Poll: Weapon Degradation

[BENZOOKA]

It depends on the game. I've only come across to this in Fallout 3, and there I first thought it was a great idea, but the weapons fall apart way too quickly there.

 

[Seldon2639]

For a game like fallout, hell yes. It makes you really feel like your using old weapons that are taking a lot of abuse. I don't want pick up a old rifle and it to do perfect damage and dead on shot.

But like in a game like halo, it's just kind of clunky and weird.

I had the opposite experience. One of the reasons I finally said "oh, screw this" to Fallout 3 was that I hated constantly having to repair my weapons, and never being able to go fifteen minutes without "oh, snap, your gun sucks now".

Ahh see. You're working with 200 year old stuff. So I assumed that it was going to take a lot of damage. Like springs not working and triggers jamming. So you need to go and fix them. While I see your consern with constant upkeep, I always found a insane amount of hunting rifles, so Ol' painless was always in good shape (helps if you have a super hight repair skill)

I just found it annoying as hell, especially since you don't make that much money anyway. I mean, I get why some of the ancient weapons might degrade, but at the point I have an almost perfect weapon, why does it take less than two full clips to cost a boatload of bottlecaps to repair?

 

[PureChaos]

it worked in Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain...that's about it

 

[Jark212]

No, maybe you could field strip your gun and clean it after every other large scale battle or mission. That would be more realistic...

 

[Qualko]

It was quite good in Oblivion, I thought; especially as you could continue using the broken weapon (albeit with reduced damage) , it didn't make you get out another. I kind of like the idea of maintaining equipment...

 

[jimduckie]

gee in fallout 3 how the hell does a tire iron break ? its made of steel and is used as a club
the weapons if you have high repair skill should auto fix if you have 2 of the same instead of stopping and selecting repair item

 

[Kuchinawa212]

I just found it annoying as hell, especially since you don't make that much money anyway. I mean, I get why some of the ancient weapons might degrade, but at the point I have an almost perfect weapon, why does it take less than two full clips to cost a boatload of bottlecaps to repair?

*laughs* you gotta keep better track of your money. I'm swimming in caps. Just carry things to sell back as soon as you can. Well anyway, A high repair skill means that you can repair your own weapons better then a good share of the shop keepers. I can actually get them Perfect. Really and it takes a long time for them ever to degrade. Shop keeps can get them to Pretty good. But yeah, it's just using a wide range of weapons. Chin. Assault Rifle here, shot gun there, laser weapon here, explore with the hunting rifle. Sure they all degrade, but you're spreading it out through a lot of guns. Also search everywhere! You'll find the extra guns to repair your stuff so you don't have to keep forking over money

 

[koeniginator]

I feel like Fire Emblem did weapon degeneration the best,
in fallout 3 it just got really, really annoying.
But I could see how it could ironically 'break' the game without it.

 

[Hollock]

it bugs me,but I can live with it. I would rather not have it but it's fine.

 

[Ildecia]

Monster Hunter did it relatively well. there was a different speed at which each type of weapon degraded; yet it wasn't fun to take 10 seconds re-sharpening a weapon with a dragon on the loose possibly healing...

 

[Ildecia]

i just hated WoW's ARMOR degradation....
good god; 20 seconds of tanking and my shield breaks... isn't it made out of like... god?

 

[Byzantinium]

In Fallout 3, it's perfect. Almost every single weapon in the game has at best been sitting in the wasteland for two centuries, and at worst been constantly used by other people. And in the most extreme case, if you take Lincoln's rifle from the museum, that poor thing is over four hundred years old. If you went outside and discovered a rifle that's been laying on the ground since the Napoleonic Wars, how well do you think it's gonna fire?

in games like oh say, Beowulf, The Movie, The Game where weapons shatter after like 3 hits, even the legendery ones last like 5 hits, it's abit of a pisser.

"But alas! as it descended the famous sword Nægling snapped asunder. Beowulf's sword had failed him in the conflict, although it was an old and well-wrought blade. To him it was not granted that weapons should help him in battle. The hand that swung the sword was too strong. His might overtaxed every blade however wondrously the smith had welded it."


That said, weapon degradation should be the exception, not the rule, only appearing when there's good reason for it.

 

[Project .hack]

If done correctly it works. I don't want to keep quoting Fallout, but that was one of the best examples of the degradation. I think a good system for degradation comes from the time it takes for it to degrade. Skill in the particular weapon would affect how fast it goes down, a good repair skill implemented in the game would be a kind of fall back if you can't just switch guns, also amount of use, and weapon damage also degrading as well. I feel if all those things make for a good degradation system. Fire Emblem was ok, but I got tired of buying new stuff and the staffs to repair them were few and far between. I like it in RPG games but in something where it's more run and gun, a jamming option would be better than a degrading option, because the story is revolving on firefights, having a gun fall to pieces on you is kind of annoying, Dark Sector got away with it by having the enemy guns explode after a time when or if you pick them up.

 

[Omegatronacles]

On the one hand, weapon degradation can create a change in tactics. Knowing that a prolonged fight can cause your weapons to break leads to tactical combat.

On the other hand, I play games for fun, and micromanaging my resources so that my stuff doesn't break is not fun for me, so I'm against it overall.

 

[Veret]

in games like oh say, Beowulf, The Movie, The Game where weapons shatter after like 3 hits, even the legendery ones last like 5 hits, it's abit of a pisser.

"But alas! as it descended the famous sword Nægling snapped asunder. Beowulf's sword had failed him in the conflict, although it was an old and well-wrought blade. To him it was not granted that weapons should help him in battle. The hand that swung the sword was too strong. His might overtaxed every blade however wondrously the smith had welded it."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a successful lore check. Nice.

Looks like there's lot of disagreement on Fallout 3. Personally, I hated the degradation mechanism; it meant that I was always carrying around five mostly-broken assault rifles for repair and use on lesser baddies so that I wouldn't break the one good-condition model. Oh, and the Shish-kebab? The most incredibly badass sword any game has ever had? I was always afraid to use it on anything, because then it would fucking break. Games should not punish you for having fun, I'm sorry.

That's not to say that degradation is always bad. I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and say that Fire Emblem did it just fine. But this is a tactical game, where you're expected to think carefully about everything you do. Not to mention the game has no concept of ammo, so some limitations are in order. But a game with guns that calls itself an action RPG should know better.