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Would BOTW be worse with unbreakable weapons?
- Thread starter exodus
- Start date
Unbreakable weapons would have made the game far more fun for me. Getting through a trial and having your weapons break on you halfway through was some bullshit. Its the one of the big reasons I gave up on the game.
I agree with this too. When I finally got these items, I was ready to feel like a badass. Instead, I had to deal with durability all over again, except on weapons I actually wanted to use consistently. Personally, it took away from the eventual 'omg I got the master sword' moment that I enjoy in Zelda games.
If I could high-five you, I would. Either way the durability system goes, I'm there for BOTW2.
It's pretty funny. It actually incentivizes you to use the Master Sword to break rocks and sweep up trash mobs and shit, because its damage sucks by the time you get it.
I actually think there is a solid chance it does go away just because it seems like a lot of people felt quite strongly about it, but I think if it does go, there'll probably be other changes to loot and combat to accommodate for it.
Though I'm not sure exactly what I think they'd do, I could see weaponry in general becoming less important and a smaller collection of permanent weapons having significantly different attributes, but so much of Breath of the Wild was about recasting the typical Zelda game in a different mould, so I don't know.
I agree with you for the most part.
But after a certain point you're getting such good weapons I hardly think it matters. When you're still sort of grinding against that threshold there will be instances where you're still using trash weapons on very powerful enemies. In those scenarios they're just sponges that eat weapons.
It would have been vastly better. Breakable weapons in BOTW was one of the worst things about it and led to me dropping out.
I think they're gonna keep it actually just buffing the damage they can take so they last longer.
That's assuming the game has a similar "flow" as BotW of course and doesn't mix it up.
The more enemies you kill, the more you level, and the stronger the weapons that drop. They scale together.
Durability was a horrible mechanic, I don't care if the game was designed around it because the design doesn't work. I basically never engaged in combat becayse all the good weapons were hidden away in shrines or harder/special locations. Everytime I took down a camp my reward felt like a lateral movement in my inventory and encouraging that bloodmoon cutscene. There's so many other ways they could incentivize the player other breaking the weapon. They could give weapons from a family unique power, speed, range, and elemental properties and it would be leagues ahead of what they have now.
This simply isn't true.
You can't literally start a new game now, finish the plateau, sprint to that area full of guardians, kill them with the shield deflect, and immediately start finding better weapons/enemy spawns. The scaling is based off the enemies you kill.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think it will go, or at least, be overhauled completely. I would personally prefer a smaller collection of permanent weapons like you have described. But given how big a departure BOTW was, I wouldn't be surprised to see a completely new system introduced.
I would rather it be a back up weapon. Nothing worse than getting to a boss and only having a wooden branch left.
The other weapons are stronger but having something unbreakable to help get out of situations would be a benefit.
A quest line to improve it slowly or able to refine it at a blacksmith to a point after each boss.
The other weapons are stronger but having something unbreakable to help get out of situations would be a benefit.
A quest line to improve it slowly or able to refine it at a blacksmith to a point after each boss.
None of this is how the game works...
...except for this. The system you're asking for is already in the game.
I usually hate games with breakable weapons but botw showers the player with so many weapons it wasn't really an issue for me at all
Especially after dumping all my korok poops into weapon slots
The more you play the less of a problem it becomes, and it becomes fun to find new weapons and swap old ones out
Plus the master sword exists as a safety net
First game ever where I was really totally okay with breakable weapons
Although I do think it would be nice if a late game upgrade let you upgrade some items to unbreakable
But only like after beating ganon maybe and getting the star save
Like a post game perk or similar restriction
Especially after dumping all my korok poops into weapon slots
The more you play the less of a problem it becomes, and it becomes fun to find new weapons and swap old ones out
Plus the master sword exists as a safety net
First game ever where I was really totally okay with breakable weapons
Although I do think it would be nice if a late game upgrade let you upgrade some items to unbreakable
But only like after beating ganon maybe and getting the star save
Like a post game perk or similar restriction
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It's not resource scarcity as much as it is the specific resources you are carrying are not long term. If you're moving through the weapons you get (whether they break or you swap them out), your inventory changes which inherently changes how you engage with stuff.
If you happen to have a fire rod in a grassy area, a metal weapon during a thunderstorm, a boomerang in a wide open space, etc. or if you DON'T have those things in those scenarios will make a difference. It's not all just bashing the closest enemy with the strongest melee weapon you have which is why it's fun imo.
I don't think this ever has happened in the 100s of hours I've played the game. The closest was when I fought Thunderblight Ganon and had mostly metal weapons which made the fight more frantic and challenging but I saw that as a good thing.
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Not related to unbreakable weapons, but just in the way that the game constantly gets in my way.
I'm doing the quest to bring the blue flame to a Robbie's lab. I spend 20 minutes killing enemies on the way to his lab and am ready to go. And now? Back to back rain. Gonna just sit here and wait 10 minutes for it to pass so I can actually light my torch on fire.
I'm doing the quest to bring the blue flame to a Robbie's lab. I spend 20 minutes killing enemies on the way to his lab and am ready to go. And now? Back to back rain. Gonna just sit here and wait 10 minutes for it to pass so I can actually light my torch on fire.
In this case the comparison is only valid one a fps where the gun also breaks. I mean, even the fucking bow breaks in botw.
It happened to me with such frequency I gave up with frustration and anger.
game is built around it, so a lot would probably need to change
but in practice i hoarded stuff because i didn't want to fight my way deep into something and be stuck with a tree branch or whatever. you can only improvise so much
but in practice i hoarded stuff because i didn't want to fight my way deep into something and be stuck with a tree branch or whatever. you can only improvise so much
No it would be better game with unbreakable weapons. Heck in both times I played it (Wii U then Switch) because I knew weapons could break I inadvertently conserved them until I got the Master Sword and Hylian Shield. And yes I know the game literally showers you in weapons, but just my old school RPG mentality (i.e. saving all the potions for the final boss) kept me from using them. But I know tons of people liked the mechanic and all the power to them. I still enjoyed the game regardless.
Played the game for like 20 hours on Switch with breakable weapons and ~130 hours on pc with infinite durability mod.
I liked it more when the weapons were unbreakable. Didn't have to worry about consuming the powerful weapons that I got every 15 hours or even more.
If the weapons were more durable or there is a way to repair them, I wouldn't have much of a problem. But losing the weapon completely is just not my thing.
I liked it more when the weapons were unbreakable. Didn't have to worry about consuming the powerful weapons that I got every 15 hours or even more.
If the weapons were more durable or there is a way to repair them, I wouldn't have much of a problem. But losing the weapon completely is just not my thing.
Yes. IMO it's part of the game (especially on master mode) that you need to be keeping your weapon inventory up to snuff.
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Fuck this game.
10 minutes to take out moblins and the ancient guardian on the way to the ancient tech lab. 10 minutes to wait out the rain. Get nearly all the way there and the fucking blood moon pops up and my flame goes out and the ancient guardian is back.
This shit is just not fun.
10 minutes to take out moblins and the ancient guardian on the way to the ancient tech lab. 10 minutes to wait out the rain. Get nearly all the way there and the fucking blood moon pops up and my flame goes out and the ancient guardian is back.
This shit is just not fun.
Unfortunately it is. The rewards for engaging in combat is not worth it.
No. It has Attack Up which is the only thing I mentioned that's already there.
weapon durability in BOTW forced me to use a wide variety of weapons and improvise when something broke. It's a system which actively makes the game better and more engaging. I will never understand the constant negativity it receives around here, especially when there is an over abundance of weapons at all times which means you're never going to "run out" if weapons.
I understand your perspective. But I think ideal scenario/concept is a long way from the end result. I just don't think the system works in the way that you described. In my experience, I simply had a permanent reservation for the elemental rods, a branch, and a leaf. Everything else was completely disposable. This meant that I always had the option to light a grass field on fire. But it also meant that I had to manage inventory across fewer melee weapon slots. So in my case, the durability added nothing to the experience. I still reserved the interesting weapons, replacing them if I found a fresh version. Realistically, if those weapons/effects were rewarded in a dungeon (like previous Zelda games), I would have enjoyed the same experience but with less menus.
If you have an over abundance of weapons, is BOTW really forcing you to improvise? Whenever a weapon broke, I just swapped to the next and went to bash-town.
I'm not trying to be negative about the system. I think it sounded good on paper, but it just didn't pan out as something that was particularly enjoyable or engaging.
Eh? Combat is the most rewarding thing in the game. It gives you both weapons and monster parts. You generally get more weapons for killing enemies than you break fighting them. The monster parts they drop are one of the best sources of rupees, are essential for potions, and have other good uses too.
The more you fight, the better off you are.
Anyways, I really like the weapon breaking mechanic. Honestly, I think a weakness of the game is that Royal weapons are almost too durable, which messes up a lot of the game flow. Getting weapons is fun, but in the late game you are always getting weapons faster than you are breaking them, so you are stuck doing unfun inventory pruning all the time.
It forces you to improvise because when your sword breaks you now have to rely on a spear. If that breaks you might have to move onto a boomerang or great sword. They all have different styles and the durability means you can't just stick to your one sword you found. Of course you could just stock up on a bunch of similar swords, but generally the game throws a variety of weapons at you so you're likely to have a variety in your inventory.
Ah okay, I see where you're going with this. I don't want to derail the thread, so I'll just say, I don't think the movesets on the weapons you described were anywhere near deep or interesting enough to have the effect you're describing. Swapping between those weapons had minimal effect on the gameplay.
There's a house you can build a fire in next to the furnace to instantly wait out the rain. And lamps along the way that you can light as checkpoints, so you don't lose progress if the flame goes out.
I enjoyed every moment of the 150+ hours I spent playing this game, and I feel like the encounters are balanced around this mechanic. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. You start out with basically nothing, because you're thrust into the, well, Wild.
If they decided not to go this route in the sequel, I wouldn't complain. But yeah, living off the land and basically scavenging for your survival is the whole point of BotW, and I loved it.
If they decided not to go this route in the sequel, I wouldn't complain. But yeah, living off the land and basically scavenging for your survival is the whole point of BotW, and I loved it.
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Thanks. Ended up getting it. Just frustrating that it took me nearly an hour because of some bad luck with weather and the moon timing.
I'm curious of your playstyle because I feel like anything you do that could break your weapons gives you weapons outside of bashing them against a wall.
I've had that experience myself but I didn't really notice what you describe take place until late game when I had expanded my inventory slots and explored most of Hyrule. For most of the game you don't really have the space to have that happen. I certainly didn't always have a rod of each element if I was actually using them to fight. My gameplay style was to just use anything and everything I had. I never saved anything for a special moment.
Even then, when you do get to the point that you basically always have what you'd want to use anyway, that kind of solves the "problem" of weapon durability, doesn't it?
Not really. My biggest issue was the constant influx of new weapons requiring me to go into a cumbersome menu. That didn't really ever go away, even after I got the Master Sword.
While it didn't bother me that much, I can agree the game could use a better way to manage inventory and menus. It's slightly cumbersome there. I really see that as a small QoL thing though.
This is partially true, as you do need to kill monsters for their parts to upgrade your gear. However the farming is ideally happening end-game, so you would likely spend 40 hours of the game freeing up the Divine Beasts and explore to scale the leveling of the monsters through Blood Moon. This means the stronger monsters would spawn with the more valuable monster parts but this is more useful towards the end of the game. So really, fighting monsters really isn't worth it in my eyes throughout the majority of the game until the rewards are actually valuable for other parts of the games resource economy.
Just to counter your point, the most rewarding thing about the game is options. They give you the freedom to approach everything however you want, but as a result imo, and seems like many in this thread, feel the combat itself suffers from this. I'm not against the durability system, but the resource economy as I mentioned above gives no reason to engage in fights when you can find strong weapons to carry you to late-game quests and monsters out in the open. On the other hand rupees and resources in the open world to trade for elixirs.
Generally speaking, this is a good thing. The game doesn't shoehorn a "right way to play". Should they revisit this? Sure, if they want to. The team took major risks for the first time since Majora's Mask so while I'm not a fan of the durability system, I would appreciate further QOL improvements to make it more manageable with less inventory management drivel.
The Master Sword breaks like everything else, it just grows back after a time, and against normal enemies it's not even particularly good. I used it to chop trees down so I wouldn't have to break my good weapons on that.
Oh I don't doubt it. You can't just remove something like that when the whole game was designed and balanced around it. I still don't think the all weapons being breakable design philosophy was a good one. Again, like I said before, I'd maintain the weapon breaking thing early-mid game but offer cooler weapons you can get that won't break. Or maybe make some way of upgrading weapons you like to become unbreakable through some crafting/materials/quest/something.
Unbreakable weapons would completely break the game. The entire point is coming up with unique solutions to unpredictable situations given what you have on hand. If you kept everything forever the combat would just be a bothersome chore.
It's a system that was obviously designed to utilize the Wii U gamepad. I expect the sequel to be have a much better UI.
I mean BOTW's combat is what it is. It's relatively simple. That's not to say there's no depth at all, but obviously it's no DMC or anything like that. The different weapon types, however, absolutely play and feel different from each other. I don't think that's really up for debate. Again, it's not like, say, monster hunter where a different weapon almost makes it feel like you're playing a completely different game, but it's enough to give variety. Especially in the heat of combat where you might be losing weapons.