I never found the constantly needing to repair a weapon theme to be realtic to me. Maybe at a much slower pace I'd be fine with it but it was pretty ridiculous to have to carry around multiples of my commonly used weapons just to keep them decent

I would like to see it removed. It is such a pain in the ass to have to be in the middle of a fire fight and have to pay attention to how much health you have while at the same time worrying whether or not your weapon is about to break and then have to find the caps to pay someone to fix it if you cant do it yourself or take apart another item just to use its parts to repair he original item.

It is such a huge pain in the ass to have to do all of that. Even Dark Souls isnt that bad with their repairs and crafting.

Removing weapon condition may actually open more avenues to different play-styles as you wouldnt have to save your best weapons for emergency situations only.

In the past most people playing fallout games were pretty much forced to use the technique you mentioned. Now they can save that bag space for scavenging other items instead of carrying around 40 laser rifles.

Realistic to me would be that we could only do it at the workbench and it took longer to degrade. To me, it kind of took away from the gameplay worrying about it.

It makes sense you'd save your best armor and weapons for certain situations though. Why would a brotherhood paladin go into a fist fight with his power armor on? That's a bit overkill. Also, from a rational perspective, you aren't going to pull out your best weapons immediately in most cases. You'd rather the enemy underestimate your abilities so you can exploit them.

The solution is to slow degradation and with the overhaul of crafting, there is a new way to repair without having an arbitrary repair skill you need to level. You won't even need 40 laser rifles in your inventory now as you can merely collect junk, go to a work bench, and use that junk to make repairs to your weapons and armor. That's how it should work anyways and I believe many would be happy with that.

It wasn't implemented well, but the concept of weapon degradation very much makes sense in Fallout. It shouldn't be discarded completely.

We saw a demo with plenty of footage showing weapons and armor. The only condition we saw was on power armor, which displayed its health. There was no such corresponding health bar on any other weapons or armor in the demo. Reasonable minds would conclude, based on the fact condition was also taken out in Skyrim, that it likely hasn't returned to this game (with power armor being the exception).

What does layering have to do with condition? You could see the condition of your gear on the Pip-Boy in Fallout 3, so I'm not sure what you are suggesting. Again, it was at the very workbench you are referencing that we saw condition on power armor but not on other weapons or armor.

I thought that having to keep your (scavenged, antique) gear maintained fits the theme of Fallout quite well (moreso than TES). In Oblivion, it was mostly just annoying (especially if you were a light armor user - having to repair your shield after every single encounter with a troll/ogre was a pain)..... biggest use of Repair in Oblivion was for grinding out your +5 stat bonus on Endurance....

Hopefully, there will be some sort of "maintenance" system in FO4. As I said, it feels like it fits the "jury-rigged, antique, scavenged crap" theme of the Fallout setting. Crafting & rearranging weapon modules doesn't quite seem to fill the same niche.

(I will say that I've never spent caps getting things repaired in FO3/NV, and rarely in Oblivion. Seemed like a waste, when you could just do it yourself. Plus, expensive.)

I just dont think the "ermagerd immersions" argument has much merit here. Wait, hold on. Let me take off my power armor and put on my cowboy hat because were about to get in a tussle! Now thats what I call immersions... volume 4.

In my opinion, I rather not have it. The game is more fun without it as it messes up the flow of the game... I usually make mods for Bethesda's games to help me around the repairing annoyances...

However, I wouldn't mind having a condition state setting... Not necessary where you have to repair weapons (you can use weapons as long and as much as you want without them ever degrading) but you find different quality of the same weapon and you can perform repairs on them to make them better. Like most weapons you find laying around on the ground would be in Poor Quality... Kinda similar to how weapons in the Fallout Shelter phone games are. They don't break but you can find them in around 3-4 qualities (from Rusty to Enhanced/Hardened). Just throw in the ability to fix up old, rusty, and poor weapons.

I couldn't remember if we'd seen any good footage of the inventory menu to see if there was item condition or not anymore so I went back through the E3 footage and it looks like while you you can see a lot of information about your weapons when you bring up your Pip-Boy, one thing it doesn't show in the menu is condition. I'm of two minds about this:

My initial thought is that in a post-apocalyptic game regular maintenance kind of fit with the theme. Scavenging and looking for useful things in every nook and cranny, hoarding everything you can carry because you never know what you're going to need down the line - that all ties into the genre and gameplay mechanics that encourage that I generally think would be a good thing.

On the other hand... man, that got old pretty quick in actual usage. New Vegas at least let you use similar weapons for repairing so it was somewhat a less finicky system, but I still found it pretty tedious. And this is with the proper suspension of disbelief that "maintaining" a weapon means breaking down another weapon and replacing parts on it a couple of times a day. I've been playing back through F3 and NV lately and I was hoping that at the very least they'd make the process smoother than it currently was.

Also, while it does appear that item condition is out, that doesn't innately mean that no notion of weapon maintenance is totally gone, either. It's not a giant leap to assume that if CND is out that weapons won't be breaking or jamming but that doesn't mean there couldn't possibly be a way to "buff" a weapon with the right combination of items and Perks. And with all the new crafting and settlement building I'm going to guess there'll be more than enough reason to be constantly scavenging for supplies. Actually...

I wonder if that could possibly be the reasoning, here. If crafting weapons attachments and other gear is going to be something of a focus for the game, then I wonder if that explains the shift? Now instead of picking up every Combat Shotgun I come across in order keep the one I use in working order I may instead be picking up and breaking down every Combat Shotgun I come across so that I can gather enough resources to upgrade the Combat Shotgun I use...

The major difference between Oblivion and Fallout 3 is you just needed repair hammers to actually repair gear. You didn't need the specific weapon or armor piece to do it, making it a bit more manageable. If you can't find that corresponding item you need to repair your gear (and you don't have a high repair skill), you are forced to get repairs from a vendor. With skills taken out of Fallout 4, being able to make repairs by using junk you find in the world and repairing at a work bench would make a lot of fun and be far more accessible.

All I'm saying is I'm not going to bring out a plasma rifle, fat man, or an alien pistol to kill a wandering raider in the wasteland. It would be an absolute waste for such a weak mob. Having condition reinforces this notion that you are more likely to use specific weapons and armor based on the opponent you are facing.

I fully support the idea of using weapons to find and create new combinations of upgrades for your guns, but I still think proper maintenance of weapons is essential to the Fallout experience. We are in a post-apocalyptic US. It's not as if there are gun manufacturers still in business producing new merchandise. Most items you are going to come across are old, refurbished, and used. I think that realization is important to have in the game, rather than just removing it and only allowing a wide variety of ways to upgrade weaponry.

I think the solution for condition is to slow down degradation and allow repairs to be done at a workstation with junk rather than needing an arbitrary repair skill with the specific weapon. The concept itself is solid. The execution is what had a lot to be desired.

Gun Runners?

Gun Runners is a local vendor (New Vegas). They don't have a presence nation-wide as far as I'm aware. I also meant in the sense of there being frequent gunshops to shop at in the wasteland. Most of what you'll find is nothing but ruins with some pockets of civilization that may barter in used or older goods. Generally, there aren't a lot of places making "new" things, especially weapons.

Sure. Given my druthers my initial thought would be that the previous system needed some revision but there was still room to account for item condition, just done a different way that was less finicky.

But that's not to say there's not still room to simulate that just because weapons no longer have a CND. For example, in F3 you'd get the Well Rested Perk for sleeping in a bed - potentially you could do the same with weapons. So instead of items degrading you could have a "Well Maintained" status applied to them for periods of time. Or who knows, maybe over time a weapon (or even parts of it) could degrade to "Rusted" status or whatever over time...

Obviously that's all speculation and hopeful thinking. But just because CND is out of the window doesn't mean the whole concept of maintaining weapons is not going to be there at all.

I'm totally fine with it; not the least of which, because weapons did not decay in any prior Fallout title; but also because Bethesda's system allowed for crazy repair scenarios ~like repairing a baseball bat, with parts from another baseball bat; [the same for tire irons, and lead pipes].

**Aside: The Fallout series was never about post-apoc survivalism, and so anything (anything at all) that puts it closer to the root IP, is always for the best IMO.

Agreed. With some tweaking it could be a good immersive feature that adds to the experience. As it was however, I thought it took away from it

Either get rid of degradation, or let me actually repair weapons to a decent state.

If I have one Gauss Rifle I don't continually want it to be on the edge of scrap.

This^ When wandering into an area with lower class enemies I will pull my 10mm pistol to deal with them as the ammo is plentiful and cheap. I will even snipe some slightly stronger enemies at a distance with it and save the higher power weapons and ammo for close combat/higher strength enemies. Why waste .45 ammo on a radroach? And my armor of choice in 3 is Reilly's Ranger combat armor. Thankfully plenty of Talon Company mercs are around to scavenge for parts and combat shotguns.

Super Dumb if true, how is it a survival game if there is no weapon decay. Means we can now use one weapon the whole game assuming we have ammo which again is just dumb. I'm still going to enjoy Fallout 4 but this is super disappointing if true, no longer a wasteland, just a super fun amusemant park. I guess more evidence that the game is being dumbed down again. I mean I'm for gutting skills if it's not going to be fixed but this is just dumb.

To be fair - since when has Fallout ever been a survival game?

You were really that entertained by [censored] breaking all the time? lol

True. And how does having to find dozens of the same item to make repairs make it a survival game anyway?

I mean, isn't it less realisitc if without tools we are just able to put two weapons together and "repair" them? That's not how real life works. Work benches should be there for crafting and repair. I'm sure there would be mods to slow down weapon degredation if it's again too fast.

Thoughts across the board:

1) First off: I hate the title of this thread and some of the follow up comments about the confirmation over condition's removal. It hasn't been confirmed. Period. If you're reading into stuff that's been said or some speculation, that's assuming. You don't know one way or another. No one does.

2) That said, it's really hard to imagine a condition system that can work with the moding/crafting system we have seen so far. Those guns are changing drastically to the point where two guns that are technically the same base weapon look and act totally different. However, they could have moved condition to be part specific instead of the gun holistically. From there, they might say, "hey, you need a toy car or a lamp to fix this part". Now that makes sense and plays well with what we have seen so far, but I highly doubt they would go that route for how tedious that might end up being (personally, I would like it but I don't think Beth would risk it).

3) If it's gone, it's gone. I'm willing to accept that since they massively overhauled the crafting mechanics.

4) On the argument of ES vs FO, there are point major differences between those two universes/games: 1) Combat is central to ES, not role-playing (or at the very least, combat plays a much bigger part). You can shoot someone with an arrow, slash them, punch em, magic them, or let some minions do your dirty work, but you simply cannot avoid fighting. Sneaking is harder and occurrences where you can talk your way out are much fewer. In short, ES is more combat-centric so have weapon condition is a lot more of a pain. 2) "Grunginess" and decay are major themes in FO. Sure, that doesn't mean it needs to be there, but weapon condition (or lack there of rather) helps emphasize and play into that.

It changes very little actually. Most people used 1 or 2 main weapons and they brought extras for repair in FO3 or FO:NV, then pressed repair when the weapon got to the point where it would do less damage. Not engaging and not thought provoking in terms of strategy. There was very little management and thought to things and the implementation doesn't actual add to game PLAY. It added to the setting and the feel of the game yes in a ham fisted immature way, but in terms of how the game is played it adds very little. The system was ham fisted and utterly unrealistic, weapons do not degrade after one or two score of shots fired. This just isn't how things degrade and frankly was a poor implementation of maintaining equipment. The idea of having to scavenge through the wastes to obtain things to maintain and improve your lot in life has been switched. Now the focus is on maintaining a settlement vs a piece of equipment that degrades at supernatural speeds. Now you create a settlement where you can go and do what is actually realistic maintaining the status and lot in life for your home base. At your home base is where you would spend time cleaning your weapons, sewing holes in clothing, repairing armour. This doesn't need to be implemented in the game because it quite frankly adds nothing substantive to game play. Just like you may eat or drink in game but you never take a crap or p!ss in the game because it would add NOTHING to actual game play that is substantive.

Having scavenging, looting and hoarding is important to the game to represent the dire need to repurpose existing items to represent that you can't just get a [blank] at the store any more. And this IS in game, this is represented and requires similar game play to previous games but it does so in a manner that makes sense and not some foolish unrealistic mechanic that added pretty much no additional layer of strategy or meaningful play. Hitting the repair button on degraded material is NOT my definition of meaningful play.

i would much rather see the implementation of New Vegas' hardcoe mode in FO4 than see them retain the juvenile repair system. Having to worry about dehydration and starvation is more apt to the struggle to survive in the post apocalyptic environment then 'hey I just shot my gun 20 times and now its starting to svck.' Weapon and armour degradation was perhaps the worse implementation of a mechanic design to show the struggle to survive.