I have an idea for a forge system rework. I believe my proposed rework addresses the major points of friction with the current system, while also being fairly intuitive to the player and relatively straightforward from a developmental perspective.

In my opinion, there are two major pain points with the current forge system.
• Exorbitant amount of radiant fire crystals required for levelling 5* gear coupled with low drop rates (necessitating grinding specific levels/depths)
• Requiring the arsenal station to level up your gear, meaning that players levelling their gear in places such as Firestorm Citadel either repeatedly have to leave the party and rejoin (which is quite disruptive to gameplay), or effectively waste 75% of the heat they gain as all their equipment completely stops levelling after the first or second level.

To address this, here is a summary of the rework:
• Levelling up is automatic, but heat gain is reduced (e.g. 5* gear may only receive 20% heat by default).
• To get normal heat rates, activate the forge by feeding it fire crystals. This heat boost will last up to a certain amount of heat gained (not time or level based).
• You can select which heat crystals to add to the forge (0* through 5*). You can also select the amount of crystals to add to the forge (low, medium, high) similarly to the current system.
• Heating effectiveness depends on crystals used (e.g. 4* crystals give you 100% heat gain for all equipment up to 4*, but only 40% heat gain for 5* equipment. 5* crystals gives you 100% heat gain for all equipment up to 5*).
• How long the forge lasts depends on amount of crystals used (e.g. the highest option may give you enough of a heat boost to last for one run of FSC).

Here is a rough outline of how this could work:
I’m not sure how heat is calculated internally, but for this example, let’s say one level of Firestorm Citadel gives you 100 ‘units’ of heat. We could say that selecting to use ‘shining crystals’ and the ‘low’ amount keeps your heat boosted until you reach 150 units of heat. Medium could boost it for 300 units, and high could boost it for 450. This means that you could maintain the heat boost for effectively the whole run, only needing to refill and maintain it between runs. This could be adjusted per crystal type (e.g. using radiant crystals could maintain your heat boost for 200, 400, and 600 units for low, medium, and high, respectively).

You could make the forge’s max capacity a little higher than what you get from using the highest crystal option, so players are able to top up the forge without forcing players to choose between either waiting for it to completely run out, or topping it back up early and wasting heat. If a player suddenly needed to switch to using a higher tier of crystals, they could have the option to cancel their current boost to apply the higher tier boost.

The existing rewards system can even be worked into this. Offering large amounts of crystals at once can have a chance of adding a modifier to the forge’s current duration such as the 25% heat bonus, equipment having a small chance to gain 2 levels on level-up, and a small chance to gain a forge prize box on level-up.

For balancing purposes, you could also tweak equipment depending on stars to heat at different rates while the forge is inactive. As an example, 0* may heat at 50% rate without the forge, 1* could be 40%, and 2, 3, 4, and 5, could be 35%, 30%, 25%, and 20%, respectively. Heat required for each level could also be adjusted if needed.

As an additional point, this shouldn’t too developmentally taxing (relatively speaking at least), as it mostly involves reusing many existing systems and tweaking values (such as the previous system of automatically levelling up, and the forge acting as a multiplier for heat gain, similarly to the heat amplifier item). It wouldn’t require creating or removing items, and the forge UI would only have to be adjusted to add a setting for which type of crystal to use. This rework would also not require adjusting drop tables (although that would also be nice), as shining crystals would still be viable for heating 5* equipment, just less effective.

Overall, with this rework, fire crystals and the forge retain their purpose of being needed for levelling equipment, but progress will no longer grind to a complete stop without them. In particular, radiant fire crystals will have a much more fitting role, becoming more of a useful bonus providing a much-needed boost to your levelling, rather than being a strict roadblock to grind away at. From a story perspective, I also believe that the idea of using *fire crystals* to amplify your heat and improve your equipment makes perfect sense in-universe.

Thanks for reading!