Which game had the most ideal weapon forging system ?

[LJ_Reflet]

I've only really played the 3DS era games and Three Houses so those games are the only ones where I can discuss each in depth.

But personally, I think Echoes had the most balanced weapon forging system. It's probably the most generic, but I think it worked well relative to other games. Gold Marks are really difficult to get but I think it's all in fairness as some of the most average weapons could be forged into significantly stronger weapons (like Blessed Lance > Gradivus).

Fates, I think, had the worst system. It was insanely annoying trying to get multiples of the same weapon, especially if some were completely RNG-based like the Raider weapons (which are great weapons in their own right). On top of that, if you didn't have access to online, trying to collect proper ore would be really difficult as well. However, Fates' near-infinite weapon forging system could lead to the most broken weapons if you're lucky. For example, a simple +3 Subaki's Pike has +20 might when its effect is activated (though this is highly unrealistic to achieve in a single playthrough butnotmesavescummingeventtilesjusttoget8subakispikesformyfavepegasusknightlmfao).

I really enjoyed Awakening's system of choosing which of the weapon's stat you could increase, but I found forging in Awakening itself was kinda pointless since weapons disappear after they break. This makes forging more of a short-term investment rather than long-term as opposed to other games. If weapons could be fixed like in Three Houses, then I think Awakening would have won for the best forging system. Tbh, I wanted to try a Dark Flier!Robin+Shockstick build, but it really sucks that Shocksticks are an event tile only weapon (ie. heavily RNG-based), and forging it could lead to a really fun yet possibly very broken build.

Three Houses seemed pretty lacking in comparison to other games, since weapons could only be forged roughly only once to a + version of the original. I guess you can say it keeps the game balanced so nobody would have weapons that are too strong, but it didn't seem to be as interesting as previous entries.

What do you guys think, which system did you like the most ? Or which features from previous entries do you think should return in future games or how future systems should be like ?

Edited August 14, 2021 by LJ_Tenma

[Jotari]

I think concepturally I like Awakening's system the best. Which is also what the DS games. Being able to assign the stat upgrades to the weapon is the thing that suits me best for what forging is meant to be. Creating your own weapon with the stats that you like. Issue is that Awakening's infinite bank account kind of took away what makes it special. Path of Radiance was also very liberal with it's funds too. So I think this system worked best in the likes of Shadow Dragon. Though just in terms of which system synergized the best with the game it was in, I think I have to say Fates. It was noticable enough to make a difference, but restrictive enough that you couldn't just break the game.

The other system not mentioned in the OP is the Tellius system, which is very similar to the DS and Awakenins system where you assign the stats you want to a weapon. However in those games you couldn't forge a weapon you already owned. It was exclusively for creating new weapons. So no forging Brave Swords or Wing Spears. One odd thing about distributing points is that in a lot of these games, for some reason, they let you reduce a weapons hit or might and increase its weight, which cost just as much money as buffing the relevant stats. So making a really crappy weapon was really expensive. I just don't understand the reasoning for this. Maybe they were afraid making a really weak weapon would set up kills for weaker units too easily? Seems unlikely. I think the obvious thing to do here would be to have the price of the weapon decrease if you nerf certain stats. Like you can forge a really accurate axe really cheaply by reducing it's might. Or make a really strong and accurate sword, but increase its weight to just the right level to reduce it's cost. That would have been much more fun and interesting to try and utilize to its best ability, I think.

[lenticular]

If I had to pick one system, I think I'd go with the Tellius system. Being limited to one forge per chapter gave it some amount of strategical thinking. Do I want to make a forge for a unit who's lagging behind and needs to catch up, or do I make one for my best unit to make them even better? The randomness of the coin system in Radiant Dawn also added to that since maybe if you got a particularly lucky forge you might want to try to preserve the weapon instead of carrying on with your initial plan for it (acquiring coins in the first place was a pain, though). I also liked that you could only forge weapons you were buying from new, partly because it prevented imbalance like forged wing spears and partly because it just made more sense from a storytelling and verisimilitude perspective. Finally, I liked being able to pick the colour of my new weapon. Yeah, it was daft as hell, but I want my pink battleaxes back.

Shadow Dragon and Awakening (and presumably New Mystery too though I've never played that) had a system that was comparable to the Tellius sytem but not as good. Fates is my personal least favourite system because I have no interest in touching any of the online/social features of My Castle which means that any systems that interacted with them were no fun for me. The Shadows of Valentia incarnation really suffered from not giving the player enough information, especially when "evolving" into a different weapon type; it was difficult to know whether this was worth it without looking everything up outside of the game. The system in Three Houses is largely inconsequential, with most upgrades being small enough that you won't really notice them but also cheap enough that you don't notice the cost either so there are very few actual interesting decisions to make around it.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The other system not mentioned in the OP is the Tellius system, which is very similar to the DS and Awakenins system where you assign the stats you want to a weapon. However in those games you couldn't forge a weapon you already owned. It was exclusively for creating new weapons. So no forging Brave Swords or Wing Spears. One odd thing about distributing points is that in a lot of these games, for some reason, they let you reduce a weapons hit or might and increase its weight, which cost just as much money as buffing the relevant stats. So making a really crappy weapon was really expensive. I just don't understand the reasoning for this. Maybe they were afraid making a really weak weapon would set up kills for weaker units too easily? Seems unlikely. I think the obvious thing to do here would be to have the price of the weapon decrease if you nerf certain stats. Like you can forge a really accurate axe really cheaply by reducing it's might. Or make a really strong and accurate sword, but increase its weight to just the right level to reduce it's cost. That would have been much more fun and interesting to try and utilize to its best ability, I think.

My prefered solution would just be to disallow worsening any attribute entirely. I don't think you really lose anything of value by doing so and it lowers the chance of fat-finger errors and of "add weight to earn wexp faster" style misinformation. The balancing of bonuses and maluses like you describe could potentially work, btu that sort of system usually leads to min-maxing in a way that I just don't find very fun.

[X-Naut]

I'm not a big fan of the free-for-all forge systems because of how much they can go against the grain of weapons. Certain weapons are supposed to have flaws, like throwing weapons having low hit, and when the game lets you forge +20 Hit on them freely it undermines that principle. There's also the matter of making forges that beat the tier above them, like an Iron Sword stronger than a Steel Sword. It's even more insulting in the DS games where you can make silver or even steel weapons better than the Regalia save for Gradivus.

So Echoes is probably my favorite system. I wouldn't call it perfect (see above and below) but the fixed bonuses can curb exorbitant buffs and with how different Echoes' weapon system is, it works for the environment it's in. Three Houses is a case where I think the buffs are too weak for once, aside from dumb stuff like 1-3 range magic weapons. I think they could have used a second forging level.

2 hours ago, LJ_Tenma said:

I really enjoyed Awakening's system of choosing which of the weapon's stat you could increase, but I found forging in Awakening itself was kinda pointless since weapons disappear after they break. This makes forging more of a short-term investment rather than long-term as opposed to other games. If weapons could be fixed like in Three Houses, then I think Awakening would have won for the best forging system.

I'm of the opposite mind: forges need durability because otherwise you'd just start using them exclusively once you made them. Certain forges are already extremely powerful even with durability, like the Ridersbane in Shadow Dragon. (Ridersbane in Echoes is one reason I said "see below" by the way.) In fact, I'd prefer forges be unrepairable until they break and losing their edge when they do so that the player has to think about being frivolous with them.

[Jotari]

39 minutes ago, lenticular said:

My prefered solution would just be to disallow worsening any attribute entirely. I don't think you really lose anything of value by doing so and it lowers the chance of fat-finger errors and of "add weight to earn wexp faster" style misinformation. The balancing of bonuses and maluses like you describe could potentially work, btu that sort of system usually leads to min-maxing in a way that I just don't find very fun.

That kind of misinformation could be better dispelled by actually having the game tell us how much WEXP a weapon gives (preferably with Training Weapons that give enhanced WEXP for, well, training them). I agree that there's no point in attributing negative stats if they cost money, but if it saves money I can only see use in making weapons more customizable and versatile. Though fair enough if customization isn't your interest. I think no forging at all is a pretty valid opinion if one isn't into customization.

[lenticular]

34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That kind of misinformation could be better dispelled by actually having the game tell us how much WEXP a weapon gives (preferably with Training Weapons that give enhanced WEXP for, well, training them). I agree that there's no point in attributing negative stats if they cost money, but if it saves money I can only see use in making weapons more customizable and versatile. Though fair enough if customization isn't your interest. I think no forging at all is a pretty valid opinion if one isn't into customization.

"My favourite forging system is the one from Sacred Stones."

But no. Seriously, it's not so much that I don't like customisation as that I don't like min-maxing. Stacking flaws or maluses into dump stats in order to get the one stat that I actually care about through the roof has always been deeply unsatisfying to me. Like, if I'm making a lance for a general with awful speed, then I don't care about weight because everything is doubling me anyway. So I put as many points into added weight as I'm allowed and get a weapon with great might and hit at no cost. That's the sort of thing that I don't enjoy.

[Jotari]

28 minutes ago, lenticular said:

"My favourite forging system is the one from Sacred Stones."

But no. Seriously, it's not so much that I don't like customisation as that I don't like min-maxing. Stacking flaws or maluses into dump stats in order to get the one stat that I actually care about through the roof has always been deeply unsatisfying to me. Like, if I'm making a lance for a general with awful speed, then I don't care about weight because everything is doubling me anyway. So I put as many points into added weight as I'm allowed and get a weapon with great might and hit at no cost. That's the sort of thing that I don't enjoy.

Can't really see why one wouldn't, that example sounds like an excellent feature to buff the notoriously bad class that is Knights and Generals.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I generally liked Echoes' system of "stepped" forges - pay a little for slight buffs, or a lot for bigger ones. You could wind up getting attached to a weapon as it grows stronger throughout the game. The big exception, though, was the Evolving system. An Evolved weapon would often have worse stats than its predecessor (i.e. Steel Bow having more Weight and less Hit than Iron Bow), or lose effects (i.e. Javelin -> Saunion losing 1-range). Not to mention, they lose access to the combat arts from their previous form. And worst of all? The game doesn't even tell you what you're evolving it into. It's a shot in the dark, and if you don't like it, your options are to "deal with it" or else reset.

So, yeah. I like Evolutions much better in 3H, since that game tells you what you're actually getting. The Ore system is pretty neat, too, even if the distribution is weird (too much Umbral Steel, not enough everything-else-that's-not-buyable). Only having one "+" form is kind of limiting, admittedly. Maybe the next game could use a 3H-style system, but with multiple forged forms? Say an "Iron Sword ++", or an "Iron Sword *". Some weapons could even start in "-" forms, that need to be forged into a base variant.

One thing I'd like to see, though, that's not really been done, is forge gems. Basically, each gem has a certain effect. These can range from the mundane (i.e. "+3 Might", "+10 Hit") to much more interesting ("Luna", "Anti-cavalry", "Brave"). Find a gem, and for the right price, it can be infused into a weapon of your choice. Thus creating some insane possibilities (say, a Killer Lance that does magical damage, or a Hand Axe that heals the user after combat). I think this could make for a really cool system in a future game.

6 hours ago, LJ_Tenma said:

I really enjoyed Awakening's system of choosing which of the weapon's stat you could increase, but I found forging in Awakening itself was kinda pointless since weapons disappear after they break.

Armsthrift intensifies

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I generally liked Echoes' system of "stepped" forges - pay a little for slight buffs, or a lot for bigger ones. You could wind up getting attached to a weapon as it grows stronger throughout the game. The big exception, though, was the Evolving system. An Evolved weapon would often have worse stats than its predecessor (i.e. Steel Bow having more Weight and less Hit than Iron Bow), or lose effects (i.e. Javelin -> Saunion losing 1-range). Not to mention, they lose access to the combat arts from their previous form. And worst of all? The game doesn't even tell you what you're evolving it into. It's a shot in the dark, and if you don't like it, your options are to "deal with it" or else reset.

Evolving the Golden Dagger and having it turn into something that its previous wielder would never be able to use was a particular highlight of the system for me.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Some weapons could even start in "-" forms, that need to be forged into a base variant.

Yeah they were called Rusted Weapons.

[LJ_Reflet]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

One thing I'd like to see, though, that's not really been done, is forge gems. Basically, each gem has a certain effect. These can range from the mundane (i.e. "+3 Might", "+10 Hit") to much more interesting ("Luna", "Anti-cavalry", "Brave"). Find a gem, and for the right price, it can be infused into a weapon of your choice. Thus creating some insane possibilities (say, a Killer Lance that does magical damage, or a Hand Axe that heals the user after combat). I think this could make for a really cool system in a future game.

I completely forgot to mention in my OP, but actually Warriors has something really similar. Despite being a Warriors-collab and having different gameplay from the main series, the weapon forging system in Warriors allows you to add certain effects to certain weapons. Just like you mentioned, you could turn physical weapons into magical ones (Sakura highly appreciated this since she’s an Archer in Warriors), add anti-cavalry/armor/flier effects, extra damage to crits or certain combos, etc. However, adding effects didn’t come from special ore, but from other weapons that carried these attributes. So if you wanted an anti-cavalry bow or something, you had to find one from enemy drops and combine them together (which makes the other weapon disappear). But the game’s really generous with them so it isn’t too hard to find.

It‘s actually really fun to play around with cause you end up with a really customized weapon at the end, like I gave Takumi all the anti-effects on his Fujin Yumi lmao wingspear who ?? idk her

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Evolving the Golden Dagger and having it turn into something that its previous wielder would never be able to use was a particular highlight of the system for me.

celica: *gives saber a dagger to get him to join*

also celica: *forges it so he can’t use it*

Edited August 14, 2021 by LJ_Tenma

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, LJ_Tenma said:

I really enjoyed Awakening's system of choosing which of the weapon's stat you could increase, but I found forging in Awakening itself was kinda pointless since weapons disappear after they break. This makes forging more of a short-term investment rather than long-term as opposed to other games. If weapons could be fixed like in Three Houses, then I think Awakening would have won for the best forging system.

There is Armsthrift, and Awakening does have the Hammerne staff.

Anyway, I like 3H's forging system because it tells me what I'm evolving my weapons to; it'd suck for me to want to upgrade my Steel Gauntlets, only to end up realizing too late they turned into Aura Knuckles, which pretty much no one could use well without a lot of investment.

[Ouzyxol]

Favorite of the existing Forges?  Awakening's system.  And no, I don't count Armsthrift and Hammerne against that.

My ideal Forge?  Awakening's system + TH Ore system.  Maybe with the various non-buyable ores being more evenly distributed.

[NinjaMonkey]

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

If I had to pick one system, I think I'd go with the Tellius system. Being limited to one forge per chapter gave it some amount of strategical thinking. Do I want to make a forge for a unit who's lagging behind and needs to catch up, or do I make one for my best unit to make them even better?

Only in Path of Radiance. In Radiant Dawn you can do multiple forges in the same chapter.

[Use the Falchion]

5 hours ago, Ouzyxol said:

Favorite of the existing Forges?  Awakening's system.  And no, I don't count Armsthrift and Hammerne against that.

My ideal Forge?  Awakening's system + TH Ore system.  Maybe with the various non-buyable ores being more evenly distributed.

Same, same, and same. 

I think mixing the ability to choose what abilities you want with Awakening's system with the upgrade potential of Echoes, tempered by the ore of TH (and the ability to see what you're going to upgrade to of course), and you've got the best possible system at this moment. 

But really the best upgrade system is in Disgaea. You get to choose your main stat increases, choose different abilities, AND grind your troops.

[Mars of Aritia]

I personally hate the forge system and wish it would go away forever. devalues normal weapons for no reason. pretty much almost never use it on principle.

Ironically, the only forge system I don't mind is FE14, which everyone else seems to hate lol. Stats boosts are low enough where it doesn't change too much, and you won't get to the really high levels unless you grind. I would prefer if it capped at +2, though you won't realistically get much further unless you grind for cash and resources. Since weapons have unlimited durability, it's a good way to get rid of spares you get from the lottery.

The forge point system in FE10JP sounds interesting too, sounds like a great way to limit the amount you can do.

[LJ_Reflet]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:46 PM, Mars of Aritia said:

I personally hate the forge system and wish it would go away forever. devalues normal weapons for no reason. pretty much almost never use it on principle.

Ironically, the only forge system I don't mind is FE14, which everyone else seems to hate lol. Stats boosts are low enough where it doesn't change too much, and you won't get to the really high levels unless you grind. I would prefer if it capped at +2, though you won't realistically get much further unless you grind for cash and resources. Since weapons have unlimited durability, it's a good way to get rid of spares you get from the lottery.

The forge point system in FE10JP sounds interesting too, sounds like a great way to limit the amount you can do.

I mean, to be fair, "virgin" weapons (sorry can't think of a better word LMAOO) tend to lose potency in the mid-late game, so forged weapons could help units reach KO thresholds. I wouldn't say it devalues the original, but enhances its performance and helps you out more than anything.

 

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

On 8/14/2021 at 12:45 PM, LJ_Tenma said:

What do you guys think, which system did you like the most ? Or which features from previous entries do you think should return in future games or how future systems should be like ?

i liked Echoes forging system the most, simply because that way you can:

- upgrade base weapons to higher tiers without having to buy new ones;

- unlock unique weapons with special effects;

- a part of the weapons you can obtain through forge can also be found in game either by enemy drop or vendors;

- since you're basicly just "evolving" weapons to higher tiers or special ones, the overall stats balance between each type will be mantained, therefore reducing the risk to break the game by stacking only specific stats on your weapons.

 

on a side note: Genealogy's repair function is still a good feature even to this day, and should be present in future titles as well due to its utility(unless they'll remove weapon uses again like they did in Echoes).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 8/14/2021 at 4:24 PM, LJ_Tenma said:

celica: *gives saber a dagger to get him to join*

also celica: *forges it so he can’t use it*

Saber: "This has been the worst deal, maybe in all of history."

On 8/14/2021 at 4:24 PM, LJ_Tenma said:

I completely forgot to mention in my OP, but actually Warriors has something really similar. Despite being a Warriors-collab and having different gameplay from the main series, the weapon forging system in Warriors allows you to add certain effects to certain weapons. Just like you mentioned, you could turn physical weapons into magical ones (Sakura highly appreciated this since she’s an Archer in Warriors), add anti-cavalry/armor/flier effects, extra damage to crits or certain combos, etc. However, adding effects didn’t come from special ore, but from other weapons that carried these attributes. So if you wanted an anti-cavalry bow or something, you had to find one from enemy drops and combine them together (which makes the other weapon disappear). But the game’s really generous with them so it isn’t too hard to find.

Interesting. I haven't played Warriors, so I appreciate the insight. Sounds kind of like "weapon hybridization". I like it, but I wonder how broken it could get (i.e. a Brave Ranged Wing Spear).

[DomesticHausCat]

I personally love the random bonus you get for a weapon in RD's system.