I agree, I took up forging for a while, and got so sick of it, regardless of the lesson loss, I dropped it like a bad habit. I went for close to four days, non-stop trying to forge even a decent plate, and didn't get it.. so yeah.. I thought everyone was joking about how forging was.. I guess not

I just can't justify the lesson loss, because I can't put aside that I spent cash for the credits, and to lose any lessons would be to simply hand over some of that money with nothing to show for it.
Of course, with the countless hours that I've lost forging, maybe that point is a bit moot...

I can't justify doing this forging much longer myself. I'm questionably only doing it to prepare for a contingency, but I think I might just offer on the trading post for somebody else to produce one and offer a sum of credits. It's getting out of control.

The Admin are not bound to reply to every idea posted on the forums. Whining about it won't make them work any faster.

The problem with that statement is that the ideas were only created to address a functionality problem that has existed as public knowledge for years, as I am led to believe; and even then only because noone has ever seen -anything- done about it. I think it's fair to ask, "Why?" and get an answer.

I realize the level of work required to be put in, so to speak, to create a 110 speed one-handed kata weapon. It's a tremendous level.

It's the principle of the thing: I paid three-hundred credits for a skill that forces me to go AFK or play another game while I let it run. That's not fun. No skill in a game should be 'work' or prevent you from enjoying the game.

I wish I could just go afk. I'm not level 80 yet, so I have to constantly watch to see if I'm starving to death.

It's even more complex than that for knight weapons because you won't always add stats when you smack something (though I guess for kata weapons you do since their totalstat is fixed).

I'll uhh.. probably get yelled at for this.. buuuuuuut:

Have any of you stopped to consider the fact that you're going for those "uber hammers" and "mega katana's" that -considerably- boost your abilities into an absurd range? Just because you -want- perfects doesn't mean that they're absolutely a requirement, and just because has that set of perfect hammers doesn't mean someone with an average set won't ever be able to have fun or be affective...

You're forging for statistical anomalies... its going to take a great deal of time (and luck) to get what you want...

The problem is that unless you have those 'statistical anomalies', you are not combat viable.

We aren't forging for 'uber' hammers or 'mega' katanas - we're forging for a weapon of a minimum set of stat ranges that make our skills operate on a competitive level with other classes. I'm not so sure if you understand how important weapon statistics are.

Also, Isuka, I'm not level 80 yet either - I just buy cheap platters and keep a lifesupport system up that is, while spammy, certainly good enough to keep my character alive and running fine to continue forging.

.. so long as I have platters to eat. I usually restock every four days and spend about 3000 gold on a batch.

We're not trying to boost our abilities into an absurd range. We are trying to boost ourselves into the 'competitive' range. Knights are balanced to other classes around these 'uber weapons'. It has to be this way because of the massive BAWWWing that went on when some people had the 'statistical anomalies'. The end result was that knighthood was balanced to said statistical anomalies. Well, not entirely, because there still are some horridly overpowered statistical anomalies, but as long as this randomized system is in place, that's how it's gonna be.

Bards, mages, and guardians all just summon their weapons, so they're all standardized in that respect. The physical classes are the -only- ones that have a random factor involved. Try making it so that upon summoning a staff/symbol/cudgel, you had a 99.9% chance to get one that does approximately 70% of the damage it currently does in the game. Then, give the 0.1% a weapon that does double what it does now. There will be whining and complaining until these classes are balanced to the 0.1%, but then the 0.1% will become a requirement to be functional in combat, because otherwise you are restricting yourself to 75% effectiveness. And that is just silly.

His, and many other's point is, the absurd range has become the competitive range because we ONLY want the absurd range anymore. There's no way to fix that.

If you didn't have the 'absurd' range, most probably wouldn't have dented me as Shofangi champion. I wouldn't even have needed to fight back.

The only "absurd" range is the fail rate of getting competitive weapons. I think you're using flawed logic by thinking we're trying to forge for three perfect stats on a weapon (which would be absurd, and impossible). More often than not, I'm forging for either a single perfect stat and not caring in the least about the other two, or forging for two decent stats and not caring about the third.

When it comes down to it, the game has been balanced around the stats that we are looking for. That is not the players fault. That is not the fault of a couple of people willing to spend 100 hours to get a good weapon. That is the result of the administration saying that these stat ranges should be the expected norm, and building that into the game.

The point: It's not about "want". The game has evolved to where if you plan on being a combatant it's really a "need".

I have to agree with Isuka. Disclosure: I have not done a lot of pvp as a Paladin yet.

But, I have tested some of my skills on players both defed and not defed, noob and uber elite artymaster of the universe types. A "normal" or "statistically common" or even "average on a bell curve" or EVEN "most common random point if forging was spread out and displayed as a Brownian curve" weapons are a joke. I would rather have symbol than anything that is remotely considered "average" given almost any length of time. People can regen off the damage/bleeding/etc naturally, even when naked, on some weapons.

Really anything less than these outliers on the theoretical least squares line that is the hell of forging, is nothing more than you, the player, choosing to place yourself outside of the combat average for your class, due to frustration.

Imagine if Angel afflictions worked that way? Anything less than some statistical out lier on a huge data set immediately put you at a disadvantage to the average that is in place for your class. It kind of makes us crave those anomalies, if for security reasons only, let alone "a fair game".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Consider: A Celestine has to keep me (read as, a warrior) in place to kill me, generally speaking. Regardless of the kill method it can be broken down into equations relating to time, IE: d(something)/dt as seen in calculus. You need skills, and keeping me busy. No amount of life or tankyness is going to save me from it. Time is generally outside my control if you are on the offensive, as this is variable t changes in respect to your actions (a timer or not a timer, the time it takes to rub 1 soulless or 7). These are all under your control.

Point? The only thing to put this time variable into my control is if I can go on the offensive against you, forcing the variable t to change with respect once again, to you, because you have to choose to heal, changing this variable in a positive direction (more time for me to live, more time you need to kill me). I think this is a good way to look at the issue, as without these anomaly weapons, we really wouldn't be able to swing the time variables in our favour.

For example: look at all of the warriors who go down to really skilled Celestines or Nihilists. They, assuming a standard of healing we are all eventually held to in combat, couldn't change the time variable.

You fail to mention that warriors don't really have that much control over their t, because of the random miss factor, parry, and stance, which are available to everyone. Stack dodging and RoA on top of that and it's just gross and pathetic.

Also, warriors do not have any form of passive attack. Harmony monks kind of have a bit of passive in some of the mantras, but I won't really count that. Guardians and wiccans are -based- around passives, mages/druids get melds, bards get songs.

Ever play a paladin in Aetolia? Cool concept, because they're essentially a warrior that can declare a room holy ground, and set up numerous passive effects (both positive and negative) that persist over time within that room. It'd be cool if there were something like that for warriors in lusty, because I can't tell you how frustrating it is that I have to walk into someone elses passives to fight them... and I'm simply not skilled enough to handle it. Druids destroy me, for example, and a Nihilist recently handed my ass to me several times without me so much as landing a hit.

Anyways, no intended derail here!

That would be such an awesome change to Sacraments... Yea Terv I also forgot to factor in wounds which I know someone is going to throw at me, and we have an herb whose sole purpose is to make us miss, where is my magic rebounding herb?

But not to continue derailing...

I can't think of any way to improve forging without making it seem cheap comparatively. What if, we could "swing our hammer faster" if we wanted to forge for a slant in the speed catagory, or "forcefully pound the anvil" to slant it to damage, or "swiftly the " for precision?

Honestly, my real beef with forging isn't so much that it takes forever, but that 2 or 3 axe styles are considered "useless" or "not worth forging" and "not good enough to rune anyway", so we are stuck all carrying the same 5 or so klangaxes around, trying to hit a really high (apparently) out lier set of stats, instead of exploring with some of the other axes. Seriously what are War and Greataxes for? One is the 'Damage' axe and one is the 'Precision' axe, but still... something is wrong when no one will dare choose anything but klang.

Prec and dam weapons used to be sort of viable... not anymore.

Greatsword used to be the accepted best weapon for a pureblade. I'm honestly happier now that it's Katana instead.