Weapon degradation in games

endtherapture

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So...weapon degradation, are you in favour of it or against it?

In WRPGs specifically, what are your thoughts on it? Project Eternity last week revealed it would have weapon degradation, but have since removed it due to an outcry of sort from Kickstarter backers on the forum.

Personally I think it is important and immersive in some games, such as apocalypse games like Fallout.

However I definitely don't want it in my WRPGS. It's annoying when your god crafted sword of slaying +50 breaks and has to be repaired. It's downright unimmersive in TES games where Deadric artefacts dull as quickly as a regular iron sword bought off the blacksmith down the street.
 

WoW Killer

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I'm not a fan of the way it's normally implemented. That is, you have the tiniest of gold sinks that you go through every time you go back to a town, and it doesn't impact your gameplay in the slightest other than that. Sure, you can have a weapon break on you mid combat, but so long as you go through this mundane routine of preparation (which boils down to selecting a repair option in a menu system; wooh) then you avoid all of that and there's basically no gameplay mechanic there.

What I think can work (and I absolutely don't think it works in every game) is when the game is set up around a full system of resource gathering and consumption. For example, Minecraft. If you've got a Diamond Pickaxe, you use it sparingly; it's an expensive item in terms of time needed to gather the resources to make one. Eventually though it's going to break. That's fair, because the whole point of the game is to keep gathering more and more resources.
 

doomed89

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endtherapture said:
So...weapon degradation, are you in favour of it or against it?

In WRPGs specifically, what are your thoughts on it? Project Eternity last week revealed it would have weapon degradation, but have since removed it due to an outcry of sort from Kickstarter backers on the forum.

Personally I think it is important and immersive in some games, such as apocalypse games like Fallout.

However I definitely don't want it in my WRPGS. It's annoying when your god crafted sword of slaying +50 breaks and has to be repaired. It's downright unimmersive in TES games where Deadric artefacts dull as quickly as a regular iron sword bought off the blacksmith down the street.
I find it works best in dungeon crawling games where it's about having enough supplies to last as long as possible and potentially can't get back to a repair spot in a decent amount of time. But in games where you just go to town really often at any point with no penalty it's just annoying.
 

SajuukKhar

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Weapon degradation in games is a largely useless features, whose entire purpose has been supplanted by systems like Skyrim's smithing system in newer games.

Weapon decay, along with the connected repair skill, exist to serve a gameplay function of allowing those who take repair to have better armor ratings, and do more damage, by having their weapons/armor be in a consistently better condition, due to being able to repair things on the fly instead of having to go to town to get them fixed every 5 minutes. At the same time, decay prevents those who dont take the repair skill from doing as much damage/having as good of armor, while still having the game be beatable, but harder due to the poor quality of their equipment.

The problem with decay is that unless the ENTIRE game is built around it, it is always either too fast, or too slow, depending on what type of situation the player is in. The only way for decay rates to be set at an appropriate level is to make repair THE core mechanic of the game, and design literally every encounter around the decay rate. Which is a frankly stupid thing to have to put up with.

Skyrim axed that BS in favor of the smithing system, which allows those who take smithing to have better weapons and armor, while making those who don't take it have worse weapons/armor, yet have the game still be playable, or in short, everything repair did, just without all the balance problems from decay rates being off.

So, in short, I find weapon decay to be pointless.
 

MysticSlayer

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I think it works good in games that are based around the idea of surviving in a hostile world (ex. the Fallout or Souls games). Weapon degradation helps emphasize the survival and hostile aspects of the game. That also means survival horror is an excellent genre to have weapon degradation in.

Theoretically, though, any game that has some sort of resource management system should probably have weapon degradation. It helps emphasize the importance of each individual resource and to think carefully about how to use them. Of course, then comes the issue of implementation and balancing the rate at which weapons degrade. Most games tend to mess it up some way, making weapon degradation either an occasional and easy nuisance or a completely annoying feature that rears its ugly head every five seconds. If a game can do it right, though, and if mechanic seems right at home, then I'm all for it.
 

Miss G.

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Against it. I hate it especially when weapons are expensive, rare, extremely powerful or a combination of all 3. What's the point if they only have a couple of uses and I just have them sitting there for pretty whilst I'm practically stuck using all the cheaper, more common stuff? I hate having to do that in real life - you know, the thing I'm supposed to be escaping from?
Most annoying example is in Fire Emblem: Awakening where forging exists only to add strength, accuracy and crit chance buffs to a weapon. The only way to repair it is to place your unit with the item that needs fixing next to a unit equipped with Hammerne (which itself is an extremely rare, high-level and expensive single-use staff) and cast the spell in battle.
 

doomed89

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MysticSlayer said:
I think it works good in games that are based around the idea of surviving in a hostile world (ex. the Fallout or Souls games). Weapon degradation helps emphasize the survival and hostile aspects of the game. That also means survival horror is an excellent genre to have weapon degradation in.

Theoretically, though, any game that has some sort of resource management system should probably have weapon degradation. It helps emphasize the importance of each individual resource and to think carefully about how to use them. Of course, then comes the issue of implementation and balancing the rate at which weapons degrade. Most games tend to mess it up some way, making weapon degradation either an occasional and easy nuisance or a completely annoying feature that rears its ugly head every five seconds. If a game can do it right, though, and if mechanic seems right at home, then I'm all for it.
This guy said it better then me lol. This is what I was trying to convey.

Miss G. said:
Against it. I hate it especially when weapons are expensive, rare, extremely powerful or a combination of all 3. What's the point if they only have a couple of uses and I just have them sitting there for pretty whilst I'm practically stuck using all the cheaper, more common stuff? I hate having to do that in real life - you know, the thing I'm supposed to be escaping from?
Most annoying example is in Fire Emblem: Awakening where forging exists only to add strength, accuracy and crit chance buffs to a weapon. The only way to repair it is to place your unit with the item that needs fixing next to a unit equipped with Hammerne (which itself is an extremely rare, high-level and expensive single-use staff) and cast the spell in battle.
Weapon degradation doesn't automatically mean limited uses. Most games it's in you just have to repair them every once in awhile and even if they break they don't disappear (Dark Cloud only exception I can think of) just need to be repaired and are crap in the meantime. I think weapons being limited use would only work if the game was built around it, it would be good for a survival horror type game, in the same way ammo conservation is though.
 

Fractral

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It's a pain in the ass in Fire Emblem. What's that? Yen'Fay dropped these two cool swords? And they only have like 10 uses each? Yep, never using them ever. I just end up sticking silver weapons on everybody, and saving all the unique spells/weapons for a special occasion that never comes. It's made worse that the only repair spell seems to be a random drop only.
In minecraft I like it, although I pretty much nowadays only play on a server where I have the /fix command, which means I don't have to care about repairing stuff.
 

Elfgore

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Weapon degradation is either good or bad, there is no in between

A game that used the right way to have weapon degradation is Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Weapons were repaired with other weapons of the same type making field repairs of early level weapons easy and cheap while adding no weight.

A game that used the bad form of weapon degradation is Oblivion. Weapons had to be repaired with repair hammers, that cost alot of money and were to heavy to carry any decent amount with you and if your weapon is enchanted better cough up alot of gold to pay for it done or level up the armorer skill to 75. I'm glad Skyrim just got rid of the weapon degradation and put in smithing.
 

Miss G.

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doomed89 said:
Miss G. said:
Against it. I hate it especially when weapons are expensive, rare, extremely powerful or a combination of all 3. What's the point if they only have a couple of uses and I just have them sitting there for pretty whilst I'm practically stuck using all the cheaper, more common stuff? I hate having to do that in real life - you know, the thing I'm supposed to be escaping from?
Most annoying example is in Fire Emblem: Awakening where forging exists only to add strength, accuracy and crit chance buffs to a weapon. The only way to repair it is to place your unit with the item that needs fixing next to a unit equipped with Hammerne (which itself is an extremely rare, high-level and expensive single-use staff) and cast the spell in battle.
Weapon degradation doesn't automatically mean limited uses. Most games it's in you just have to repair them every once in awhile and even if they break they don't disappear (Dark Souls only exception I can think of) just need to be repaired and are crap in the meantime. I think weapons being limited use would only work if the game was built around it, it would be good for a survival horror type game, in the same way ammo conservation is though.



That's fine for ammo and survival mechanics, but in the game I mentioned it DOES automatically mean limited uses and once they break they're gone for good. You can use a cheap iron sword for 40/40 strikes in battle but you can only use Celica's Gale for 20/20 strikes and it's designed to double-strike meaning you really only get 10/10 uses out of it at most and 2.5/2.5 uses if your unit can already double strike without the buff. So, sucks if you miss with an attack on your turn, your unit team attacks with adjacent units during those units' attacks or your unit counterattacks multiple foes during an enemy's turn because the game counts all that as usage. And you only have a 1/1 use staff (that you might never actually get because its so rare and also cannot fix itself) and only if you're next to a unit who can cast it near you in that turn to fix your stuff before it breaks within the battle so you're SOL. The only weapon in the game you don't have this problem with is Falchion (and Parallel Falchion by extension) because it's plot related that it cannot degrade.
 

Audioviper

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I've never really encountered any other games that use weapon degradation except Minecraft & Fallout 3 + New Vegas. So going on that basis, I have nothing against it. I tried to play Fallout: New Vegas without it (Through a vague & obscure mod) but soon found that it was a lot less challenging. I like having that extra requirement to check on my weapons before & after combat every now & then, making sure that my guns are in tip-top condition. It just feels... Classy. It also makes searching the enemy's corpse more critical, because fuck raiders. The only reason I fought them was for more Hunting Rifle's & Laser RCW's. It made them at least some-what worthwhile to battle.
 

doomed89

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Miss G. said:
That's fine for ammo and survival mechanics, but in the game I mentioned it DOES automatically mean limited uses and once they break they're gone for good. You can use a cheap iron sword for 40/40 strikes in battle but you can only use Celica's Gale for 20/20 strikes and it's designed to double-strike meaning you really only get 10/10 uses out of it at most and 2.5/2.5 uses if your unit can already double strike without the buff. So, sucks if you miss with an attack on your turn, your unit team attacks with adjacent units during those units' attacks or your unit counterattacks multiple foes during an enemy's turn because the game counts all that as usage. And you only have a 1/1 use staff (that you might never actually get because its so rare and also cannot fix itself) and only if you're next to a unit who can cast it near you in that turn to fix your stuff before it breaks within the battle so you're SOL. The only weapon in the game you don't have this problem with is Falchion (and Parallel Falchion by extension) because it's plot related that it cannot degrade.
Yeah that sounds pretty bad, but it seems to be a problem with game balancing more then concept of weapon degradation. I understand your disdain after playing a game like that though lol.
 

SckizoBoy

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I'm for it... but in a rather limited way...

It has to be reasonable, but I'd rather it was a case of 'the more you use an item, the faster it degrades'... BUT, it degrades really really slowly when you first get it. Then, you can play with your new toy a bit before deciding whether to discard it or keep it and have a go to repair source/shop. In Fallout 3, it was pretty well handled, and it was good that you had to 'cannibalise' similar items to repair what you had, though the limit of repair was kinda annoying, if justified. On the other hand, in Shadow of Rome, it was ridiculous. Gladius in a boss fight? Yeah, may as well use your fists after ten seconds... -_-
 

SonicWaffle

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Elfgore said:
A game that used the right way to have weapon degradation is Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Weapons were repaired with other weapons of the same type making field repairs of early level weapons easy and cheap while adding no weight.
Plus that awesome duct-tape sound. I love the idea that a lonesome wanderer is patrolling the wastes, doing battle with monsters and slavers and mutants, stopping only occasionally to pull guns apart and put them together again with adhesive tape.

"Hmm, this shotgun has certainly seen better days. I'll try taping some bits from this other shotgun onto it, that'll fix it!"
 

SonicWaffle

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Audioviper said:
I've never really encountered any other games that use weapon degradation except Minecraft & Fallout 3 + New Vegas. So going on that basis, I have nothing against it. I tried to play Fallout: New Vegas without it (Through a vague & obscure mod) but soon found that it was a lot less challenging. I like having that extra requirement to check on my weapons before & after combat every now & then, making sure that my guns are in tip-top condition. It just feels... Classy. It also makes searching the enemy's corpse more critical, because fuck raiders. The only reason I fought them was for more Hunting Rifle's & Laser RCW's. It made them at least some-what worthwhile to battle.
It's well implemented in the Dead Rising games. Sure it's hella fun to tie two chainsaws onto a pole and go all Angry Gandalf on a horde of zombies, but a wise slayer of the undead will have to be aware that it won't last forever and pack spare weapons lest they find themselves ass-deep in a pit of bitey dead people with no weapon. Added a bit of tension; you have these incredibly deadly weapons, but you can't rely on them lasting until you get to a safe place.
 

Angelous Wang

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Against it in general, but it's depends on the amount of items and the degradation speed.

I don't mind it when there are limited items to maintain. For example in Fallout 3/Vegas it works because you only need to fix your gun (or two) and your one-piece body armour (you can ignore the head gear mostly).

But in MMO's or RPG's when you have to keep every single piece of your 10 piece armour plus your weapons maintained that is when I really, really start to hate it.
 

Souplex

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Entirely depends on the game.
It worked in Fallout and Fire Emblem.
Didn't work too great in Oblivion.
 

IKWerewolf

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For and against... survival horror is a definite yes, fear of losing a weapon and being helpless can make a horror game even scarier.

RPGs maybe, depends on how the derogation is used and how fast it is. Too fast and it makes a game impossible and makes it a chore.

Action games, no, No, NO!
 

Bureacreative

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I never minded it in Morrowind; for some reason I thought it worked well. It created an organic cycle. One could raid some caves, and then need to head back to town both to sell the heavy, expensive loot and repair one's weapons with some of that same money. Somehow, like many things, Oblivion fucked that up. There really is a distinct difference in just those 2 games, so I can see why players of only TES's 4 and 5 would be negative about the weapon degradation.

In games that I've played with it, it really helps to create an actual game WORLD instead of a succession of set pieces that one can breeze through 10 at a time. It makes me feel like I'm living as this character rather than piloting him on a hack and slash adventure. But there is no doubt that removing weapon degradation speeds up those in-town pit stops, and lets one get back to the fighting. All in all I'm for it but I don't expect, or indeed intend, to persuade anyone.