My Forge Feedback (At it's current state)

[RancorSnp]

 I have played Forge for approximately 7 hours and the only thing I can say is...  it was fun what now?

DST Forge is a great idea, but there really is barely anything to it, let's start the feedback shall we? :

1). Too much time is wasted on waiting for the dialogue to pass
Which wouldn't be all that bad if was happening when players may actually need some time to revive and heal, but actually dialogue is mostly happening after very easy stages. The worst of all is the starting dialogue, which not only is long, it also has pauses when there is no text at all - WHY?! Do we really need that much time to prepare for the first wave? Well mentally prepare I mean, because there is absolutely nothing else that can be done at that time. 

2). Monsters have too much hp, and there is too little variety. I can't say exactly how much hp they got, but if I were to take a guess, I'd say the very first enemy has about 300 hp, which is a bit unnecessary but tolerable, what happens next however isn't. The whole team hitting on a single enemy takes forever to kill anything stronger than wave 3. And there really isn't that many waves either. 
Halve all monsters HP and double the amount of waves, it will take approximately the same time, but the game will be way more interesting and definitely less monotonous. 

3). Too little item drop variety. To be honest, every game is exactly the same. The only drop variety I have seen is the "legendary" item dropping on last wave, other than that all the items will always drop at the same time, same order, same quantity. 
IF you are hoping to play in any different composition that 2 Tanks, 1 Healer, 1 dart DPS, 1 Fire staff mage  1 Fast runner OR other cast support you will not get the items you need.
To be honest it's not only about the drop variety it also suffers from :

4) Too little item variety. Hammer, Spear, Blow dart 1, Blow dart 2, fire staff, healing staff, Books (that can't even drop) and this is all weapons you get. Melee classes never get weapon upgrade. All mages have to use blow darts for 2/3 of the game because magic items only drop at the end. 
More weapons is very heavily needed. Where are better melee weapons? Where are early fire weapons for Willow? Where are lightning weapons for WX? Where are any better Books for Wickerbotom and Maxwell?
Armor variety is a lot better than weapons, but could still use some more to entertain more play styles. 

5) There is very little benefit to actually clearing the Forge, you get more exp. That is all. I was hoping for at least a box per clear, well anything. Killing the final boss is not an easy task, actually of all the games I played today and it's definitely in double digits I have only managed to clear once. Since levels do not make players stronger in any way, clearing the game for second time is just as hard  as the first. Only more boring, because you already know what will happen and when. But there is no benefit to clearing it again, other than slightly more exp than dying before the boss does, and considering how long he takes to kill, I'd say it's likely it's more efficient to do suicide before last wave if you are exp hunting.  

6) Levels take too long to gain. And there isn't any other reliable way to gain boxes, assuming that every level will be harder to get, we are quickly going to reach absurds like 3 days of non stop clearing for a single box.  Of course there may be a max level too, which would be even worse since that would mean it impossible to gain all the event items. 

7) Item crafting system is also extremely grindy, even with all that time spent non stop hunting I couldn't even craft a single interesting item in  the new system. We are getting 4 items per box opened. Half of it are common items worth 5 spools, and we get 1 - 2 items that are actually worth something and can give us even as much as 75 - 150 spools. But let's consider how it's getting increasingly harder to get boxes (for no reason) + we assume you actually want to keep these items unless they are duplicates (If you don't , why are you even trying to craft anything) and I'll wish you luck  in getting 1350 spools to craft costumes. To be honest even a single emote will probably take like a week to craft. And then you might get it in your next box and be pissed off about the points you wasted. 

I'd say these are all my major complaints I have with the mode. Yeah I said complaints because well I do not really think I can write a whole point about any of the good things I want to get my feedback across. Whcih doesn't mean I think the forge is bad, quite the contrary I think it's a very very good idea. But it's incredibly bare bones and requires a lot more work before it's ready
BUT WAIT I do realize this is just early beta, I have played early beta of Don't starve, and early Beta Reign of Giants I know how it goes with Klei. I do have very high hopes for this game mode, and I am pretty confident Klei will deliver like they always do. 
 

However I think that if Forge is going to be worked on and improved on to be actually good, it should most definitely become a permanent mode, what's more it should be modable  so that players can expand upon it forever. 
There is a lot of potential in this, and I'd hate to see it go to waste. Normal don't starve game play doesn't interest me that much anymore, it has been looong years of the same. But Forge is something new, even if currently it's very far from what it should be. 

[Lumina]

My main complain at the moment would probably be the lack of variety, and, depending of your team and character, the lack of possibility of progression in term of item.

For example, weapons : no progress for melee, little progress for ranged attack depending of your character (some weapons are better for some character, so even less choice)...

Same for variety, if you are Wilson you'll probably be the healer, some character should be able to choose between ranged and melee but there isn't a lot of occasions to really use that at your benefit as far as i can tell ?

 

I would also like to see some synergy. Like, for example, a dart or a staff creating water : combo with electric attack of WX. So if you have a WX the weapon will be very great, but less useful if you haven't it. Stuff like this.

 

3 hours ago, RancorSnp said:

BUT WAIT I do realize this is just early beta, I have played early beta of Don't starve, and early Beta Reign of Giants I know how it goes with Klei. I do have very high hopes for this game mode, and I am pretty confident Klei will deliver like they always do. 

I was thinking that the beta was for test charge, mainly, and the release is in a week, no ? Seems pretty short to have big change as the others beta ? Maybe i'm wrong.

 

And yes, time between some phases is too long. Maybe a vote or something to shorten it, at least the first when we enter the arena.

 

PS : I played with you this afternoon, thanks for the advice you gave me  

[Pink_Infatuation]

it's depressing, but true. However; that's why this is a beta. I'm fairly sure the devs know they haven't finished developing it. most of these problems could be fixed by just adding a few new weapons and making a custom mode where you can randomize waves and drops.