Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Let's talk about durability

I enjoyed Skyrim, although it's probably my least favourite of the Elder Scrolls games I've played; can't quite put my finger on it, I usually describe it as being "charmless". Kind of the anti-Larian in a somewhat intangible way. Having to repair my equipment didn't overly bother me in Oblivion, but I was always glad to get to a high enough level to no longer have repair hammers break, as well as other handy things like Azura's Star and the Skellington Key, which obviated the need for soul gems (well, mostly) and lockpicks respectively. Both of which also got old fast.

That said, I did add things like Survival Suite to make eating, drinking and sleeping necessities, avoided fast travelling and made nights so dark it was impossible to find my way around. Maybe I'm just choosy about my inconveniences.

I also liked that element of New Vegas' survival mode, though I found it slightly lacking in comparison; as for the recent Fallouts, I wouldn't say NV was head and shoulders above the others, I've actually enjoyed all three. All are really good modding platforms too, other than the legendary crashiness of Construction Set or whatever it's called this week.

Durability in games like this is pretty much used for RP purposes, aka, making your player feel like their gear has value and can be broken, which immerses them in the experience and their own story in their head.

Free mobile repairs break this immersion. If there will be mobile repairs, it should:

-require materials based on the weapon
-require skill points in either a "repair" skill, or if you're going full on crafting (blacksmithing, bowmaking, yadayada) it should require the skill for making the weapon they want to repair.
-and the repair hammer item should be removed, repairing should be something anyone with the skill can do at any point if they have the materials.

if the mobile repairs are changed this way, there should be a reliable blacksmith (Nebora) who can repair your equipment, the cost being based on the level/rarity of the item and the durability missing.

Basically repairs should always take something the player cares about if they are going to be in the game. Players don't care about random hammers or tongs, they care about money and their skill points. Removing durability is always an option, but just changing it to have more impact will work just as well. It's not that players hate durability they just hate that it has no impact.

Like several other players here, I actually dislike durability, but more than the concept itself, I find the current implementation - which requires so much micromanagement - to be extremely tedious/annoying, as I've posted above. I find story, character development, and questing/exploration to be much more challenging and fun than managing inventory. But I'm starting (maybe more than starting) to repeat myself...

Ditto. But again, implementing durability without turning it into a degrading exercise in micromanagement is almost impossible, especially in a type of game like D:OS.

Yeah... I'm starting to feel like Larian is digging itself deeper into the repair and identify mechanics, though I'm not sure exactly why, and I also don't think they add any fun (the main point of a good game) to the rest of the D:OS systems (or at all, IMO). I'm not sure whether the devs are willing to fix/overhaul the systems at this point after having gone down this path for so long with D:OS 1 and now with the "copy-paste" of the mechanics into D:OS 2, especially as there was similar discussion throughout the D:OS 1 alpha and beta, though the fact that they've opened this topic to collect player feedback gives me some hope. Hopefully we'll see some major improvements in a week or two with the next patch.

...When I think of things which add to my immersion in the game, I think about setting, story, and characters. I do not think "wow before I clicked that button to repair my item, I wasn't feeling the game at all, but now I am completely immersed in this world."

Just saying.




Just giving durability impact isn't enough to make it appreciated, it has to be impact which isn't actively more annoying.

I've seen several suggestions which would indeed add impact... but would also add extra layers of micromanagement and/or actively interfere with the fun part of fighting battles to require the players to stop fighting the battles to deal with inventory management (even if all equipment was at full repair before the fight started).

The point of games is not to be fun

lol

jesus christ




anyways. durability is not a fun mechanic, it is an immersion mechanic, the implementation is just wrong so it isn't doing it's job right.

any mechanic made to immerse the player will be something that detracts from their experience in order to make them feel like the game is willing to punish them, so when these mechanics are done wrong they just feel like being punished for no reason (games where things break too easily), being half half-heartedly punished (free mobile repairs), or being punished too much (no all repair)

Chocolate - yep, I agree that durability is not fun, but is meant to be "immersive," and regardless, it's currently not working on either level. Again, hopefully the devs already have and will have over the next few days/weeks enough player input to decide on their own how to fix this (e.g. remove durability altogether, confine it to weapons in door/chest bashing situations, eliminate the needless and annoying clicking, etc.). I cautiously think it can only get better than it is right now.

So much this XD

I want it to have impact. I want the system to be more expansive so it effects more things. I want players to actually consider as more than just a foot note to ignore till they have to go through the tedious process of fixing gear one by one for no good reason than to do it.

Which is why the above suggestion on Identify and Repair items having 'charges' and your idea and 'identify all' and stuff are all good in my mind

Just to repeat my suggestions/thoughts so they're not buried in the thread:



And now some quotes from among this thread on what I though was good input/feedback on changing the system:

A suggestion using RNG instead of durability 'health bar':



Some more input on the '___ All' buttons:



An idea on repair/identify item 'charges':



More on durability related combat skills and making hammers and stuff have 'charges' and be consumable:



A point to consider on RNG vs deterministic ideas for the game..there are two camps and players of these kinds of games normally end up evenly distributed:



Some more on other skills that effect weapons and armor:



While I don't think the above quote on new skills should replace durability: I do however think the skills/effects you suggested should be added regardless of what happens, actually. I like the idea of letting people choose to either invest in lockpick or use a crowbar in the same vain as the unlockspell except more rare. The disarm and disrobe effects can be tied into melee fighters to give them more flavor and expend their repitiore of skills since we have such a flush of magic trees

And another quote on making identify use consumables and changing the current system:



We can definitely see some trends in all the responses

> Repair/identify all button
> Durability/Equipment related skills
> Repair/identify items being consumables with 'charges'
> Some special items that go around the skill req for normal actions such as lockpicking/identifying


* Side note: items breaking/being lost when breaking open a chest is something that should be a thing, though I thought it already was

Items shouldn't be lost when breaking things, that's retarded and overly punishing. The major downside to breaking open chests should be that it is loud, and that's it. Durability damage from breaking things should be the same as hitting anything else in the game with your weapon.

If Larian wants to implement some kind of fragile items list into the game, items that would be broken from simply being shaken around (snow globes, my favorite weapon), then sure those can get smashed if you smash a chest and they're in it.

aj0413 - thanks for this summary. I've been asking for the "repair/identify all button" since 2014, and the other ideas could also be improvements if implemented thoughtfully (as long as the repair/identify item "charges" aren't too punishing, assuming the devs insist on including consumable repair/identify items as yet another gold sink - though I personally think that's completely unnecessary and another step in the wrong direction). It'll be interesting to see where this all goes in the next patch.

What? Who said durability shouldn't be lost when hitting anything else?

I was implying that when you break open a chest for loot their should be some loss in the value of what you get.

Otherwise, why would people bother lockpicking and such on chests they find in the field. There're many chests in D:OS 1 where making noise woudlnt be a loss cause the chest was in enemy territory and you killed everyone, there was no one around, the chest belonged to no one, or it was easy to get the NPCs to leave the area.

Without some way of making lockpicking any individual chest a better general option than bashing it open, you're hurting the mechanics existence outside of special exceptions.

Right - if the only penalty to bashing/blasting open chests was the noise, as already mentioned, people could (and would) just pick up the chest and move it to a place with no NPCs nearby, then crack it open with no penalty. That's why it's been suggested (and I believe already implemented in game) that at least the fragile stuff in the chest should break as an added penalty to not trying to pick the lock. Doors of course only need the noise penalty, as they can't be moved around.

I knew what you meant I just typed that weird. I was just adding on the end separately that durability damage shouldn't be more from breaking open chests.

And yes, most of the time noise wouldn't be a problem. That's the point. There shouldn't be any downside to breaking open chests other than noise, lock-picking is for opening chests where noise is important, not for opening chests in the field. If you happen to be good at lock-picking and find a chest in the field that's locked, sure, go ahead and lock-pick and save some durability. But breaking it should get you the same things as lock-picking it.



I'm not really sure if this is a bad thing though. There can still be unbreakable chests so that you would need lockpicking, but I think players should be rewarded for being clever and moving chests with teleport or pocketing them and then smashing them further away.

But I do agree that fragile things should be broken. What kind of things are you thinking of as fragile?

I actually don't disagree with you - as with the repair and identify mechanics, I find I'm trying to work within the (IMO somewhat artificial) limitations the devs seem to have placed on the gameplay. And the definition of fragility would be tricky if the "breakage" mechanic is intended to be a real penalty, as (for example) a super-valuable magical weapon in a chest shouldn't break (unless that +200 Axe of Heavenly Doom is actually made of balsa wood), while a possibly cheap potion might - rendering it not much of a penalty after all, especially at higher levels. I guess I'm just trying to understand and justify why people want these kinds of "immersive" things in the game in the first place.

Let me just fix this real quick, to put it into a more useful format/wording:

-Durability is currently far too detrimental to the overall experience, compared to the benefits it provides as a balancing tool.

-Durability isn't a critical feature, and it wouldn't be a big loss for it to be removed wholesale.

-Much of the current issues could be alleviated by introducing some degree of automation to the maintenance process.

-Alternate systems that resolve the tediousness while retaining the functional benefits of the old one could be pursued.

I don't think it would be so bad for any potion of any level to always have a chance to be broken if you're smashing things. They are made of glass, so, ya kno.

And it's just the genre. rpg literally stands for role playing game, so the game should be developed to get the player into that role, the role of their character existing in a fantasy world. Immersion is a delicate balance and it's far too easy to break. It just hinges on making the player feel like they can be punished fairly for their actions, but also rewarded fairly.

The punishment of noise and the possibility of breaking potions from smashing things is fair, and when a player who is new to the game smashes a chest with a gigantic hammer and then finds the ground covered in healing potion, they can only sigh and say "Yeah that's my fault." And this kind of thing immerses them in the game, makes them realize that the game is watching them and willing to punish or reward their actions in it, makes them act more like their character would.

And back to the free mobile repairs, this isn't fair. This feels like we don't need the game world anymore, we're fine on our own, we have magical god hammers. Players stop acting like their character would and start acting like they're playing a video game instead of role playing in a fantasy world.

The summary was targeted towards the discussion of evolving the current system, instead of removing it. Therefore, I cut out that input.

It's a simple and straightforward stance with no need for summary of multiple posts rehashing it after all.

The stances involved on evolving the current system is a bit more complicated and could use some structure, though, since it's more open ended.

I thought that was implied with the rest of the post, given the direction I was headed towards?

As for your points:

- It's not really 'far too' detrimental to anything, it's annoying at worst and slightly tedious at best for those who are actually complaining. It's a bit of a footnote to some of us, something we ignore to others, something we dislike to some, and something they actively hate with a passion to a few.

- It's not a 'critical' feature, no. But to say nothing would be loss is a misnomer. Obviously, some of us are attached to the idea of durability, even if we feel the mechanics in game need work. So there's definite 'loss' for some of us. Refer back to the first quote in my wall of text for why that is. The 'quantity' of loss is nuanced as while some here see it as a purely mechanical feature, others here see it in terms of RP value. You can't really generalize that.

- You're other two points are accurate.

Can everyone please read this, idk, set it as your signature or something tape it to your butt so people see it and go like "oh yeah right."

durability is for immersion in an rpg
durability is not fun
durability does not balance anything
it immerses you


in a survival game, it is used for balance

this isn't a survival game

hahaha :P Never quite thought of it in that wording, but that's a good way to put it.

Doesn't mean we can't evolve it to be more 'fun,' though. There've been some good suggestions on how to add to it to both improve quality of life and make it more nuanced and feel like it has some importance and strategic.

Going back to the chest thing:



I totally agree with this, but there are limits to game balance In this case, it's more of a question: Should mechanical balance precede RP value, or should RP value precede mechanical balance?

Most times, I'm of the former group. In this case, I lean more towards the later cause I don't like the idea of abusing bashing things. Just like how I don't like the idea of abusing CC cause of the new armor system 100% chance after armor is gone.

How about if they included more fragile but powerful unique items in the loot around the game? Such as the stone sword from game one, but not as bad as 1/1 Durability.

Example:
A glass, elven long sword with mystical enchantments? Some flavor fluff in the description could could be: "Made more as a piece of art to challenge their skills, than for any practical purpose, this weapon is a true masterwork of the ages. It's fragile nature does not diminish it's sharp edge or the abilities it was granted, however."

Furthermore, items like that would require more upkeep and thus a much closer watch on durability and repairing. The exchange would be for the power inherent in the item.

This means players could be rewarded for increasing crafting skills so they can maintain such a weapon and that they'd have to choose if the cost of maintaining such a weapon was worth it (1) & whether or not the risk of bashing open a box and loosing out on such a unique item was worth it (2).

It's a more nuanced approach than the whole sale 'break some of the loot inside' thing and it can be fit in using RP smoothly. It'd also be rare enough to make some players blame themselves without missing too much or make those who invest in lockpicking feel rewarded for their efforts with special stuff.