Durability overhaul

[Greggerygregington]

The durability of items is one of the biggest complaints people have with this game, it's not a coincidence that the infinite durability mod is the most popular mod in the workshop, playing with mods however deactivates steam achievments and it's a shame so many need that one mod to make the game enjoyable.

I think I have a solution to this problem without removing durability from the game.
In my solution, equipment will still have a durability stat and become broken, once broken the piece of equipment is still usable, although with nerfs to it's stats (only retains 3/4 of original stats for example). When equipment is broken the durability stat is restored to full, the player can continue to use it while broken until the durability stat goes once again to zero, when this happens broken equipment will become "shattered" and unusable by the player.
BROKEN equipment can be repaired without losing max durability, meanwhile SHATTERED equipment can be repaired at the cost of max durability.

I think this would go a long way into addressing this common complaint.

[Fairin the Drakitty]

you can repair equipment at grindstones. and crafted equipment is easy. and after you *spoiler* durability isn't a thing anymore.

i'd say the main problem is, its not advertised you can easily repair everything in the game with a single click.

hell through the last half of the game i just use a lantern in my primary weapon slot most of the time and pull out the "big guns" as it were for anything dangerous, like sun priests and final bosses.

[vitokin]

Originally posted by Fairin the Drakitty:

you can repair equipment at grindstones. and crafted equipment is easy. and after you *spoiler* durability isn't a thing anymore.

i'd say the main problem is, its not advertised you can easily repair everything in the game with a single click.

hell through the last half of the game i just use a lantern in my primary weapon slot most of the time and pull out the "big guns" as it were for anything dangerous, like sun priests and final bosses.

Thatr lantern strategy sounds pretty wicked, i need to try it

[Greggerygregington]

Originally posted by Fairin the Drakitty:

you can repair equipment at grindstones. and crafted equipment is easy. and after you *spoiler* durability isn't a thing anymore.

i'd say the main problem is, its not advertised you can easily repair everything in the game with a single click.

hell through the last half of the game i just use a lantern in my primary weapon slot most of the time and pull out the "big guns" as it were for anything dangerous, like sun priests and final bosses.

I know you can repair equipment, what I propose is making it so repairing BROKEN eqipment no longer decreases the max durability, only when it is SHATTERED, as I drescribed.

[Lurlex]

I think the issue may be that people aren't understanding what weapons are intended to be in this game. You're SUPPOSED to be churning through them like this, BoTW style. Feature, not a bug.

The dev just flat out does not want an entire-run weapon in your playthrough. And it's a valid design decision -- hardly the first game to be very strict about making sure you understand the impermanence of your inventory.

One thing that I think could be done to reduce some of the complaints about that is to put a bit of text in at the beginning of the game, add something to the tutorial, that expands on this very topic. it's not because of lack of foresight that you find yourself having to replace your equipment every couple of minutes. You're SUPPOSED to be.

Max durability is going down upon repair because you are just plain not meant to have that item forever (at least in vanilla). Period. This is something I imagine a lot of people will change in mods, similar to how people change mechanics they dislike in Rimworld, which is ultimately what I think some player types may prefer. I don't think it needs to be changed in the vanilla experience, though.

Most of the complaints I've heard about durability are from people who don't have a lot of experience with classic roguelikes in general, as well. Someone going into the experience expecting to be able to fall in love and marry your gear, Diablo-style, may find the mechanic difficult to adapt to at first.

[Celgaming]

Durability is fine.

Losing 1 durability on spell cast / attack is not.

Some classes use 1-3 abilities to pull something off. This durability nonsense makes people either build glass cannons or use silly strategies to bypass durability altogether, like having waste gear or stacking STR to carry 2-4 weapons. I've done this. I've crafted 2-3 artifacts I cycle but eventually all of them hit 0 durability no matter what I do. It's just not fun crafting in this game either. You can make an artifact out of crafting 50 rags but is it fun doing so? Or making quarterstaves until you get 1 or 2 artifact staves, but both have 80 durability so they won't last that long.

Also it doesn't help that the map can't be edited to add markings of your own, like marking whetstones and possibly your stashes.

I don't know. Game doesn't feel complete enough or polished but I forgive it for the experience it has given me. I just wish it had more thought put into certain systems. Durability being one of them. It feels shoehorned in just "because we need it". Then again many AAA developers do durability wrong too so there. I remember when in WoW if you died a few times the durability penalty meant you had to spend 10% of your entire gold budget to repair your gear and everyone complained. Some couldn't even afford it if they had end game gear.

[Wrong Window]

I'm really not sure how to judge the durability mod in terms of player satisfaction with the game. To me, crafting was one of the selling points and does well to distinguish this from a lot of other traditional roguelikes. If anything I find field of vision a bit more onerous to deal with. That said, I'd say a difficulty slider or toggle would go a long way in terms of addressing complaints of durability. Current durability would be the default and an option to increase durability would be the easier setting.

[Tegga21]

Originally posted by Celgaming:

Durability is fine.

Losing 1 durability on spell cast / attack is not.

Some classes use 1-3 abilities to pull something off. This durability nonsense makes people either build glass cannons or use silly strategies to bypass durability altogether, like having waste gear or stacking STR to carry 2-4 weapons. I've done this. I've crafted 2-3 artifacts I cycle but eventually all of them hit 0 durability no matter what I do. It's just not fun crafting in this game either. You can make an artifact out of crafting 50 rags but is it fun doing so? Or making quarterstaves until you get 1 or 2 artifact staves, but both have 80 durability so they won't last that long.

Also it doesn't help that the map can't be edited to add markings of your own, like marking whetstones and possibly your stashes.

I don't know. Game doesn't feel complete enough or polished but I forgive it for the experience it has given me. I just wish it had more thought put into certain systems. Durability being one of them. It feels shoehorned in just "because we need it". Then again many AAA developers do durability wrong too so there. I remember when in WoW if you died a few times the durability penalty meant you had to spend 10% of your entire gold budget to repair your gear and everyone complained. Some couldn't even afford it if they had end game gear.

To be fair in wow repair bills were the least gold intensive thing about end game gear. If you couldn't afford repair bills you wern't doing end game. Fairly easy to make thousands/millions in wow, repair bills were essentially nothing compared to pots, gear, enchants, flasks etc.

[suejak]

This isn't the first game where players mod out all the difficulty because they disagree with the core design.

[Artur Smiarowski]

I don't believe durability or some complaints are a problem. I don't even believe that Infinite Durability mod being so popular is a cause to change how the game works. It's very easy to remove things that you don't like and it's perfectly fine for anyone to do so, if you don't like the core concept but there's enough in the game that can provide some fun for you, tweak it yourself, make it easier, or even harder. When you're ready to take a challenge, remove the mods, and try again, maybe it will make more sense to you when you learn more about the game.

Creating an infinite durability mod takes 15 minutes inside the in-game modding tools, simply by going through the items and removing the Durability component. I think it makes the game poorly balanced with high drop rates, but magic drop rates can also be tweaked in the affixes.json file.

There might be some small tweaks in the system, one of such tweaks came in today's v1.0.6 update with the Smid's Hammer, but the core concept will not change. Durability will stay, and your powerful find will not last from the beginning till the end of the game. Soulash is about overcoming challenges for big rewards, if there's no challenge, the rewards are meaningless as well. One of such rewards is the ability to craft indestructible items.

[Celgaming]

Originally posted by Tegga21:

Originally posted by Celgaming:

Durability is fine.

Losing 1 durability on spell cast / attack is not.

Some classes use 1-3 abilities to pull something off. This durability nonsense makes people either build glass cannons or use silly strategies to bypass durability altogether, like having waste gear or stacking STR to carry 2-4 weapons. I've done this. I've crafted 2-3 artifacts I cycle but eventually all of them hit 0 durability no matter what I do. It's just not fun crafting in this game either. You can make an artifact out of crafting 50 rags but is it fun doing so? Or making quarterstaves until you get 1 or 2 artifact staves, but both have 80 durability so they won't last that long.

Also it doesn't help that the map can't be edited to add markings of your own, like marking whetstones and possibly your stashes.

I don't know. Game doesn't feel complete enough or polished but I forgive it for the experience it has given me. I just wish it had more thought put into certain systems. Durability being one of them. It feels shoehorned in just "because we need it". Then again many AAA developers do durability wrong too so there. I remember when in WoW if you died a few times the durability penalty meant you had to spend 10% of your entire gold budget to repair your gear and everyone complained. Some couldn't even afford it if they had end game gear.

To be fair in wow repair bills were the least gold intensive thing about end game gear. If you couldn't afford repair bills you wern't doing end game. Fairly easy to make thousands/millions in wow, repair bills were essentially nothing compared to pots, gear, enchants, flasks etc.

We're probably talking about different times. There was a time in WoW where repair bills bankrupted certain people because the gear score jump from one raid was too huge. Early, early days mind you.

[Yellow]

Being able to mod the game is not an excuse for a bad game mechanic. It's still in the base game, it's still what most people play and see most.

[Greggerygregington]

Originally posted by Zoop:

Being able to mod the game is not an excuse for a bad game mechanic. It's still in the base game, it's still what most people play and see most.

I'm with you there

[Artur Smiarowski]

You have the power to change things around and yet you still complain to the "higher power" about "bad design choices". No amount of changes I can make will help you think like a god, you'll need to use your imagination and empathy.

[Greggerygregington]

Originally posted by Artur Smiarowski:

You have the power to change things around and yet you still complain to the "higher power" about "bad design choices". No amount of changes I can make will help you think like a god, you'll need to use your imagination and empathy.

What a spectacular comment. 'Thinking like a god' Lmao.
Bro you created a subpar game not a dynamic universe, curb that ego of yours.

[Terribly Tired]

Originally posted by Greggerygregington:

Originally posted by Artur Smiarowski:

You have the power to change things around and yet you still complain to the "higher power" about "bad design choices". No amount of changes I can make will help you think like a god, you'll need to use your imagination and empathy.

What a spectacular comment. 'Thinking like a god' Lmao.
Bro you created a subpar game not a dynamic universe, curb that ego of yours.

I really wouldn't ask this "developer" for anything as his only answer is "No I like the way I made it, if you don't then just fix it yourself."