I think that an RNG factor added to the forges would be very interesting just as a little spice, nothing serious or anything but it feels like there should be some type of bonus to crafting at the forge, OR it should be the only place to craft. I think that we should still be able to use like runes of shattering or runes of cleansing and such out of the forge but for putting affixes on items it would be neat if there was an actual purpose to the forge. Also the mention of making it so that it kind of acts as a central station in places such as The End of Time would be cool in the purpses of feeling like youre playing alongside other people.
I’m close to the idea of crafting in benches. Having the crafting panel available anywhere doesn’t feel precisely… immersive, or natural. In addition, I like the idea of Jerle about the adventurers coming back to town to craft, sell, restock and prepare for the next danger, and meet fellow adventurers that you will find in town and the possibility of interacting with them.
That being said, maybe the crafting benches should be more visible and in key spots of the towns. The benches don’t have to be only in town tho. Other maps may have one too.
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Oh. Absolutely. I think when I was thinking about this, I was really thinking about crafting and modifying items, and not so much shattering. I can definitely see how needing to go back to town to shatter items can be annoying. Especially since we still have limited inventory space.
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I prefer the idea of crafting (in all capacities) whenever you feel like crafting. I don’t see myself doing a ton of deep crafting in the field, however, I’d prefer to be able to do so if I wanted to.
One argument for this is the counter to Jerle’s social item: If you prefer NOT to be noticed (many people prefer playing primarily solo) crafting in the wild would better enable this.
Similarly, even if you do prefer a social aspect to your aRPG experience, while you’re busy in a crafting session may not be the time for that. Sure, you can set yourself on ‘away’ or ‘dnd’ on the social pane to accomplish this too, but taking options of play styles away from people doesn’t seem like it’s the best idea.
If I had to guess, most people would just craft in town anyway, but I don’t see any sense in limiting this option for players who would choose to do otherwise.
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Crafting from the menu is great and I vote to keep it that way. This comes especially handy when wanting to extract affixes from items on the road in light of the limited backpack space. Diffuculty should come from tackling the mosters, not inconveniences.
Lots of great feedback in here. I didn’t want to make mention of how we were considering it at first just to see how people were feeling about it.
Some ideas that have been proposed are restricting some more advanced crafting methods to town, giving lower fracture chances in town, allowing you to “buy” infinite shatter stone uses in town with lower shard output than normal, and several others that I can’t remember off the top of my head.
We aren’t really sold on any of these ideas right now and it appears that most of the people here aren’t huge on the idea of location specific forging. I think that if we did go forward with something like this, it would be adding in more options in to the town version instead of removing what’s already available. The danger with that is we might make it feel mandatory to go back to town to craft anyways. We do want it to feel good crafting out in the field.
If you have any ideas of things we could add to town with regards to crafting that would be cool but wouldn’t make it feel mandatory to go back to town, please leave them here.
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Hi, it’s hard to find some good point that don’t imply to feel more powerfull to go to forge…
I feel like dismantle and craft could be done in the field, but removing affix orclean item could be only done at forge.
It feel logical because this kind of operation need more planification and concentration. So be in town where there is no monster feel right.
An other way is to give very little cosmetic point 
Don’t feel necessary but for big player it’s cool.
To go further, perhaps give the option in forge to shapeshift the item for cosmetic point only at the forge. Or give discount if you want to shapeshift the item if you have forge it at the forge…
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How about giving each town’s forge a specialty? Something like Grim Dawn’s Blacksmiths? Each Blacksmith has a particular attribute they add to things crafted at their place, similarly each Era’s forges can be given a specialty.
But implementing something like this would pretty much force players to use the Town Forge.
I hated the blacksmith specialiation in Grim Dawn. Articifical difficulty and having to keep a Wiki open at all times.
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I think the whole craftin aspect is fine as it is. The only thing I would change is a benefit for walking up to a froge and use it because you backtracked all the way there to use it. Itcould simly increase the min rolls on stats because you are dedicated to crafting at said moment instead of out in the field and occupied by monsters who could shoot you in the back, so the quality while using forges in a save space could be simply higher.
Is there some kind of design philosophy or reason for wanting to make the forge different from crafting in the field? If not, I’d recommend just tweaking the system as a whole to get the balance correct, and not separate crafting locations by utility.
If there is some kind of design reason behind making crafting in one location different from another, I’d be curious to hear what it is. If it’s just a, ‘it could be cool to make it differentiated’ I would strongly recommend against that kind of design - refresh what your goals are and ask how changes to this system do or don’t support those goals. Don’t add extra stuff just to add extra stuff, please!
Well it was merely a suggestion. The idea is to make the forges worthwhile. What is the point of having forges when you can simply craft in the field. If someone backtracks all the way to make use of a forge then he\she should be rewarded.
The rewards should naturally be minimal so that it doesn’t upset the meta otherwise it’d force all the players to use forges only rendering crafting in the field useless.
There could be plenty of reasons because we travel in time. For example in the primevel era there could be enough raw energys and plenty of mats arround noone touched therefore you get better magic weapons in this era. In eras where the technical standarts are much higher you might get better weapons and armor because you can use different materials and techniques to get stuff done.
Nothing easier then to find reasons why something might better in X then in Y in a game where timetravel is a thing.
Those are thematic reasons, not design goals, which is what I was looking for. For purposes of flavor those are great; for player convenience, they are not. Others above reacted to Grim Dawn’s blacksmiths having different inherent values. Thematically, that’s great. In practice, only one of them will ever be used, so why have the feature at all? What goal does it actually serve?
Don’t get me wrong - theme is great. But this game is already dripping with it, and I don’t think mechanical systems like crafting are the right place to try to inject more without a very good reason. You’re of course 100% welcome to disagree, this is only my opinion.
Edit: Here, to demonstrate that I’m not just an awful curmudgeon, a suggestion for how to incentivize at forge crafting: Put a limit on the number of each Rune (shattering, refinement, etc) and Glyph (guardian, stability) that you can carry. Any you pick up above that limit instead go to the forge, and can be accessed there. Crafting is now possible and equal in the field vs town, it’s only the frequency of possible crafting that changes by location.
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The design goal, as mentioned in OP, is to create nodes for social interactions.
I kinda like this idea.
My suggestion would be to attempt to do that through means that are inherently social, rather than foisting it on an unrelated system. Examples could be a robust set of chat channels, guilds, a social screen with more depth, player shops, an “apprentice” system (with some incentive for more experienced players to assist novices), or other social systems.
Additional functionality could be added to town to incentivize players to gather there: as noted above, player shops & apprentice system, LFG interface, access to town-only chat channel(s), opportunities to show off MTX, seasonal events with cosmetic participation rewards, etc.
I guess the core of my point here is that playing in a social manner should not be a requirement for anything that strongly impacts GAMEPLAY, as forge-related crafting incentives (aside from the one I mentioned in previous post) would do. I personally love being social (see: posting on forums…) but many do not, and even I prefer to limit my sociability to conversation, rather than actual gameplay. Hopefully some of the ideas here prove useful, or at least get juices flowing on how players can be ALLOWED (rather than forced) to interact on an axis completely removed from gameplay concerns.
Cheers!
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I like this, it sounds like (if I understood it correctly) that, “I can identify stuff whilst on the battlefield but when in town I’d much rather have Deckard do it for me.”
One method doesn’t really have any clear advantage over the other, both are more or less equal besides in the “convenience” department.
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Yep, you got it. Upon further reflection, I think it may actually make more sense for you to be able to use as many runes / glyphs as you want (as the system currently stores these in your character anyway) but only able to use shards in the field that you haven’t yet sent to stash - i.e. what’s in your inventory. From the perspective of the current systems, I think this makes the most sense, and it likely better fulfills the goals most frequently associated with field crafting (which will probably be to use runes to break down items into shards).
Just more food for thought.
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I’m liking your idea more and more as you refined it. Hopefully the devs might consider it
(I have this thread bookmarked and check it every morning. I don’t always reply but I am watching it.)
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