What Do You Think About Weapon Durability?

[Moonface]

With the new trailer for the Breath of the Wild sequel, discussion has reopened about whether weapon durability should return from Breath of the Wild or be changed/removed. However, that's not the only game with weapon durability; Bloodborne and Minecraft are both examples of other games that feature the system in varying styles.

So what do you think about weapon durability in games? Do you think it shouldn't exist at all, only a certain way, or does its implementation depend upon the game it's used in?

[Dragon Lord]

Weapon durability is fine when it isn't as stupid as Breath of the Wild is. Hitting something two times shouldn't be enough to break your weapon. Plus in Breath of the Wild, there's also the fact that a broken weapon is gone for good, instead of being repairable.

All of the Souls games have weapon durability in them, and it's absolutely fine in those games because there's enough durability for a weapon to last through most of an entire area. Sometimes you might find yourself running low, but it won't be in 2-3 swings. Plus in later Souls games (Dark Souls III for sure), weapon durability repairs automatically when you rest at a Bonfire, so you don't even have to worry about going back to the Blacksmith to repair them.

So yeah, durability is fine as long as it's not on BotW levels of stupidity.

[Karo]

I personally don't mind if they don't permanently break and you need to get them repaired because why would I throw the weapon away completely if I can take it with me?

[Kyng]

I'm fine with weapon durability, in two cases:

1. If there are no rare/special weapons (so I won't get emotionally attached to my weapons before they break), or;
   
2. If there is some affordable and accessible way to repair my weapons (so that I can use the rare/special ones without fear of them breaking).
   

Minecraft is a bit of an odd case. It used to have #1, before enchantments were introduced - but then, repairs were introduced around the same time, so it then had #2 . I've yet to play a game that doesn't have either - but I'm sure they must be out there!

[Moonface]

Weapon durability is fine when it isn't as stupid as Breath of the Wild is. Hitting something two times shouldn't be enough to break your weapon. Plus in Breath of the Wild, there's also the fact that a broken weapon is gone for good, instead of being repairable.

Breath of the Wild's durability is such a mixed bag for me. I like looking out for better weapons to carry on me and not using really strong stuff on weaker enemies to make their fights trivial without consequence, and it's neat when you kill something that has a better weapon than anything you're carrying and you get to work up the ladder, but still have to assess what to do in each fight so you don't end up wasting weapons. However, there are areas where the durability is awful; for one, Master Mode gives every enemy health regeneration, which has varying degrees of problems where weapon durability is concerned. The most notable is during boss fights, where the boss will have moments of invincibility and during that time, they can regenerate health, meaning all the damage you did is negated which is already tedious even without weapon durability, but with it it means you've now just wasted a weapons durability through really no fault of your own. You didn't let the boss regenerate by not attacking it for long enough, you had no choice because you literally can't hit it during certain attacks it makes.

It gets worse when you do the DLC bosses, where you are stripped of everything you have and can only use the weapons that the respective Champion had when they tried to fight that boss. I've only tried it on one boss so far, and I got a single bow and two tridents if memory serves me right, and I have yet to win because I always run out of stuff before the boss is dead. Master Mode makes it a nightmare because of the regen, and it seems regardless of difficulty the go-to method for these fights is to buff up with status effects before the fight since those will carry over, but that's really not good design in and of itself, and weapon durability just exacerbates the problem.

The same is also present in Trials of the Sword, where again you have nothing, and have to work your way up through floors with better gear, but certain strategies become worthless in Master Mode such as using bombs on weak enemies, because no enemy is weak enough in MM to kill it with a single bomb.

Overall, I'd say the DLC for BotW was not made with Master Mode in consideration, which is pretty bad when the DLC and Master Mode were bundled together on release...

Also to address the last part of what you said, there are only four instances of weapon repair in BotW, which is for the Champion weapons. If those break, you can get new ones by going back to the Champion's village and trading in the necessary materials to have it remade. But that was only done because those weapons can't be found by any other means; if they could be like every other weapon, there's no way that would be a thing in this game.

I'm fine with weapon durability, in two cases:

1. If there are no rare/special weapons (so I won't get emotionally attached to my weapons before they break), or;
   
2. If there is some affordable and accessible way to repair my weapons (so that I can use the rare/special ones without fear of them breaking).
   

Minecraft is a bit of an odd case. It used to have #1, before enchantments were introduced - but then, repairs were introduced around the same time, so it then had #2 . I've yet to play a game that doesn't have either - but I'm sure they must be out there!

Minecraft does durability really well, especially in the more recent updates where there is a cap on weapon repairs because eventually the cost becomes higher than an anvil can repair, which forces you to make a replacement. I like that you can't just enchant the best tier tools with all the best enchants and then just be done with it unless you lose it through death.