Ash McAllan: "Does anyone have examples of tool/weapon..."

Ash McAllan @ash@acegiak.net

Game Designer, Writer, Occasional Streamer, Anarchoqueer, and Goblin Queen.

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Ash McAllan

@ash@acegiak.net

Does anyone have examples of tool/weapon durability systems in games that they really liked and felt like it helped keep them engaged?

Likes

Reizor~Painted by stellar beams of atomic light🌅

Webmentions

Harry Jones

https://twitter.com/ProWriterHarry

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So it feels more like a maintenance thing, weighing up whether it’s worth spending the caps/repair kit now or if you should risk a bit longer with diminished offensive capability to get the most out of the repair kit

Harry Jones

https://twitter.com/ProWriterHarry

in reply to this object

I liked how New Vegas’s weapon degradation felt more like a linear process than “working fine and-OOP suddenly broken”, as well as the ability to fix broken weapons not being hard (on normal difficulty at least repair kits are all over the place and every vendor can do repairs)

Jordan Cook-Irwin

https://twitter.com/jordancookirwin

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It made me feel like a survivor in a post apocalypse who had to think about weapon maintenance. I felt more capable and powerful when my character had learnt enough to be able to maintain with a wider array of parts.

Jordan Cook-Irwin

https://twitter.com/jordancookirwin

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I liked that you could take a perk in fallout 3 (or NV) that allowed you to repair weapons with similar weapons, not just identical. So you could repair a combat shotgun with a different kind of shotgun, rather than only using combat shotguns.

Jordan Cook-Irwin

https://twitter.com/jordancookirwin

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I really liked weapon durability in fallout 3 (or it might have been new Vegas? Both?). I was sad to see it removed in fallout 4. For the record I like the weapon durability in BOTW.

All Being is Becoming

https://twitter.com/LAAbshire

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I like morrowind and oblivion quite a lot. Deciding whether to learn to repair your stuff and carry tools or spend some of your gold on having someone else do it feels good to me. Fallout 3 and new Vegas are pretty popular examples as well

Sofia Julia Sol

https://twitter.com/SkullMutant

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I remember replaying Horizon Zero Dawn on hard a whole ago, and was amazed how fun it was to use every weapon, as I ran out of ammo. Soany weapons I had dismissed were actually great, but on normal, I stuck to bows almost exclusively, because they were reliable.

Sofia Julia Sol

https://twitter.com/SkullMutant

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I agree this will make it less frustrating. But will it encourage, like BotW encouraged, the constant use of every weapon? I hope it will, but I'm not sure. I'm not an expert in game design, but I'm fascinated by mechanics that work, but we still don't use.

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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Make degradation less punishing by: - an opportunity to avoid full destruction - make full destruction never happen - offer a way to repair degraded items

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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Make degradation seem more narratively significant by: - introducing randomness, so that it *might* not happen - tie it to more significant events - tie it to mastery events/punishment for failure

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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I have some thoughts. Players seem frustrated with it feeling like a chore.

Sofia Julia Sol

https://twitter.com/SkullMutant

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Maybe a repair system but I don't know if it would actually be fun. Like it'd be another resource if need to hoard. Maybe if you could only repair with other broken weapons. Force you to cycle through them still.

Sofia Julia Sol

https://twitter.com/SkullMutant

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I've been trying to think of a better system, that still makes me pick up a skeleton arm and use that, and I've got nothing. And picking up a skeleton arm because my last weapon broke was one of the best experiences in the game

DECAY

@Nomys_Tempar@framapiaf.org

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@ash Demon Souls, Far Cry 2

an elf, or possibly a demon pretending he's an elf

https://twitter.com/marcmagus

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I'm struggling to think of one. I very often find they feel bad even when they are also helping to keep me engaged. I'm also a "finishes the game with a stack of never used elixirs just in case I need them more" kind of player; durability extends that impetus across the system.

an elf, or possibly a demon pretending he's an elf

https://twitter.com/marcmagus

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I have two thoughts on botw only one of which is helpful to other games 1: Things broke very quickly but were very available; to me it felt more like the unfun kind of constant inventory management than interesting choices 2: people expect permanent upgrades from items in Zelda

Paz

https://twitter.com/aninkyaffair

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It’s not really a durability system, but the enchanted weapons system in Skyrim is something that I like, and the durability system in FFXIV - I hate systems where if a weapon reaches 0% durability it breaks and is lost, but repair/recharge is something I do like.

jenn martin is trying

https://twitter.com/tenpenjenn

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I liked BOTW's system, but it was the first Zelda game I really got into, so I didn't have any expectations about it.

Blake Ryan 🦘🦇

https://twitter.com/Flyingfox369

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Was it Macchiato Monsters? All weapons are d4, can increase to d6 or d8, but roll a 1 and it goes down a dice size to show degradation

Tricky

@tricky_tdg@mastodon.lol

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@ash I liked the one in Death Stranding because it also gave you incentive to recycle and limit your exposure to rain. It tied tools to the environment.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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Notably in a lot of these, the high level bonus is overcoming degradation. This untethers the advanced player and acts as a gate to wider/further exploration. Botw doesn't, given it has no home base to speak of. Interesting. Need to ponder this more.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

in reply to this object

Most survival games like Minecraft use degradation (or for sci fi like Subnautica or Astroneer, battery) to create a "tether" to the home base. Go out, come back. Consume, repair. Use iron pick to dig, return to furnace to make more iron picks. Big part of the sine wave.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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Does single use count? The last of US's shivs will one shot a clicker, but then it's broken. Makes attacking a rewarding but costly endeavour.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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Dead Rising did the BotW thing: stuff broke easily but you were surrounded by options. Was great at getting me to try new things, or make those clown chainsaws feel special. Even more so because there was a ticking clock. Can you afford crossing the mall to get the chainsaws?

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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WoW around Burning Crusade and Wrath when I was raiding had item durability drop on death. It put a cost on each pull and for tanks in heavy armour (more expensive to repair) it would really hurt over a night of progression. A nice cost that gave each pull weight.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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Dark Souls 2 items degraded through use but were repaired at each bonfire. It meant that in most cases the average player wouldn't notice but if you had a long session between bonfires it would increase tension dramatically.

Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot

https://twitter.com/SidneyIcarus

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There was an old Buffy game where to kill vampires you had to stake them. So you'd weaken them with a tool, then the tool would break and you could use the broken handle to dust them. Super cool phased attack system.

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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Yeah, but if they noticed hating it as much as they seem to then I intuit it's possible to deploy it in a more gracious and elegant way to achieve the same without the obvious pain-point.

Devan

https://twitter.com/arthoure

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I think what I specifically liked was not being enabled to hoard, so I felt more free to experiment or just grab a stick in desperation. Felt very open world because of that.

Devan

https://twitter.com/arthoure

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I saw a great analysis on how even though players SAY they didn't like how botw handled durability, it actually served the overall gameplay experience exactly as it was meant to, upping their enjoyment indirectly, and I agree with that one.

Ash McAllan

@ash@acegiak.net

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Getting amazing answers from my ttrpg crowd and it's making my cogs turn about how those solutions can be translated into real-time digital play

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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WLG has no hitpoints or death so stamina and resource usage become much more load bearing pillars I need to Get Right

@ash@acegiak.net

https://twitter.com/acegiak

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Yeah I liked botw's too but it's also the example most used when people say they hate such systems so I want to work out what makes it work/not work for people

Devan

https://twitter.com/arthoure

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Ooh, and Raft

Devan

https://twitter.com/arthoure

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I liked BotW's! The older Fire Emblem games too, where you had to ration when you wanted to use your most badass specialty weapons.

Reizor~Painted by stellar beams of atomic light🌅

https://twitter.com/UselRay1500

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It's definitely worth looking at as a starting point. It's why I put ammo charges on melee weapons in DoB. A sword wears down as you use. I feel like durability is most interesting when it's reflecting a resource scarcity... I'm getting sidetracked, I also recommend red markets.

Darren "Public Universal Friend" Kumka

https://twitter.com/AlchemyAndInk

in reply to this object

The TTRPG Red Markets has a charge based equipment system that I like, but it's pretty strongly linked to the economic hardship integral to the player characters. Might not work out of that context.

Karl Heinz Häsliprinz

@KarlHeinzHasliP@climatejustice.social

in reply to this object

@ash Nope, not a single one.