I never quite understood the whole "repair hammer" thing. I can understand pounding a dent out of a piece of metal armor, or pounding a new rivet or two into some leather, but there's nothing else you could use a hammer for in the field. Besides that, I have a couple of hammers in my workshop that belonged to my grandfather (he was a carpenter), and they're both well over 100 years old, and not worn out yet!

One can imagine a fighter carrying a whetstone, but a burnishing tool would be even more useful for maintaining the edge of a sword or dagger. It's basically a piece of metal (it has to be harder than the blade being worked), and it's used by rubbing it along the edge of a blade to reshape the edge. Chef's sharpening irons work this way.

I suspect it was solely for the sound effect when you have the repair dialog up. They wanted a "repairing noise" and hammering on an anvil was the only convincing alternative. So that meant repairing was done with a hammer. I'd also assumed that like most other things in the game, there was a magic aspect which was really the thing being consumed.

Buffy checks the tension on her silk bowstring after every engagement. She has to be very careful using a hammer for such a delicate task.

I guess maybe our repair hammers are meant to be symbolic of whatever specific tool is required to tweak/improve/sharpen/repair various kinds of equipment. Almost like a go-go-Gadget-repair-kit.

Exactly. Realism was sacrificed for playability, would have just been [censored] to have to lug around a tool box to repair all the different types of armor/weapons

Yeah, but the thing is that none of those tools wear out when you use them.

Ghastley probably has the answer. It's all for the immersion-building sound-effect.

Having had my fun about the whole thing... I'd have to say that I actually prefer the degrading armor. I haven't played Skyrim, but I've played zillions of other games where nothing can ever break or become less effective. Even though the repair-menu thing is a break from "realism," it's no more so than all the other things that pop up, like inventory, lockpicking games, load screens. It seems right to me that one would have to tend to ones equipment and health between battles.

Roleplaying, my character is sitting by a campfire, with a chunk of rat on the spit, resting after a hard fight and burnishing his sword's edge with the same piece of steel he used with his flint to make the fire. We don't see all of that in-game, either, but we can imagine it to be true.

Love the imagery, glargg! Nothing like sitting down by the campfire and roasting up some fresh rat! Though I think Kira prefers boar (mm... ribs...).

I'm a vegetarian, so the choices my characters make are all the same mystery to me!

You're right. But this brings us back to why so many players criticized fast travel in Oblivion but not in Morrowind. I believe the reason is this: Morrowind's fast travel is initiated by the character; Oblivion's fast travel is initiated by the player. Roleplaying games, traditionally, are character-centric, not player-centric.

This is a subtle difference, but to some of us it's important. Fast travel via Silt Strider is an in-game action taken by our characters and most people felt that it was a good roleplaying mechanism; fast travel via map is an out-of-game action taken by me, the player, and I think it rubbed many roleplayers the wrong way for that reason. I feel it is the same with repairing versus upgrading. You end up with a menu in both cases, but how you get to that menu makes all the difference.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.





There are games (Dungeon Siege is the first one that comes to mind) where so much has been stripped away or was never included in the first place that the gameplay feels primitive. I don't believe that's the case here. If Bethesda had removed degradation without adding crafting I'd be pretty upset. But I have so much more fun crafting items than I ever did repairing items that, assuming we have to pick between one or the other, I'm happy they removed degradation.

Every weapon, armor and jewelry my last character used she made for herself, out of materials she gathered through mining or skinning. I have to say that gave me a wonderful feeling of acheivement. Personally, I felt no sense of acheivement when I repaired gear.

But having said all that - and having thought about it a little more - I think what Bethesda should have done was have upgrades degrade. As they are used weapons and armor could degrade back to their original base stats, requiring us to travel to a forge or grindstone to reapply our upgrades. The item would still be usable, it just wouldn't be tempered any longer.

Almost everything. Oblivion is superior.

Says the member with a TES III: Morrowind pic for avatar

Did I say hotkeys yet? I really miss them. Well, I miss the other six.

Heh, that's exactly what I was thinking

I haven't played Skyrim yet, but I like degrading armor and weapons in Oblivion. Here's what I do: you can't repair in the wild. If it breaks, whatever it is, you must drop it. You can only repair at home or in a town. Paying for repairs also helps drain away money from your vast fortune.

I′m with you here. When I was new and didn′t know any better I could repair stuff at any time. But soon enough I got my act together and straightened up

I miss beautiful/colorful Oblivion landscape, i miss Oblivion swaying trees. I miss Oblivion HUMOR

Yes Oblivion have alot of humor in quests.

Oblivion cracks me up every time. Some people complain that all the unintentional humor breaks immersion for them, for me it usually draws me in. Some of my characters laugh quite a lot, and I usually laugh right along with them.

What, nobody misses the regional cuisine? Especially "Rats in a Cream Sauce, Rat Flambe, Rat Necrom with bonemeal Gravy, Deep-Fried Rat, Lemon Rat and Wild Rice, Rat Ragu with Powdered Deer ..."

Ummm no. I did have a character who liked roasted rat, awhile back, though. That was Luci Pheria. She jsut ate roasted rat, she wouldn't make an entire recipe with rats, though.

Aravi would never touch a rat! Or anything found in a dungeon for that matter!

Who else misses the heck out of Hand-To-Hand? My favorite character ever was my Boxer, a Nord using light armor and his fists to pummel the stuffing out of everything he saw.

Why did it have to be removed from Skyrim!

I never thought I would miss H2H but I do!

I was hoping for more in-depth H2H in Skyrim, like it was in FO3. Spiked Knuckles, Dragon Claw Gauntlets, etc...

"Whats the matter, GETTING TIRED!?"
"Why don't you fall down and BLEEEEEEED TO DEATH!"
"You think you can beat me you PATHETIC WORM?!"

"I used to be an adventurer li....(yawn)"

• Starsigns
  
• More Classes
  
• Guards have Shifts
  
• More Diverse Ruins
  
• Goblins
  
• Deterioration in Weapons and Armour
  
• Spell Crafting
  
• More diverse alchemy
  
• More unique quests (invisibe town anyone)

Note only started my game, but noticed these so far.