Warning this is a long, rambling post!
Ahhh, the centraforge.
I know some people around here probably think I tried to forge a bag of bombs and completely lost my ■■■■. That’s not exactly what’s been happening but it is after many discussions, a defining part of 'The Centraforge Experience".
My first approach to centraforging was before i ever came to the forum. I was playing for maybe 10 - 12 weeks by then and decided it was time to check this thing out. It went something like this:
Yep imagine trying to centraforge with only the in game instructions for it.
If you’re asking yourself what instructions I’m talking about - don’t bother lol. So, like many have, I just put it away and went shopping for tools. I played boundless even more heavily than I do now when it was all brand new and exciting so 10 - 12 weeks in for me (around late december) was quite a few hours. I was doing well in the game economy and didn’t really have any need or desire to struggle with that.
The next time I approached forging was after sitting through a couple of these:
Watching that was 583 rounds of “I don’t know what the hell is happening here”. This is what spurred me to actually start trying to decipher some tutorials and at least learning how the forge worked.
So I found out how to get onto the test server. I finally read a couple of forging threads. Found the forging trait thread. Watched a couple of videos. After @Jiivita 's video i forged a couple of items. Then because it was topical i sat through @Crete 's maxx forging video. Following that I forged a couple of lucent items just to get comfortable with the steps.
I skimmed over a couple of other forging threads, I think @Vansten 's thread was up by then. I had learned enough to understand it, and get through a step by step tutorial if I needed to.
I have the impression that this is where most people stop. Learned enough to get through it and forge some usable mid to high level gear for themselves just so they can get on with the game without stressing the economy or hours of hunting for affordable tools. However the whole thing still seemed like a giant pain and the effort to reward ratio wasn’t there for me.
This was around early april and I never even set up a forge on a live server. Until about ten days ago.
The devs have started disabling test servers between releases or I would have gone back to do it there. In a very real sense I’m glad I didn’t because having endless stacks of every ingredient available is actually not the easiest way to get beyond following a step by step guide. It’s TOO MUCH choice if you don’t have a clear goal, or at least a specific target in mind, and some idea of how the ingredients are expected to work together.
Practicing on the live server helped me to keep an eye on a goal of “practical” forging and get a grip on the economics, as well. Those grapples in the pic I posted above were the topic of several discussions after @debstep posted the ingredient breakdown @peregrine gave us a cost estimate of 28,873c for materials.
For a 583 round forge of madness, with quirks and transmutes and all of that. It was quite a job.
Knowing (now) that most forging is done in under 50 rounds - that was incredibly less expensive than I had expected. The perfected grapples I use now (Thanks @MassiveMorgan !) cost me considerably more, and were very cheap by current market standards. Also while I’m talking about Morgan he was very quick, he made one of the two to order with my choice of ‘standard’ grapple boons and delivered it in almost exactly two hours. Solid.
I have no idea how he does it but in the current market, it was worth every coin. And this is part of what has led me back to the forge. I’ve also approached @MrNiX for a couple of custom forged lucent items. He’s delivered each time. We’ve discussed the items and to some extent the forging but basically, it was still “all greek” to me.
I’m now past 3500 hours in game and do sort of feel like I should at least be able to hold up my end of a conversation on the basics of forging, and the pros and cons of the choices that can be made along the way.
Instead it’s more like posting in the suggestions forum. I just sort of have to throw out what I hope for and some Wizard of The Forge will let me know how close that is to reality. Totally my fault really, most of the forgers I have worked with have been great. But if I don’t understand what I’m asking for, I also have no way to gauge the actual impact of the decisions, no way to even ballpark what’s markup vs. what’s cost, and no way to evaluate “the market” or guesstimate if any of it is worth trying to do myself.
So I figured it was finally time to explore the forge. And things went … ok. For a minute lol. I forged a couple of random items and then some lucent bombs. Due to another conversation I wanted to test a spanner with a 10/10 wear removed boon and I forged that in a single session with the same basic deck. I forged a basic loot stick and some iron hammers. I was getting confident, and thinking “Well this isn’t too bad”.
I don’t like to play a game of spreadsheets and careful calculation, it’s not fun for me. It’s not that I can’t, it’s just not what I’m here for. I want to go whack stuff. I knew from the beginning that solid information was scarce so I was just trying to get it sorted without worrying too much about the in game detail of the forge or the ingredients. I’ve been making my own ingredients so coin isn’t a problem but limited quantities have kept me from trying anything really fancy.
So in a few days I got to the point where, when I needed some regen bombs, I thought “hey it’s a simple forge I’ll just make them”. Aaaaaand that’s when this happened:
Every person I know who regularly forges has had to step away at some point due to forging frustrations. I was expecting it at some point. But not on the simplest thing I had actually ever tried to forge! It totally blew my mind.
Forging a bag of lucent healing bombs actually cost me less in materials AND TIME than trying to forge my own copper regen bombs. Which, in the end, didn’t even get regen forged onto them 
Now I’m not trying to blame the developers, or anyone else for that. It’s a symptom of the sudden frustration with what should be a simple task gone horribly wrong and my inexperience that it happened. And in the end it’s one of those “hard lessons” that carry a great deal of value.
I can assure you that I will never again fail to deconstruct on a bad first boon! Decon 3 has a permanent place in every deck from now on unless I decide beforehand that I’m ready to throw all of my ingredients and the item into the wind for a useless result. And I know that I will be approaching the forge with a more appropriate level of readiness from now on.
But to be honest, I’m still not sure that I will be forging much at all. I’ve worked with several forgers and know a couple more that are willing. Even in a contracting economy there is RoI+ to be had at the current market prices for most forged tools and weapons. And while I was willing to skim over a lot of speedbumps to get to the “meat” of forging, there are honestly a LOT of those speedbumps.
Bugs that are hard to identify because the expected operation isn’t described. Things that may or may not be clear to a learning forger because some of the indicators can vary per boon. Traps flat out built into the system… I mean, you want to max your boons that’s the goal right? Here you go, have some random AoE!
I’m still not aware of any place in game where ‘5 months ago me’ could have learned how to actually line things up and trigger a roll for a boon. Or what boon to expect from which gum, etc… As someone else basically said (I can’t remember who/where I’m sorry) “Yeah you have to have that information beforehand”.
OK but this is a fairly complex system of inputs and outputs, even without the RNG element. You have to go through some trouble to find out what questions you even need to ask. And when you ask them, you may get a misleading answer, or an accidentally correct answer with a bad explanation. And that’s through no ill intent it’s just that one person may infer something different from another person given the same set of circumstances and only trial and error to learn from. And they could still both be wrong.
Then after getting through all of that it ends up being like so much in Boundless where the same deck that gets you a forge like this:
Repeatably (plus or minus some love from RNGesus):
Can also get you this:
Also repeatably (again plus or minus that RNG luck)
Now I’m not trying to hold those up as examples of good forging. The deck is blocked because I don’t want it to become the topic of the thread. This is a thread about the experience. If people want I can make a technique thread but it’s going to take a little more than that to get maxed.
My point is that the only difference between those decks is that there was a gum change between the fists and the bombs.
IMO this is basically the same as people saying “There’s no real difference in cost between forging a copper hammer or a diamond hammer”. It’s really true. And this is the reward for working your way through the system. Along with the constant reminder that sometimes, in spite of everything you put into it, things can go horribly, unrepairably wrong.
Like Boon Removal Solvent gutting your existing boon, leaving it on, and then throwing another random boon on top of it!
I know i don’t have any gums there but anyone who has forged a bit can tell you it doesn’t matter. You can spend half of your vigor loading effect gums, and still roll for glow. And in this situation there’s no recovery because the odds of using boon removal solvent to empty two boon slots are ASTRONOMICAL.
Decon 3 to the rescue?
Maybe. Maybe not. Burn some incense and pray to RNGesus a little bit first. It might help.
So, that’s my incredibly long and rambling take on the past and current state of trying to work with the centraforge. Each of the suggestion threads I have posted addresses a real QoL issue, they’re not excuses to rant. This system is a mess. It’s a high bar to jump in the first place, and no matter how many times you’ve cleared the bar, you can still find the ground falling out from under you just as you take the leap.
So all right, please feel free to share your own thoughts or reactions, I won’t be working to keep this thread on track it’s surely as much of a ramble as anything. I’m going to leave you with another joker pic.
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