[Merged] Durability

[RiceMunk]

Pardon me for saying this, but your reasons are vauger and more pointelss than anything I wrote.

 

You simply keep saying "X isnt' tactical/strategic because I dont' find it interested."

Or

"I'll aways do X anyway, so it's no choice"

 

That is seriously flawed thinking. If loosing your main weapons (especially if you're specialized) isn't a tactical/strategic factor, then waht is?

If you consdier having to repair armor/weapon a few times during the course of entire game tedious, what about resting? Or inventory managment?

Something you have to do a LOT more often?

 

 

Long story short Rice, I see zero value in your objections. Zero. Because they all boil down to "it's not interesting to me".

I have given concrete examples of what I can see being the most interesting things, from a perspective of tactical considerations, that would happen in a game with durability mechanics. In this thread I have seen from proponents of durability mechanics a lot of handwavey simulationist arguments on why durability mechanics should matter but no clear, concrete examples.

Let me break this down a bit further for you:

Imagine a game with mechanics akin to D&D 3.5. Fighter-Joe is a sword-wielding fighter who has specialized in sword-wielding.

His attack bonus is +5 and his damage per hit is 1d8+4

Then his sword breaks. Oh no!

However, following scenario 1 I outlined in my larger post, he soon finds himself an axe without really any trouble at all.

He's not specialized in axes so he's not quite as effective with them.

His attack bonus is +4 and his damage per hit is 1d8+3

 

Would that affect your tactics? It would not affect my tactics. It would be a minor hindrance, not a tactical issue.

A tactical issue would be if Fighter-Joe was actually specialized in crossbows and the party ran out of bolts, unable to find any more.

This would force Fighter-Joe to find that axe and go hit things instead of shooting at them.

This would cause me to rethink my tactics for the upcoming battles.

It also has nothing to durability mechanics. It also is analogous to a situation where I run out of other consumables, such as healing potions.

Consumables create a tactical consideration because, if you're used to fighting with them and then run out of them, you have to adjust your tactics to cope without them.

If Joe is incapable of finding any weapon at all, it would create a tactical issue because generally unarmed combat (except for monks) kind of sucks a lot compared to armed combat.

 

Then we would fall back on the scenarios starting with 2. And I've already listed why I consider them to be more annoying than tactically interesting.

Do you consider them tactically interesting? If you do, why? Do you think I missed a likely scenario? Then please enlighten me.

 

That is what I have been trying to discuss. Ramblings about metal fatigue have no relevance in discussions about computer game mechanics because simulating it realistically would take more computational power than the rest of the game combined. Give concrete examples that can be applied in a computer game setting instead.

[Adhin]

Durability makes little sense in general. If your sword breaks, you make a new sword. Repairing a broken sword makes it a weak, crappy sword. If they're going to add a 'durability' into the game it should be handled like DnD. Each item has HP and specific moves or monsters can directly 'attack' that items HP in an attempt to 'break' it but otherwise **** don't break from general use. Magical items get heavy, heavy bonuses to the point of being immune to most of that.

 

General game durability in games is a GOLD SYNC. That is all it is, it has no basis on believability with in the game world and makes as much sense as all the other wacky **** going on. I would prefer they have other gold syncs such as potions or sharpening stones to add some basic minor dmg boosts or something. That or just control the econnomy better by not dropping tons of gold non-stop. Plenty of ways to do that, that don't require constant player effort to deal with a constant, arbatrary system for the sake of eating player gold coins.