Seems to me that the "smart inventory" actually railroads players...

[charliedrex]

Just got the game, so I didn't have to deal with just having the vanilla crafting system, but the Smart Inventory seems to force the player to railroad along certain paradigms.

You aren't really able to experiment, as the game just crafts 'upgrades' for extant spells. Thus, if a player never realized that, clunky as it is, the old inventory allows you to change spell shapes and augments, they'd be stuck with the Directed Fire spell being a targeted shot, or the Directed Ice spell being a ray. Finally realized, once I actually started getting parts, that the system does make some modicum of sense in the crafting department.

Same with synthesis, if you use the 'recommendations' spat at you by the game, you might get rid of spell shapes or augments that you might otherwise keep (even if they're a lower "tier") because you need it to craft a spell of that type. Granted, I've only just beat the first boss (the Lieutenant/bodyguard dude and the big beast thing) and gotten a 4th sigil, so I don't know if one starts finding heaps of spell parts as the game progresses.

[Asphe]

It's idiot-proofing of sorts. Many newbies never even crafted at all... met the first tough thing and gave up. So don't think of this as proof that Xaviant thinks you need hand-holding.

PS It's not just shapes, augments too. Some sigils you want a high crit or something. Others, you want a high apoc chance and so on. Manual is for 'experts', the new Smart UI for newbies / Introduction to Crafting.