Item Durability

[Hassat Hunter]

This whole thread seems to be the loss aversion parade. I think you'll find it will work fine in the game.

Because then there will be mods disabling it you mean?

[SunBroSolaire]

 

 

You should develop a negative psychological response to wasting money on

 

I disagree that there's no reward. As you say, it will create a concern in the back of your mind. Then when you repair your stuff at the forge you relieve that concern. Tension/release is inherently rewarding.

 

I wouldn't mind if they added a temporary buff when your weapons are above 90%. 'Sharpness' bonus, or something. Make sure it doesn't last long enough that people would rely on it, but it would give a nice extra reward for keeping equipment in good shape. Kind of like the 'well rested' buff in the Fallout games.

 

 

There's no wasting money. Repair costs are proportional to damage, so fixing a sword twice from 70% should cost about the same as fixing it once from 40%.

You know this? Anyway, I was speaking to the fact that it will likely be less efficient to constantly repair than to preemptively repair anything under 75%. Say you repair all your equipment once before you go dungeon spelunking. Than half way through, your equipment dips below 75%, so you run back to town and repair everything back up. Then you finish the dungeon off, find some good loot and level up. Now not only is your crafter more efficient at repairing, but you likely don't even have to repair some of your gear, since you found replacements in the dungeon. The most efficient path will be to wait until the last possible second to repair equipment, unless repair costs are balanced very weirdly. 

 

 

The release of repairing an item is going to be very small and very short lived, while the tension of durability will be basically ever present as the first time you swing it's already below 100%. While they're might be some reward, the cost-reward ratio is terrible.

I think it's waaay early to jump to conclusions like that. We have no idea how it will actually feel, unless you're thinking of a game with similar mechanics. I did not feel that kind of black cloud tension in Dark Souls or New Vegas. 

 

 

However, I meant no reward for investing in crafting with regards to durability. In truth there is some reward, but again it's minimal and feels terrible. No one likes to spend money, even in games, and when the reward is "you get to spend less money", well that's not my idea of fun.

Well. the main reward of the crafting skill is access to unique items. Durability is only an ancillary benefit, and incidentally, only an ancillary punishment for not picking up the skill. 

[Jarmo]

Or maybe a knightly type will just ignore the crafting skill and let the dwarf barbarian wench sidekick do the maintenance between doing the laundry and cooking.

If the extra wear and tear ends up costing extra 5 bucks a week, then that's just a part of life looking to be accepted...

[SunBroSolaire]

 

Well Sensuki, I'm thinking about letting my rogue do some crafting.

 

Anyway.

This whole thread seems to be the loss aversion parade. I think you'll find it will work fine in the game.

 

Sure, but if you are power gaming, leveling up your crafting means that you will not be able to have high points in both stealth and mechanics - so you'll need another party member to compensate probably on the mechanics shortfall.

 

It's definitely not about loss aversion for me, I would rather see a Diablo 2 item durability system than have Crafting and Weapon Maintenance lumped together to give people an excuse to take Crafting on multiple characters, it seems like a clumsy excuse to keep Crafting in the skill pool rather than just keep it as a separate action like BG2 and KotOR2.

 

Remember that Sawyer has said other classes will have equally high starting skils in Mechanics and Stealth, so the Rogue isn't locked into being the mechanics and stealth guy. If you already have your Monk focusing on stealth it might be a good fit for the Rogue to pick up crafting.

 

We'll have to see what the other skills are before we know what classes will do best with crafting. Are there weapon or armor skills? Those would probably give a much more tangible benefit to Fighters and Paladins. 

[Sensuki]

Remember that Sawyer has said other classes will have equally high starting skils in Mechanics and Stealth, so the Rogue isn't locked into being the mechanics and stealth guy. If you already have your Monk focusing on stealth it might be a good fit for the Rogue to pick up crafting.

 

We'll have to see what the other skills are before we know what classes will do best with crafting. Are there weapon or armor skills? Those would probably give a much more tangible benefit to Fighters and Paladins.

I am talking specifically about power-gaming. The Rogue will benefit the most from Stealth because they do the most single target damage. So having a Rogue will max stealth will mean you can sneak up real close to enemies and deal a bucket full of damage in one strike. Rangers are supposed to be next in line regarding single target damage as per D&D4E, so they would be the next most beneficiary. Having it on a monk is useful when you get abilities like "Stunning Fist"/"Quivering Palm" etc.

[FlintlockJazz]

People didn't like the Mako in Mass Effect and whined about it. Instead of taking the criticism and improving it Bioware just removed it, to the detriment of ME2 I felt. Hopefully Obsidian won't listen to those who are not willing to try something and instead keep what they think works and adds to the game.

[Sensuki]

Mako was fun. Problem wasn't the Mako, it was the planets. I don't know how they were able to come to that conclusion.

[Sacred_Path]

Hopefully Obsidian won't listen to those who are not willing to try something and instead keep what they think works and adds to the game.

I don't see the problem as we only have a very vocal minority here, and even this minority is split right down the middle. That's not something they should base design decisions on.

[Cultist]

Hopefully Obsidian won't listen to those who are not willing to try something and instead keep what they think works and adds to the game.

Indeed, we have examples of great success, such as Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, Syndicate and Tiberium Twilight

[Sensuki]

I don't see the problem as we only have a very vocal minority here, and even this minority is split right down the middle. That's not something they should base design decisions on.

Obsidian made the UI smaller because 30% of people wanted them to - so they've done it before, why not now ?

[Sacred_Path]

 

I don't see the problem as we only have a very vocal minority here, and even this minority is split right down the middle. That's not something they should base design decisions on.

Obsidian made the UI smaller because 30% of people wanted them to - so they've done it before, why not now ?

 

because I care this time

 

they have held back most of the information concerning skills so I hope that at most, they reevaluate their decisions concerning durability and crafting, not "oh 40 people out of 80k have a problem with durability let's drop it"

[Sensuki]

You could also say 30 people, actually no, IndiraLightfoot and Karkarov who together posted maybe 30-40 posts between them over the span of a week, successfully changed the size of the UI.

 

I cared both times.

[jethro]

 

I don't see the problem as we only have a very vocal minority here, and even this minority is split right down the middle. That's not something they should base design decisions on.

 

 

I see. You obviously know what the non-vocal majority wants. When did that mind-reading skill become apparent?

[Sacred_Path]

I see. You obviously know what the non-vocal majority wants. When did that mind-reading skill become apparent?

I say that if the majority of backers withold their opinion, there's no reason for OE to change their decisions.

[Sensuki]

What if they hate it? Then Josh Sawyer has another thing to add to his complaint lists that bothers him.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Sensuki

[Infinitron]

 

I don't see the problem as we only have a very vocal minority here, and even this minority is split right down the middle. That's not something they should base design decisions on.

Obsidian made the UI smaller because 30% of people wanted them to - so they've done it before, why not now ?

 

 

There's probably a difference here between things that Sawyer et al consider "fluff" and things that they consider core to their vision. They didn't back down on objective-based XP, for instance.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Infinitron

[Sacred_Path]

What if they hate it? Then Josh Sawyer has another thing to add to his complaint lists that bothers him.

welp, I hope he isn't swayed that easily in his decisions, even if he cries himself to sleep over it.

 

Crafting may be a skill that's simply good for fighters to have, which is ok. There are class-exclusive skills in DnD (like spellcraft) and stealth will possibly be great for everyone in P:E. So I don't think pumping crafting will be such a no-brainer by necessity.

[Bos_hybrid]

I'm not seeing a point to weapon degradation in PE. It makes sense in FO:NV it's a game based on survival, it adds to the atmosphere and in some cases the tension. But for PE I could see it being more of a nuisance, then adding to the game.

 

I'm not particularly against it, I just don't currently see the use of it.

[jethro]

 

I say that if the majority of backers withold their opinion, there's no reason for OE to change their decisions.

 

 

If 90% of the vocal minority reading this forum were thrashing a feature (which isn't happening in this case though) in all likelihood most of the non-vocal majority not reading the forum would also thrash this feature. 

Edited July 4, 2013 by jethro

[Malekith]

The forums are a microcosm of the whole. If all here consider something terrible, chances are most of the backers will also. Or else Sawyer's entire philoshophy is useless.

After all who cares if people complained about a,b,x feature in past games? They were 'vocal minorities'

Edited July 4, 2013 by Malekith

[Sacred_Path]

I presume you people are not familiar with the internet male (nor will I count you among them, of course).

[Iucounu]

It's true that points in crafting that are given to more than one character are usually wasted points (now that I think about it, it's the same with social skills). But what's the solution to this problem? Everybody repairs the stuff he wears himself, and this is abstracted into some form of durability of items that is determined by the crafting skill of the wearer? Certainly better from a gamist point of view, but also kind of artificial. I really have no clue if I'd like that or not (which I don't have most of the time). But it certainly doesn't cause any euphoria. 

 

In any case, I think the argument about the money sink isn't valid. Repairing items requires resscources, sure, but you can't seriously compare the maintenance of weapons and armor to the costs of upgrading a stronghold. When you have that much money, repairing items won't be a money sink at all, as simple as that. Moreover, at a later stage in the game, you're likely to carry some magical weapons, and I hope that magical weapons, or at least some magical weapons, aren't affected by the durability system. Otherwise, they would appear too mundane. 

Edited July 4, 2013 by Iucounu

[Tagaziel]

I actually like this implementation. Not normally a fan but this has the right mix of simplicity and low impact to avoid becoming a chore for me. It adds a degree of resource management that dungeon delving should have and considering how people were screaming that vancian magic is the best because it added resource and strategic planning I would have thought they would like this too.

Best post in the thread.

 

I don't mind degradation. It motivates players to visit towns more often, curbs currency bloat (any reasonably competent player can become the next Rockefeller in any RPG game, since so few of them have money sinks), and generally makes sense. If you go through a dungeon, emerging out the other side in sparkling-clean armor and perfectly sharpened swords is pretty jarring.

[Elerond]

Item durability can work fine in the game. I liked it in Arcanum in that extend that you had to not use your best equipment in some dungeons or risk losing them. Like for example that dungeon that was full of fire elementals that destroyed your armor quite easily, which caused you see non-combat options to solve your quest there. PE will not be so punishing as items don't break, but change to lose some of you damage potential is at least in some extend enough to make people do some forefront planning, like fixing their equipment and taking another set of weapons with you before going in that 15th level dungeon. 

 

And I agree with Josh, if you have party base RPG system, then it is good to design skills so that every member can benefit having it even if they aren't party's best in that particular skill. Or you need to have so many skills that your party can't master them all even if they try (wasteland for example). Because otherwise you remove trade-offs from leveling up and make leveling up quite dull process (NWN2 for example). Of course you don't need item durability to make crafting worthwhile skill for everyone in party, but in my opinion it is quite valid way to do it. But you could also do options in encounters where you need several party members to have crafting skill to make bridge so that you could circle around trolls that keep toll on main roads bridge. Or you could make crafting skill give sharpening/maintenance talent that make your equipment work better a short while, but that is just inverted durability as Josh pointed, but it may be better in psychological perspective as it gives benefits if you have skill which don't seem as negative as skill that reduces negative effects. And money sink in this case is not repairing, but buying short time bonuses in your gear.

 

What comes to that crafting shouldn't be skill that benefits combat, I don't see how short time equipment bonuses are any different from permanent equipment that give you combat bonuses or consumables that give you short time combat bonuses, two most typical things that you do with crafting, except to get this short time benefit character needs to have points in the crafting skill.

[zhangxiubo]

I chose option #2.

I personally agree that the crafting skill (or any other team-benefitting skills) should be designed in a way that would encourage the player to pick the skill for more than one of his/her characters. My understanding of the rationale here is that the designer wants to make the impression that choosing crafting skill for one of your characters, in addition to the benefit of being able to craft, is rewarding because it saves you money which would otherwise be spent on purchasing repair services. However, I feel the introduction of item durability and repairing mechanisms and how they will be implemented require further contemplation.

First of all, the fact that one character with crafting skill is able to repair all the equipment in your party already defeats the purpose of introducing repairing – according to the update, it appears you need one and only one craftsman in your party to achieve the saving from repairs. So it is the additional benefit where characters with crafting skills wear down their equipment slower that contributes to the goal of the design.

Now, this idea of “the more craftsman/craftswoman you have, the more money you save” is only attractive when the total amount of currency the player could gather in the game is capped, or acquiring money is extremely difficult – only then would a player prefer to invest his/her hard-earned cash on repairing rather than replacing broken items. So boil down to the bottom, the formula is really:

Choose Crafting => Save More Money => Buy Better Stuff

All looks good until two questions are asked:

1. Is there much stuff one wants to buy in the game?
2. How is this money saving different from that provided by “merchant” skills (if any)?

Well, for the first question, it seems that J.E. Sawyer had pointed out that many players “have a preference for finding, rather than buying, rare/unique items in the world”. So unless the designers stock the shops/quests with a lot of interesting, expensive and "unlootable" stuff for the players to spend money on, introducing durability and repairing might only serve as an extra “burden” on the players.

As for the second question, if acquiring money in the game is very hard, players would almost certainly prioritise skills that are explicitly designed to save money (if they really want to save money of course). So in case the skill points in the game are scare, it might not be a good idea to introduce durability and repairing mechanisms as it currently stands.