spectre
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2008
- Messages
- 5,559
Having stuff break only makes sense if it breaks A LOT.
No way in hell. I think all of the current approaches to breakable items are doing it horribly wrong.
A durability bar for weapons sucks serious cock, as it looks a lot like payment for using an item... as if you were renting it. And the problem is - you see that the weapon will last for the next 20 seconds of bashing, that takes the surprise away.
A small, random chance doesn't work too well for me, cause it is hard to predict when shit will hit the fan (which is kinda ok, since you carry a spare on you), and, more important, it's hard to find a sweet spot, either it's too frequent, and thus annoying, or it doesn't happen enough.
The idea of having a money sink is a good one (and a commendable one), but the problem lies in that it shouldn't be tedious (like going to the toilet), and should reward characters that take precautions and have high repair skill.
Another problem is, that very often it works like this - either the weapon is in top condition, or it is broken = unusable. I think this is a wrong approach.
If I were to design a system like this from scratch, I would do it like this:
(o) Item damage rarely happens through normal use. If you use it the way it was intended, you are safe (or the chance is really minimal ~1%)
(o) There are circumstances when the item will be more prone to breaking - hitting certain things with a weapon (hitting solid object, creatures with corrosive blood, hitting walls with a sword), using items in adverse conditons (shooting in a desert storm, carrying stuff underwater without protection), or just using the item in a way that strains it more than usual - parrying with a weapon, power attacks.
(o)Deterioration is gradual, there are various levels of being broken:
6 -unused, top condition
5 - used, but no bad effects yet
4 - slight penalties to effectiveness, visible signs of use.
3 - Dramatic decrease in effectiveness.
2 - broken, item cannot be used for its primary function anymore.
1 - item destroyed, beyond all hope of repair.
Note: depending on the need, there may be additional stages between 4 and 2.
For each of these levels each item may behave differently. There may be items that have a flat deterioration rate, or it may be so that it is easy to knock it down from 6 to 5, but going down to 2 is harder. Or the opposite, if it is damaged once, it will deteriorate rapidly. Of course, the ease of repair for each such level could be different. For some repairing it back to 6 may be impossible, while other stuff anybody could repair, regardless of wear and tear.
An alternative idea is to have a % wear statistic for each of these levels. Wear can be easily removed through maintenance (cleaning etc.), but once it reaches 100%, one level of durability is knocked off and serious repairs (taking time and specialist tools) will be required.
Overall, the idea goes like this: the player should know that under certain circumstances the items will be subject to stress and may break. The player may then avoid such circumstances (ie. keep the fragile items in the backpack, or not use certain techniques that strain the weapon, not fire the bow in rain, etc.).
Regular maintenance should also dramatically reduce the chance to lose durability. The wear mechanic can simulate that.
Finally, level 5 serves as a buffer zone - the item works at full efficiency, yet there is a chance that it will devolve into 4 - which means slight hindrance. At this point it is quite easy to repair the damage until it becomes much more serious.
Overall stuff in this system will break only if one is really careless with it, or the circumstances force you to use it in the way the manual hasn't intended (like a fierce fight in really bad conditions). I think these are good assumptions.