Thoughts on 'The Centraforge Experience'

My forger:

I have 6 “developed” alts from level 37 to level 11X. Most of them do not have this objective available, despite having pushed one or more crafting trees through some level 4 and/or 5 feats.

There are a lot of decision trees in Boundless. With the combination of in-game and out of game knowledge available someone who hasn’t enjoyed general/random crafting but wants to approach the forge is actually unlikely to have access to this.

With regards to this series of objectives, once you have triggered it, it does lead to a step by step tutorial of a basic forge. My level 104 crafter has it.

It appears (according this thread) that lightness is a single trait gum for tools.

Now I have honestly never attempted to forge busy bee onto a wood hammer, or any other trait for that matter. But unless there is a special case for this tutorial item hidden in the forge balancing it’s definitely possible to acquire these items in these numbers, follow these steps precisely, and be unable to actually complete the objective.

In my opinion that’s pretty harsh. Though that would be a fair introduction to the realities of forging.

In any case this isn’t something that just appears for every player. It’s not there for a newish player who hasn’t already completed some unspecified crafting activities before hand. And it has a moderate chance of becoming more than a little frustrating trying to follow what looks like a simple series of steps.

Hey, fair enough. It’s not for everybody. I just didn’t do it for a long time. I followed the exact advice you’re giving here.

I’ve made a bit of noise about forging this week. It may be hard for you to see but this reaction, appearing in some form or other in pretty much every thread where someone expresses a difficulty or tries to clarify a problem. If you like a slot machine or get a big rush from a lucky roll of the dice, that’s fine.

I did ask for people not to come in to a prior thread SPECIFICALLY regarding the frustrations associated with this and turn it into yet another situation where people who express their frustrations, or even attempt to post what they feel are legitimate concerns get shut down (and put down) by a series of reactions like this.

If people are discouraged from expressing their thoughts, the devs get no feedback. And you’re clearly aware that the language and tone you have chosen to roll with here are likely to be offensive. I accept your disclaimer but many people don’t want to deal with this sort of approach. Understandably.

When I encountered the problem with Boon Removal Solvent 2 several people told me things like “no it’s supposed to roll another boon”, “you’re just having bad luck” or similar comments. If someone hadn’t already reported this bug (several times) or i wasn’t coming to the forum for this information, anybody would be left to assume that they were just failing in some way to understand the system.

When the system is unclear, or worse, intentionally confusing, it’s hard to know at any point where “RNG luck” ends and “not working correctly” begins.

With regards to level indicators, several people told me, both in game and in the forum, that the single level boons don’t have a level indicator because “there is only one level”. Now again, despite someone basically telling me personally to “man up” a bit - it was quickly shown that this bit of “wisdom” was in fact not true at all.

I have encountered others, with no need to list them all here - that’s enough to demonstrate the point.

So I’m willing to take a bit of this, and in a general topic like this accept that it’s ‘not personal’. I’m doing it for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is that I’ve found parts of this to be incredibly frustrating and specific feedback on what parts of the system are frustrating users has value. Getting some catharsis on the side is just a perk.

Thanks for the follow up and an opportunity to clarify the goal here a bit. I feel this is important to many people and encouraging others to share their thoughts and opinions on the matter can only help the game.

I’ve already created a thread just expressing my frustration with the learning curve and the process and encouraging others to do the same. And I’ve acted to keep that thread on topic. However there needs to be a basis for ongoing discussion. A boatload of people showing up, calling beginners, or even frustrated long term player, whiners (or whatever) and attempting to shut down any actual conversation is not good for anyone.

I haven’t met anyone that has gone on to ragequit the game over issues with mining, or hunting. It happens over the forge. I think maybe that those who jump on top of this sort of challenge and enjoy it may be unaware of how many players just DON’T. EVER. FORGE. And that is because those players are actively discouraged from speaking out.

In this case there is a legitimate matter of opinion. However it’s opinion that retains or drives off players and IMO the process of discussion has more value than the opinion of either ‘side’. We’re all trying to enjoy the game together here.

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