TL;DR : Smithing in 1.8 is still broken and is now painfully unfun, plus my Enter key has taken some real punishment since its release.
Brace yourselves, Smithing rant incoming.
I would like to start by remembering a classic opening scene in one of my favourite movies that launched the career of a previously unknown Austrian. It begins with a rumbling battle hymn, heavy drums, and portrays a darkened medieval room where the only light is provided by red hot molten steel being poured into moulds and then labouriously hammered into shape by a strong man (supported by an equally strong woman btw.) with long hair and an unkempt beard.
(Can you guess the film?)
My point here is that smithing is cool, making weapons with fire and sweat and hammering steel, very cool right. Many Youtube channels displaying such endeavours have literally millions of views. So it's fair to say there is a general interest in this area.
It is for this reason that it is important to get this ingame system right.
In previous versions of this game, provided you had the materials available, and were fortunate with the unlocks, craft an absolute Kromm-level sword/axe/polearm in a reasonably rapid timeframe. After which, you could merrily enjoy using/swinging said weapon at whoever took your fancy over the course of your playthrough whilst levelling your character to demi-god levels of martial skill (which does take some time, especially 250+). Funtimes, i know.
Now the current problem emerges.
In the current version, 1.8, progression is limited by tier unlocks i.e. to unlock idk, say t4 pommels, you need to unlock every single t3 beforehand with idk say Two-handed Swords having hundreds of components each requiring 20-ish crafts to unlock 1 new component.
I get it, "you need to invest time and effort into it to eventually make great weapons", it's a reasonable position to have for real life....
This is not real life though, and making crap-tier trash that will only end up being melted back for materials or sold is just not satisfying, or more importantly, fun.
And having to repeat this process literally thousands of times to unlock all components.....well, i hope my problem with the current system has been made clear.
Thank you for reading.
