[Magiclysm] The Forge of Wonders needs a rework.

[Jan-Blasiak]

The forge of wonders at first glance looks like a nice location, unique monsters, unique trader, atmosphere, guardians...

The problem is that at the very next glance it turns out to be a large empty building, which turns into a death trap as soon as any hostile NPC/mob appears, with 90% of the trader's stuff inaccessible to him, with layout making barely any sense and in general - disappointing.

1. The building itself is underutilized.

It's a large empty space, with just a "demon pen", two or three tables and two forges and some water outlet. And it spans 2x5(I don't remember?) map tiles.

I'd love to see a magical "cubicle" like secure rooms, with forge workers locked in them and perpetually making golden coins on the workbenches and depositing them into the chute leading to the vault, working without a break, surrounded by a hell made of motivational posters, barely working coffee machines, overtime and red post-it notes pinned by supervisors. I would love to see one of the demons actually chained to the forge, locked in a small, reinforced, warded room, making demonic sets of armor and demanding an extended smoke break. I would love to see a small family of Lizardmen working in a spider-sweatshop, making spider silk and other associated goods and magical crafts, telling visitors how great the life in "The Ssstates" is in comparison to their homeland.

In general, I would love to see the "avarice and exploitation" of pre-cataclysm USA turned up to eleven and given a magical touch.

2. The Forgeborn are as dumb as they are lethal.

From what I gather about their existence, they are supposed to be defending the FOW from zombies and thieves, but as soon as the former appear, or any kind of hostile enitity, the Forgeborn go fucking bazonkers and tear apart everything that isn't from the forge, including the blameless player, with their never missing, torso disintegrating, rapid-fire lasers.

If I have to activate debug menu and "kill all monsters" on the screen just to visit the FOW, that is NOT a good design.

3. Trader can't trade his own stuff

The design of the Vault is sadly bad enough to usually make the best stuff the Forge "has" impossible to buy.

What I could recommend, would be to make the vault a third of it's current size, with the wall behind the trader glass, and inside, out of player's angle of sight place Laser Golems (monster turrets so they can't be hacked) so stuff could be both easily traded and protected from thieves.

[actual-nh]

Regarding the overreactions, this is a problem not specific to the Forge, but to the current monster (and monster faction) AI. Currently, the only faction setting that allows but does not mandate attack is BY_MOOD - and that one means attacking will happen if they are angry for any reason. We need both more-specific aggression and aggression (particularly generalized aggression) that declines with time.

For the rest - @Maleclypse: any comments?

[Maleclypse]

Open spaces exist so the neutral monsters and pc can move around without attacking you snd each other. But that part is at least in json so you could make those changes yourself snd see how they work out. Most of your changes could be done in json, the trick would be making them work like you think they should. I’m looking forward to seeing your working demo.

[actual-nh]

Oh. The glass wall idea is a nice one; see #48389 for some things that may need adjusting for it to work.

[actual-nh]

Went stale as an issue; seems more suited to be a discussion.