Inverting the Durability Scale

[Infinitron]

 

You haven't answered my question. What's wrong with letting your sword run out of sharpness? Do you feel that you need to run back to the blacksmith and sharpen it every time it runs out of sharpness?

 

If not, then why do you think Crafting is still "mandatory" under this system?

Depends on how they balance encounters. In the current system - damaged weapon puts you behind. Logic implies that encounters be balanced against having a sharp weapon. So the same applies, otherwise it's a ridiculously overpowered buff.

 

 

I imagine that if my idea was to be implemented, encounters would have to be rebalanced such that a sharp weapon isn't absolutely required, except in town battles where the player is guaranteed to be at full strength. (see here: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/469557999036295539)

 

It would be an actual buff, not "full durability" relabelled.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Infinitron

[Cultist]

I'm telling you it's not mandatory, bro. It's all in your head. It doesn't matter whether it's a skill or a buff. You don't need to do those things all the time.

 

Besides, you don't even know what other skills the game will have yet, so how do you know it's the most useful one?

You also don't need to cast buffs before engaging in a serious fight and try to beat enemies with common knife and magic missiles. and the difference between buff and skill is tremendous - one could be cast mostly by support character on any member of your party. You can't do that with skill, unless they affect entire party, which is not the case for Crafting.

 

Yes, I don't know about other skills but I already know that to be effective, your warriors HAVE to take Crafting.

[Sensuki]

If your system was inverse of the current one then yes they would be, because weapons would be sharp most of the time.

[Infinitron]

If your system was inverse of the current one then yes they would be, because weapons would be sharp most of the time.

 

Again, it's not my idea to simply rename "full durability" to "sharp". It's not just a semantic trick. If that's the impression I gave than I apologize.

 

Encounters would have to be rebalanced so that sharpness is a buff, not a requirement or an expectation.

[Sensuki]

Your system seems more obtuse (if I am determining it correctly).

 

Character A takes craft.

 

Character A 'sharpens weapon'

 

Character A gives weapon to character B

 

Even though weapon is sharp, weapon degrades faster for Character B because character B does not have Craft skill

 

Exactly the same as current system, except characters with Craft have to sharpen everyone's weapons to get the bonus.

 

It also makes it uneven for characters who's attacks don't get the bonus - such as Wizards who might have a Staff with a magical auto-attack.

[Infinitron]

Your system seems more obtuse (if I am determining it correctly).

 

Character A takes craft.

 

Character A 'sharpens weapon'

 

Character A gives weapon to character B

 

Even though weapon is sharp, weapon degrades faster for Character B because character B does not have Craft skill

 

Exactly the same as current system, except characters with Craft have to sharpen everyone's weapons to get the bonus.

 

It also makes it uneven for characters who's attacks don't get the bonus - such as Wizards who might have a Staff with a magical auto-attack.

 

Sharpening could only be performed at a crafting station. It would be analogous to repairing under Tim Cain's current system. Under both systems, one character can still do all the repairs/sharpenings for everybody else. Crafting for everybody else is just a way to forestall the weapon's breakage/blunting.

 

As for the usefulness of Crafting to wizards, that's a different story that requires more clarification. I've asked Josh about it on Formspring.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

Regardless, for me it's exactly the same thing and I don't like it at all, evident by posts/ph over various forums haha.

[Gorgon]

As long as durability bonuses and penalties are small and there is a large middle state where the weapons are functional so you don't have to worry about condition for a long time I don't care. Fallout 3 and FONW would be a really bad model to follow. Those games were partly about scrounging around for parts to increase survivability. While we are at it you should also be able to break your weapon on a critical miss (very rare)

 

I think that would help move item durability from a nuissance to an accepted representation of what heavy usage of a single weapon would entail.

[Hormalakh]

The problem with this is that crafting is meant to be a non-combat skill. Honestly, I believe Obsidian is going against their design objective of keeping non-combat skills, non-combat. It certainly doesn't play that way with item durability.

[Infinitron]

The problem with this is that crafting is meant to be a non-combat skill. Honestly, I believe Obsidian is going against their design objective of keeping non-combat skills, non-combat. It certainly doesn't play that way with item durability.

 

How is it not a non-combat skill?

[Hormalakh]

 

The problem with this is that crafting is meant to be a non-combat skill. Honestly, I believe Obsidian is going against their design objective of keeping non-combat skills, non-combat. It certainly doesn't play that way with item durability.

 

How is it not a non-combat skill?

 

Crafting directly affects item durability.

The crafting skill also decreases the rate of degradation on items used by a character. So if you have the crafting skill, when you hit someone, your weapon doesn’t lose a whole point of durability. Instead it loses a fraction of a point. And when you are hit, your armor and shield don’t lose a whole point each either. And the higher your crafting skill, the less durability you lose.

And item durability affects combat effectiveness.

Weapons – damaged weapons do less damage and have less accuracy

Armor – damaged armor has lower damage thresholds and the wearer’s attack speed is slower

Shields – damaged shields lose part of their defense bonuses

Thus crafting affects combat effectiveness. Edited July 4, 2013 by Hormalakh

[Infinitron]

In a combat-centric RPG, everything comes around to combat effectiveness eventually. Only skills that directly affect combat - weapon proficiencies, armor proficiencies, shield proficiencies, saving throws, resistance scores - are combat skills.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Infinitron

[Rubarack]

I had a similar idea myself, but discounted it because it doesn't resolve the principal issue. Since you repair (or sharpen) items in town their effectiveness decreases at the same time the difficulty curve increases. You will always be weakest at the toughest point of any quest. Either you maintain 100% sharpness (or 100% durability) at all times or you may as well never have it. Resource management can mitigate this a bit (I can use fewer resources in those easy first fights) but it's going to be busywork or redundant.

 

Psychologically this makes things easier to accept but it's just papering over the cracks.

[FlintlockJazz]

I had a similar idea myself, but discounted it because it doesn't resolve the principal issue. Since you repair (or sharpen) items in town their effectiveness decreases at the same time the difficulty curve increases. You will always be weakest at the toughest point of any quest. Either you maintain 100% sharpness (or 100% durability) at all times or you may as well never have it. Resource management can mitigate this a bit (I can use fewer resources in those easy first fights) but it's going to be busywork or redundant.

 

Psychologically this makes things easier to accept but it's just papering over the cracks.

You don't need to maintain 100% in either one. The weapons don't take penalty (in the durability one) or lose the bonus (in the sharpness one) until you hit 0%. Until then the weapon functions at full power.

[Lephys]

Yeah, I'm going to agree that the whole tying the Crafting skill directly to durability maintenance (passively) was pretty awkward. BUT, that aside, I'm very much in favor of an "inverted durability" system.

 

It could still be affected by a crafting system, even without a direct skill tie. Well, sort of. In the loose sense... anywho, the semantics are beside the point.

 

If you have the proper materials (and maybe even a feat or something), you could basically turn your Piddly Iron Sword into a Tip-Top-Shape Piddly Iron Sword, for a duration. However, the duration would be charge-based (number of actual weapon uses -- sword strikes [misses don't count, and grazes could count half? *shrug*] and/or arrows loosed). Therefore, the better the materials you use, the better your equipment is "honed," and/or the longer the effect lasts.

 

This could easily provide effects minor enough to be ignored by anyone playing on Easy or Normal who puts enough effort in elsewhere, but significant enough to provide that added little "edge" (pun COMPLETELY intended) to those playing on Hard/Expert mode, etc. A potential several-point-range worth of increase to the critical hit sub-range... an added/increased chance to cause physical damage effects (bleed, cripple, etc.)... There are oodles of possibilities.

 

Thing doing all that stuff is a bother? Then don't do it. Boom! It's already optional, because not-doing it is the norm (just like ANYTHING else in the game: using every potion you find, always utilizing super-special ammo, swapping out specific magic resistance gear -- rings, amulets, enchantments, etc. -- whenever you go into different areas of enemy-type prevalence, and so on).

 

I know everyone's all "Oh... it's just a psychological difference..." and whatnot, but I really don't think that's the case. Think about it. In a typical durability system, the NORM is to keep your equipment in good shape, because, if you don't, its quality is TAKEN from you. Not only that, but, you're basically handed a resource -- much like Hit Points -- and told "Hey, keep this from decreasing, ideally!". But then, what decreases it? Effectively taking on the enemy. That's what. "Hey, every time you use awesome tactics and attack that Goblin, your sword's going to get worse! HAHAHA!" Armor, to a lesser degree. You can obviously be more-or-less defensive, but you still have to subject yourself to some frequency/amount of incoming blows to effectively combat an enemy. Unless of course you're a Wizard. Which brings us to another little interesting branch, here... What degrades when a Wizard casts a spell instead of thwacks something with his weapon? Nothing. What degrades when a Warrior uses one of his special abilities (his class's equivalent to the Wizard's spells)? His weapon.

 

So, anywho, yeah, I'm with Infinitron here. I mean, what happens when you don't have your Ranger drink a Potion of Awesome Accuracy-Sight every single encounter, and your Wizard drink a Potion of Super Fast Casting, and your Rogue drink a Potion of Sneaky-Sneakyness? Well, you're just less effective than the absolute highest potential effectiveness/efficiency that can be achieved in the entire game. Plenty of people are fine with all that. No one says "Omg! I can't believe you just put an inverted worsening system in with potions! Basically, if I don't drink those potions all the time, 24/7, I suck. But if I DO drink them, I maintain my goodness!"

 

Nope. But, imagine if a game was all "Hey, every 10 attacks you make without drinking a potion, you're going to lose 1 base damage. That's just gonna go down until you drink one of these Strength Maintenance potions."

 

"Can I like... drink one of those to gain some boost to Strength?"

 

"Nope... it just negates the loss of Strength you constantly suffer over time, for simply using your Strength."

 

Wouldn't that be pretty insane? I think it would be. And yet, that's what we typically get with durability systems. I mean, I don't blame people for thinking unhappy thoughts at the mention of durability. However, as an idea, it's no different from anything else that can alter your effectiveness, except that it's the only system I know of that has you just gradually sucking until you use anti-suck techniques/resources.

[Hassat Hunter]

This is kinda funny.

I had a similar idea for an online RPG I worked on, where there would be an unique weapon that trained with you, syphoning XP to become stronger. So first it sucked, but the more you used it and let it slow leveling, the more powerful it become.

 

Another developer really hated that but really wanted a repair system.

Most of the developers (me included) would never want any kind of degredation system though.

 

The joys of teamwork and trying to make a game together :/