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

You basically just gave the definition of realism and then called it immersion.



In the context of games I would say that it more specifically refers to a games ability to make you either forget you are playing a game (the pipe dream of game devs the world over) or allow you to feel personally connected to the consequences of actions or events taking place in the game.

If the goal of the game is to make you feel more connected to it, the last thing you want to do is drag them into menus unnecessarily. This rips away immersion by reminding the player/players very clearly that they are in a simulation. That is the only net effect of durability that relates to immersion and it is directly counter to the concept of immersion.

You can argue that it is realistic all day, that's fine, but immersive it is not and tedious it is.

As I said:
We have two clear groups with an opinion
One at least has parts willing to drop the issue
How do we please the majority?

I find my logic pretty simple, yet it's routinely ignored for debating something relatively pointless

Yes, people have been through this back-and-forth before. A dozen times, to be accurate. So far I've yet to see a single alternative that pleases the majority of people without making degradable equipment a pain in the backside, and there's a good chance that said valid alternative won't pop up at all. Just cut the knot (i.e. remove the feature) and be done with it. It's not that the game or the roleplay factor will be diminished in any way whatsoever without it.

I've already said it before: that repairing your gear in its current form is annoying and pointless is something that everybody agrees upon. As for pleasing the majority of people: you can either do so by removing the feature in its entirety (and it seems to me that the number of people who wouldn't miss it is more or less equal in numbers to the group of people who wouldn't mind a better, revamped system), or you put a better, revamped system in place.

The problem is that for now I've only read things like making repair a secondary skill to invest points in (nvm that we're already skillpoints-starved as it is), equipment that once broken is lost for good, or even talks of an RNG (this again? What's stopping me from quicksaving and quickloading to avoid it? And then what are we gonna do? Restrict save game and loading? For something as measly as an item repair?). In short, all of these ideas have their fair share of flaws which, if implemented, would render them just as annoying as the current iteration, only in a different way.

Durability related skills also popped up

The idea of making repair hammers consumables also came up numerous times along side the repair all

My main issue with durability related skills is what I've already said, namely that we're already starved of skillpoints as it is and investing more points in a tertiary skills is a forced waste. Now, if instead of a wholly new skill, blacksmithing could be expanded to also cover repairs (which would also make complete sense since a blacksmith's work is 50% spent on crafting new armors and weapons and the other 50% is spent on repairing them), I'd already be more okay with it.

I think your interpreting me wrong:
Crafting&Blacksmithing = repair skill, no new tree

Durability related skills:
Skills in Warfare for targeting enemy weapons or armor

Skills in Air magic for boosting armor in exchange for breaking your armor next turn or for doing the same with a weapon

Skills in earth for adding acid damage to a weapon but causing it to lose durability quickly over time

no new skill trees, just adding unique skills to existing ones that interact with the durability value on weapons an darmor

2a) It is ridiculous, that identifying an item destroys a identifying glass. What the hell are you doing for identifying? Smashing it on the item while saying a magic word? Replace the glass by either scrolls, to make it a logical consumable or replace it with some kind of magical item/orb, that comes with charges. Charges will be consumed depending on the rarity of the item. More rare items need more charges of course.

2b) Add an option to activate 'automatic identification' of items and if you make scrolls for heavens sake don't make scrolls of different rarity of identification, you already have to skill Loremaster and invest social points for this.

Oh, I see now. By "skills" you meant an usable ability with cooldown like rage or fireball. Alright then, if it were implemented in such a way, I'd already be a lot more satisfied with it.



^ +1

Two make both sides happy, we need a way to easy it for one side and to keep it for the other side.

For this case I think, we need more realism:

1a) A tool doesn't break, just because you repaired one single item. A tool will brake, if you use it again and again to repair. -> Give Repair hammer charges that get consumed for every point of durability they are repairing.

1b) Having to repair every single part of equipment is totally annoying. Implement a button, that repairs all equipped items at once, consuming the specific number of charges. But it shouldn't repair items in your inventory automatically.

2a) It is ridiculous, that identifying an item destroys a identifying glass. What the hell are you doing for identifying? Smashing it on the item while saying a magic word? Replace the glass by either scrolls, to make it a logical consumable or replace it with some kind of magical item/orb, that comes with charges. Charges will be consumed depending on the rarity of the item. More rare items need more charges of course.

2b) Add an option to activate 'automatic identification' of items and if you make scrolls for heavens sake don't make scrolls of different rarity of identification, you already have to skill Loremaster and invest social points for this.

Glad I could convey my point and get you to concede that :P

I don't think it'd be that hard to get everyone to appreciate an evolved system as you make it out to be.

There are some easy to understand and implement ideas that would obviously improve things for everyone

I'm not 100% against repairing equipment, even if I don't like it and I don't miss such a feature if it isn't present. As long as it is done in an unobtrusive, quick and painless manner, I can live with it just fine.

The idea behind durability being immersive is pretty simple. Items aren't indestructible. I can bash open a door, I can break a stick I use as a weapon, so on and so forth.

It's intuitive to ones understanding of the world and how things work.

It's immersive that such intuitive thoughts hold true. Going counter to them is being the opposite of immersive.

What you state here is not an absolute truth, and in the specific case of Divinity it can be said to be absolutely false.

A vast majority of games only ever encompasses a span of time/usage within which an item would realistically be effectively indestructible, that is to say it would only break under unusual circumstances, and suffer no worthwhile wear over the course of the entire game.

In that way, it is entirely a break of immersion for the sake of gameplay(introducing a drain on the players resources) to have items break as fast at they do, often costing more to repair than they would to replace, and as mentioned by a few other people, gear maintenance is not a relevant part of the experience the player is immersed in when playing Divinity.

Immersion =/= realism. Realism is only a tool for building immersion, but not a pre-requisite for immersion to be achieved.

You are saying that people want durability but so far I saw only 2 or 3 posters who are strictly against removing it and you are one of them. Is there really a large groupe of people wanting to keep durability?

Repair All would surely improve things. But you forget about the group that just wants it removed because it's pointless. There's no way to please everybody and I'd rather see resourses needed to improve durability spent elsewhere.

Also what's wrong with skill tree vote and how does it back up the point of keeping durability?