thoughts on weapon durability? Has there been a game that ever did it right? I can't think of any.

It only makes sense in sandbox and survival games

>>713713363
Does it increase your enjoyment of the game?

>>713713175 (OP)
Dark Souls 2 did it great

>>713713175 (OP)
i liked weapon durability system from fallout 3 where you combine two guns to fix them slightly. everything else about the game sucks ass big time though

Summon Night where breaking your opponent's weapon is a viable strategy

>>713713175 (OP)
it's not really traditional durability but sharpness in monster hunter is a nice spin on it.

>>713713461
If you can break enemies' weapons.

>>713713461
Not him, but yes. Forcing yourself to actually seek out new weapons is a very good way to stay engaged with exploration.

>>713713175 (OP)
It's not possible to "do right" because it's simply a bad idea. It's always a - to a game, never a +.
The absolute BEST case scenario for the mechanic is that you never have to interact with it and don't notice it.

>>713713175 (OP)
I think it's a negative in almost any game. Only exception is that I like it in System Shock 2.
I've also heard people praise it in BotW/TotK, but I've never played them.
Frankly I rarely approve of having a carrying capacity either.
>>713713747
This too.

>>713713462
Only souls i actually used more than 1 weapon at a time

>>713713941
>I've also heard people praise it in BotW/TotK
where? because that shit durability mechanic is pretty much universally reviled; I have never once heard a positive opinion on it, only neutral at best

>>713713461
yes. you need a reason to keep looking for materials. compare it to vanilla minecraft where you can just keep restoring the health or your weapon or there being no point to cooking food because one cake will keep you full for like 3 hours in real time. it’s too easy and then you have nothing to do. too much of it is a bad thing like don’t starve where waiting to long, being too passive, or just straight up playing with other people makes the game impossible

>>713713462
Dark Souls 2 ALMOST did it great, but fucked up by not letting you pay a blacksmith to repair your weapon unless it was all the way broken, which makes Exalted Conqueror runs much more painful than they should be.

>>713713941
botw somehow has the worst of everything, weapons break too quickly but also you get a shit ton of weapons when you thoroughly explore so you are constantly dealing with a full inventory.

>>713713175 (OP)
Weapon durability is mostly a time wasting mechanic. Like inventory management.
The only good thing it does is incentivize the player to use other weapons instead of just using the optimal one forever.
But it's pointless if you have an RPG system where you spec into a certain weapon type because every weapon of that type is basically the same apart from damage.

Dead Rising is the best version of weapon durability I can think of. It incentivizes you to pick up weird weapons, play around with them for a while, then discard them without concern. There are infinite weapons all around you and weapon variety is insane. No RPG system so you can use anything you like, although the magazine system comes close to ruining that.

The literal only game I've ever seen weapon durability be used in a fun way is Riviera the Promised Land.

Characters don't traditionally level up, they "Skill Up" by filling the EXP Gauge of weapons they've acquired, increasing their stats based on the weapon used and each character gaining unique Over Skills(super attacks that drain a lot more of the weapon's durability) that can be applied to every copy of every weapon you receive. The MC has an unbreakable weapon that gets better as the game goes along, but if you aren't using random chaff items in the field, you aren't getting those precious Skill Ups that you'll want for stats, and you'll also be losing out on potentially viable Over Skills that have different targeting, power levels, and special attributes that the main weapon doesn't have, which encourages you to regularly just chew through your junk gear rather than stick to just one. There's also a few extremely powerful weapons that you'll be generally not likely to use in standard fights because of how rare they are and the fact that all of them can still break, but if you S-Rank a battle(yes there's a ranking system in this turn-based JRPG), you get more Trigger Points where you can activate things like treasure chests or alternate pathways in the game's Questing Mode, which frequently give you more enemy encounters and more items. Sometimes it's better to use that rare sword's limited uses to one-shot a durable enemy than it is to use your cheap garbage sword to preserve the rare one, because you'll potentially get a rare spear as a reward for S-Ranking and open a treasure chest that also has a rare bow in it.

>>713713175 (OP)
Always too simple of a mechanic. Idk why nobody has tried to make a durability system more engaging, theres a lot you could do with it
>durability penalties for using certain weapons against certain enemies (swords against armored enemies)
>durability is just a %chance to fail/break that increases with rough use such as falling, getting hit with a big attack, etc. and is mitigated with higher quality items/parts
>item crafting where every component in the crafted item has a seperate durability; ie a shitty battery crafted into an otherwise high quality laser rifle means your battery has a higher chance to fail, but the item is recraftable to just replace the battery

But instead its always just "item has this many uses and then it dies or you go to an npc to fix it." Why has nothing, not even the survival crafting lootgoblin games, ever bother?

>>713713175 (OP)
The Fire Emblem series does it well. It means you have to choose when you can get away with basic low powered weapons, and when you want to bring out the big swords/axes/lances to take down priority targets quickly. The only downside is when you get the big legendary sword of awesome and then it breaks in 40 uses (some games have infinite durability legendary weapons or the ability to repair weapons at a cost, but not all).

I also liked it well enough in Oblivion. You could level the armorer skill to take care of your weapons and armor on your own, and if you got good enough at it you could even repair them to 125% to make them stronger.

>>713714287
And it makes finding weapons completely unexciting. "A new sword that will break in 2 fights... whatever."

Swordcraft Story.

>>713714586
The remake is even better, weapons last a little longer.

>>713713175 (OP)
It makes no sense in fantasy RPG’s. How can I have a fire sword that loses durability, but it’s on fire or whatever?

>>713714747
I hated the weapon system in Fire Emblem. It has the "but what if I need it later" problem where I'm trying to fight everything with iron swords in order to save my good weapons.

>>713714163
What do you find so enjoyable about maintenance chores? Having to eat something every minute and repairing weapons all the time is tedious, the games give you goals of lessening or removing this tedium which is great, but you want more of it? Jesus man

i think morrowind and oblivion are the only acceptable styles of durability
as long as stuff doesn't break for good its fine and if you can make stuff better than default via use of higher skill like in oblivion its really nice.
other games like botw are just retarded. you can tell they only added it because they didn't know how else to add rewards to random chests in the world and they cba to make proper movesets like souls games.

>>713713175 (OP)
It can be good in games with a heavy emphasis on resource management, but if implemented poorly or depending on the game itself it can be a detriment. I think there's a reason why Level-5 moved away from the idea as they went further and further away from Dark Cloud 1.

For example, I like durability in the modern fallout games because it helped sell this player fantasy of being a scavenger, and through it's gameplay and mechanics successfully immerses you in the idea that your character is becoming progressively more proficient in handling and repairing old world tech as you invested into repair perks and skill points. Meanwhile, when playing the Oblivion remaster earlier this year while the changes made it less obtrusive, I did not care much towards the durability mechanics within that game, because the game as a whole does not really offer much to sell the idea as anything more than an inconvenience you had to manage as repair hammers were plentiful. It just made it a chore to either need to waste encumbrance on carrying a stockpile of hammers than randomly break when repairing gear, or needing to return to a city all the time to let an NPC repair my gear for me. Almost identical as a mechanic between these two games, but the scarcity of repair kits plus the general vibe of Fallout sells the mechanic better than the Elder Scrolls was capable of doing.

>>713714918
there’s a delicate balance. the whole point of a survival game is to survive. I didn’t say I want these mechanics in all of my games but a survival game should be a struggle. I also don’t expect to put 1k hours into a game like this either

I liked how it's implemented in Dark Souls 1, where it's not really a constant aspect of gameplay but is a problem that will eventually happen. It nudges new players into frequenting hub areas and interacting with blacksmiths that will be important the entire game. That aspect kind of undoes itself with the repair box upgrade for the bonfire, but I still like the idea of using the mechanic to encourage long-term mindfulness rather than be a constant pain in the ass.

Broken Dagger made Dark Cloud (1)'s durability interesting
with integer rollover and all

Gruel has weapon durability that isn't too intrusive.
It just makes the weapon hold less max ammo over prolonged use. You can repair them or just scrap them and replace with something else since weapons are plentiful and the shop lets you choose what you want anyway.

>>713714891
>It has the "but what if I need it later" problem
That's a you problem. Once you get better at the games you'll have no issue busting out the Killers and Silvers. Sticking to Irons is just plain stupid.

>>713714891
That's definitely a (you) problem, or at least a newbie mistake. If you hoard weapons you'll be going into the final mission with so many you'll never be able to use them all, none of the games are all that stingy.

>>713713175 (OP)
It forces you into using the most durable weapons or ones that last long enough before you get to a shop/checkpoint. Hakoniwa Explorer had a neat idea where destroyed weapons became materials you could give shop owners to unlock higher tier gear, I think it's a move in the right direction making so that having your weapon destroyed isn't completely detrimental.

>>713715124
Morrowind and Oblivion's durability systems are only good in that they effectively don't exist. They're completely worthless tedium mechanics, but they stay out of your way. Just have to haul some repair hammers around with you.

BotW actually has a decent durability system. It has a ton of problems, but at least it makes use of the one good feature of durability systems. It makes you play around with all the different weapon types in the game. You're constantly switching between weapon types which adds variety to combat.

>>713713747
Sharpness is so far removed that it's not even referring to the same thing
It's "attacks until damage step down" (and in older games, bounce), just another factor to consider in the set

Only acceptable as a balance mechanic for powerful gear. Like Barrows equipment in Runescape: BIS at its time, although some unbreakable better items have come out since then. A basic steel sword should not shatter to nothingness in any realistic length of game time.

Has anyone ever said ''you know what would improve this game? weapon durability''?

>>713713175 (OP)
In Chocobo's Dungeon 2, broken weapons/armor become permanent upgrades, such as AoE effects for spells or the ability to summon Espers. Better equipment generally produces better upgrades. It makes breaking shit actually fun.

>>713713175 (OP)
into the radius is close but not quite. dead island is close but not quite.

the best system would be something where durability is roughly analogous to ammo, which dead island does well. you *can* use a broken weapon, but it does only a very little damage, and will cost a lot to repair. low-tier improvised weapons break completely and are unusable.

the problem is that since they balance it closer to ammo than proper durability, it depletes very inconsistently, and sharp weapons are damn near unusable unless you have the right perk setup. even blades like katanas and thick ass diving knives will almost explode after one or two groups.

but, it doesn't completely fuck you. you can upgrade some sharp weapons to last a reasonably long time, throwing them (with the right perks) will often times make them last longer until they get eaten by the physics engine, and blunt weapons will last a fair bit longer.

imo, durability should last a long time, and when durability is out it should be a QoL debuff more than anything. it should be an inconvenience, not a "lose your shit" mechanic. "lose your shit" mechanics just make me not want to use anything but replaceable garbage, because if it's too expensive to lose, it's too expensive to use.

also: guns should NEVER have a durability mechanic. guns practically never break in the modern day, it is extremely uncommon for anything to outright break unless you're doing something really stupid. they should have a cleanliness mechanic at most, and it should be very generous.

>>713713461
Dying to depleted stamina and being in an exhausted state isn't fun to most people yet it adds depth to the gameplay. in the same way judging everything through the lens of fun alone will make games appeal to the lowest common denominator. And so you get bing bing wahoo china gacha and vampire survivors gacha with extremely simple gameplay and bright colors.

Weapon durability works in MH. If it would actually improve your damage instead of only delete it once it's broken it'd be a good mechanic in souls. the way it's built it's only a chore.

>>713715910
I think BotW suffers more from the fact that when you strip away the durability system, the core combat sandbox just isn't super engaging (at least with the weapons themselves, obviously there's an infinite amount of videos of people finding ways to kill enemies through wacky physics shenanigans but realistically that is not how the majority of players are going to engage with every single combat encounter.)

It would have been nice if Tears of the Kingdom could have had at least brought back some of the older combat mechanics from older titles to at least add a bit more flash and depth to the core weapon combat. I get that there is feature creep with having 3 weapon types instead of just the typical sword and board + maybe a greatsword depending on the title you get from 3D zelda but I never got why Nintendo of all studios couldnt have at least added back stuff like different attack strings depending on the directly you are pointing the left stick, or some of the special moves you unlocked for Link's state machine in games like Twilight Princess.

>>713714664
good ideas

>>713716409
what kind of depth beyond ''oh my weapon durability is low better talk to npc to fix it and done'' or ''oh my weapon broke better move on to my second weapon out of my 28 weapon stash''?

>>713714664
Everything you're describing is just stupid tedium and annoyance mechanics.
There's nothing fun about any of that.

>>713713461
Good systems are based on tradeoffs and risk&reward. Every action and choice the player does should have a cost, every advantage should come with an appropriate disadvantage, success without adversity is boring.

>>713713175 (OP)
People never seemed to have an issue with durability systems before BotW came along with the most polarizing durability system of all time, you had fanboys rigorously defending it even though it sucks ass which gave rise to anti-durability extremists that hate any and all durability systems no matter what.
I got no problem with 99% of durability systems, it's just the Zelda one that sucks.

>>713716535
True, BotW sacrificed one form of combat variety for another. You lost sword skills and got different weapon types instead.

>>713716535
>there's an infinite amount of videos of people finding ways to kill enemies through wacky physics shenanigans but realistically that is not how the majority of players are going to engage with every single combat encounter
Especially because the game doesn't provide any feedback when you do those things. It's not Tony Hawk or Devil May Cry, you don't get points for style.

>>713713175 (OP)
Weapons should always have durability and and also have the ability to be repaired at the cost of something

>>713717027
>I got no problem with 99% of durability systems, it's just the Zelda one that sucks.
I'm on the other side of that fence. Durability systems all suck ass unless they actually add something fun to the game. The durability systems people think are "good" are the ones that minimize their importance. Taken to its logical outcome, the best durability system is one that doesn't exist.
Games like BotW and Dead Rising actually do something fun with the durability system. They made durability matter which is why it's contentious. And people got pissed off at BotW because it's a departure from what they expected from Zelda. Like when everyone hated Windwaker for the art style.

>>713717623
95% of the people that play Dead Rising today are aware of how busted the mini chainsaw with 3 books is. You can effectively ignore durability with that and has nothing to do with the game is hit or miss.

>>713717757
Oh I absolutely agree with that, which is why I mentioned the magazine problem here
>>713714586

>>713716409
stamina is a shit mechanic too. It's a lazy catch-all for several player actions which should have specific tradeoffs like windup and endlag, hitstun, etc that lazy devs just make a single meter for.

>>713713175 (OP)
I've never liked it because it's usually an annoying mechanic.
Any games that you actually benefit from breaking weapons?

I'd love to play something that revolved around wearing down your weapons until they finally break into something beneficial, like the same materials used to make that weapon, only infused with battle knowledge or enemy souls or some shit that unlock different upgrade/crafting paths

even better if it actually tracks the history/lineage of anything you make so you can trace your mythic-tier endgame godslayer sword all the way back to a cool sword-shaped stick you found behind your house in the starting village.

>>713717593
Why? How does this improve the gameplay?

>>713718204
Dark Souls 2 had a halberd that was shit until you broke it

>>713713175 (OP)
The main problem with weapon durability is devs test it over a 5 mins-long period, find it works well and ship it as is, not realizing weapons breaking every 5 mins in a 60+ hours long game is fucking atrocious.

>>713713175 (OP)
It's retarded in 99% of cases but especially so when it comes to firearms, vidya devs don't know that you can actually CLEAN guns instead of paying to have entire parts replaced every few magazines.

>>713713175 (OP)
It's fine and the fact that you can't see why, proves you're a myopic retard.

>>713713461
Of course it does. Pain points accentuate successes. Risks make rewards more desirable.

>>713718145
As it turns out, designing a good gameplay system is actually hard and it's a poorly understood and underappreciated field of game development despite being the most critical component.

>>713716371
oh shit I should've read the whole thread before posting >>713718204
I'll have to check that out

>>713713175 (OP)
>Weapon maintainance is part of the game for the sake of immersion. You will need to return to town to repair your weapon or learn the appropriate skill and bring survival gear to repair your weapons during your rest on your journey. Broken weapons do less damage or can't be equipped but don't disapper entirely.
Good.

>Your disappear entirely after breaking and weapons can't be repaired. Weapons are only temporary and you hurn trough a lot of them during your adventure.
Bad

>Weapons break after 40 hits or so and can sometimes not even last a single battle from full durability.
Absolute shit!

>>713718428
Durability is particularly dumb with guns because the one benefit of weapon durability (encouraging weapon variety) can also be achieved with ammunition.
Having both is just redundant.

>>713718818
I mean you don't need redundant mechanics which is why shooters with ammo generally do not feature gun durability.

Equipment should break into parts that you have to choose to either keep to repair or discard.

>>713713175 (OP)
only one game

>>713713175 (OP)
i like that NTR harem game where you have to repair your dick with reinforcement magic.

>>713718768
>Weapon maintainance is part of the game for the sake of immersion.
In other words it's a pointless waste of time.
>You will need to return to town to repair your weapon
Uh oh, my weapon is about to break, I guess it's time to stop having fun and pay my fucking weapon taxes

I believe that if you can safely stop engaging with a mechanic after a certain amount of play time, like hunger, durability etc., then it should not be in the game at all. I'll use STALKER 2 as an example for hunger; it's completely fucking pointless. You're never afraid of running out of food or going hungry on an excursion, so all it 'adds' to the game is the requirement of going into your inventory every 10 minutes to eat a sausage.

>>713719012
Equipment should break into crafting components.
For example, if you break a hammer it gets turned into 2 short shafts and 1 haammerhead. The short shafts can be used to make swords adn the heav can be combined with a long shaft to make another hammer.
If a sword breaks, you get blade fragments and a hilt. The hilt can be used for a new sword and the blade fragments can either be combined with sticks to make arrows or smelted into ingots again to craft a new sword or other weapon with.

>>713719454
In real life, you can't leave civilisation forever either if you do not have the nessesary survival skills like weapon- and tool maintainance, among other things.

>>713718818
I think many shooters don't even want to do ammunition, but having weapons without ammunition feels wrong.
Both can be more than just for weapon variety.
Most games sleep on offering more than one kind of ammo for a weapon or having weapon durability degrade your weapon instead of making it unusable after threshold.

>>713719671
Real life sucks ass. Why do you think I'm playing videogames?

>>713713175 (OP)
I liked it on Brandish honestly. But the game also rewarded you with unbreakable weapons of a lower tier.

>>713719671
ok
*fast travels to town*
*fast travels back to wilderness*
Immersive!

>>713718204
thats a really cool stick

>>713720218
Fast Travel is unimmersive garbage and should be replaced with fast horses, riding dragons or birds or, for non-fantasy games, cool fast cars.

>>713719724
having to collect ammo adds a couple of things
>adds another layer of gameplay where you look for stuff
>adds another layer of gameplay where you try to be efficient with ammo instead of just going yolo and being wasteful
>pick up thing -> sound and visuals go pop -> DOPAMINE!

it was the same with health, where you would sometimes have low health and had to play really careful to get by until the next health pack
this was way more fun than that shitty ass regeneration bullshit every game does nowadays
>hurf durf just stand behind a wall for 3 sec and good 2 gooooo

>>713719512
My idea is that you can use shards of broken weapons to make stronger weapons. Or by transferring abilities of broken weapons into new reforged weapons.

>>713713461
it decreases the enjoyment for retards so that makes it good

I think a missed part of this debate that people intuitively know but rarely gets articulated is that weapon durability is more of a “theme” of mechanics rather than a mechanic, because its so fundamentally different depending on context.
>most survival games
Weapon durability is constant and requires resources or finding new weapons to resolve. This makes weapon usage both a bar to clear (getting your first one) and a constant resource game. Makes less sense if weapons also use ammo, since the ammo fills about the same niche.
>survival horror
Weapon durability generally exists to prevent skill from ruining the sense of being prey. In modern titles it usually only applies to melee weapons, as to allow the devs to routinely determine how much damage you can actually deal, since they know skilled players with an infinite durability melee might be able to just genocide the enemies.
>freemium/grind games
Weapon durability exists to increase reliance on freemium systems, or in grindy games that might not have paid systems, to encourage efficient grinding, by introducing a routine cost to combat.
>BOTW-style action games
Weapon durability serves to increase the amount of content in the game interacted with by making progression nonlinear, thus making content youd ignore in a borderlands style game useful by virtue of better gear not lasting forever.
>arcade game
Weapon durability cranked up super high makes good weapons power ups instead of progression, interchangeable with ammo

I personally have wildly different opinions on all of these, as i assume lost of people do, despite them all being the “same” mechanic. FO3/New Vegas mostly use durability so they can give enemies super strong weapons without breaking the economy or player progression, its a totally different objective than diablo has or [insert survival game].

>>713713175 (OP)
You posted it
Dark Cloud's implementation is pretty good.

>>713714210
meme runs which don't have any thorns aren't worth doing

>>713720218
>Fast travel to town
>Get treated like an outsider because all you do in town is resupply
>Can't afford supplies
>Die to a random goat because you have no supplies
>Also miss the Ancient Treasure of Gorgon in the Tomb of Gorgon because you fast traveled instead of explored

people probably dislike weapon durability thanks to Breath of the Wild's shitty implementation and even shittier UI
it would have probably be fine if BotW's weapons had like 3x their current health

>>713713175 (OP)
weapons that break and become unusable is super gay
a durability or dullness element that requires maintenance for weapon to have full effect is acceptable

>>713713875
>stay engaged with exploration
or people are going to find a way to farm the same weapon from the same area until they have enough. Or just refresh a shop (fallout). Having a broken weapon, I'm also not going to explore new areas unless I have weapons prepared. How does it make exploration better?

>>713713175 (OP)
Beat 'em ups do it well. You pick shit up, smash it over the enemy's face, and move on. The problem with breakable weapons isn't the breaking part, it's that you're encouraged to maintain or horde them which turns into boring micromanagement.

I also liked it in Swordcraft Story. You're a trained swordsmith who naturally takes care of your weapons, so durability is restored between every fight. It's there to make you fight and craft better, not mindlessly throw money at the problem in some menu. Then Swordcraft Story 2 ruined it

>>713713175 (OP)
I really like maintenance mechanics like these, work great for survival games, or any game where attrition plays a role. Weapon durability is worst when it's applied to unique weapons, because then I don't want to use them.
>>713713461
Yes

>>713713461
Only if
>Weapon becomes scrap but you can put it back together
>There's not more weapons than you can spend
>There are unique weapons you actually could care about

>>713721595
And a meter to tell you how much durability is left.

>>713714747
i attained a greater appreciation for durability after playing fates; arbitrarily nerfing the higher rank weapons by having them give obnoxious penalties to the wielder just pushed me to relying on good ol' forged irons and steels, even on conquest lunatic

>>713713175 (OP)
Fire Emblem does durability very well. It's basically just a kind of ammunition system for melee weapons. Also, it's not called durability, but if you go back and play games like Baldur's Gate 1/2 you get wands with limited charges and that works too.

The mechanic gets a bad rap because it's not actually a mechanic so much as a way of framing different mechanics, some of which are good (ones based on resource management) and others which are garbage ("simulationist" bullshit, usually westoid, about being "immersive" or "realistic" rather than about balance and decision-making).

Durability works completely fine when it's the same sort of thing as ammunition or spell charges, not when it's the type of shit you have in Oblivion that only exists because "uh well I guess logically you would have to maintain your weapons, realistically speaking."

I want Dark Cloud 3

>>713723314
it exists in Oblivion because "disintegrate weapon/armor" is a possible spell effect. The gradual degradation is too fast though, should be much slower which also buffs the spell.

>>713713461
No, if anything it can be a mechanic to balance some item use and can make gear selection more interesting.
The only games where I outright HATED the durability mechanic was Breath of the Wild and it's squeal.

I genuinely can't think of an instance where It took anything away. Far Cry 2? Trivial. RPGs? Immersive. BotW? Might as well be different tier of ammo in a shooter, no problem at all. Plateaus when you are fully decked out, but serves as encouragement to spend your high tier trophies.
There is one instance where it gave me an unforgettable experience. In System Shock 2 I picked repair skill early on, which only allows you to revive a weapon when it's completely broken down, but not to top off it's condition. So I stuffed my inventory with a bundle of salvaged shotguns, each one is only good for 1-3 shots. Suicide bots randomly bursting out of their containers, psionic monkeys whizzing around underfoot, zombies rushing you in droves during alerts, all very greatly enhanced by scrambling to get a working gun in my hands.

>>713713175 (OP)
Fine if I can repair it easily like in Lies of P or most MMOs
Not fine if i literally can't stop it from exploding, like in Dark Cloud

I hate it in every game it's in and I always cheat or use a mod to disable it.

>>713716207
OSRS, for some reason, all the BiS most powerful shit doesn't degrade at all, while some mid level stuff like Barrows and the Peril Moons sets degrade

>>713713175 (OP)
>break weapon
>gone
>frustrating

>break weapon
>still available in inventory
>Monster materials or rare metals/minerals can be used to repair it
>gain permanent small stat to weapon depending on what's used
>long term care and use results in your own personal crazy weapon
>mace you keep repairing with black iron and wight souls increases weight, damage, size eventually becomes massive and has a leeching effect
>Quarterstaff you keep filling in the gaps with magic mushrooms and dryad titty juice fruits into fungal staff that you can channel your magic bullshit through
>Bow string that you repaired with unicorn hair does holy damage and makes incredibly loud neighing sound
>annoying as fuck mechanic becomes engaging and unique

>>713713843
Is there any game that uses enemy weapon durability as an actual mechanic? It would be a neat way to permanently debuff enemies if you parry their weapons enough times or something

>>713725324
Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

>>713725107
lore reasons today, but at the time Barrows was BIS so it was a balance mechanic

>>713725897
also they thought it was going to be PK gear which informed some decisions, gold sink also

>>713713175 (OP)
I only really accept weapon durability if I'm playing some kind of survival crafting game since it's another friction point that factors into how I use my resources. In most games it's kind of just a waste of time because durability damage never really comes up in regular gameplay unless you intentionally ignore it.

>>713725324
In Swordcraft Story you can not only win fights with human opponents by breaking their weapon, you can forge your own copy of it from the remains

>>713725324
Morrowind and Oblivion have damage weapon and armor spells. You can also use it to pickpocket equipped items if they remove them once broken.

>>713713843
This is why I love how wacky Fire Emblem Thracia and how Kaga is in general. If you manage to deplete a boss’s weapon durability somehow or just steal it they will get one of their regular soldiers to give them their weapon.

>>713713175 (OP)
breaking and being able to fix it is fine
fuck shit like BotW though

durability is a shit mechanic because of limited information. as a player you have no way of knowing what enemies you will have to face in the future or how useful the weapon you just picked up will be. will you be totally bricked if you don't save your fire damage sword to fight an ice dragon that shows up 3 hours from now, or will everything beyond the level you're on right now start resisting fire damage? from the developer's perspective they basically have to assume that players will be low impulse control retards and break everything the moment they pick it up, which means that you won't actually ever be rewarded for holding onto a weapon which makes the whole system basically pointless.

>>713713175 (OP)
I like it in Lies of P
>can repair mid-combat
>dope sound effect and animation
>rechargable repair item has additional buffs on top
>you can also break enemy weapons, including bosses

>>713714793
>>713713609
Only good answers in this thread.

>>713713175 (OP)
It can be done right if you make the weapons not break after 50 swings and you have a way to repair them to a degree. Also, make them explicitly disposable.

>>713723992
Repair powder? It's only really a problem at the beginning of the game. It's only a matter of preparation.

>>713716586
None. That's the depth of it. That's the draw of survival games, if you don't like having to gather and expend resources to survive you should not be playing those games.

>>713716586
You’re talking about bad execution of a good mechanic. Weapon durability is fun only if it is done right.

>>713722053
if the implementation is bad then its bad obviously

>>713713461
Don't let the phony anons confuse you, durability has never been fun.

>>713713461
Yes, depending on its implementation. I like when weapons and equipment have minor stat losses with very slow degradation, and skills associated with fixing or maintaining them. It incentivizes character progression. However, I get extremely annoyed when it's not handled very carefully, or if weapons break completely with no means to repair them. I to this day have not beaten Breath of the Wild or even bothered playing Tears of the Kingdom as the weapon degradation was so fast I didn't even like fighting at all.

>>713732539
Early on, Bomber is actually the Meta in BOTW as bombs hit harder than low level melee weapons and you get infinite for free.
Later on, you will find enough decent gear on enemies or respawning locations that you won't have to worry about it if you use trash gear on trash mobs and save good gear for more difficult fights.

However, I still hated weapon durability in BOTW because I like to have a signature weapon that I really grow attached to rather than churning trough 10 of them every hour and I once broke a full durability Iron Hammer trying to fight a single Silver Bokoblin. I swear, they made hammers bad on purpose because they are anti-hammer-niggers.
Also the chainsaw was useless because it broke too fast and is too expensive to replace.

>>713713175 (OP)
Zoomers are fucking whiny as shit and want all games to be homogenized.
It's absolutely a you problem because you have this compulsion that makes you think you need to hold onto things forever.

The "dude just let me repair it" meme you keep parroting is SUCH bullshit. As proven here >>713715910

The fact is that you people cannot deal with any form of consumables or resource management

>>713734519
I like having my signature weapon as part of my character, not weapons as a rescource that you go trough 10 of per hour of playtime.
Weapon durability like this only makes sense in Arcade game with a focus on fist brawling where weapons are a temporary powerup.

>>713734519
>any form of consumables or resource management
it's a meaningless time/money sink where you get taxed on your income in order to either buy the repair materials/new weapons or pay the repair npc to fix your stuff. they may as well just remove the whole mechanic and just cut the amount of money you find by half because they both lead to the same result only one doesn't require me to hit X to repair on my weapons 2 dozen times over the course of playing the game

I liked the way Dark Souls 1 did it. They had enough durability that you didn't need to constantly worry about it, and if you bought the repair boxes, you could fix them yourself at a bonfire.

>>713736051
I like it when games actually make you spend your money.
In most Bethesda RPGs, you never really had any reason to spend any money on anything besides roleplaying like having your character eat and drink at the tavern, so I just ended up saving a shit ton of money and then, the few times you actually needed it, like buying a player house (which is more of a novelty because you can just use any random location as your house), you always had so much money that it didn't even make a dent.

>>713713175 (OP)
Lies of P.
>Weapon takes damage when blocking and attacking
>Can use your arm grindstone to repair mid combat infinitely
>Special grindstones that apply buffs while repairing your weapon
>Debuffs that corrode weapon durability causing you to have to grindstone more often
Basically just make durability something the player can actually interact with instead of a chore that you have to do every time you return to your venders/hub.

>>713715910
>>713715124
>Cast spell destroy weapon on enemy
>fight against armless enemy
>can loot only broken weapons as a downside
>balanced system

>>713737079
>Cast fortify armorer 100 for 1 second
>repair all the broken weapons without ever breaking my 1 repair hammer
>unbalanced system