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

Let's not get shackled by 'realism' to the point of introducing unfun tedium.

Futhermore, the repair process goes like this.
I open my inventory
I right-click on an item with yellow/orange indicator on it
I see a bar go from empty to full in about a second
I completely lose a repair hammer

Does any of that sound immersive to any of you?
It wasn't immersive for me either.

Edit: If the system is changed to provide a richer experience, keeping it could be good, but as-is it's a case of less-is-more.

Mechanical balance and rp value should never be fighting each other they should be working together.

Everybody is thinking that players need to be punished for choosing to smash things instead of lock-picking them but they don't. The whole point of lock-picking is stealth and finesse, that's what you gain for using it, that's what you lose for not.
That's it.
If there's a chest in a house you want you're either going to have to lock-pick it or find some clever way to sneak it out and break it somewhere else, otherwise you're going to have to deal with the people around that chest who don't want you going in it.

And speaking of the carrying out thing, NPCs should be stopping you from just pocketing something and walking away. Like if you put a chest from an empty house in your pocket and start leaving the house, if the owner sees you with the chest in your inventory or they see the chest not where it belongs, they should take it and put it back and possibly get the guards if they found it on the player.

The game just needs to make it harder to get away with smashing something as opposed to lock-picking it. If a player succeeds in smashing the thing they shouldn't be punished at that point, they should be rewarded for finding their own way to play the game.

I'm sorry but I don't think weapons that are inside a chest should ever be broken from bashing it. If a game had a glass sword that you could permanently break by smashing the chest it was in, with no indication it was in there, it would just feel like the game was going out of it's way to find arbitrary ways to punish you.

There could be some very unique weapons that might break faster but this shouldn't be a regular thing.



This talking on a forum thing is so messy. I've already said that mobile repairs shouldn't exist, but it's silly to expect everyone to go back and read all 4 pages of posts, so it's all just messy messy messy.

But these aren't suggestions or advocating for anything in the game, or even related to this game other than that Divinity is also an rpg. I'm just saying how durability is used in rpgs, what it's supposed to do.

It must be a misunderstanding on my part of what some folks are trying to say here, but I don't agree that anything (including "immersion") should ever be a higher priority than good ol' "fun" in any game. Immersive mechanics like item durability (and every gameplay aspect) should somehow contribute to making a game more interesting and fun to play - not serve as an end in itself. I could design a game about my day in the office where the player would be really immersed in the experience of sitting in my cubicle. They'd feel like they're really using up office supplies, and really managing my Microsoft Outlook email box, and really avoiding my boss. And nobody would play that game. Sure, silly example, but the general idea is there. But maybe I'm old-fashioned.



Yep.

Uh, oops. Meant I value RP over mechanical balance, but yes they should go hand in hand.

I wasn't implying that the glass sword thing would be common. It'd be rare occurrence. Just something a bit special to reward not bashing every box. I don't think it'd be that punishing if it was kept to being rare event.

Making things harder to get away with would also be a good solution.

EDIT:
Also the forum messiness is why I made the long post quoting everyone <- Thought it might help

I'm going to give you a quiz because you're annoying me. One point per question anything below a five is a fail.

Is the point of art to be fun?
Is the point of writing to be fun?
Is the point of film to be fun?
Is the point of games to be fun?



It doesn't nobody will read it it's too much.

And with the glass sword it would be fine if when you smashed the box you just found the glass sword already in need of repair before you could use it, but otherwise it comes off as a gimmick even if it's only once in the entire game.

First, take a deep breath: we're discussing a video game. Also, I'm not trying to annoy you; I just happen to have a different opinion than you. And yes, I do believe a game should be fun. Of course, everyone is entitled to a different opinion about what should/can be fun in a game. Hence, forum discussion. No worries!

srry u failed. now im gonna go off topic

I guess most people just don't think about this. Pretty much every medium when first introduced went through a phase of people believing that it wasn't a serious medium, or that it should just be one type of thing.

When writing was first introduced as stories it was only as poems, and it was seen as silly. When prose was brought around (the majority of what books are now, stories written with no rhyming or form), it was seen as something childish and vulgar compared to poetry.

Fast forward, now we have games. Games should be fun! That's an easy assumption, most games are made to be fun. But what a game actually is is "an interactive experience." Art gives you an image, writing gives you a story, film gives you a story that you can experience as an audience member, and now games give you an experience that you can interact with.

The point is not to be fun, it's to experience something through interaction. And going from poetry back to durability, that's why durability exists, because games don't have to be fun, and with an rpg the goal doesn't always have to be fun, but when it is that fun is created through things that couldn't be directly classified as "fun".

Nah, just not playing your game. Peace!

Funny post Mikus.
I can't believe this had to be said.
Video games are absolutely primarily for fun. There's no utility, it's not a training simulation, it's fun or I'll play stop playing and go buy a fun game.

Damn, another sale lost for my game. Looks like I'll need to stick to the day job...

Eh, I think you're being a bit harsh in forum discussion with those with opposing views.

Also, *shrug* I always read everything in the wall of text. Considering the degree of seriousness some supposedly treat these forum threads, I'd semi-expect at least a skimming so that they don't wildly shoot blindly at points already addressed and covered. That helps no one.

And, I like gimmicks. *shrug* I liked what they did with the idea of the Stone Sword and thought more unique things like that would be nice. The talking Oyster was a gimick as well since you could eat it for +15% water res permanently but I liked it as well.

Gimmicks can add to a game as long as they're kept infrequent and are special.

RP value does constitue part of the fun for some of us

Which means we like immersive qualities. Heck, it's why I like the survival elements in fallout, on some playthroughs.

How immersive and how harsh the realism behind those RP mechanics are tend to dictate how I rate them. I think of durability as not being negative per se and thus very much enthusiastic to simply improving it then removing it

Yeah, I totally get that - I actually liked the way the survival elements were implemented in the old Fallout games, and didn't mind (for example) the repair mechanics in Morrowind and Oblivion. I think the UI and the gameplay reasons for those mechanics were much more tied in to the "fun factor" of the games' settings, if that makes sense. To me, the current similar mechanics in D:OS 1 and 2 seem more "tacked-on" for their own sake and annoying, which I guess is one of the reasons for this forum discussion in the first place!

Pretty much. I like the fact durability is thing cause of RP, but the tacked on quality is an issue everyone can agree with.

Some here think that mechanical fun is the be all end all and thus would just remove it.

Others like it for our own reasons (RP being mine) and would much rather see it developed more fully.

I can get behind that concept. I keep repeating myself (getting old and senile), but as long as they fix the obnoxious... interminable... ridiculous... clicking just to repair all the party's equipment after every battle, and maybe (dev resources permitting) coherently include some of the RP/flavor ideas from this topic, it'd be a gigantic improvement over D:OS 1 IMO.

I think the definition of 'fun' needs to be made.

Fun in definition of enjoyable: yes
Fun in definition of funny: no

No game is just 'fun'. Some are challenging and quite a pain in the ass. Some are light hearted and other extremely realistic and immersive. Train simulator and goat simulator are both games and even both simulations, and still they are totally different. Train simulator is extremely realistic, while goat simulator is ridiculously silly. Some would call the first fun, other the second, a third group would perhaps even call both fun, while another group like me probably would never play either of it.

'Fun' is no exact definition. Fun is subjective, everyone has a different taste. That is why games are art like drawing. No game will ever be 'fun' for everyone. So defining a game has to be fun, does define nothing at all, because what is fun for you could be annoying or boring for someone else.

That is the same reason, why opinions on CC divide sometimes quite heavily aswell.

Sure. That's why game developers (Larian included) have their work cut out for them: you'll never please all of the players all of the time, but they can try to strike a balance that gets the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to their target audience's enjoyment of the product. I don't envy them the job!

I agree with every part of this post. 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."

I can't fathom how "MUST CLICK BUTTON TO MAGICALLY REPAIR BROKEN ITEM" is the breaking point for immersion, before any of those other things.



YES, OF COURSE. I don't understand how you can even think that the answer to that is "no".

Now hopefully you will stop trying to derail the thread by continuing to insist on defining the point of games.

Back on topic (sort of) - since I'm guessing there will be fixes/improvements to repair/durability (and maybe identification, since the mechanic seems very similar to me) in the next patch, can someone confirm when Larian has said it should be out? I believe in a week or two, but if nobody knows for sure, no problem; just curious.

Every one agrees on this tacked on button clicking to be bad. The dividing line here is that some would see the entire system removed and others (like myself) would rather see it turned into something worthwhile.