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Would BOTW be worse with unbreakable weapons?
- Thread starter exodus
- Start date
I didn't think so. I found them fairly interchangeable, particularly given how often I was using the slow-mo parry system.
This is basically where the game ended for me. I thought, "They can't make the Master Sword break, and I'll finally have a nice default weapon that I can use against trivial enemies and pots/trees/grass to reduce my inventory management!"
The worst part about the Master Sword is that it doesn't seem to regenerate until it actually breaks, so you can't even partially use it and have it get back to full strength for a real fight: once you use it, you'll want to fully break it which is ridiculous and cemented this game as terribly designed in my opinion.
It's like a CCG. Generally, what's in your deck is known to you, but when and in what combination each tool is going to come up isn't, meaning that you have to approach every situation slightly differently.
I love the design. I think if everyone vibed on what Nintendo was going for and just trusted the game not to strand them without any options (because the weapon drop system is definitely 1000% adjusted based on what you have), they'd really enjoy it, too. But decades of game design has relied on the stinginess of these resources in particular, and it's really hard to unlearn that expectation.
I love the design. I think if everyone vibed on what Nintendo was going for and just trusted the game not to strand them without any options (because the weapon drop system is definitely 1000% adjusted based on what you have), they'd really enjoy it, too. But decades of game design has relied on the stinginess of these resources in particular, and it's really hard to unlearn that expectation.
It's the difference between carrots on sticks and actual player improvement in terms of gameplay.
People keep talking about Genshin for example which has "endgame" and levels and meters to fill and the entire premise of BOTW is to provide everything so that you can "make your own fun" by way of living off the land and stealing weapons and not be bound to things like "Go here get this weapon, face roll the game" or stupid shit like "grind for these items to upgrade weapons" etc
A world like BOTW is and would be ruined if there was unbreakable weapons. This may be a slight hyperbolization but the world would drastically be different at the very least.
That's not to say there isn't a place for a repair system or other solutions but every time I see people talking about "progression" in the game they want the typical meters and endorphin rush of "YOU GOT ITEM. YOU DID GOOD. NOW HAVE ITEM" instead of "You have all the items, now make the world your oyster."
That's not to say one design mentality is worse than the other, but I personally believe that people have been so conditioned by skinner boxes and "RPG mechanics" that any game that doesn't TELL THEM they're progressing is hard for people to just...understand.
As for "temporary gear" anyone who played past the first few hours is swimming in weapons and equipment. Not having items or not finding items is a direct lack of engagement in one of the core aspects of the game's design (i.e. exploring and foraging).
The game has ultimate freedom, to keep that from being busted there has to be limits. Is BOTW teh best incarnation of this? That's debateable. Could the system provide a middle ground for both likers to keep "earned" equipment like the champ weapons? Definitely. But taking away breakable weapons and the constant whining about it is one of the most baffling things I've ever seen from the gaming community.
It's like asking why there's ammo limits in Resident Evil. The limitations are there to enforce the core gameplay.
The goal of games with "limits" is so that the PLAYER is engaged enough to "get better" at the game over time. We wouldn't have insane rune combos and stuff if there weren't breakable weapons and there wouldn't be so many approaches to combat if there weren't those limitations in place. By the end of the game you're not worrying about the durability or even the resources you might have worried about at the beginning of the game through natural learning in the game world and adapting to the situations you've experienced before. I personally value that over raising a meter to do bigger numbers and finding one item to just roll the rest of the game with.
People keep talking about Genshin for example which has "endgame" and levels and meters to fill and the entire premise of BOTW is to provide everything so that you can "make your own fun" by way of living off the land and stealing weapons and not be bound to things like "Go here get this weapon, face roll the game" or stupid shit like "grind for these items to upgrade weapons" etc
A world like BOTW is and would be ruined if there was unbreakable weapons. This may be a slight hyperbolization but the world would drastically be different at the very least.
That's not to say there isn't a place for a repair system or other solutions but every time I see people talking about "progression" in the game they want the typical meters and endorphin rush of "YOU GOT ITEM. YOU DID GOOD. NOW HAVE ITEM" instead of "You have all the items, now make the world your oyster."
That's not to say one design mentality is worse than the other, but I personally believe that people have been so conditioned by skinner boxes and "RPG mechanics" that any game that doesn't TELL THEM they're progressing is hard for people to just...understand.
As for "temporary gear" anyone who played past the first few hours is swimming in weapons and equipment. Not having items or not finding items is a direct lack of engagement in one of the core aspects of the game's design (i.e. exploring and foraging).
The game has ultimate freedom, to keep that from being busted there has to be limits. Is BOTW teh best incarnation of this? That's debateable. Could the system provide a middle ground for both likers to keep "earned" equipment like the champ weapons? Definitely. But taking away breakable weapons and the constant whining about it is one of the most baffling things I've ever seen from the gaming community.
It's like asking why there's ammo limits in Resident Evil. The limitations are there to enforce the core gameplay.
The goal of games with "limits" is so that the PLAYER is engaged enough to "get better" at the game over time. We wouldn't have insane rune combos and stuff if there weren't breakable weapons and there wouldn't be so many approaches to combat if there weren't those limitations in place. By the end of the game you're not worrying about the durability or even the resources you might have worried about at the beginning of the game through natural learning in the game world and adapting to the situations you've experienced before. I personally value that over raising a meter to do bigger numbers and finding one item to just roll the rest of the game with.
Yes. You're SUPPOSED to be scrounging for weapons and not afraid to use cool ones as you will always find more cool ones. When you get the alert weapon is about to break, it's time to throw it at all enemy for 3x damage.
BotW would be a very different game with unbreakable weapons. Honestly it's weapon system reminds me of Dead Rising, in a good way.
Also, there IS a way to get an unbreakable weapon in the first DLC pack, but it can be pretty challenging and you have to make significant progress in the game to even get to the place where you get it.
BotW would be a very different game with unbreakable weapons. Honestly it's weapon system reminds me of Dead Rising, in a good way.
Also, there IS a way to get an unbreakable weapon in the first DLC pack, but it can be pretty challenging and you have to make significant progress in the game to even get to the place where you get it.
Sword and shields are different from great swords which are more sweeping and slow. That's different from a spear which bas longer ranged and is quick and stabby. That's way different from the boomerangs which, yes, you can just use like a sword and shield but you can also throw it at your enemies like a boomerang. And of course the wands are probably the most different of all.
To each their own I suppose, but I honestly don't see how anyone can play BOTW and come away saying "yeah all the weapon types are basically interchangeable." I guess "interchangeable"' is true if you want to say you can tackle almost any situation with any weapon, but I think it would be misleading to say that encounters don't feel different depending on the weapon you use.
I played monster hunter world only ever using the bow. Never once used a different weapon. I wouldn't say "eh the weapons are interchangeable and it doesn't matter" because MHW obviously feels different when you use a different weapon. BOTW doesn't have the same level of depth, but there is still variety between the different types.
The game has an overabundance of weapons that spits in the face of the free form gameplay and exploration that a lot of y'all seem to think is so great.
If you're always going to have more weapons then there really is no point in the weapons breaking. If you're in a position in which you're out of weapons then you messed up big time.
There is no benefit to weapon durability other than tedious item management and you're fooling yourself if you think otherwise.
A lack of weapon durability would not have turned a single person off from the game. The presence of it absolutely did.
If you're always going to have more weapons then there really is no point in the weapons breaking. If you're in a position in which you're out of weapons then you messed up big time.
There is no benefit to weapon durability other than tedious item management and you're fooling yourself if you think otherwise.
A lack of weapon durability would not have turned a single person off from the game. The presence of it absolutely did.
I think you're right about the boomerangs. And perhaps you have a point about being able to tackle most situations with any weapon. But overall, I felt that the weapons were shallow to a point that it honestly didn't matter what I was using.
It would be worse because they would implement some horrible level system or something instead.
It's fundamentally tied to the go everywhere and anywhere nature of the world, because without the fact that anything you find has really finite usage, you can't balance anything, because maybe the player, entirely accidentally, stumbled across a really good weapon an hour in, or maybe it takes them forty to find something equivalent.
It's fundamentally tied to the go everywhere and anywhere nature of the world, because without the fact that anything you find has really finite usage, you can't balance anything, because maybe the player, entirely accidentally, stumbled across a really good weapon an hour in, or maybe it takes them forty to find something equivalent.
You don't just automatically have more weapons though. You have more weapons if you're exploring. And this is a game that is about exploration. The weapon degradation is there to force you to explore. Just like the korok puzzles encourage it.
If you're just going from town to town, main quest to main quest, sticking to the roads, never wandering off, it is absolutely possible to run out of weapons (also food and arrows, which are way more important than weapons).
Yes it would have turned people off. If 25% of people were randomly given an infinite ammo rocket launcher within the first hour of a hundred hour resident evil game, which entirely trivialises all combat for the majority of the game, it would ruin it for most of those people.
That's what not having durability limits in BOTW would do ; the player has no idea where anything is, so if they stumble across an excellent weapon by accident, they would have the entire combat system and interesting use of the physics/chemistry systems effectively ruined for the whole game. No point trying anything with runes because you got a big stick that kills everything very quickly.
I mean, the problem is that you are both using the Master Sword in the exact opposite way it is intended and underestimating its full potential.
The Master Sword is designed to fight Guardians and clear dungeons. While it is glowing in response to those things, it is both the strongest weapon in the game and completely unbreakable. You can fight every enemy in Hyrule Castle with the Master Sword and it won't break once, and then watch it break on a Chu Chu the moment you leave the castle and it stops glowing. It was designed to be your trump card for getting through tough fights, and was specifically designed to not be good at trivial tasks.
Its design is actually really elegant, since it is a weapon that really does live up to its legend when you need it the most, but because it only works when you need it the most, it doesn't trivialize or invalidate the weapon acquisition loop for normal gameplay.
So, I really think it works perfectly within the game.
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Which bosses are you talking about? Lynels? Hinox? The Divine Beasts don't even really have enemies except for the mini-guardians, which... are there to give you weapons. I don't understand how you could burn through them all unless you came in severely underprepared.
I replayed the game on Cemu with cheats to have unbreakable weapons and shields and I found it to be less rewarding to explore. I think the durability should have been double or three times what it was. But for the game to have unbreakable weapons in general it would need to be adjusted heavily.
Yeah, so, because of this "elegant" design, the Master Sword went mostly unused in my travels. Great.
I used to think it would be better but upon further thinking... I really do think the durability system is a good thing. Part of the fun is surviving off scraps, using makeshift weapons and setting up traps for enemies. If you make every weapon indestructible it would worsen the overall experience.
Given I'm spending most of my time not fighting guardians, most of the time I use the Master Sword to break rocks and other object, or sometimes to clean up trash mobs. Guardians like running away to mid-range so I don't usually bother engaging them with melee weapons, especially since trivializing them by parrying lasers is more fun than trivializing them by stunlocking them to death with repeated weapon swings.
Don't the guardian weapons get bonus damage against guardians? I dunno how much it is but even in the one situation where you happen to be fighting guardians I think strong guardian weapons should beat out the Master Sword for damage, especially with attack up modifiers.
When a weapon breaks in botw, it disintegrates into a million pieces and vanishes. However, there are several story unlocked weapons that can be repaired or replaced for a modest fee, and these weapons range from pretty good to outstanding. Furthermore, the Master Sword automatically restores itself after breaking if you wait a short bit.
Other than those, every other weapon is a commonly found weapon that drops from enemies regularly. Even the most powerful non-unique weapons in the game, the elemental weapons, can readily and reliably be found in the game in specific locations.
didn't like it at first but it would feel so strange if the sequel didn't have breakable weapons too. i don't want it to change.
Probably, but the game would have to be completely redesigned to implement that change. Would definitely not be worth it, as having breakable weapons is the least of the game's problems
The Master Sword has a durability of 200 when glowing. You can break it.
That said, even when not glowing, it's a powerful tool just to ensure you're gaining weapons faster than you're breaking them.
Without breakable weapons there would be no incentive not to pseudo stealth the whole thing. They'd need to give another reason to spend so much time killing enemies. I absolutely do think they should have done that, but I couldn't tell you what that specific new reason should have been. Most games of that sort give exp or money but I don't think that fits with BOTW.
Gaurdian and Ancient weapons do deal boosted damage against Guardians, though their real advantage is their ability to sever limbs. It takes a normal weapon or Master Sword two hits to cut a Stalker Guardian arm, but even the weakest Guardian weapon can do that in one hit. So with a little practice you can buzzsaw through all of a Stalker's limbs in two seconds and render it completely helpless. At that point the greater durability of the Master Sword is useful so you can conserve the fragile Guardian weapons for later leg-cutting.
I am absolutely horrible at ranged parrying and hate getting blasted by lasers, so that's the method I always used for Stalkers.
Really, the raw power of weapons is rarely the most important trait they have. This is why, even though elemental weapons have much lower power than royal weapons, they are far more powerful. A royal weapon can hit hard, but that is meaningless compared to the sbility of elemental weapons to chain stun lock enemies and inflict instant kills.
Honestly, a version of BotW without weapon durability would almost certainly need to remove elemental weapons in their entirety. Limited inventory space and durability is the only things stopping them from completely trivializing anything that isn't a Guardian or Lynel.
And for the record, if you want to use a melee weapon to break rocks, the sledgehammer and Goron drill lance are great. Way faster than using the Master Sword, and more precise than bombs. Bombs are the best choice for knocking down trees though. And for grass and hunting small game I'd recommend a thrown lizalfos sword.
It feels like an excuse, quite frankly, saying it would break the design. In my opinion, there's something wrong with the core of the game, if it needs comically breakable weapons "to work"
No it would be a different game because they'd need to completely redo it, whether it would be "better" who knows.
"Why doesn't this horror game give me infinite ammo like an FPS? I don't know I just think there's something wrong with the core of this game, if it needs limited ammo "to work."
No doubt in my mind, yes. It'd defeat the purpose of the game's strongest asset: its extremely varied and flexible sandbox.
Master Mode would've been a complete bore if my weapons were unbreakable. Part of what made the base game (and Master Mode even more so) was the fact that weapons could break, leading me to find creative solutions to difficult encounters. It wouldn't have been half the game it was if I could simply scream through Hyrule Castle and come out the other side with royal weapons and the Hylian shield.
Hell, the Hylian shield is already overpowered enough, given it's nigh-unbreakable piece of equipment that pretty much nullifies the entire shield slot. The only time you're not likely to use it is during a thunderstorm.
Master Mode would've been a complete bore if my weapons were unbreakable. Part of what made the base game (and Master Mode even more so) was the fact that weapons could break, leading me to find creative solutions to difficult encounters. It wouldn't have been half the game it was if I could simply scream through Hyrule Castle and come out the other side with royal weapons and the Hylian shield.
Hell, the Hylian shield is already overpowered enough, given it's nigh-unbreakable piece of equipment that pretty much nullifies the entire shield slot. The only time you're not likely to use it is during a thunderstorm.
I wanna try this.
I hate BOTW for several reasons, and weapon durability is one of the bigger ones, so I've always wondered if I would hate the rest of the game less if I didn't have to deal with that bullshit.
I hate it so much that I went and got the master sword as early as I could thinking that there's no way Nintendo would make that breakable, but they fucked that up as well.
Part of the point of the game is "pick up and use what you can find". It's the survival aspect that makes it such an interesting game.
Early on you are forced to think: "should I go and attack that thing? what if my weapon breaks? Is there another way I could kill that thing without putting myself at risk? If I make the wrong decision will I die?"
Take away weapon degradation and that disappears.
Early on you are forced to think: "should I go and attack that thing? what if my weapon breaks? Is there another way I could kill that thing without putting myself at risk? If I make the wrong decision will I die?"
Take away weapon degradation and that disappears.
Maintaining the system the games weapons are built upon is not "fucking up."
The fact you wanted the Master Sword to not break so you wouldn't have to use the other weapons is the exact reason the sword breaks.
I wouldn't mind weapons breaking if the environment had some deeper mechanics to utilize weapon breaking, right now it's too pointless, maybe not being able to carry more than 1 weapon and I would understand the defense, but you can carry around 6 swords? What's the point by then
Running out of bullets, doesn't feel as stupid and discouraging.. as weapons being made out of glass.
Sorry you don't like it, doesn't make the system inherently wrong.
That's why I said imo, I have no idea why people find the comically breakable weapons.. fun, but ok if it's right for them, whatever cool.
It's been explained endlessly for years why people find them fun, you just don't.
You do realize that real-life swords can actually be really brittle and fragile, right? If you parry a sword blow with the edge of your own sword like in movies, your sword's cutting edge actually would shatter and break off. Swords would snap in half mid-battle all the time. The medieval swords that survived to the modern day are generally ceremonial pieces that never saw battle.
It's the only durability system in a game to actually work. It has purpose, it's part of the core design and it's really elegantly tied to many aspects of the game.
Those complaining about inventory management or menus must have been doing something wrong, changing weapons is almost instantaneous and in 2 playthrough and a combined 200-300 hours played I can't once remember spending a length of time in menus managing weapons.
It's also ridiculous how people exaggerate it. By the mid-to-late game most weapons you have are pretty durable. At that point I started deliberately trying to break weapons just to be able to rotate in new weapon drops. My guess? People don't use anythig except hack and slash. Durability is a bigger issue if you don't use bows, stealth, environmental hazards, etc.
Those complaining about inventory management or menus must have been doing something wrong, changing weapons is almost instantaneous and in 2 playthrough and a combined 200-300 hours played I can't once remember spending a length of time in menus managing weapons.
It's also ridiculous how people exaggerate it. By the mid-to-late game most weapons you have are pretty durable. At that point I started deliberately trying to break weapons just to be able to rotate in new weapon drops. My guess? People don't use anythig except hack and slash. Durability is a bigger issue if you don't use bows, stealth, environmental hazards, etc.