EDIT: TL;DR at bottom
There’s no denying that Forge 2.0 is a brilliant and innovative system, designed to give players a lot to work with. But there’s also no denying that it has some very fundamental flaws, which I hope to outline in the upcoming text. Almost all of these flaws could easily be fixed in the next Forge World, and would greatly improve it’s potential.
Issue One: Too Much Glass
This issue, recently addressed by the Tempest palette (which, while useful for 4v4 maps doesn’t solve the issue of lag in BTB/Invasion maps), is a serious cause of lag. Forgers want glass as a good looking aesthetic, but not if it severely impacts the framerate as it does. I doubt that any Forger would have a significantly worse experience due to its absence. As such, it’s only logical to remove this glass from the upcoming Forge World, and replace it with an equally good looking, but less laggy opaque version like with Tempest, or remove it entirely, and only use see-through glass for certain pieces like Window, Double and Cover, Glass. Because glass contributes so signicantly, being in almost every Block and Decorative piece, it has become a serious issue, as it means player must cut down on essential Blocks and replace them with Coliseum Walls, which are often too big for the intended purpose, in order to cut down on lag. Players have a choice between ugly or laggy, a choice which they shouldn’t have to make.
Issue Two: Not Enough Blocks
Another major issue in Forge is the fact that, while there not enough Block or Wall pieces to go around - despite them being staples of a forger’s arsenal - there are more than enough Decorative and Inclines. A forger often finds him/herself out of blocks halfway through a creation, while they still have 100 useless Cover, Glasses to work with, and therefore must resort to using pieces such as Brace, Large, which do not entirely fit their intended purpose, and are very difficult incorporate into aesthetics.
This is a major issue, as it means bigger sky maps often have issues with deplenishing Wall and Block stocks, and in many of these cases, a Coliseum Wall or Brace, Large cannot help. It also means that for more fiddly creations, like Boarding Action remakes, Forgers will often struggle with pieces, and if they can finish the base design, it will look ugly and untidy. Which leads me neatly on to Issues 3 and 4.
Issue Three: Useless Pieces
Forge has many almost entirely useless pieces which, while having a use in their assigned spot, have almost no use otherwise. Pieces like Brace, Large, Cover, Glass, Ramp XL and Bunker, Cover have only 1 or 2 uses, and are entirely non-versatile. And what non-intended uses they do have are often to do things that Blocks and Walls could, should and would be doing if it weren’t for their small amounts.
This would not be a problem however, if we had say 50 decorative and pieces, as we would still be able to give each piece a place in a Forge map, but we would have more of the important pieces like Walls and Blocks. Say we cut down to 10 buildings, 50 Decorative Pieces, 50 Ramps, we would be able to have at least 50 more Walls and 50 more Blocks and still be able to maintain good aesthetics and effective vertical traversal.
Issue Four: Grouping Pieces
But even then our Forge would have the fundamental issue of the grouped price system employed by Bungie. The grouped price system (The system by which Bungie groups items into Categories such as Decorative or Natural, all items in a category sharing a common price) is undeniably ridiculous under scrutiny. Why should a simple, 6 polygon Coliseum Wall cost as much as a Door, Double, which has God only knows how many polygons? The grouping system does work, but the one price fits all does not.
Pieces like the Cover, Glass should cost $75 or above, being made of glass and having at least 10 polygons (to my count).
What Bungie needs to do is make pieces like glass, or doors, much more expensive that simple pieces such as Block 1x1 or wall double.
