VGC Weapon Durability MEGA Thread

[irstupid]

Wright said:

TheLastStarFighter said:

When you actually play through, weapons do have a fairly unique feel for a while.  When you initially find it, it's usually rare and awesome and you save it for when it's needed.  And that doesn't mean one battle, you can usually use a good weapon for several major battles.  And by then you are probably moving along to the point where a newer, better weapon is coming along.   When you factor in that in between those battles you've probably done a bunch of exploring, found a town, done a shrine trial or two and the pacing is pretty much perfect.  You have your favorite blade, its your baby for a period of time but then its time to move on to something new and special.  So bash it one more time until it explodes over a moblin's head and move on.  It's very well done.

Like I said, I didn't play the game, so that sense is lost on me. I have no means to gauge something like that, yet. xD

 

irstupid said:

But this is Zelda. There is only one real improtant weapon, and that is the Master Sword.  The very fact that as you said all the other items lose their identity makes the master sword that much more iconic in the game.

You don't want to make a game where the ultimate weapon becomes outshined by others. That always bugged me in RPG's where in the main story you get hinted at about this ultimate weapon, and it is the weapon that is on the coverart, or has huge story significance as the ultimate weapon, ect. Yet you can go to some optional dungeon or boss fight that gives you weapons that dwarf that one. Or do some colloseum fighting and get rewarded with some insane sword. WTF are these people doing with a weapon like that. Always worrying about like MMO problems of endgame or whateve ryou call it brings this about.

This Zelda solves that problem, by not having essentially an endgame. YOu start the game out wiht final quest. Head to Hyrule Castle, beat Ganon. It doesn't tell you to get master sword or anything else.  It's essentially engame the instant you leave the plateau. You can head to the final boss if you want, or start doing optional stuff to beef up, max out, 100% complete, whateve rou want to call it. You know basically the point you reach in a typical RPG where they say "NO turning back point" where you can head to fight final boss and beat game or go off and do all things you missed, side quests, optional bosses/dungeons, ect to power up, level up, explore world, 100%, ect. BotW is just basically in this endgame point the whoel game. And even heading to hyrule castle you can turn back whenever you want. I have a few times now gone and cleared out a few more rooms each time exploring, looting, reading, memories, ect. Not going to go see Ganon yet though.

The problem with the Master Sword, as far as I know and have been told, is that it in essence due to its "worn-out" effect, we go back to the cycle of just moving around with the weaponry you have. Sure, having it unlimited breaks the flow of the game, but the solution just goes back to what I said; if the game constantly forbids you from using the Master Sword in time frames, then the Master Sword also loses identity. Isn't this weapon also...missable? (I haven't played, so I don't really know) Not saying missable weapons aren't deemed special, but there's even that. This sword is nothing special outside not breaking, because most of the time you'll go back to the usual weapon cycle. It does have personality, but the game doesn't give that much respect to it, nor makes it that big of a deal because it doesn't really become such a thing. I don't think Master Sword is the main weapon of anyone in this game due to its limitation, either.

It's funny that you mention Master Sword being all this iconic, when it's not that unusual in Zelda to have a weapon that outshines it. Ocarina of Time, for example, offered the Biggoron's Sword as a reward for an elaborated sidequest, which was a superior weapon to Master Sword in range and damage.

Spoilers on sword (The sword does not lose durability against certain foes, and also against those foes it does double damage. It easily outshines any weapon when its in that mode. For example in teh castle its just OP compared to any and all weapons)

But you don't really need to even carry master sword with you. Might as well store it in house. Cause as you said, for normal enemies it is roughly same as other sword, just instead of breaking it has a 10 minute cooldown.

But biggorons sword did not outshine the master sword in that it was slower and also no shield. It worked a lot in that game only due to the enemies being insanely easy and left in vulnerable spots for far too long. YOu know the whole hit the in the weakness and they let you wail on them for 10 seconds. In a game like BotW that does not happen. But still in OoT, it still was slower and also no shield. So you gave up defense and the dps was not as massive of a difference as one would think.