they want people to pay real money to make it go faster. But that’s not the case for boundless I really can’t see any reason to have such crazy wait times for crafting. I dnt remember what I was making but when I first started I was like alright I can finally make this item hit craft check on it then was like wow a long time left.
I’m not playing a mobile game craft times shouldnt be more then 30 min for a mass craft. I can’t remember the last time I made a mass craft and was excited that I had to wait so long for something I just grinded hours for the mats.

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At best allow us to change a setting on our power coils/machines slow medium fast the faster you craft the more durability gets used so you have to repair them more

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it’s still crafting either way, in all games including boundless forging, enchanting, alchemy, augmenting etc is all classed as crafting regardless RNG involvement.

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But if that always gives the exact same results every time you use it and the results are similar to the ones you can achieve with forging who in their right mind would still go with an RNG system?

What would you rather do?

  1. spend 20 in your local currency to buy a lottery ticket and you MIGHT win a million
    or
  2. spend 20 in your local currency to buy a ticket that gives you a guarenteed million

Why would anyone still choose 1) even tho they liked buying the ticket, deciding on a number (or numbers), the tension when it’s time to see/look up te results, etc. when they can just do 2) and get the money. Yes, less enjoyable but you did 1) for 2 simple reasons, 'cos it was fun to do but also because you wanted the end result…

So yes, I would object to ‘hammer recipes’

I, however, would not object to tool augments you can make and that 1 is a 3x3 augment that lasts like 25% or 50% of the total durability, that way you have the burden of having to take more with you, having to remember to put it in (with AoE you notice quick enuff but plenty of buffs you might not notice straight away like higher critical chances, etc.), etc.

But the problem with this tho, is that one can then also do both! I would forge those heavy diamond hammers with ligtness or ease gums, less energy usage or faster action speed, then add some high damage and durability too and slam a 3x3 augment into it!

But I find augs more trouble than it’s worth and rather spend a bit more time forging slingbows so I can imagine that being the same as with tools in future…

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Thing is tho, if you had more time and would spend it on more forging you will notice that you really can get the results you want MOST of the time.

Sure, I can still make silly mistakes here and there, not paying enough attention to something, blabla and it can go wrong, and of course sometimes the RNG is so against me that I don’t have the vigour/stability left to do anything about it.

One time I put in 5 gums of 1 boon category, 4 times in a row I got one from another category, even with transmute that can happen. Doesn’t happen often, but it can still happen.

Most of my forge mishaps tho are because my mind isn’t really concentrating on what I’m doing, thinking of other stuff, being tired, looking at my phone and then accidentally putting in more than 1 paste of the same type in a row in, or go 1 one round too far with a compound and breaking the gear 'cos I hadn’t seen stability was below 110, etc., etc.

All this can also happen when I try to forge too many items in a row, last ones are usually where mishaps gonna happen! :slight_smile:

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Actually, I really doubt this.

If I had more time to play Boundless I probably wouldn’t be forging items with the current system. I’d be doing other things more worth my time, like building a workshop, mining, and building out my kiosk location I have saved that is located in Ultima Hub.

It’s why I want the system remade into something that is more streamlined to work with additional updates to the boon, quirk, and defect effects that we have now. If it stays the way it is and forging methods don’t change but only the amount of options available that get rolled for does, it isn’t going to be a “skill” based system.

If the argument for the current system is that it takes skill, then that’s a horrible way to implement a piece of content into the game that takes skill. That’s what dungeons, titans, pvp, running a shop, etc. are for. Building takes actual skill to do. The centraforge was implemented to smooth out the progression curve between using non-forged items to forged items. It’s actually not currently working very well for that.

Again, if it doesn’t get fixed now before it gets additional expansions on it, then it will be a much bigger problem later on. I think it’s more important to have it fixed now when the game is young and the player population is low cause this kind of redesign of a critically important game feature is going to be a lot harder to do years from now when the game has potentially tens of thousands of players.

Long term > short term.

But I do also want to take a moment to say I understand what you mean. Anyways, I am now just repeating myself and getting wordy for absolutely no reason. It’s late for me right now anyways.

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There should be animations, but an option to disable them, and even when on they shouldn’t disable the UI buttons.

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Even experienced players like us make silly mistakes sometimes,
You know how complicated the system is in current patch.

I suggest to make it more friendly to play with.
I mean we are playing game, not doing some school test.

Make the forge steps easier and more friendly to human but require same difficulty for forge ingredients and nerf the final forge effect.

Yeah you can ask people to just buy it on market, and basically this what I am doing it most of time, but in this case I lose one content I can enjoy in this game.

Try to teach new players how to forge sometimes, you will see how they learn from 0, and you will notice this system is way too complicated.

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The current system isn’t for everyone, and I feel some of these folks pain. Even when I get what I want (which is the majority of the time) I am ready to turn the game off afterwards. I just find it amazing I still am looking forward to pounding rocks or building after 10 strait hours, but 15 minutes of forging saps the boundless right out of me. :man_shrugging:

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I feel sorry for the devs. If I was them, I would shut it down and walk away from this game for ever. There is no pleasing you people.

Having this system that half of the players don’t understand how to use effectively is good for the economy. If you don’t know how to effectively forge, buy the hammer from someone who does.

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I strongly disagree that having a system that players do not understand is good for the economy. In EA we had no forging most of the time we played and the economy did fine.

As for the statement made by @wade44423 about the forge being end game, I think we need to remember the last change where the developers specifically wanted to add mid game forging. So the forge needs to be possible and not overly frustrating for mid game players as well.

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If they now change it again, then other ppl will come and cry. U cant make all happy.
If you want you forged items in a way where you know what you get, then just buy them. Another rework would again delay new content, rise new bugs and ■■■■ people off.

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Then stop doubting because it’s true! Tho, you have to read carefully what I said. I said IF you had more time AND IF you put that time into forging you WILL get better results MOST of the time once you get better at it.

If plenty people like me can get consistent results most of the time then you have the proof right there that my statement was indeed correct…

Yeah sure, that doesn’t mean that IF you did put more time into forging you WOULD not get better at it. That you don’t like how it works currently doesn’t mean it’s bad or anything like that.

If I don’t like mining or building would you agree to changes so those will get much, much easier because I don’t like it and I don’t have enough time to make giant buildings or have enough time to go mining for 1000s of gems. Should it be made easier if I just don’t want to spend time on that?

No, I don’t think so.

Not saying the forging process can’t use some changes but to ask for an overhaul and turn it into crafting because you don’t want to spend time enough to get better at is not the fault of the game.

There are plenty of things in life I would like to learn and get better at but I can’t be arsed to spend years on it to learn it 'cos I like other things more, it’s the same thing basically. In that case you buy the things you can’t make yourself…


As an aside, there have been plenty of moments with forging that I got frustrated and thought it to be an utterly stupid thing and didn’t like it.

Then somehow I viewed it differently. Besides videogame I’m also an avid board- and cardgamer, frequent boardgamegeek.com regularly, etc. This because I suddenly became aware that the deck of forging ingredients seemed like a deck of cards you make for games like, ehmm, say Magic the Gathering or other deck building type games. You make it to try out a strategy, might work, might not, highly dependant on what the opponent does. There are also type of cardgames like that where you play against the game and yes, can be played solo, so what happens is entirely RNG based and at first you have no clue what can happen and how to counterarct it, but after playing more that changes, you adapt, find ways to deal with the RNG, etc., etc.
Once I started to compare it with that I started to enjoy it more but also noticing that by reading all the forge mats carefully (like individual cards I might put in my deck) to see what combo’s I can make, I could find new ways I can use to get better at it. And that worked marvelously!

Also explains the “it’s a game inside the game” comments many make :wink:

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Not going to quote everything you’ve said. I think it will just end up with me repeating the same things over and over. I want to avoid being as wordy as possible.

I still doubt it would make me play more because of the time commitment involved. If I was to attempt to get a Centraforge going on the live server it would take either a whole lot of time to craft Advanced Power Coils for machines in order to craft Forge Coils, or a bunch of coin I am not prepared to spend to directly buy Centraforge Coils.

Let’s say I buy them. I still have to go out and spend an incredible amount of time getting all the crafting materials to craft all the compound bases, gums, pastes, resins, etc. in order to even attempt to forge my first item on the live server.

Even with a properly setup workshop, I would still need to go hunt down and gather up all the crafting materials to forge an item with a random outcome. All that time could take me a couple weeks or more depending on how we’re looking at it. All for a random outcome. Not exactly very motivating.

I don’t think it’s solely the game’s fault because I take responsibility for my results. Someone made an idea and put it into the game in its current implementation. It’s a good concept to work with. The game is already very time consuming just at gathering crafting materials. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing either but it is when one of the six crafting machines gives random results. This is only going to be compounded as more things are added to forging and they don’t up stability or vigour or make tweaks to it. Even then it isn’t going to solve the root problem.

So if it was changed to a system that allowed as many people to forge gear to what they want it to be and that keeps them playing more, then I think that’s a positive thing. Yes, it’s going to take dev time away from other things, but if it doesn’t get looked at now it can be a contributing factor to lowered player retention.

I don’t think anyone is going to be very happy when forging gets a bunch more effects added across boons, quirks, and defects and their 95% success rate drops to 50% or lower because they didn’t do anything to compensate for it.

Whether it gets changed or not won’t stop me from playing the game from time to time. I just don’t think I’ll end up doing as much forging as I probably could if I got better with the current system. I want to run a shop in this game (waiting to see if Farming is going to really get me back into the game) like I did in early access. It was fun.

Just trying to suggest long term solutions that might work a little better at keeping new players is all. Everyone loves having shiny powerful stuff.

I got wordy. Sorry about that.

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No. As long as forging still has a place. AoE hammers are so fundamental to the economy of the game that making a version of them that doesn’t require forging is probably a good idea.

Yes, just like with all the other machines and spending a lot of time finding all the ingredients as well.

Ever crafted your own Teaching Pies or Persisting Pies? You need 3 machines, a heck of a lot of mats, some not so fun or easy to gather and then it takes 8 hours with like 20 different recipes on 3 different machines to get the end result.

Does that really sound all that much better?

Plenty of people also do not want to go thru all the trouble to make their own pies, hence why others do and sell them. Shall we make that easier to do as well so people keep playing more??

I don’t see much of a difference here, there is one, sure, it’s the RNG and it’s not straight up crafting which can be overcome if you want to commit the time into it. If not, well, thankfully there are shops that sell them…

If everything becomes even easier to do shops won’t be needed anymore at all, not sure that is a good thing. It would make me stop playing or at least take a very long break…

But forgery shops sell them if people buy those less often what will happen to the economy then?