What Happened To Forging?

Halo

I haven't read or heard any changes done to weapon stats when it comes to forging but has any other forger noticed the quality of pretty much anything crafted to be really subpar lately?  

Here's a short list of 92 rapiers, I've forged almost 700 now with nothing over 215 speed.
https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/11e165e2

I started noticing shortly before/after classlead changes were going around.  I haven't talked with many other forgers in game to speculate further but if there was a change to forged weapon stats, it would be appreciated if we were informed so I don't sit here churning the ol' butter mill cranking out vegetable spread.

Anedhel

Dunno when it happened, and it was silent, but forging got hit with a big hammer at one point (and not a forging hammer ).

I can't tell you exactly what the differences are, but I've noticed there's a huge huge huge move towards normalizing outcomes, so that you get less of the 'extreme' results with forging hammers. If I had to take a wild stab, I'd say they made the chance of adding nothing and adding the stats with a hammer closer to 50/50, which means you're ending up with pretty average weapons.

I've been considering experimenting forging without a hammer, to see if more forges might yield better results, but having no solid footing where the probability of adding stats with/without a hammer are concerned, I haven't the foggiest clue if that'll help.

Tl;dr: Forging for anything that requires extreme outcomes to be usable is going to suck. (High speed rapiers/handaxes and high damage battleaxes are at the top of that list)

Kyrra

Forgings been that way for quite a while now, unfortunately.

I traded in my hammer a few days ago and I'm eagerly awaiting the skill to get castrated from knights.

Klendathu

Kyrra said:

Forgings been that way for quite a while now, unfortunately.

I traded in my hammer a few days ago and I'm eagerly awaiting the skill to get castrated from knights.

Here's something to cheer you up (I've been looking at CITY PRIVS)

The city's designated totemer is @Kyrra.

You're welcome.

Exelethril

@Halo : Were you using a Hammer of Forging? Perhaps that might account for the sub-par stats on your 92 rapiers.

I've noticed good rapiers are much harder to come by for awhile - which could either be due to a lack of active forgers lately or as Anedhel mentioned, a silent change in code.

If a change in code is the case, it would be nice if changes of this nature were announced, for playerbase transparency/fairness.

Kyrra

Klendathu said:

Kyrra said:

Forgings been that way for quite a while now, unfortunately.

I traded in my hammer a few days ago and I'm eagerly awaiting the skill to get castrated from knights.

Here's something to cheer you up (I've been looking at CITY PRIVS)

The city's designated totemer is @Kyrra.

You're welcome.

Hee! I totem for a city, three houses, and two orders. I just can't get enough.

Halo

Forging has always been tedious and boring and I have always been fine with that.  As it stands now though, I don't know what's considered quality or even how to price anything because nothing has been stated about any changes.  I can see why forging would take a hit, possibly to help push artefact weapon sales, or even the fact that if forging becomes accessible to everyone that the extreme forges needed to be far more infrequent.  

*Edit, and yeah, I own a hammer.

Kyrra

@Exelethril, with the separation of trade skills coming up, I assume relatively soon, there's probably going to be tweaks happening here and there. Also with the changes to weaponry and the overhaul, forging might be undergoing massive changes as well.

I don't forge as much as Peak, Halo, Trey, or Anedhel etc, but I noticed a big enough change a long time ago and that's why I decided to spend my time doing other things. The amount of time and expense put into forging is ridiculous, and just seems like a massive gold sink because the rate of quality seems to have dropped a lot. I used to be able to forge batches of 20 rapiers and get at least one blade that was over 215 even if it was crap for the rest of the stats.

Our of curiosity, how much do forgers suffer with the changes to city improvements and commodity requirements, which have jacked up the prices? Does anyone ever make gold off forging anymore, or do most of you just do it to provide stuff to your cities? 

Cooper

I forged about 100 within the last few weeks, got 2 227s, a 223 and a handful of 215s.

Halo

As of right now with the current results, no...forging isn't viable by any means (if infact there was a silent nerf or I'm just having a bad bad continuous streak of luck).  The commodity issue seems to have let up a bit, but when the city changes happened steel wasn't available anywhere for under 200gp per.

Valdus

There was no nerf. You just got unlucky.

Here's a snippet of some results I did a while back. 1648 rapiers. You'll notice MOST of them are subpar. And yes. Hammer of Forging and Forging Traits.

Forging has been the same way it is now for months and months and months.

http://pastebin.com/QufKQqMC

Faur

And to add to the bitching, I've stopped since commodity prices skyrocketed, and my own piss-poor results as of late. I mean, come on, I'm the Dwarven WarChieftain, I'm in the LORD SMITH'S ORDER, and my results are piss-poor. You'd think with that pedigree, I'd have SOMETHING to show for it...

Anedhel

To clarify: I didn't mean to say the change was recent.

It's been in a slump for a while; the commodities change seems to really have put the nail in the coffin for a lot of forgers, I can think of about 4-5 off the top of my head that have gone off it completely as a result.

Halo

I've been a heavy forger for about 15 years now, I've developed an addiction to it so going cold turkey might be rough.  I recently came back after a few month hiatus so my time at the forge has been depressing.  And yeah, these comm prices aren't a joke, I'm paying 7.5k-10k per stacks of 50.  I really don't want to hang up the hammer for good, one of my favorite time sinks has been forging.

Santar

Don't worry, I'm sure some forging changes will go in around the same time...

Ships arrive

Targossas gets houses

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Multi-class   

Achilles

Haven't noticed a change in forging.  Its been bad for the 3 years I've been playing (again).  They recently added the comm changes which seemed to drive up the price of steel (and likely other comms) substantially making it a even more worthless endeavor.  Really only non-coms/mostly stationary players who like to chat on OOC clans forge, as any active high level char can easily bash for income faster.

Tecton

No changes to forging probabilities in at least the past 6 RL years.

Halo

Thanks for that answer @Tecton‌

Valdus

Told you.

Halo

Blujixapug

Are your rituals off? Forging has better luck if you only forge on even-numbered miliseconds, and if all the item numbers in your inventory add up to an even number. It also helps trick the RNG if you walk around an area with an even area number for a while, then teleport directly to the forge room (don't QL or L at any point). And you need to mash the B key right before your item is done.

Sena

Blujixapug said:

Are your rituals off? Forging has better luck if you only forge on even-numbered miliseconds, and if all the item numbers in your inventory add up to an even number. It also helps trick the RNG if you walk around an area with an even area number for a while, then teleport directly to the forge room (don't QL or L at any point). And you need to mash the B key right before your item is done.

You also need to forge as many things as possible before looking at any of the stats. If you look at them one at a time, they'll all be terrible.

Nim

Sena said:

Blujixapug said:

Are your rituals off? Forging has better luck if you only forge on even-numbered miliseconds, and if all the item numbers in your inventory add up to an even number. It also helps trick the RNG if you walk around an area with an even area number for a while, then teleport directly to the forge room (don't QL or L at any point). And you need to mash the B key right before your item is done.

You also need to forge as many things as possible before looking at any of the stats. If you look at them one at a time, they'll all be terrible.

Oh, that's just an old wives tale, don't listen to @Sena.

(mwahahaha, if they buy it, knights will never have high damage rapiers again. er... people can't read text in parentheses, right?)

Jules

Is there an svo addon?

Agrias

Jules said:

Is there an svo addon?

No.

Jamethiel

I think the main annoyance for forgers isn't that the probabilities has changed, as @Tecton has pointed out, but more that the prices of comms have gone up - there are reasons for this, of course, but it could just be a matter of perspective.

To put another way:

• A year ago (this is an arbitrary time period), a forger might have spent 1000g on forging to forge a sword of X/Y/Z stats;
• Today, a forger might have to spend 3000g on forging the same weapon of X/Y/Z stats.

I don't know what the increase is but eventually if the increase becomes noticeable enough it becomes more difficult to forge simply because you suddenly cannot make enough profit to buy stuff that you want to buy (and this very well could be even more materials with which to forge).

My answer is: Forging has become less profitable because comms have become noticeably more expensive than in the past.

Trey

Jamethiel said:

I think the main annoyance for forgers isn't that the probabilities has changed, as @Tecton has pointed out, but more that the prices of comms have gone up - there are reasons for this, of course, but it could just be a matter of perspective.

To put another way:

• A year ago (this is an arbitrary time period), a forger might have spent 1000g on forging to forge a sword of X/Y/Z stats;
• Today, a forger might have to spend 3000g on forging the same weapon of X/Y/Z stats.

I don't know what the increase is but eventually if the increase becomes noticeable enough it becomes more difficult to forge simply because you suddenly cannot make enough profit to buy stuff that you want to buy (and this very well could be even more materials with which to forge).

My answer is: Forging has become less profitable because comms have become noticeably more expensive than in the past.

Your answer, while horribly understated on the costs, -does- have some bearing on the immediate changes we've seen as of late. Around 2008 or so, I can tell you that something changed with forging probabilities, enough that I was freaking out on old forums about it somewhere. It evened out, but it's never been the same.

Also @Tecton, I'm not trying to say that you lied, but everyone knows how much I forge. I have a well-developed sense of what looks normal looking at WEAPONLIST after a run of equipment, and for the past few years I've noticed a difference. SOMETHING has changed, whether it was someone tweaking it or if it got shit up during some backup or something and never caught.

Tecton

I went back to the oldest backup I have on hand (2012), and things are identical to then and now. Unfortunately I don't have backups from earlier than that, but yeah, the only metrics that affect the outcome haven't changed.

Cooper

@Trey 2008 was 6 years ago. He said there were no changes in about 6 years.

Morthif

@Tecton‌ do you have access to the avg results over the last year or so? I can't say with certainty but seems most agree that its been bad and the hammer isn't helping.

Trey

Tecton said:

I went back to the oldest backup I have on hand (2012), and things are identical to then and now. Unfortunately I don't have backups from earlier than that, but yeah, the only metrics that affect the outcome haven't changed.

Fair enough. I think you'd have to go back further to see a difference if one exists, because by 'few' I meant about three to three and a half, but it's a moot point since we can't. Think it definitely bears looking at once comms prices settle down after this city improvements change, though