Thoughts on 'The Centraforge Experience'

General
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If it’s not clear, I’ve been forging everything from copper to lucent items. There’s a picture of a bag of lucent bombs up there with 3 boons at level 5 and 6 that was done with no invigorating or protecting paste, and no vigour catalyst.

I can follow Vansten’s tutorial as well as anyone, but I don’t think in any way that makes me a “master of the forge”. I’ve done more “experimenting” than step by step following tutorials because I’m interested in exploring the system more than in any particular result.

If anything, the experience gives me MORE respect for a determined forger who shows consistent results.

Especially those who have the patience and the understanding to consistently forge items like the level 400 - 480 gear I do use in game every day. There’s an exponential seeming curve to get from mid-level to high level and I feel that’s completely appropriate.

I DO think the curve should start a little lower. And I think it’s worth discussing.

@RedY3 thanks for the offer, and everyone who has made similar offers of teaching or sharing. Besides the honestly helpful and supportive people (plenty of them here) there’s a sort of brigade that forms up every time someone complains or expresses their frustration and addresses them explicitly as having “failed at forging” and basically whining about it.

This shuts down any possible valuable discussion and hides an unspecified amount of feedback that could be used to improve the overall forging experience and encourage more players to stick with it.

Thanks again, I do appreciate the offer. I’ve had several such offers and as such I won’t be taking you up on it at this time, but that’s got nothing to do with you at all. Every person who has spoken up to offer help or advice, even when I was actually raging a bit, is adding real value to this community.

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For some reason, i understood “lucent” as items with light. Plus, i admit i skimmed through the post haha. Nasty habit.

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23

No worries, there’s quite a lot there. I’ve engaged with the forge a couple of times, at different levels of Boundless experience, and this is an over detailed account of that.

I’m not actually sure if I’m going to keep a forge around or not. But deciding not to forge is also not the same as failing at forging. Though failing can definitely be part of that decision :laughing:

Personally, I’m playing with it and gathering enough information that I can feel like I’m making my decision based on my feelings about the system, not just abandoning it in frustration.

I’m serious I appreciate the offer. Beats the hell out of the people who probably also didn’t read the post and just take the opportunity to be derisive.

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24

Not seeing myself buying any forged gear for some 20-30k regularly pushed me to make my own. Give me your money (so i can add to my millions :joy:) so you can be motivated to further experiment with forging :joy:

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25

Prices change over time but as far as I can tell this is the number one challenge that pushes people to the forge.

The ones that truly love weighing the inputs and manipulating the system for its own sake are apparently a select few.

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26

I wish I could say the same. The forging system is actually a large part of what had pushed me away from the game for several months as I seem to be cursed with bad RNG as a whole across all video games I play.

It’s not that I don’t understand how it works, I just get tired of 50+ decon 3 uses before getting my tools to finally have AoE. If I miss out on durability, I don’t care, same with damage, as I can use it for low tier rock/dirt/wood collection, but I never seem to be able to roll AoE.

And it really would be nice to have an in-game knowledge base for what categories these buffs fall into, because I probably spent a good month before realizing what I was doing wrong, and there were no guides at the time, all because there was a lack of info on what categories each boon belongs to.

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27

Only time i have to decon a lot is when aiming for very specific boons that all require different gums. Else, a forging session takes like 5 to 10 mins or so. Ive always used a sheet that states which gum gives what boon. You probably know about it.

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28

I have streamed some forges with commentary and questions. I have gotten feedback from these that they are vastly more helpful than a “formula” because i talk through all my reasoning. Id be happy to do this and you could post the results.

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29

I’ve said this before but I don’t think it can be overstated, we can debate the merits and faults of the system all day long but there is no excuse for things like:

  1. Boon removal 2 not removing a boon half the time (contrary to it’s tooltip)
  2. Adding AoE to a spanner which doesn’t repair more than 1 coil

These are incorrect in their tooltip and were identified long ago. I’d rather have them fully removed than be wrong.

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30

Night star,

Look through my post history and find where I literally do the recipe for making a 320+ forge every time. It’s so reproducible that I run a shop making stuff. My wife and I use all 320-340 stuff and we sell 350-360 stuff.

I don’t debate, the centraforge is a miserable user experience. I’d rather have someone shove glass underneath my fingernails than forge. I literally only forge because we use the tools and sell the good stuff.

But I think your expectations are that it should be easy. It can be, but you need to use the right stuff. I use defect removal solvent and just decon anything that doesn’t get the boons I want. If on round 30 or 40ish I have a defect, I remove it and I’m pretty close to setting.

Like I said, check my post history and my recipe is there.

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31

I might be mistaken, but I don’t believe Nightstar has the expectation that the system should be easy. :thinking:

He’s received plenty of advice in general, including a video from myself, and doesn’t seem to be the core of what he is talking about here. He has also mentioned fairly clearly, though perhaps buried in his many words, that he’s forged stuff ranging in materials from Copper to Lucent with success.

Like you say, the user experience – that is what I infer from everything he’s posted, and my conversations with him, that his core topic is supposed to be on this thread.

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32

Cannot

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That explains a lot! Let me fix that.

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What about the player who can’t afford to waste the mats, doesn’t know what to get?

Looking at the long list of items in the Knowledge section I felt overwhelmed with all of the, what do I need, which ones will work best, what happens is I mess up? There are only so many slots to hold the mats, which ones do I use and are their specific ones with tools, for weapons, for what?

I was given a link to the article and it has helped some, but there have been many questions that I still felt unsure of the answers. I’ve read of where some players didn’t know about the deconstruct and lost a lot of mats because either the tool came out really bad.

Make a hammer with bouncy feet and try to mine with that and it also have auto harvest which is a waste to me in a hammer, you will already be picking up what you bust up, why do you need a auto harvest on a hammer for? That is two slots wasted on something that is of no help and more hinderance and many players don’t know about using deconstruction.

I looked at the article on how to make health bombs, but even though I was using the mat suggested I was still getting everything But the health one. Finally gave in and did a search here an immediately found where someone stated what they did and bingo, I had two nice health bombs that I forged. Then lost what they used in what order and now have to hunt it up.

There are enough players who are confused to state that it does need some reworking, something that will help those who can’t afford to waste the mats or can’t afford to buy them and yet feel pushed to do so.

Had my hammer in, had the all affect and did one more spin of the wheel and when I looked after it had finished forging saw that on the last spin I didn’t catch that it had taken the all affect and dropped it to cross affect.

Learned to double check now before I set it, but a new player who has very few mats and doesn’t understand could be upset enough to feel that forging isn’t worth it, and I have read post like that. Put yourself in their shoes and stop walking in yours and maybe you can better understand, I may not agree with all of the complaints but I can see where they are coming from.

I don’t like gambling and in many ways forging is gambling.

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35

Had that happen today. Put in a shovel, put in the effect, longevity and special mats. Then boon 3, get a nice boon (don’t remember what). Boon 2, get auto harvest, boon remover, it removed it, but then is added back again. boon remover again, it then adds it as a possible boon, boon remover again. It is added again.
Deconstruct it.
Try again, first two boons are good, then third one, auto harvest, remove it. get glow light, don’t want that do remove it. auto harvest, remove it, auto harvest, remove it, glow, don’t want that remove it, auto harvest, deconstruct it.
Third try, first one is auto harvest, remove it, auto harvest, remove it, get low blow, get something else, get auto harvest, remove it. Same ole same ole, had to deconstruct it. Finally, after FOUR attempts I get a shovel that is cross, had durability and longevity, not what I wanted but was sick and tired of the stupid battle with the F&King auto harvest.*

I want auto harvest on a fist or slingbow, not on anything else. I don’t need it on a hammer when I am mining and will be picking up everything already.

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36

Here is the post from LyndaFromHR. Since I did the work to dig through and find it, I’ll save others that work:

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37

Well aren’t you a sweetheart.

Credit goes to vansteen for the OG method.

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Thanks peregrine.

After I found this one I just took the suggestion as basically reinforcement of the fact that very few players stray far from the tutorials others have posted

I’ve been out having a blast with some of these today though

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I really thought I could start up some conversation on the ins and outs of forging, how people feel about balance, progression, etc… Where people are with it, and what it took to get there.

My bad. I’m still getting links to basic tutorials and offers of help in following clearly documented steps.

:man_shrugging:

I guess this result is answer enough to all of the above.

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39

Sorry, let me answer your original question better.

I asked similar questions in the PS discord and got linked to Vansteens primer. It’s a proven method. If the question is “why is this so painful?” I can only conclude that it is because it was designed that way.

The centraforge issues are myriad:
*The UI is unintuitive.
*There are too many goops and gunks that do more or less the same thing.
*There are a handful of essential materials you absolutely must use and everything else is suboptimal.
*The entire process is very time-consuming
*Overall, it isn’t fun: it’s work.

Additionally, there isn’t a market for stuff that is less than near-perfect; so you cannot sell a quantity of goods that have significant defects or quirks.

The entire experience needs to be improved as a part of an improved new player experience.
The centraforge should be a cornerstone item introduced at level 1 to “power up” your stuff and be with you all the way.
The UI needs to be completely redone and the RNG eliminated. If you use expensive materials in excess, you should get what you pay for.
The entire forging process should be streamlined and simplified. Adjust resource costs accordingly and remove unneeded or duplicate goops as necessary.
Armor and/or clothing should be introduced to give new players survivability and something else to forge.
The entire skill tree needs to be reworked. Move survivability and resistances onto armor. Add new epics, auras and other unique abilities.

In short, from 1 to 50 the entire game needs a retool and the centraforge is a serious part of the barriers to entry for the game.

Oh, and since I haven’t said it enough: we need a weekly “state of the game” Q&A session from the developers as quality communication is essential for a healthy community.

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40

Hey, thanks for taking the time to type that up.

I’m still exploring the forge a bit. I think that some things could be rebalanced to form a better feeling of progression.

Agreed 100% about the skill tree too, which could help to adjust this balance without just making low end tools into 99% success rate and/or ‘nerfing’ gem forging.

The in game guidance that exists needs addressing too. The forging objectives start to appear at some point during advancement as a crafter, but the attributes (I hate that these are even called skills) required to max the forge and the single forging epic don’t really mesh well with a general crafting build.

Most avid crafters I know are not necessarily into forging, and many of the forgers I’ve met don’t waste a lot of time with crafting, outside of maybe the specific tools and weapons they want to forge. And ingredients, ofc.

The fact that the RNG is brutally difficult even with the lowest level / most flexible items just adds to the current situation.

IMO there’s very little incentive to explore any ‘finer points’ of forging due to the combination of these conditions and, as you note, near zero market for anything less than t6 1-hitters and hunting gear.

I do think that with the RNG and combination of layered RNG effects in play, they could provide us with some decent information regarding the weights and balances being used during the forging process, without really “spoiling” the current experience.

Flexibility, for instance. As far as I can ‘comfortably’ infer it seems like all that this does is set the end result of the effectiveness. And I’m not able to tell off hand if that really does much more than determine how hard it is to get boon points onto the bar.

It’s definitely both intimidating, and opaque. As noted above, I really believe that the people who get these resources to the folks who are looking, and help them gain enough understanding to manage the workflow, are definitely a boon to the community.

However it’s probably going to take some significant change to the forging system before it ever moves to being more than “follow these steps, and decon the instant one goes wrong”. Now test is being kept primarily offline, there’s even less incentive for players to spend their time and coin playing with it in such a way that real understanding or feedback can develop.

Thanks again to those that have shared (or may still share) their thoughts on or experience with the centraforge.

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