With the exception of power armor still having a condition system, it appears all other weapons and armor will no longer decay and break with use (as is also the case in Skyrim).

While removing condition may have made more sense in TES, it certainly doesn't make a lot of sense for a post-apocalyptic survival setting. Especially with the overhaul of crafting and all junk having a purpose and a use now, I think gear maintenance makes perfect sense to the Fallout experience. Now, the only deterrent from using a weapon will be ammunition.

Are you fine with this realistic aspect of the game being removed? Do you think BGS is simplifying and holding the hands of the player too much?

I'm fine with it, begrudgingly. However I doubt "hand holding" is the intent.

Weapon and armor condition made more sense in Fallout, and if it IS gone, then...I will surely champion it's return in later installments.

"Hand holding" may be a bit strong, but it is certainly "streamlining" with the intent of attracting a larger audience. Gear condition is one of those features that could turn some gamers off as they wouldn't want to constantly either repair at a vendor of find similar weapons for repair. Personally, removing condition is almost like removing encumbrance and switching to bag slots (I hope BGS never does that). I think weapons and their quality should be scarce and maintaining your gear should be a part of that experience. Unfortunately, it seems power armor, which is meant to be somewhat overpowered, will only have that limitation.

As we are not 100% sure of the details of the new system (or lack thereof) the discussion is going to be a LOT of speculation.

I think calling the system we had in the past "realistic" may be a stretch, but I'm not sure that it HAS been 100% confirmed that it's fully removed.

Removing the condition aspect to weapons and armor greatly reduces the need to scavenge...however as soon as I typed that, I realized that modding weapons and gear, as well as settlements will greatly rely on scavenging, so that point is moot.

Scavenging for supplies to survive is key to the Fallout world, more so for 3 and onward.

In earlier Fallout's, it was no different from any other RPG of it's time. You could graphically swap Fallout 1 and 2 with graphics from Baldurs gate, and there would nary be a difference except mood. Go to place, rummage containers, kill things, take their stuff.

It also removes a certain level of personal pride at maintaining your kit. Sure it was a dire pain in the ass at times, but at the same time it made you care about what you were carrying.

http://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-4-might-have-a-new-repair-system-but-bethesda-isnt-ready-to-talk-about-it/

To be fair, for what its worth, when asked about this subject, Peter did say "we can't talk about it yet", such a hesitation on giving us a straight yes or no does leave a window open.

Actually, that's fairly standard practice. They legally cannot talk about specifics unless allowed by the company.

What I translate these as meaning is gear condition is currently not in the game. It's something BGS might try to include if they have time left, but it doesn't seem to be present outside of power armor. The game is out in less than three months. If this is something not seen in the demo and something they aren't talking about at all, it makes me skeptical it's going to be included.

Still, it isn't a straight no, so we technically don't know its out.

We are all in a perpetual state of "you know nothing, Jon Snow".

...After Gamescon, they said. The Quakecon footage, they said...

I would prefer to have it in the game, but it needs to be much slower than it is in FO3. Perhaps a mechanic can be instituted where you do weekly in game maintenance on your weapon(s) and it slows the degradation, or as you improve the weapon it slows down. I prefer to keep 3 weapons on my PC at all times, and try not to switch to an alternate unless forced to do so.

Personally I hate it. I hated it was removed in Skyrim to.

I agree that slowing the decay of weapons would make a lot more sense. Condition would degrade far too rapidly in Fallout 3 leading to constantly scavenging and trying to maintain your arsenal. I personally don't want to have to carry around five of the same weapon just to keep it maintained while I'm out in the wilderness and I have no means of paying a few caps to repair my gear (which will likely be expensive anyways).

I loved weapon/armor degradation even though the rate of which your weapon/armor would degrade was too fast imo (at least in fallout 3). I didn't care that it wasn't in Skyrim but I will be a little mad if its not in fallout. There's always mods but still.

I personally hated that condition was taken out in Skyrim because it had been in Oblivion and Morrowind. As far as mods, is there even a mod to implement armor decay for Skyrim? That might be a bit complex, as the weapon doesn't just break after a certain amount of uses (you'd also need repair hammers), but the damage the weapon inflicts also declines with use. This was one of the major reasons BGS took it out because some of the fans complained that their epic weapons wouldn't be any better than a starter sword after a certain amount of use.

I always got around the cost of weapon repair by getting the items repaired first, and then selling to the merchant and getting all my caps back. While it may have been a buying and selling transaction, I always role-played it in my head as a barter transaction. "Here, I'll give you these rifles I found if you repair my combat shotgun and give me some ammo. By the way, do you have any stimpaks?"

To me the rapid decay ruined the combat, or at least depreciated it, as like you said you had to carry extra weapons. A good weapon should last the entirety of a mission at least with little degradation. When a weapon is at 100% it should drop slowly to 90%, a little quicker to 80%, and a little quicker still to 70% and so on. As long as you maintain it at the work bench and keep it tip top, it should not degrade rapidly to the point of breaking in short order like weapons in FO3 are prone to doing.

Exactly. This was the exact same issue with decay in Oblivion and why I believe condition was removed from the start. Weaposn would break far too often and far too frequently. Slow the process and I think everybody would be happier. Especially with the overhaul of crafting, this would be a perfect opportunity to give us more tools of slowing decay or increasing it with added boosts and perks to the specialized weapon. There is a lot that could be done, but outright stripping the system is a wasted opportunity.

I honestly like the idea that Bethesda is doing with this, cause it means two things...

One: They know that their repair/condition systems has always been terrible and annoying...

Two: But they want to try things with it, without ruining the overall game...

What I'm saying is... They are testing out a new system with Power Armor (which is why Power Armor can degrade and such) before actually applying it to a full game.

At least, that's my best guess at what they are doing and why Fallout 4 is like this with weapon/armor conditions.

Shouldn't be touched honestly......Repairing was great IMO....Reason why......'Alternative Repair mod"....Let the modders take care of it again. Don't get why some are so against something when the environment is a degraded mess weapon/armor used should definitely degrade...

I hope you are right that they are testing a new system, but I hope they implement it to all things before the game is released. This is what many old RPG fans complain about with BGS, and I am beginning to see their side of things more often. Instead of trying to improve a system, they just remove it. Weapon degradation has a place in the Fallout universe, after all we are dealing with very old weapons, and presumably little to no new manufacturing, so the weapons would be in poor shape or degrade. With maintenance however you can improve their condition, and rate of decay.

What opportunity will be wasted by removing item condition? Loss of immersion? Loss of a skill tree that they could easily break up and implement into different perks? I'm going to play either way, but item condition really seems like a nuisance more than anything.

I don't mind either way

Having an repair system was kinda cool and made the game seem realistic but at the same time it was kinda annoying when I wanted to wear unique outfits, having them break after a few fights and in fallout 3 at least have to pay Wolfgang a bucket load to fix them

Anyway for Fallout 4 I reckon there is going some sort of repair and condition but with the new crafting system It seems like you could just repair you weapon with Junk found on the road so no doubt they are modifying the system to make it more rewarding to use your equipment instead of junk and as someone pointed out above perhaps your equipment won't just "break" but instead just get weaker & less effective (I know it did this in the old games but it was like a few points different) until throwing rocks would be more effective weapon.

I don't think the intent was to "appeal to a wider audience". It's not like Morrowind through New Vegas would have sold better if they didn't have gear degradation. I think Bethesda just decided it wasn't fun, and shifted the focus from repair to crafting. So you can still scrap weapons and use the parts to improve other weapons, the game just doesn't force you to. It's more of a paradigm shift than "streamlining"; repair is gone, but crafting is more involved than repair ever was.

Doubtful. The only reason power armor still has condition is because it is much more powerful than it was in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. Condition is a way to limit and restrict how powerful power armor is.

It changes how the game is played quite frankly. How you loot. What you loot. How you use your weapons. Which weapons you will use. How you plan to approach a certain situation and what you believe is the most effective way of using your arsenal. The entire philosophy of combat is impacted by the fact you no longer have to worry about weapons breaking.