Right, and this is what I was getting at earlier. We are going to have to accept that they added a more robust Blacksmithing system and sword sharpening (etc) in place of the repair system. In my opinion, the addition of a Blacksmithing system is worlds better than their terrible version of repairing that always felt unwieldy and awkward. Fleshing out a new system for repair may just have fallen off the table, not only because the old system was bad, but because a new REPAIR system (even the one you propose) didn't sound interesting or important at all.

So balancing the use of low and high level items and discarding a linear progression system in favour of a deeper system, where each weapon or piece of armour has its own pros and cons, isn't important or interesting?
When you find a Daedric cuirass in OB, everything else in that category (bar maybe a few artefacts) becomes vendor trash, because there's not a single drawback to wearing it unless your heavy armour skill blows.

What I want is a system where looting a rough iron cuirass from an enemy might be a necessary decision, or putting away your glass armour and donning a leather cuirass instead is a wise decision for a fetch-quest due to economical concerns. I don't want my decisions around armour to be a system on rails where one piece replaces the other with no drawbacks. I want my Daedric cuirass to be my pride and joy that I worked my fingers to the bone for, not a "congratulations, you reached the highest level in this category, now go do something else".

I like the blacksmithing system, but it is absolutely no replacement for a repair system. The sharpening feature is neither. You sharpen your weapon and get maybe a 10% damage boost, after a while the effect wears off. To me that is just as annoying as the old repair system (which I didn't like either), and it makes no difference between weapons. It's nothing you really have to do. And on top of that I don't really see the difference between 'sharpening' and an enchantment. You get a damage boost and it has a limited amount of uses. Then you need to recharge. Same system, only a different name and no options.

If you want a short damage boost and happen to be close to a forge then, for god's sake, you go to the forge and do the sharpening. But it's not important. Most players will probably not do it at all or only if they are standing next to a forge anyway.

If your weapon is about to break or is seriously damaged that's a whole different story. If you want to make use of your weapon you have to repair it. And if it breaks while you're out in the wilderness or in a dungeon you're screwed and have to use a weapon that is worse than your main weapon (assuming they would have implemented a system like M'Aiq described in one of his earlier posts). Different materials would have different 'health' values, so it may not be a good idea to kill every level 1 goblin with your precious glass sword, because it may be severely damaged when you finally encounter a high level enemy where you really need all the damage output you can get. You need to plan ahead to make sure you have your best weapon in good condition when you need it.

It makes choosing weapons for different situations fun. The way it is now you just pick the biggest sword in your inventory and start bashing away. Once you find an ebony sword you will never ever have a reason to use your glass sword again. Because it is simply worse in every regard. That is boring to me. Or at least not nearly as interesting as it could have been.

EDIT: Basically what M'Aiq said.

Upgrades and superior crafting system >>>> armor degredation.


I rather work towards making something better than work towards making sure it doesn't become worse. Something tells me even the most die-hard whiners here will prefer that too

I'm glad it's gone. Whenever I get new weapons I want to use the hell out of it, and in OB I felt like I needed to conserve it or spend a lot of time repairing. The way they're implementing it now, repair is still relevant for people who want to get the most out of their weapons and armor, but you're not forced to play that way if you don't want to. Sounds like more freedom to me.

agreed but i have the slightest suspicion pete thought the person asking the question meant visual degradation as the weapons condition got worse.

As I understand it, under your system, you could still use the daedric armor and it would still be the best no matter what. What you are changing is that you have to go to town to repair instead of running around with repair hammers. I don't see how this makes your system any better. You still carry around hammers to spam repair, but now you have to do it in town. It sounds worse to me.

I believe each piece of armor will have pros and cons like you describe in Skyrim. I can see how it would be nice for a steel piece of armor to have more durability than an iron or bronze piece of armor. But in both those cases, you'd always want to wear the steel piece of armor, because not only is it naturally more durable, but it's lighter and better in every way. There are other ways to differentiate armor besides durability loss. Here are a few:

Reduced Magika Use (Magica Points, Chance to miscast, Stam use, etc)
Natural running speed modifiers
Range weapon modifiers
Weapon swing modifiers
Stat modifiers
Cursed equipment
Enchanted equipment
I'm sure more than a few I'm not thinking of

I haven't ever been playing an Elder Scrolls game (since Daggerfall) where I feel like I need to switch out my armor because of durability. It's always just been extra tedium that could be ignored. And I'm pretty excited to see Blacksmithing which I view as a more pro-active version of the repair skill.

I like this decision.Degradation was annoying anyways.

I'm just going to stop discussing here, because my point obviously isn't getting through to you at all.

You know? You're right. I went back and read what you had written. I didn't fully remember. You proposed a resource based system where you would have to find rare materials in order to repair the rarer, more powerful types of armor. I don't hate that idea. I do think that the idea needs some work. It seems like it would make the best stuff underwhelming. Constantly looking for the mats to repair gear sound like it might remove some of the fun. But then, to some, maybe searching for mats to repair with would be the reason why they adventure at all.

It just seems like it would cause you to not want to use that awesome legendary supercrazy armor you just picked up because you can't afford to. Constantly feeling like you have to save whole sets of armor in your bag just for that boss encounter sound... well, unfun.

Yeah, you're right. It was pretty annoying. So was leveling. Ugh, I hated leveling. Looting, too! Don't even get me started on looting. Such a pain. Aiming at creatures was pretty frustrating too, as was walking. Even running was bothersome. Swimming was even worse. Torches too. Oh, how I hated torches. Hah, and now that I think about it, creatures were a pain as well. Why should I have to kill them in such a manual fashion? Heh. You know what? Just give me a gun and throw a bunch of zombies into the mix. That's what I, *random person who only just joined the forums to rant and rave about nothing in particular/suggest Skyrim is the most amazing game ever to be created by man*, would enjoy.

Uhh, ok? You actually are ranting and raving right now if you can't tell. So I guess you fall into the "random person who has been on the forums for a while but has nothing in particular to suggest and thinks Skyrim is a dumbed down version of hopscotch" crowd.

Not only that, but you are comparing repair hammer spamming with leveling, looting, walking (really?), combat, running and enemies. Obviously there is a false equivalency there.

I'm ranting and raving about something in particular, not just nothing.

And no, I'm not comparing repair hammers to anything else. I am deliberately poking fun at the excuse, "Well, x feature was annoying!" being used to justify the removal of any feature.

I think you still didn't understand all of it.

First of all it is important to say that equipment would obviously degrade much slower than it was the case in Oblivion. If it would degrade as fast as in Oblivion the system would of course become annoying as hell.

1. You need to plan ahead. If your weapon/armor breaks in the middle of a dungeon you're screwed and you need to use something that is worse and possibly fight your way back to civilization with the bad gear equipped. I guess some people may not like this because they just want to run around and kill things without wasting time to think about anything. To each their own.

2. There would be no 'best' armor or weapon. There would be equipment with pros and cons. Do you want an armor/weapon that degrades relatively fast, but has a high armor rating/high damage rating? Or do you prefer a reliable armor/weapon that almost never breaks, but has a slightly lower armor rating/damage rating? Of course equipment that is more reliable has a smaller upkeep, so if you're out of money/materials that may be the better choice. But if you worked hard to become rich (and maybe invested some time to increase your speechcraft skill so merchants give you better prices) it won't be a problem to use the more expensive gear.

3. It would be an additional money sink. In ES games you always have too much money and there is nothing useful you can spend it on. If you can't find enough materials and/or have a low smithing skill and thus can't repair the armor yourself you need to pay a smith to do it for you. Money becomes important.

So yes, maybe there would be a situation where you shouldn't use the legendary supercrazy armor you have in your backpack. Making sure this doesn't constantly happen is a matter of balance. But that's what the fun is about for me. I want to make meaningful choices. And not just pick up the ultimate, best sword and click the left mouse button repeatedly.

I'm still pissed off about it because I like survival in RPG's.

I don't think I didn't understand. I just don't think he fleshed it out as much as you. For instance, he never said there was no best armor. He never mentioned the money sink.

To your first point and especially when you say the following: "I guess some people may not like this because they just want to run around and kill things without wasting time to think about anything."

This is just hyperbole. It's not that people don't want to waste time thinking about anything, it's that they don't want to waste time thinking about tedious, non-immersive chore-like activities. The activity I want to think about should be well thought out and executed. Otherwise, it feels like a worthless waste of my thoughts and time. Repairing and equipment swapping may be an involved thought process for you, but most do not find it challenging.

And to your second point about there being no best armor, I'm with you on that. I think it would be nice to have varied advantages and disadvantages. I just don't think durability needs to be one of them. Having to search the world or spend ridiculous amounts of gold on a repair system sounds lame to me. I do not want to play a game where I'm constantly managing inventory because I need to carry around 3 sets of armor, 4 weapons, materials for repairing all of the stuff and whatever other small items I might be able to fit in my pack. That system sounds tedious to me. However, I am a lot happier now that I can keep a few sets of armor and weapons for various situations at my house, and just visit it to trade them out whenever I feel the need to.

And a money sink can be found elsewhere. For instance... Blacksmithing. It's going to take materials to make items. Materials cost gold or time. It's going to cost materials to improve items. Since you have no frame of reference for this specific economy, I'm going to assume you have no clue as to whether or not this game requires addition money sinks to help keep gold piles under control. How can you know they need an additional money sink if you have no idea how much gold is available in the world?

There is no reason why we can't have both. There would be no complaining if degration was still in, but now that it's out, suddenly everyone hated it.

That's because you didn't get it. The point was exactly the other way round: If selling loot is NOT considered tedious, then there's little argument that something that takes a fraction of the time isn't tedious either.



Yes, I'm sure having your cake and eating it, too, is very interesting. But immersive? Sorry.

Don't understand the cake reference. After all, eating cake is immersive as hell.

As for the other point. It appears YOU didn't get it. I used his point to turn him around because his point has a massive, glaring flaw in it.

Selling loot is tedious. Therefor, it's ok to have another tedious element.

That statement is just as stupid as:

Selling loot is not tedious. Therfor, it's ok to have a hammer spam repair system.

They dont want to do it again.

Is it wrong to decide not to do this again and just do something else this time? Nope. I personaly like the fact they do this sometimes even when as in the case with the spellmaker and the change in stats I cant be sure how that will change things.

I know I am glad for the ob level scaling... because when they improved it in fo3 it was soo much better then mw.

I think this could be soo much better then ob. But im not sure. Interesting times.

This still erks me. All the strategy of carrying backup weapons, hammers, etc. just gone.

What's next. Infinate arrows for all bow?

I don't care that armor deterioration is gone, I've never actually collected hammers legitimately + found it to be more of a hassle than a challenge.

Apparently, you don't even understand logic 101.

No, If A then B does not imply If not B then not A.

The flaw is entirely on your side. If you declare something tedious but are perfectly fine with something that is way more work-intensive, the onus is on you to provide some solid argument why you're not simply trashing repairing for trashing's sake

No, the flaw is on your side because of your unfounded assumption.

You assume that because something is more work intensive that it is tedious. That is fallacious and you should feel silly for even suggesting they could be equated. It's like saying that Combat is more work intensive and therefor more tedious. Bullplop.

Please don't embarrass yourself by claiming the guy sitting across form you doesn't understand logic when you have no idea who that guy is sitting across from you. The "Logic Insult" is thrown around in forums like these all the time, but in the end we are often discussing opinions. Logic often doesn't apply very well to the situations. If you don't understand that, I'm sorry to say, you fail at Logic 101.

I guess you forgot to read the part where I said both statements were stupid. Ah well, maybe next time.

Thats reserved for TES VII