>Game has weapon durability
>It's effectively useless because you gain so much money that repairing or buying new weapons isn't a problem
>Or it's just annoying because weapons break too easily
Do people even like weapon durability? The only games I can think of that have it are Fire Emblem and Souls games.
In FE, I usually use a weapon far less when it only has 5-10 uses left, and I'll either replace it and sell it or use it till it breaks with a backup weapon ready. It's not necessarily annoying to me, unless it's a unique weapon, because I buy two to four of each standard weapon for my units anyway for when weapons break. Gold was never an issue, it was usually just that a weapon breaking was a minor thing to shrug off.
In Souls games, repairing weapons was just a way to waste souls, and while DaS2 tried to make it more important by making weapons break faster but repairing them at a bonfire, it ultimately just made the game more annoying when your weapon was about to break and you had to switch to a weaker weapon.
I feel like it's a niche mechanic that people either call artificial difficulty or redundant to include, so I have to ask; what are your opinions on weapon durability? What are some games that you think use it well?
>>333179116
>game has a weapon triangle
>it is completely meaningless outside of the first 20% of the game
>>333179116
I liked it in FE (GBA) but I haven't played Fates yet to see how the gameplay is without it.
>>333179538
>Unit has an axe
>Enemy with a lance attacks the axe user
>Unit has a sword and is next to two lance units
>Enemy with an axe attacks the sword user
>>333179538
In early production of FE6 they were thinking about having it so:
>Swords can always double axes
>Lances always go first against swords
>Axes negates the defence of anybody using a lance
>>333182202
The amount of times the AI have gone after my super-tank cleric rather than my weak as fuck swordsman or whatever, you really start wondering how they act so dumb.
They always go for no-retaliation attacks even if it deals 0 damage.
>when the enemy unit won't take the tank bait
>>333182512
Holy shit that's far far too much.
Especially on the axes v lances part. Axes and axe users hit hard enough in FE without ignoring defense entirely.
>>333179116
>Playing TESIV: Oblivion
>finish a fight
>equip repair hammer
>ding ding ding
>ding ding CLANK
>ding ding CLANK
>ding CLANK CLANK
>CLANK ding CLANK
>>333179116
In FE i found it more annoying since at times i forgot to switch in new weapons when im fucking killing everything anyway so it only served for my units to kill everything easily at a slower rate.
Weapon durability is a mechanic used by lazy devs who don't want to design a better system or use a better system.
Weapons do degrade over time obviously, but not in 10 minutes, not so much that that literally break and are unusable forever from then on.
It's always a sign of idiocy and laziness when any sort of durability in a game is done poorly and not well thought out at all.
But it's also a trap.
You can either make durability meaningless, or you can make it tedium and annoyance.
There is no safe or good way to have durability in a video game, there is no happy medium for this mechanic.
So you either have it or you don't.
And for some strange reason people think if you don't have durability in a game, that their realism in a video game is in jeopardy and will instantly think less of the game, even though it's a fucking video game about dragons and magic or god knows what the fuck else.
You can't please either side. It sucks.
>>333182512
I feel like the weapon triangle would benefit from some slightly deeper bonuses, but nothing that extreme. Lances striking first is reasonable, the other two are not. Still interesting, though.
>>333182517
The AI is weird with selecting whom to attack. I almost want to see the logic to their codes to find out how they prioritize units. At least they actually attack your healers.
>>333179116
No I'm glad it's gone in FE. CON too. FE14's system is so much better.
>>333182714
Axes vs lances makes knights useless and Wendy all but unusable.
Swords vs axes is useless as swords will nearly always double axe users anyway
Lances vs swords is the only one that might have worked okay
>>333182665
>yfw a video games ai goes straight for you, running/dodging/evading all other obstacles such as traps youve set up in the hopes of slowing them down or they avoid all companion ai and go straight for you
I seriously hate when something in a game does this. It's always so poorly done.
The tank is supposed to draw attention, stop running past the guy in your face, you are breaking the rules by doing this video game.
How has no one mentioned durability in MMOs, where the idea is to make you buy cash shop items to guarantee a repair will be successful instead of risking your weapon breaking/being damaged when you try to do it with in-game gold?
>>333182868
>breaking 10 repair hammers in a row
>journeyman armorer
>end up having to spend thousands to repair at a weapons shop
>>333183491
I haven't played any games where they're underhanded enough to do that. Sure, they'll do that sort of thing for upgrades, but you're pretty safe when it comes to just repairing.
>>333179116
Nah, removing weapon durability was a good change. I'm more mad about some other changes though.
Is rescuing still around in FE?
I started shadow dragon and the minute I realized I couldn't rescue someone I lost interest immediately and never touched it again.
This was years ago by the way.
Did they bring rescues back?
>>333183167
>Weapon durability is a mechanic used by lazy devs who don't want to design a better system or use a better system.
You've got a quality post and make good points, but I have to ask; what's a better alternative system to weapon durability?
>>333179116
Dark Cloud has weapon durability.
fag
>>333182868
This was seriously the worst.
Thank fuck for that mod that autorepairs after combat.
>>333184107
Kinda
Newest one has it as a skill for some characters, and there's Pair up, which lets you have one unit hide behind another to keep them safe with bonus stats
>>333184264
Not having durability is always better than having a poorly implemented, annoying and/or meaningless durability system.
Simple as that.
It's always either meaningless because it's so easy and simple to circumvent the durability mechanic, OR its so tedious and annoying that it takes away from the game.
There is no middle ground with a durability system in place, so it's either worthless or annoying.
May as well not have it at all in that case because worse case scenario you fuck it up and annoy the player.
>>333184704
So the answer is "no".
Well, FE is worthless and dead to me then. Oh well.
>>333183478
>Shining Force II
It's fun because Bowie ends up so overleveled it doesn't matter anyways, but the enemies always go straight for him, ignoring everyone else entirely.
Not like you can't win the game with Peter alone anyways.
>>333184107
>hey guys I played the shittiest Fire Emblem and dropped the series XD
>playing Bloodborne
>Main Ludwig Blade
>grinding cuz I'm a pussy
>pretty much only fightan creepy bag men and pigs
>Finally get to a boss and see on screen "weapon about to break"
Ohshiiiiiiiiiit niiiiiiiiigga!
>Repair it cuz I'm rich as fuck
>Promise to never let that happen again
>Realize I can't because I make to much cash
Yeah weapon durability is kinda dumb
>>333184107
What's wrong? Can't take being punished for putting your vulnerable characters in enemy range?
>>333185134
I played a bunch of the others, that was the last one I played though. Chill faggot, goddamn.
Jesus christ I devs want to make their games realistic I just wanted to tell them that legendary demonic artifacts made of metal that can cut dragonscales don't break after slashing twenty wolves.
Hijacking this thread to ask some questions about Fire Emblem. The EU store has Fire Emblem (I guess it's the first one), Sacred Stones, and Shadow Dragon on sale. I remember liking Sacred Stones so I'm going to pick that up for sure, but how are Fire Emblem and Shadow Dragon? For Fire Emblem I'm mainly worried it's too hard. I like challenge but I'm a bit of a pleb, so how does it compare to Sacred Stones in terms of difficulty?
>>333185436
Never played Shadow Dragon
The only hard (harder than any of the hardest Sacred Stones chapters) chapter is the 28th one. Also buy it, you'll love it.
Now I have a couple of questions - I just bought myself a 3DS and I want to play some Fire Emblem. Should I start with Awakening or one of the Fates games? Birthright/Conquest/Revelation?
>>333185208
Rescuing speeds up battles when I can move people who have already gone out of the way to continue exploiting the poor AI on the bottlenecks created by meatshields without weapons so lesser leveled people can take their turns gaining exp.
Rescuing helps moving slower people to more areas, faster. Rescuing helps moving slower people to move out of the way of danger BEFORE it happens, not as it's about to happen.
Rescue shaves off 10 to 15 minutes off of every mid to end game encounter.
Suck my dick. If I lose someone, I start the mission over. Every time.
Everyone on /v/ does that, and don't act like you've never done it either.
Fuck you.
>>333185436
>Fire Emblem (I guess it's the first one)
That's FE7. Sacred Stones is FE8 for reference.It was the first one to be released in the west. It's good if you liked FE8. Shadow Dragon is a remake of the first game. Don't bother it's shit.
>I like challenge but I'm a bit of a pleb
No wonder you like FE8 then.
>>333184264
Not him but it's to make weapons situational with strengths but also weaknesses.
One thing I find dumb but common in RPG structures is that weapons just get stronger and stronger and stronger as you go further.If there's an "Ice Sword" that deals double damage against Fire Monsters it's usually also the strongest weapon when you find it and then down the line you end up with a non-elemental sword that is more than twice as strong as an Ice Sword. Which means even when you fight Fire Monsters the Ice Sword is redundant.
Fire Emblem Fates has a really good alternative to weapon durability. Weapons with more attack power weapons(with some exceptions) tend to have big weaknesses like making it harder for you to evade attacks or preventing you from attacking twice in one turn or activating skills.
Ones with lower attack power ones tend to have stat boosts or few downsides. Or others have big boosts when used correctly(e.g. Hammers having triple attack power against Armoured enemies) and penalties(reduced attack power and hit rate) when used otherwise.
>>333185651
Start with Awakening. After that, go Birthright > Conquest > Revelation.
>>333185698
t. normal mode pleb
>>333185910
Okay.
But what's the difference between Birthright and Conquest? I've heard that it's like Pokemon, two versions of the game in which you can find different units and stuff like that
>>333186229
Birthright missions are all Rout Enemy.
Conquest aren't.
If you play the boring one first you won't be pining for the more interesting one.
>>333186229
Conquest is like GBA fire emblems, no grinding, higher difficulty with varied objectives
Birthright is like Awakening/Sacred stones, which allows for grinding and usually the only objectives are rout enemy/kill boss.
Both have different stories, for which Birthright is better for imo.
>>333186518
>Conquest is like GBA fire emblems, no grinding, higher difficulty with varied objectives
>GBA fire emblems
>varied objectives
it's more like FE10 without the army swapping
>>333185436
FE7 is probably going to be easier than FE8 was (though FE8 had some bullshit maps like Fluorspar's Oath and Scorched Sand,) but Hector mode is pretty tough. I think Hector hard mode is usually agreed upon as being one of the hardest FE campaigns.
>>333179116
it's just something to spend money on. what else is there?
>>333179116
>Not carrying repair dusto
Also, SS2 does durability right.
>>333182512
Sword users vary between being high evade/high crit/low attack units or low evade/high defense/high attack units, so I feel like it's harder to make a universally useful bonus for the "sword trumps axe" bonus that isn't broken. The only thing I can think of is either raising critical chance slightly, which is more useful to high crit classes than say cavaliers or generals, or giving a static amount of bonus damage, like +5 damage against axe users.
Lances attacking before swords is fine, and could be pretty useful.
For axes trumping lances, I think negating a certain amount of the enemy units evade would have worked. Not a crazy amount like 70%, but maybe like 30%. That ensures you can hit most knights or generals, and makes it easier to hit cavaliers or paladins. The lance using classes are usually pretty well off in defense anyway, so I think lowering their evade by some would be a good trumping bonus.
I liked it a lot in Muramasa, but it's not really the same thing you're going for I guess. It was a good way to force you to use different swords and combinations.
>>333188371
i forgot muramasa existed
that had a good durability system
Did else anyone choose defense+ luck- in Awakening? Robin tanks pretty good. Almost too good.
>>333188371
>>333189191
How did the system work exactly?
>>333189317
>Implying tanking too well is a bad thing
Amelia the Stronk and Hector [NO DAMAGE] would like to have a word with you.
>>333186762
>I think Hector hard mode is usually agreed upon as being one of the hardest FE campaigns.
I'd disagree, S-ranking it is a tough challenge. But S-ranking entails you rotating low level characters in very far into the campaign while using cheap weapons and completing the game quite quickly.By itself HHM isn't that tough at all.
Sealed Sword, Thracia, Shadow Dragon, New Mystery and Fates all have tougher campaigns. Awakening's Hard, Lunatic and Lunatic+ would be harder if it had the balance adjustments Fates made.
>>333189497
It's a hack and slash where you equip three different swords, each with it's own durability bar. Blocking and using special attacks decreases it, and the sword breaks when it empties. When you're using a different sword though, the broken ones will regenerate over the course of a fight. It's pretty cool. You can even continue to use a broken weapon if you want to for some reason, though you have shittier range and damage, and no special attacks.
I think durability is bullshit in a lot of games but it can have a purpose. Durability in Dark Souls can be used as a balancing mechanic for weapons, and also makes other mechanics of the game (bonfire warps) relevant in a time saving way. Part of the fun of RPGs is having a system that allows you enough choice that you're able to affect the difficulty or tediousness of the game through game knowledge and strategy. Some games are also at their core resource based (Souls) and durability gives the designer the ability to make the resource system more relevant or important.
There's value in games that go for simulation based mechanics over direct fun. Immersion is a definitely important and I think it's important for games to strive more to replicate some of the constraints of the real world. TES is fucked in a lot of ways but it definitely succeeds in making you feel like a part of it's shitty, crappy, tv set world. Not all games need to be the same. There's value in experimenting with what might be unfun concepts and finding a way to integrate them in an enjoyable way. If you hate durability that much, you haven't played the game that sells you on it yet.
>>333189497
I didnt imply it was bad, only that tank Robin eliminates a lot of hard decision making.
>>333185134
FE went to waifu faggotry and purged any kind of challenge that used to be fun.
The even sadder part Is that good FE games now codt the skin of your teeths.
>>333190346
cost*
I liked the concept in Far Cry 2, but it suffered from being too easy to get a clean new gun.
I've always felt that Far Cry is missing an opportunity in going to a more survival design rather than being open world COD. Make exposure a threat, add fatigue, make "safe houses" only somewhat safe, make weapons degrade and have replaced, allow simple weapon repairs or cleaning to be done at the cost of time, increase chance of weapon failure after swimming or exposure to extreme cold....shit like that.
>>333179116
I think a way to do it would be to have a system like Monster Hunter's sharpness, where the weapon does less damage as it's used during a mission but gets repaired for free when you return to the hub. If you have the correct item, you can sharpen it during the mission.
Completely breaking a weapon is VERY hard to not fuck up as a mechanic, as it means you have to have a way of getting the weapon back that isn't time-consuming and/or pointless.
>>333187789
>Swords
>low evade high def high attack units
I guess if you give a wyvern or one of Zealot's men swords, even Dieck gets lucky enough to keep a decent avoid stat
>>333179116
It makes sense as a goldsink in MMOs. Shitters go broke because they can't PvE.
Besides that, it's mostly poorly implemented. The few occasions it's done well is usually in the context of mecha/military machine games, where you can have gun deterioration etc.
The point should really be that a weapon changes over time, and isn't just a constant for the game. Perhaps with permanent deterioration.
One thing I dislike about FE's durability system (or at least the GBA titles, haven't played the recent titles yet,) is that you lose a point of durability for missing attacks. You should only lose durability if you actually land a hit.
>>333191118
only archers lose a durability for missing i thought
Does anyone have screenshots or links to Fates devs complaining about America fucking up their game?
>>333179116
Lots of games have weapon durability but it's often just resource-grind padding rather than forcing you to think tactically about deploying resources.
See: pretty much any western RPG
Fallout's the worst offender. You somehow stumble upon a rare gun that's outside of your league and it limits you by having hideously low durability, when the game already balances for it by the fact that ammunition is already scarce and you can't be lugging it around all the time since you have to control how much you're lugging around thanks to item weight.
The only games I thought have used weapon decay well are beat em ups where they're so powerful and can cut through enemies like nothing, but obviously break in a dozen hits, and Dead Rising, where the whole point of the game is using everything in the environment.
Fire Emblem Fates handled not having any weapon durability extremely well, simply scaling back the amount of resources available to you, and leaving it to the player to just decide when to buy new equipment, when to splurge on staves, and when to buy class changing items.
>>333190546
that still sounds worse than just not having durability in a game though
