[Merged] Durability

[Audron]

What do you think of item durability? None of the cRPG's had it, as far as I know. They had limited arrows or sling bullets, which made everything feel realistic, but all items were indestructible? Should it stay the same for Project Eternity?

 

I believe that items should have durability, but either a very hard one or one that does not diminish very fast. Also, I think that they should only by repaired at a blacksmith's forge, either by the blacksmith or by the player character if he has the skill or one of his companions does. A weird thing I see in many games is instant repair if you have the skill. The sword brakes, pause game, click repair, and the sword is back and sharp just like that... in the middle of the fight!!!

 

Also, maybe, for special, rare and magical items (if they will exist), a different system should be implemented. I mean, a normal blacksmith repairing a magical sword... Maybe, why not, but it just seems weird. Or, if the material broke, not the spell or the enhancement, why not? I am not very sure about this. Or maybe magical items should just be unbrakeable.

Edited September 24, 2012 by Audron

[horocaust]

Considering that the game will have limited and predetermined loot, I don't want unique, which is all of them, pieces of equipment to break.

Edited September 24, 2012 by horocaust

[Pangur]

In Morrowind it was implemented quite nicely. You needed to have the skill and the tool to repair items, and if an item's durability dropped to zero, you couldn't use it until you fixed it.

 

It made sense in that game but I'm mot sure if I want this in PE. It can become quite annoying if it happens too often and you have to carry extra stuff because of that. Even more so, if you can make repairs only at specific places.

[Jarmo]

In principle yeah, but in a party of six it'd just be micromanagement and god awful hassle. So no.

[Playgu]

In principle yeah, but in a party of six it'd just be micromanagement and god awful hassle. So no.

I agree with this guy.

 

Unless they implement it in some new, awesome, innovative way: No

[Audron]

Well, I did not mean that items should break every few hours, all I stated was the posibility. I mean, there are different ages and different techniques. You cannot slice through full metal plate with a bronze longsword. Also, after 1.000 kills or battles, or less, obviously, the sword is no longer that shard, or maybe it is chipped, and so on. Once every 10-20 hours, it should be reasonable to go and resharpened the sword or repaired it, assuming you have not changed the weapon.

 

But maybe I am overstating the importance here. Baldur's Gate was a great game without irem durability...so... But I, for one, would still like this to be implemented. Even so, I would buy the game regardless.

[dukeofyork]

If done right durability can be something that adds another layer of realism and depth to a game. However, there are two problems I have with this.

 

1. if implemented magic items should not have "charges" in addition to durability, maybe make it harder to find a smith who can repair it, but having 2 levels of durability is tedious and punishments for having superior items just doesn't make sense to me.

 

2. Durability is a concept, to me, that works best in an open world setting (one where not only is a story being told but you are making your own and essentially living the life of your hero from day to day). The realism added is a nice touch, but due to the open world nature of the game it never becomes a truly annoying gameplay feature its always fairly easy to get to a blacksmith in times of need. However picture a game like mass effect (bad example given that this is a fantasy crpg and not a third person shooter with a few rpg mechanics and a tired story, but I am tired and cant be bothered to think harder) where once you start a "dungeon" you are basically locked in until completion. Unless there are "blacksmiths" within the dungeon this hardly seems like an ideal situation. You could break all of your equipment and then be stuck with no options in the middle of enemies with no way to fight them. This would turn the mechanics tedious.

 

So for me it all depends on how Obsidian approaches eternity. If the game becomes extremely open world, without a great deal of urgency, yeah a durability system is fine. However, if the game is only nominally open world (like most crpgs imo) and focused mainly upon telling a single cohesive story with a great deal of urgency involved then durability is going to become one of those mechanics that will only cause misery. Personally I hope Eternity is more like the second (though god help us all, not anything story or otherwise like mass effect) and thus I say no to durability.

Edited September 24, 2012 by dukeofyork

[RiceMunk]

Realism be damned.

 

Running back and forth between a blacksmith or whatever, getting your stuff repaired between adventuring is a pointless hassle. Unless repairing an item has some plotline significance, don't bother with this stuff. You can assume that your characters do their equipment maintenance in the same nebulous period of time which includes activities such as going potty but which is never shown because, quite frankly, it's not interesting at all from a gameplay perspective.

[Aedelric]

Not an easy question, it adds realism but in most games all durability/repairing serves to do is make us travel back and forth to an NPC for repairs, wasting gold, or worse, forces you to spend money to purchase and carry around many repair kits. Neither option is enjoyable and if a game mechanic is not enjoyable, then it should not be in.

 

If it was included I want to be able to disassemble items into components (which weigh nothing) and use those components to repair and even improve an item (including increasing durability).

 

As for magical items, they should loose potency when repaired, unless the items used in its repair are of a magical property of equal value.

[timobkg]

Realism be damned.

 

Running back and forth between a blacksmith or whatever, getting your stuff repaired between adventuring is a pointless hassle. Unless repairing an item has some plotline significance, don't bother with this stuff. You can assume that your characters do their equipment maintenance in the same nebulous period of time which includes activities such as going potty but which is never shown because, quite frankly, it's not interesting at all from a gameplay perspective.

Agreed. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, repairing are all realistic, but boring and detract from fun, and we're in a magical fantasy world anyway.

 

Repairing is not fun or enjoyable. I have never heard anyone exclaim, "Hey, so I was playing X, and I got to drop what I was doing and go back to town to repair my gear! It was awesome! I can't wait to repair something again!" Unless it's to repair an item for a quest, it's just a hassle. I have enough boring, annoying, tedious chores in real life.

[horocaust]

Whether having equipment breakable or not depends on equipment itself. TNO fought with a talon and his own hand used as a club. It's hard for me to imagine how repairing these would look like.

[TrashMan]

I don't see wh not. However it should be noted that weapons and armor were made tobe QUITE durable.

 

A longsword breaking in combat? A rare event.

Basic mantainance should be abstracted so keepign the blade polished and such cna be taken as granted.

 

However rare, battle damage after logner periods of use or way from time IS possible.

Frankly having some kind of "lifebar" for weapons doesn't strike me a good idea.

Maybe have 3-4 specific states a wepons cna be in (perfect, chipped, worn, broken)and that's it.

 

And even a broken blade can be reforged, so it's no biggie even if the blade is magical. Use a spare till you get back to town.

 

 

Armor would require more mantainance methinks.

[Chaz]

I Voted Yes but actually I meant to say No...

 

 

derp!

[Jarmo]

I Voted Yes but actually I meant to say No...

 

There is a "Delete My Vote" button below the poll.

I change my votes all the time after a bit of rethinking or somebodys clever argument.

[Minttunator]

I see durability mainly as a goldsink to help combat inflation in MMORPGs. I don't think there's need for such a mechanic in a single-player game.

[Cardo]

I don't think that there is need for durability in a game, I would expect that my weapons or armour don't brake during the 3 first months that I wear them in game time. If they do, I would go back to the blacksmith and have a stern word about quality with him . But if the timescope in the game would be decades or centuries then durability would be ok.

[Zero]

I always found it another little annoying thing to have to micromanage, but I suppose if they have to add another skill to the non-combat list *shrugs*

[Piccolo]

I would like weapons and armor to have durability, yes.

 

The more the player has to think about what weapons and armor their character should use in a certain situation, the better in my opinion. It shouldn't simply be a case of finding the best sets then using them in every scenario for the rest of the game.

 

Durability has to be handled in a way that doesn't make things too tedious though. If the player constantly has to repair stuff after every fight, it can really suck the fun out of the game.

[nikolokolus]

Items wearing out makes for a nice gold-sink and a way to make a repair skill useful, but as somebody else mentioned above, with a party of six that's a lot of micromanagement and as another said, repair and maintenance should be abstracted, not something that you should be spending hours fussing over.

 

I can't think of a single PnP game I ever played where equipment care and maintenance ever took up more than a minute of game time and it never hurt my immersion in a game that didn't have it.

[Guts]

In principle yeah, but in a party of six it'd just be micromanagement and god awful hassle. So no.

 

Gotta agree with my fellow countryman here.

[True_Spike]

I hate durability and similar mechanics. They contribute in no way to the game and are just a chore.

[Badmojo]

Realism be damned.

 

Running back and forth between a blacksmith or whatever, getting your stuff repaired between adventuring is a pointless hassle. Unless repairing an item has some plotline significance, don't bother with this stuff. You can assume that your characters do their equipment maintenance in the same nebulous period of time which includes activities such as going potty but which is never shown because, quite frankly, it's not interesting at all from a gameplay perspective.

Agreed. Eating, drinking, sleeping, defecating, repairing are all realistic, but boring and detract from fun, and we're in a magical fantasy world anyway.

 

Repairing is not fun or enjoyable. I have never heard anyone exclaim, "Hey, so I was playing X, and I got to drop what I was doing and go back to town to repair my gear! It was awesome! I can't wait to repair something again!" Unless it's to repair an item for a quest, it's just a hassle. I have enough boring, annoying, tedious chores in real life.

 

Agreed, it is not fun. So, no to durability. As for magic charage, I also say no. Oblivion/skyrim show why its bad. You use the item a couple of times and its useless until you go somewhere to recharge it. Either have magic items recharge with time, or something that I have been thinking of, is to have them leech mana from the user (as long as the users mana pool recharges).

Edited September 24, 2012 by Badmojo

[TrashMan]

In principle yeah, but in a party of six it'd just be micromanagement and god awful hassle. So no.

 

Gotta agree with my fellow countryman here.

 

Only if you think of Diablo durabiltiy system. Which DOES suck.

 

But talking about durabiltiy wihout having ANY idea what kind of a system we are talkign bout, and dismising it off-hand is just .... STUPID.

 

"I don't like the magic system in game A. therefore I will vote agaisnt every magic system because CLEARLY every magic system is the same".

 

Use your imagination.

 

Remeber BG1 and the "iron rot"?

 

 

How about every weapons has a %chance to break.

It's a tiny, tiny chace, and it's likely that you wont' break a single weapon in 3 hours of gameplay. However, you can affect that chace - fighign agaisnt monstrous creature,s or trying to block far bigger wepons puts a bigger strain on your own. Having mantainance items decreases it.

 

Does it have to go for 0 to broken in one go? No. You can have states.

So after three hours in game your sword went from perfect condition to worn. No problem. Still perfectly usable but now the chance to go to hte next state is increased. After another two hours it is chipped. And so on.

 

A bit of randomness to it, like it real life. Imperfection in the blade, material fatuige, impurities in the metal...

[rjshae]

Given what is effectively a modest overall budget, I'm guessing the developers are going to apply the KISS principle and not bother implementing little details like this. But it might make a nice add-on for a hard-core mod.

 

Or... hey, maybe they can include a "hard-core" mode as one of their stretch goals?

Edited September 24, 2012 by rjshae

[Lucas]

Durability, like any game system, is connected to other areas of the game: in MMOs is often related to the so called "money sinks" (and the game economy in general), while in single-player games could still be intended as a money sink but can also play a more important factor during fights.

 

Personally, if it's well integrated into the game and not a pure hassle (but can durability avoid being a hassle when it comes to the enjoyment of the game?), I wouldn't mind to plan my combat strategy and what stuff I have in my inventory.

 

A mage cast a spell that heavily damage my weapon, so I have to resort to another, less efficient weapon I brought with me; it will do the job, but I'll have to slightly change my fighting strategy, so my companion will now have to be considered the "primary" fighter for that battle, but at the same time he's less resistant to magic (and so on along these lines).