I really doubt durability is out.
I think this is because what we saw was a demo and not the finished game.
It may be wishful thinking but it would indeed be a little gamey and FPS if weapons and armour were just at 100% all the time.
I assume the armorer skill is now replaced with smithing and that we do our repairs in a town or city, at a forge.

It would just senselessly be removing a layer of depth and I dont think this is the goal of Bethesda.

If it does degrade, I want to be as a slow as it was in Arena or Daggerfall. If that won't be the case, I would gladly be rid of the durability features. It just got annoying to have to repair my equipment after every few battles to keep them in great shape. Weapons and armor can't have ever been that fragile unless the smiths who created them were incompetent.

Of course weapons and armor have durability :cheat:

I hope they do, although the rate [of degradation] could stand to be quite a bit slower.

yah me too

the durability of some items on OB and MW was a joke

if durability is gone however I won't be sad, cause I don't care really

It's an interesting problem. I would be pretty disappointed if I can have 100% equipment and wreck enemies with it because it doesn't degrade.

They should've just kept the Repair Hammers in I don't see what was wrong with them. :brokencomputer:

Saying "The old repairing system is gone" doesn't mean weapons and armor no longer degrade, it could also mean that a new system has been introduced, though if that's the case, it would have made more sense to say "The old system for repairing items is gone, replaced by [whatever new mechanic is used]". Though given what we know so far, it could see it being removed, mostly due to the absence of any weapon condition indicator in the inventory, but only time will tell, though honestly, I'm not sure I'd mind if it's gone. I really didn't feel that item durability, at least as it was handled in past games, added much of anything to the game, it was just another tedious task to deal with, really, or something else to spend your gold on if you don't want to bother repairing items yourself, it's certainly something that Bethesda could afford to change, and if that change hasn't been removing it entirely, it had best be replacing it with a viable and much more interesting system.



Only if items degrade more slowly than in past games, MUCH more slowly, if my weapon is down to 80% condition after killing one enemy and I can't repair it at all until I get back to town, then I will want to have some choice words with whoever actually thought that would be a good idea. If you're going to limit where players can repair things, you first have to make sure that players won't need to fast travel back to places where it is possible to do so 25 times in the proccess of exploring one dungeon.



Personally, I don't see what layer of "depth" needing to repeatedly bang away at my weapons after every fight to keep them in good condition, for something to add depth to the game it has to actually make me think, and repairing items in past games had the exact oposite effect, it was something I could just turn off my brain and keep clicking to do.

If I don't get to repair anything, hopefully I get to build NEW items. Getting to fabricate a custom sword or briastplate would completely make up for not having a repair option anymore.

indeed

instead of wasting time repairing we can waste time making awesome stuff

I always thought the amount of money smiths charged in oblivion (even when they were your employee at your castle!!!) was ABSURD. Especially considering the absurdly deflated amount of money that even the richest merchants had. If I went out adventuring for a couple of hours (real time), I would often have to spend like 3-4k to get everything repaired. Heck, if I played enough, my smith would have more money than me! Maybe a better solution would to be have items be worth less, merchants have more money, and smiths charge a reasonable rate (i.e. it should never cost more to fix than to buy a new one)

As far a "depth" is concerned, the lack of degradation wouldn't, in itself, bother me (I found it annoying, mostly). But in the bigger picture, I'm not sure that I like its removal. Just one more step towards an action game and away from an RPG game. But hey, I don't get paid to make games, what do I know?

I could have swore I read somewhere that only repair hammers are gone, so you can't repair in the field. You have to either pay a blacksmith to fix them or do it yourself at a forge. And there is a dialog for using the smiths forge, which you may be able to craft and repair your gear. But if taken out is no big loss, it wasn't fun or immersive in other games, although removing features instead of fix them in never a good idea IMO, but then again some features are not worth the effort of fixing.

The people talking down durability of weapons have a pretty absurd argument. Have you people any idea what a sword is. Its a pointed blade that becomes as blunt with use, like any kitchen knife. Swordsmen parrying with swords try to connect with the enemy's weapon at the base of the blade because of that; if they block or parry with the part thats going INTO the enemy...its going to get blunt. I love Skyrim, and I Learned to not freak out about greaves until I get clear information about how smithing works. However, removing durability is just stupid. It was never a pain at all in Morrowind or Oblivion. I dont have ADD, I can figure out on my own that I need to repair weapons, that I need money for it and/or practice repair. On the money side, no degradation is another way to make money pointless. They added jobs that you can do for income...yet they remove ways to make making money meaningful. Its just dumb game design being directed to groundless complaints. People will start complaining about leveling up, so they'll remove it? Beth, complainers are people who dont want to play RPGs! And you make RPGs. Put 2 and 2 together. Im allfor streamlining and balancing; the "raise skills as you use them" philosophy is very problematic, and Morrowind gave you a bit too much freedom that affected the level of balance Daggerfall, for example, had. So Im all for fixing that. But removing degradation does nothing towards that, its just a bad decision made for a stupid, baseless complaint from people who just wanna course trough the game in one go.

The mechanics behind repairing was boring (hammers where cheap and all you had to do was use them), they should either make it more interesting somehow or remove it. Since weapons no longer have health and smithing is considered a warrior skill, I would not be surprised if repairing is removed altogether.

There is no item condition when you look at an item in your inventory...

Big Edit:



If repairs aren't needed, doesn't that make Smithing the most useless skill in all of Tamriel?

End Big Edit
===
I don't think smithing should be limited to towns only. I don't want to have to go into town after every dungeon run or run in on exploration. I think it is fair not to permit repairs every 5 seconds during you dungeon run as well though.

I think repairs should be permitted when making a camp. [...did I mention I think you should be able to make a camp?] Anyway, your character should be able to set up camp because any Dragonborn capable of saving all of Skyrim from a invasion of dragons should be capable of making a campfire and if you have a campfire... you have a camp. So all that can call themselves Dovahkiin should have some survivalist instincts in them. So Dovahkiin should be able to do some rudimentary repairs on their armor. Maybe repairs in the wild should be limited to 70-80% of max condition because the equipment in town permits for better repairs.

Remember how in Arena and Daggerfall, you had to leave your equipment at the shop and it could take days before the smith got to work on it? That was always a very nice touch in my opinion - it gave you some incentive to slow down from the grinding and hang around town for a while, and created the illusion that NPC businesses were actually thriving. Definitely would love that back.

It *could* be that the new streamlined inventory does not have a Condition value anywhere because you can actually see how damaged your weapon is by looking at its current Damage stat. The only downside would be that you never could accurately say how much damage potential your weapon has when repaired, but on the other hand that is kind of immersive.
I'm not saying that's the case, but it is definitely a possibility. It fits into their idea of reducing the number of stats shown in the inventory to a minimum. And since the percentage in Oblivion never told me how durable the weapon is (unlike Morrowind's total numbers), I could live with the removal just fine. After repairing the weapon, you'd know its maximum damage and could just keep that in mind.


Oh yeah, that would be so cool. And you can tell him where you will be staying while you're in town, so that he can send a kid to leave a message at the reception when your stuff is ready.
I want to make a mod that does that!

Maybe there's something wrong with my games, but in all the time I've spent playing both games, I've never once noticed an item degrade, so I've never been able to experience what you described.

Oh, yes. In the case of Arena, you could even negotiate with the blacksmith over how quickly you want the repair done - at a higher price, of course. You'd think that isn't too special since repairs seldom cost anything in Morrowind and Oblivion, but I had an Ebony Longsword in Arena that was something to the tune of 2,000 gold to repair within 7 days. I ultimately did something outrageous like give him 100 days to repair it at a substantially reduced cost.

armor still had health under it

Maybe item condition is visual now? so the more cracked a sword was the less damage it would do before it snapped?

I hope they don't take it out completely. I liked the way Morrowind handled repairing. If you were unskilled at it then you would waste a lot of hammers and it wouldn't be nearly as easy as in Oblivion. However, degradation should be slower. I mean, one battle with three basic enemies in Oblivion could destroy my sword and most of my armor. That's [censored]. If it is replaced by smithing, I'm okay with it. I support the above ideas to reduce the time it takes to degrade gear and have only smiths be able to repair them in town.

Armor only has 3 stats in this picture:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110609012657/elderscrolls/images/a/ac/Elven_Armor.jpg

Armor: 36
Weight: 9
Value: 225