Exitium said:
I don't see what's so incredibly complex or detailed about tedium.
Not everyone considers the same actions to be tedious, and even when they do their opinions differ on how repetitive they have to be before they become tedious.
It still wouldn't explain why such a weapon would become so quick to wear out or even break. I've been using the same pairing knife for 2 years and I've only had to sharpen it once in every 2 months that I've had it, and I use it on a daily basis. A sword created for cutting through flesh and bone would certainly not wear out after 15 minutes of use, no matter how constant. Axes, favored for their impact rather than the sharpness of the blade, and maces and warhammers favored for their blunt force certainly shouldn't require constant maintenance.
As I mentioned before, if a weapon appears to wear out too quickly (bearing in mind what materials it is made of and what it has been used for), then that's a balancing or implementation problem.
Comparing the use of a modern paring knife with a medieval bladed weapon is like comparing apples with oranges. They would both be used to cut different objects and be made of different materials.
At least compare similar blades within the same time period and technology level.
If you were to buy a much cheaper paring knife, you would likely find that it required sharpening more often even though you used it in a similar fashion. If you used your existing knife to cut harder materials, you'd get a similar result.
I have a couple of screwdrivers that I've owned for years, and they still look almost new. I've also brought cheaper versions where the tip has twisted or broken on the very first use.
If the weapon in question was an iron longsword, it could easily be blunted, bent or broken in much less than 15 minutes, as iron is particularly soft. Historical reports by Roman soldiers during the invasion of Britain mentioned the Celts straightening their blades frequently after combat (the Romans wore armour, had steel shortswords and large shields).
I've also seen a couple of documentaries where people have tested the accuracy of these reports by creating replica swords, and they did indeed bend easily/quickly in use.
Gaining an extra HP or two of damage shouldn't be the only reason for upgrading to a weapon made of a better material.
Axes and blunt weapons would require less maintenance, but they would still require
some. The handles were generally made of wood and/or separate from the head, so there is a chance of it fracturing or working loose. They also had leather or a similar material wrapped around the opposite end to improve the user's grip. This would wear out quicker than the head.
What are you talking about? It isn't as if enemy weapons degrade over time, either. I'm sure the boss enemies (e.g. those in Baldur's Gate 2) wielded similarly powerful weapons that dealt equal damage, if not more than the ones you had.
It wouldn't be easy to tell if enemy weapon durability was affected as unlike the player character, they usually only get involved in a single fight. The weapons dropped by enemies in many games that include a weapon durability feature are slightly worn, so some attempt is made to at least fake it.
Either way, it wouldn't preclude the material of their weapon being used as a factor in determining how much damage their weapon did to yours.
Certainly, there is a place for realism - but it should be limited to a point where it does not hinder or detract from the rest of the game. I do not find it enjoyable having to walk back to town after every 10 monsters I encounter.
Again, it's a matter of personal preference as to if/when a particular feature detracts from the game. For example, I dislike combat-intensive games, but for some people it's the only reason they play.
In the early stages of many games you have to walk back to town as frequently as every 10 monsters as your inventory is full and you need the money you'd receive from selling those items.
Later in the same games, you can afford to pick and choose what you carry, and by that point if a repair item skill is implemented it should be of a high enough level for you not to need to return to town. If there is no repair item skill for player characters, you should be able to afford a more durable weapon at that stage.
Food consumption, for that matter, shouldn't detract the amount of health you possess much less cause death. Instead, if you insist on its implementation (though I do not) it should be handled in an automated fashion, wherein you might stock food in your container in very small amounts for every journey you take. Having no food should only result in a slight decrease of stats or a reduction of Action Points (if it's turn based) or Stamina (if it's real time) and nothing more.
If the player character doesn't eat for six months (of game time), they shouldn't even be breathing, let alone at full health.
Most games that include food do allow you to carry enough food to last a set number of days, without using up your main inventory space, and also automatically consume that food during resting/camping and/or fast travel.
In some of them, resting without consuming food means that it takes longer to return to full health.
It is an unnecessary feature that adds unnecessary complications that cause major imbalances to the game as a whole. The positive side of having such features implemented do not, in any way, make up for the hinderances they cause to the player. It would be one thing to sacrifice certain 'irrelevent' dialogue choices (e.g. the option to curse a lot) for a more plot-centric, 'relevent' dialogue that result in actual and immediate choices. While it would be nice to have a ton of 'irrelevent' choices in every dialogue to immerse the player, it might not be preferrable, depending on the developer's outlook. However, the same can't be said about the implementation of timesinks. The potential downsides far outweigh anything positive you could gleam from such features.
Just because there are poor implementations of a certain feature, it does not necessarily follow that the feature is always going to be poor or unnecessary. Personal perference, as ever, is also a factor.
As you mentioned yourself, NPCs are a perfect example of this. In many games, most of the characters have nothing useful to contribute and generally get in the way when you're trying to move around towns. Removing all NPCs or only including the few that have something useful to say would not be a popular move.
Whether item repair is a timesink depends on your point of view. It could also be perceived as contributing to the reward system and to the level of immersion.
Okay, so it's more like a stick than a carrot for low level characters, but the same is true of most skills.
I still fail to comprehend the 'complexity' of timesinks. I don't understand why people always equate tedium with challenge and timesinks with complexity. There's nothing complex about forcing the player to go back to town every 5 minutes just to keep his weapons in usable condition. The player's simply going to work around the problem and use disposable and expendable cheap weaponry, concordantly, the player would end up saving a lot of time and money in the long run in doing so, because it would be a lot cheaper and a lot less time consuming to simply do this than the alternative. All this does is place an unnecessary burden on players who opt to use powerful equipment, ergo nullifying any utility they may possess when juxtaposed with the expendability of cheaper equipment.
People like to make decisions that affect the way they experience the game in some way. Having more decisions to make increases the complexity, particularly if several factors are involved.
The decisions could include "Do I repair my weapon today, or gamble that I'll find something better tomorrow?", "Am I likely to meet something tough enough to break my weapon before I upgrade it at the next town?", "Is it worth buying this new weapon for its increased durability, even though it doesn't do any more damage than the one I have?" and "Can I spare the time it would take to repair this, or will I miss my appointment tomorrow?".
If a player "works around the problem", then they have made a conscious decision to do so, and may well get a sense of satisfaction from "bucking the system". If a player decides that it's cheaper and/or easier to carry several less expensive weapons instead of one expensive one, that doesn't necessarily mean the system has failed, it just means that the player has weighed up the pros and cons and made a decision, which in itself is fun for some people.
The real world isn't 100% balanced. Sometimes buying one item costing twice as much as a cheaper version will last twice as long, but that doesn't always hold true, particularly as the cost increases.
Sometimes it will be cheaper to repair, sometimes to upgrade, and sometimes to just use what you find and throw it away afterwards. It's all a matter of personal priorities which is the "best" option.
Gameplay is capital, not realism.
It depends what you mean by "gameplay", but removing an aspect I like from a game would make me enjoy it less, even if it made you enjoy it more.
If you were to ask 100 CRPG players which features they most dislike about the CRPGs they have played, you would likely get very different answers.
If you removed
all those features from a CRPG you were making, I doubt it would more popular... if it still resembled a CRPG at all that is.
It would make more sense to me to ask how to increase the flexibility and/or configuration of each feature than remove them completely.
If you wrote down every feature of every CRPG ever made, closed your eyes and stuck a pin in the list, then went to a reasonably popular forum and asked "Do you hate this feature?", somebody would eventually respond with "Yes".