Durability is an ineffective way to discourage bashing chests or doors open since there are far too many ways to render it meaningless (spells, throwaway weapons, fists, etc) and it adds an obnoxious amount of micromanagement to the overall game for the sake of one issue.
Breaking items in the chest is, if anything, even worse, since it imposes a "correct" way to play (Thou Shalt Take Lockpicking) and if someone wants to argue realism, the realistic way to open a chest or door would be to use a crowbar, or perhaps one of those pieces of scrap metal lying around everywhere, to lever it open rather than supposing that "wail on it with a greatsword" is the only possible method of forcing it open. For that matter, you could "realistically" just pick up a screwdriver - or a rock and nail - and dismantle the lock or hinges at no risk to the contents.
A lock doesn't keep people out by itself. It's just there to slow down/inconvenience someone who wants to get in, making it more likely that they'll get caught in the meantime. As it happens, all of the in-game options DO take time and most make noise, increasing the chance of discovery (especially with the new tracking system). Given that, durability/breakage is superfluous.
You've only managed to list out problems everyone here agrees on to some extent or another.
The topic is whether or not we can/should move towards fixing it so durability isn't a tacked on meaningless addition.
all the suggestions would make it either pointless or tedious or would require too much work to implement.
This is largely the reason durability as a number should be gone.
The only good solution that didn't fully remove the mechanic so far was to have an item exist in the states of broken and not broken, with penalties for being broken.
Even that was just the good parts of an overall bad idea.
You just made wide sweeping statements without actually saying anything in regards to the actual suggestions themselves.
1. How is repair all tedious or hard to implement?
2. Making repair hammers consumables is tedious?
3. Connecting repair feature to crafting skill level is hard and or pointless?
4. Durability related abilities being added to skill trees sounds tedious or pointless? Really?
5. A reward bonus for durability/gear upkeep? How exactly do you find this hard to introduce?
Please point out how any of those ideas are 'pointless' and/or 'tedious.' Cause all of them address those two points specifically.
Further, you're point on too much work is a misnomer, most of that would be fairly easy depending on how they did things. On 'if-statement' takes care of point 5. A single function call for 1. A slight change in object interaction for 2 and 3. Hell, most of those don't even require new assets or anything. Just some added code.
The only thing their you have a point on actually require some substantial work would be adding durability related abilities.
To which I say, It would actually add to the combat and help make physical characters much more interesting. Which they desperately need with their three skill trees (one for each class) encompassing three types of play throughs.
It'd also add in new types of characters that are more hybrid oriented, like an air-warrior.
So.....yeah. Point 4 actually not only helps with this but other problems as well. I'd push and say they should implement such a thing, or something similar, no matter what they do for the durability in the future.
