Poll: Weapon degradation - yes or no?

[WindKnight]

Generally speaking, the idea isn't inherently bad, but pretty much every implementation in games is infuriating and frustrating as often it doesn't make sense for just how quickly something breaks down, especially if its something you can't repair.

And don't get me started on the multiplayer games where the degradation pretty much kills any cashflow you have if your not winning a significant portion of your games or you pump real money in to offset it.

 

[BoredAussieGamer]

In most cases, no. But if it's a mechanic that adds something and fits, then yes.

 

[natster43]

I like it in games like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, as I feel it is well implemented in them, and I don't mind it in Dead Rising as it fits, though it gets kinda annoying at points in Dead Island and Fire Emblem.
I would dislike it if they were poorly implemented or just didn't fit the type of game, but in those games I really like it or at least don't mind it all that much.

 

[Batou667]

Completely depends on the game. If the game has some kind of survivalist aspect to it, like Dead Rising or Dead Island (the only two examples of degrading weapons I can think of right now), then that would fit right in. But could you imagine a system like that in, say, a Ninja Gaiden game? It'd ruin the flow of the game and introduce an incongruous element of realism that would spoil the suspension of disbelief.

So, in one word: context.

 

[Navvan]

It has its uses, but it is way to overused. If it fits the game or weapon/armor thematically, fine, but don't shoehorn in the mechanic for balancing purposes.

 

[Navvan]

Repost/Deleted

Apparently the captcha gods are against me today =/

 

[Kikyoo]

The best ones that have weapon durability IMO are Monster Hunter, where your sharpness degrades over time when you use your sword, and you have to sharpen it again, and Dark souls where, depending on your planning, can become an issue and make the game more interesting, or just be a none factor.

Firstly in Monster Hunter going down to 0 doesn't break your beloved weapon, it just makes it woefully ineffective. Sharpening it, is not about going back to town, and paying some guy to do it. It's about time required to get your weapon back up to full strength in the middle of a pitched battle. It's part of the battle, and so you have plans around what to do when it happens. It can add to the encounters, and is one more thing you have to plan and take into account for.

Dark souls is one of the few other games I would say actually benefits at all from a durability system. A lot of that is because they tell you well beforehand when something is breaking, and before it breaks it get's a catastrophic power loss, making you not even want to continue to use it. This is offset heavily by being able to buy a repair box, and repair stuff at every bone fire, but it's something you can forget about, and have bite you in the ass. My most epic kill of the last boss I had been fighting him for some time, and got him real low, but then my Pike started to break. I didn't have another weapon, and couldn't switch in the middle of fighting Lord Gywn. I had to finish the fight with my busted ass pike and break it off in his skull. And I did, and it was glorious.

 

[Kikyoo]

Double taped the post button.
sorry about that.

 

[rodneyy]

it can be fun but it can also influence your gameplay quite a bit. in the first stalker game there was wepon degrade and no repair (but it would last a wile) and in a way it did work as one of the best guns in the game can be found hidden just lying on the floor not to far into the game if it did not degrade then you would be set for the rest of the game. with degrage you can go pick it up whenever you want to but its better to save it till later.

also it can change how you play. instead of using one gun for everything you have to choose the smg might be ok at close quaters but if you need to use up so many shots that it is half degraged after a few fights its usless. you find yourself using single shot assualt rifels and snipers because they will last you so much longer, and with all the weight allowances in that game you cant just bring 3 or 4 of the same gun, you got maybe 2, 3 if you dont mind moving a bit slow and thats it.

as it was most people didnt like it as the next game you could fix the guns but i liked it. i flet it fitted in with the whole desolate wasteland

 

[Furyaki12]

I only vividly recall 3 games with weapon degradation: Fire Emblem, which was already talked about, and the two Dark Cloud games.

In the first Dark Cloud, your weapons had HP that was depleted every time your weapon made contact with an enemy (or in the case of the ranged weapons used by some characters, every time it was used). Depending on the enemy, the weapon's HP went down slower or faster each swing - hitting the goblin would decrease the weapon's health far less than hitting a rock monster or a moving suit of armor.

If you let your weapon's HP hit 0 by not using a Repair Powder to restore it to full, it broke and was completely gone. That weapon you've been using and upgrading since the beginning of the game, the one you sunk all of your time and refining crystals into?

Completely. Gone.

Only the characters' default, weak, un-upgradeable weapons can break and remain in your inventory, although they can't do any damage to the enemy when broken. On a side note, this game also had a Thirst Meter, which necessitated carrying around flasks of water or hoping that the floor of the dungeon you were on had a spring of water to drink from. Once your thirst meter was depleted, your character would gradually lose health and deal lower damage with their attacks until you sated them.

In the sequel, weapons still had HP and could still break, but you kept the weapon; when it breaks, you just lose all the EXP the weapon had toward its next level (the Stabbing Stabber+7 with 3 EXP left till Level 8 would revert to the Stabbing Stabber+7 with 1000 EXP left till Level 8), and it wouldn't do any damage to the enemy until it was repaired. They also did away with Thirst as a mechanic and simply turned it into a status effect; you can't eat anything (restore health) until you cured it.

In short, the first Dark Cloud's system was obnoxious, but the sequel's was tolerable.

 

[bug_of_war]

I think it would be hilarious if they added in random gun jams or a mechanic where it overheats if you fire more than 30 rounds per minute into something like Halo for example. I think weapon degradation can work as long as you remember the mechanic is there, and you don't wonder half an hour down the line why your sword is doing nothing against the big bad boss...

Far Cry 2 does that well-ish. Older guns are visually more used and are more likely to jam or even explode.

I'm not opposed the weapon degradation, however it needs to be implemented well. For example, Oblivion's degradation system was annoying as the weapon would always look good until you actually realise that the damage has decreased. Same goes for the enchantments in Oblivion, I went up 4 levels before I realised my bow had ran out of charge, thankfully that was fixed in Skyrim with the weapon glowing when pulled out.
A game that I think did weapon degradation the best is the aforementioned Far Cry 2. New weapons worked really well, but the more you used the weapon/swam, the more the gun began to show signs of it's age. For example, you would start off with a shiny pitch black sniper rifle, then after a few missions some dirt, rust and even scratches would appear on the weapon, the gun would also jam forcing you to unjam the weapon. This would only happen every second magazine though, and with most guns the animation was quick. However, if you kept that weapon for a LONG time (or a short time if you picked it off the ground) it would jam FREQUENTLY, and eventually would explode in your hands. It was great aesthetically, but could be frustrating as hell, but it was still fantastic, especially since each gun had a different jamming/unjamming animation and would have it's own unique degradation appearance.

So yeah, if implemented well I will gladly accept a game with weapon degradation, but I definitely think they should focus more on visual cues rather than just telling you the weapon is getting old, it just makes me feel more engaged when I can see that my weapon is becoming a piece of crap.

 

[UltraXan]

It honestly depends on how it's implemented, but I'm not really adding anything new to the discussion here. When I played Oblivion, I was young then and didn't care for much of a challenge. As a result, I never turned god mode off. Now, I have much higher standards for myself. But the one thing I remember from Oblivion god mode is that items never degraded because of it. I had no idea how the repair system worked, and I frankly didn't care since I felt it would be much too difficult for me to deal with. That was one of the reasons I was glad Skyrim ditched it. Granted, though, it did take something from it. Now that I'm more mature, I understand the value of a good repair system.

One system I feel like mentioning is that of Vindictus. Weapons and armor lose a bit of durability after every instance which is easy enough to repair by going to the forge and paying a modest sum. Naturally, the more advanced gear you have, the more it'll cost to repair it, and some lower level instances don't even damage your equipment at all. But if you don't repair your equipment and you let the durability go down, you actually start to see wear and tear on it. I'm not sure if it becomes less effective or what happens if it reaches zero, but that visual effect is cool.

One more thing about Vindictus is that armor acts differently in instances. If a certain piece of equipment takes too much damage, it'll break and will offer A LOT less protection. But if you have a temporary armor repair kit (you can bring 4 with you into an instance at a time), you can fix the entirety of your armor and it'll be as if nothing happened. Even if you don't fix it during the fight, your armor will automatically be fixed when you get back to town, and it breaking during the fight doesn't impact its overall durability. Sometimes I feel like my armor breaks much too easily, but when I think about it, when you look at some of the bosses and what they hit the player with, I'm surprised they don't just break everything. I'd say it's one of the better repair systems.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Generally, no. In most cases it just comes down to time wasted, a chore, rather than being a valid and fun mechanic. I can imagine some merit in it for games with a survivalist nature, where scavenging is a key part of the game (say, Fallout). Other than that, can't think of any where it would be fun.

 

[AT God]

Weapons shouldn't degrade unless there is a logical way to repair them. I hate games where you cannot repair your weapon and just have to find a new one (STALKER, FAR CRY 2)

 

[somonels]

yes, but then again i tend to be drawn to settings and thenes where it could and should be used. FC3 needed the FC2 variant of decreased reliability based on wear.

 

[Hafnium]

Depends on the game

Fallout 3 and NV do weapon repair very well as it is quite easy to repair things even with low repair skills. Also the fact all you have to do is find another copy of the weapon you wish to repair makes it quite easy to do quick fixes without stopping by a town.

Oblivion did this terribly. You had to level up your repair skill to fix anything and you had to scavenge or buy repair hammers which take up alot of inventory space. Skyrim did a good move removing weapon degration from the game, even if it is a little unrealistic.

Yep! In Oblivion at low levels I often had to bring 10-20 hammers just to make sure my gear wouldn't turn to dust. They were kind of heavy!

 

[munx13]

Yes. I really like how it was done in STALKER games.

 

[Rblade]

no, unless it's part of an overarching survival style. If you absolutly must charge me a "playing the game tax" in ingame currency don't make me every now and then run back to town for it just charge it at the gate. Another way would be to allow you to fix it yourself on location for component price, fine that could even lead to interesting situations like small suvival sections or dungeons where the feature is turned off as part of the challenges.

But as a general gold and time drain "realism" shtick it can go die in a corner.

 

[Mikeyfell]

I'm going to say yes.

Dead Rising and Dark Souls are two of my favorite games ever and they both have weapon degradation
Fallout probably did it the best by making the rarer and better weapons harder to repair
And Minecraft? That's like weapon degradation the game

And when it comes right down to it limited ammo is basically a primitive form of weapon degradation.
Your gun is only good for a certain number of shots then you need to fix it, by reloading...


It's obviously not for all games, but then again it's not in all games so I'm fine with it.

 

[Frankster]

Not a big fan of it overall, usually its just an excuse for you to lose money (especially in mmos!) but in certain games it can add to the challenge or immersion (i didnt mind it in New Vegas for example, as degradation rate was slow enough not to feel like an annoying chore, plus had a mod where my helmet would visually become more damaged, so degradation became a physical factor which was cool)..