Figured I'd post this oldy from the same debate around BOTW:
I don't agree with Sterling all that often, but I really think he nailed it here. Especially about how shitty it is to have your players paused mid combat encounter in a weapon select screen because their weapon broke or is about to break. It's just not a well designed system.
Witcher 3 did weapon durability much better than BOTW imho. Even the weakest rarity tier weapons and armor tend to take well over 50 hits before fully breaking based on my playtime (with high rarity gear like the craftable Witcher weapon and armor sets lasting much longer), fully breaking in Witcher 3 doesn't mean your weapon or armor is lost forever like most weapons in BOTW, it just greatly reduces the damage of the sword and the damage reduction percentage of the armor until you repair it, blacksmith repairs are relatively cheap and available in most towns which each tend to have a fast travel point, and you can buy weapon and armor repair kits from the blacksmiths to take around with you in your inventory, or loot them while exploring, in case you need emergency repairs because you don't have extra armor or weapons with decent stats on you. But even though Witcher 3's durability system was that much better than BOTW's, it still was not perfect, and proved contentious with players, with many PC gamers deciding to disable Witcher 3's durability system with mods.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 19 May 2023
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