Wow, excellent point!

Some things:

1.How is the Skyrim system a money sink? You can get all the materials you need for free by mining, so that doesn't cost money. Yeah, it takes days to replace but you said you break FO's economy by waiting outside stores, doesn't seem much harder to do for ores. Also, you eventually MAX everything, so it can never become a PERMANENT money sink, because you do reach the cap on things eventually. The biggest thing holding you down, if not only thing is the perks, which, guess what! Aren't money based.

2. Also you say that the perks are good since you have to limit yourself in other areas to focus on it, but complain about FO's way of making have to invest in repair when you could be doing something important?

3. No one has made base building and "destructible" environments work well in a story based, singleplayer, open world game either, yet you have full confidence for them to do it right, but not something as simple as repair. ._.

4. I already told you to look at the formulas they have on the wiki, because I think they seem well though out and fair.

5. But, a thing I personally liked about FO is that not all enemies level with you. Where as in Skyrim and Oblivion, they did. I liked how in Morrowind their was nothing stopping you from getting the best armors in the game. Hooray! Expect to get that armor you needed to kick the ass of the guy wearing the best armor in the game. That's what Fallout kind of tries to do. I hate how in Skyrim and Oblivion you can only get the best things when the game tells you that you're "ready." Oh, so they shouldn't stop me from being OP, but they can stop me from getting the best stuff until they say so?

Repair was cut because they couldn't think of a way to make it interesting and balanced with the adding of the ability to break down anything to get parts.


If I can walk into some ruins, pick up everything that isn't nailed down, break it all down to repair parts, I will never ever have to worry about the repair system.

So you either lower this amount of resources you get, but even that doesn't fix the problem because anything in the game world can be broken down for numerous components.

Bethesda knows so much more about game development than anyone on this forum, and while they only do inhouse testing, I trust their decision over a few voices claiming there is a way to make repairing an item interesting, though there has not been one to date yet.

When you're doing sequels, the development process includes looking at the original game and asking what we can improve upon?

Well this time they came up with this amazing crafting system where you can break down a toaster and get nails and steel, or a toy car for screws and wood.

An extension of this probably saw them allowing these same components to be used to repair directly, or just making weapon repair kits.

The problem arises is when, again, the player can break down just about everything; you can have tons and tons of these kits in a few hours of game time and never worry about weapon condition again; it becomes a feature that is ignored completely after 3 hours ingame, and features like that are in need of some fixing.

So, the solution? Let's try to make this kits super expensive to craft, requiring tons and tons of these components?

Well now that isn't fun(an increase in nothing save numbers is generally considered a poor way to do difficulty), and it's getting in the way of the extensive crafting system because now the player is forced to dedicate large amounts of these new goodies because the only way to make the kits balanced is to tack on ridiculous numbers, and again, if you have to do that to make a system interesting, it isn't working properly.

You now have two gameplay features, one of which you just implemented for the first time and are excited about, that are directly in conflict with one another.

Again, if you think it was cut without any real reason, you're just being ignorant. The nature of improving a product includes trying to make its existing features more interesting.

Repair has not hard an interesting system to date;the current system from 3 and NV certainly wasn't working since all it promoted was carrying duplicates of everything and never worrying about it ever again, or just collecting enough kits and never worrying about it ever again.

Flawed point: Because to some people that might be fun, but that being said, it is not fair to the people who want a challenge, because it makes it so EVERYTHING scale, even skills.

I swear to you, if you gave me nothing but my bare fists and made me butt naked, but I still was level 250 or something, since you can't avoid leveling up and getting perks unless you were to never check your skill page again, I could show a Legendary Dragon what atomic fire TRULY is.

You do realize balance within single-player games is something probably all game developers strive for within their games? That's like the whole point of a game, to challenge the player. The whole idea of leveling up your character is to better prepare and improve their abilities to adapt and take on the challenges the game throws at them. More balance = more challenge = better game design. It's nothing new.

What a well educated, and well thought out post.

Congratulations, I applaud your efforts.

1. Because its generally easier to just buy materials then go through the slow mining animations over and over again.

1.1. Even if it doesn't become a permanent money sink, the ones that were, aka repair, didn't ever actually stop you from hoarding tons of caps... so whats the difference? Does it really matter when both end up in the same situation?

2. No? I have explicitly stated several times that investing in a skill isn't detrimental because you are given tons of skill points.

3. Plenty of RPGs have had great base building features, like NWN2. Also, Fo4's world isn't destructible, only certain pre-set build areas are. And Red Faction did destructible environments GREAT, and it was a story based single player game.

4. I have, and they aren't. Hence why many people have complained that certain weapons decay too fast or too slow.

5. All enemies dont level with you in Skyrim actually. Even at level 81, the max level in the vanilla game, I was still seeing 3/4 of the monster as being versions lower then the max for that creature.

5.1 Yeah but Morrowind didn't make sense for that, especially in the region that worshiped Daedra the most, Daedric armor should have been far more commonplace. Also, you can get the best items in the game fairly quickly if you focus only on smithing. They do give you options.

How is it not fair when they give you a choice to make it challenging or not?

Well I do think you shouldn't be forced to pick hp/magicka/stamina after reaching the level up spot and going to the skill screen.

Not really. Things like GTA, Saints Row, Halo, CoD, and every Bethesda game, are all about letting the player basically be a god.

And no, the best game design is the game design that allows people to have fun, whatever their definition of fun is.

Yes, but it can easily be improved with this new crafting system though. Make it so that every part of the gun decays separately from each other and needs certain things to repair it. Like a scope needed glass to make? it needs glass to repair. Need a new gun barrel? Smelt some scrap or find one in the world. It will always be important, because you are making a decision to spend those materials on THAT specific weapon instead of using it on something else. I agree their may be a lot of parts in the world, but their is a lot of things to make with those parts. Sure, hog up all that scrap for you gun, but now your missing out of it being used to make turrets for you community or what have you. There are many possibilities they have opened up with this new crafting for the repair system, if only they were to jump on it.

All that would do is make the already broken item decay rates even more systemically broken by tying them to even more things.

Also, as HighestPrimate already pointed out, there would be so many materials in the gameworld that you would never be truly blocking yourself off from doing things like repairing your weapon AND building the turret as you said.

Comparing Saints Row to Bethesda's RPG is a dead mission. In an RPG you're not a superhuman being from the start, but make progress to get stronger . That's why there are levels and skills and perks. If you were a superhero from the beginning like Saints Row 4 there would be very little incentive to level up and add points to skills.

If you have to actively avoid something to make a feature interesting, it isn't working at all.

There is so much junk in the fallout universe that there would never ever be a shortage on parts.

Just walk to every house surrounding yours once you leave the vault, and you've got enough resources to craft and repair anything for days, unless you get 1 component per item, in which case this extensive crafting system you made is now unusable.

Uhmmm. No. While I do agree with your statement that what is fun best represents good game design, just because there are games that do exist which more or less make you a god, they are still balanced in some ways. GTA V allows the player to die much easier than in previous GTAs, showing that Rockstar made an attempt toward the more balanced option. it's a matter of opinion of course, but usually when talking about RPGs, balance is paramount for a proper RPG to be played.

That implies Bethesda games post Daggerfall are RPGs.

They are not.

I like the idea! Very intuitive; it takes proper advantage of the new crafting system and would add depth to the whole structure. A damage level for each individual part would be very complex.

Semantics

Yeah I did, thanks for asking.

Sawyer addressed this in his re-balancing mod which combined DT/DR which was good. The point here is he didn't just scrap it entirely, he improved it.

How do they not? They keep the early game balanced.

We can have a dynamic crafting system that also ties in to a dynamic repair system. Higher quality weapons produced by the player require less but some upkeep.

It's not the same money sink because now you're just creating weapons at max quality and selling them at max value. It screws up the importance of barter and the early game balance of investing into repair/barter related perks. You're not investing anything into the system outside of collecting scraps and turning them into items. It's not a money sink at all. It's clogging the sink up.

You just described Skyrim's crafting system.

The junk is being used to make weapon modifications, not weapons entirely. Bob's post above goes into better detail on how to implement both a dynamic crafting system and repair system.

1. Please don't tell me you always went through the slow mining animations right? You realize you could hit the rock with the pickaxe like you could a person and get the materials like 7 times faster? Also, of course it's faster to buy the materials, just like it's faster to repair things at merchants but free to do it yourself. But unlike FO, the crafting system could be totally bypassed if you had enough skill in swords or time devoted to mining, where as your stuck with the repair system.

1.1 Well, it's something at least. I'd rather a small pit be in front of me rather than smooth sailing for eternity.

2. Only if you put decent points into intelligence, which takes some points you could have put into something else, and their are perks which do the same and have the same effect, could've gone with a different perk.

3. Of course SOME did it right, but other games have doe repairing all right, but you seem to ignore them. Also, Red Faction I can't speak for, because I never played it, but BF did have a singleplayer, and it's destruction was okay, but not very dynamic.

4. I guess blame opinions on that.

5. Yes, maybe not equipment wise, but health wise there was no denying that bandits were Super Soldiers compared to early game, and tell me when you saw an elder, ancient, or legendary Dragon at level 5? They appear with level.

5.1 Actually, it shouldn't. Just because they worshipped dadrea doesn't mean they would have their equipment. They are priests after all, what do they need with heavy armor and dangerous, god bane weapons?

What I'm saying here is that even if i'm completely naked and have nothing the game makes it so that just by EXISTING long enough I am worthy to be a god slayer, especially when they automatically level you up in certain areas, you gain skill by using a weapon enough, and to look at your skills screen after you level forces you to place your points into health magic or stamina, there's no other choice.

I agree with you, for once. Bethesda no longer makes RPGs.

What do you have to avoid to make crafting in skyrim interesting?

And what does it have to do with fallout?

E-Eh... What? Please rephrase that sentence.

-And execution is exactly repair's problem. Smithing is unbalanced by player choice, repair in unbalanced by uncontrollable math.

-And on top of all the skill books, and skill boosts..... it was a null factor.

-I know, but there is a difference. breaking the armor system was, as you mentioned, a player choice. The Repair system is just broken out of the box due to faulty decay rate, and that is what matters.

-There would have been no need to improve it had they not removed the functional DR system.

-How fast should metal armor decay? Slower then leather armor? And how fast should that decay? Slower then clothes? And how fast should THAT decay? The problem with that argument is that it establishes no mathematical base to build off from. Its just an argument of vague comparisons that mean nothing in regards to the hard math of how a game functions.

-So? early game makes up 1/10 of the game. If something only works 1/10 of the game, it doesn't work worth a damn.

-But in a world where EVERYTHING can be broken down into scrap, upkeep MEANS NOTHING because there is just so much stuff around. Now we are just back to where we are, a system that means nothing because its so easy to find a repair merchant, or have a repair kit, or use jury rigging. At the point in which a system does nothing, why keep it in the game?

-You are investing all the money that it takes to buy all these materials and then sell them off at a far lower value because your barter skill is low as hell since you are focusing on crafting. You actually end up operating at a net loss for most of the early smithing levels.

Why, Thank both of you!

The system IS being used to make weapons.

A laser pistol becomes a rifle when you put a stock on it.

A plasma thrower or whatever the term is, is a plasma pistol when it has a grip, and a rifle when a stock it added.

The pipe gun functions the same way.

Weapon repair's biggest flaw for me was that it was busywork with no payoff. It was a constant battle with the bar to avoid penalties. There are better ways to add incentive to caring for your gear and sauaging for supplies than that system.

I'd love it if ammo took up the mantle instead of weapons:

Common lower tier ammo could fire a dud shot or worst case jam up and require you to switch out to a spare weapon until the fight ends.

Medium tier would require a perk or something in repair, or science for energy weapons, but allow you to break ammo down into parts and then build them back up so they work properly.

Higher tier could only be made, not found, but in exchange could add special effects or some such.

Having to care for your things should be in the game, but in a way that adds both negatives and positives to the decision, not just two different negatives.

1. Actually, my favorite part of Bethesda games is the beginning. I normally make several characters just to play this part over and over. Just that feeling of getting started in a world where no one knows about is pretty cool. and it lasts for more than 1/10, I say 1/5 or so at the LEAST.

2. The decay rates are technically their decision, so hopefully they'll get it right I guess is what you want me to say.

3.Yes, everything can be broken down into scrap, but you know what?

NOT EVERY THING IN THE GAME IS METAL. EVERYTHING THAT IS METAL DOES NOT ALWAYS HAVE SCREWS OR GLASS! There are many different ways they can do this stuff! Yeah, there's a lot in the world, but then say you need some glass, here are things that do NOT have glass:

Books

Metal

Wrenches

Glue

Other Weapons (with no mods)

Tape

Ashtray

Desks

Tables

Stoves

Carpet

Trees

Boxes

Metal crates

Food

Cigarettes

Phones

Now, things that MAY have glass:

TV's

Microscopes (pretty rare probably)

Vases

Maybe pictures

Not a lot eh? Just cause there is a lot of things doesn't mean more than 1/32 of the scrap in the world is going to have what you need! And then split that amongst the activities use can use that glass for elsewhere! Buildings! Helmets! Terminals! And you will find not much is left just "lying around" for you to use willy nilly on your guns! It is a strategic decision!

4.And it sounds like you really just want the decay rates fixed, so if they fix them (which doesn't seem very hard compared to the stuff I'm asking) will you be satisfied?

Lights have glass.

Baby bottles.

Alarm clocks.

Going by the crafting demo, if something looks like it even remotely contains a component, you can break it down for said component. Each source also gives a varying amount, so if you can break down a TV, and most houses have one, you've got more glass than you know what to do with.

They have made everything useable; crafting parts is not going to be a hard thing to come by.

Steel, for example, can be found by breaking down just about everything, and in the demo we see sources giving double digit amounts.

If you really think they wont add plenty of items to find all the materials you need, then you don't understand game design.

They won't, that's the problem.

No one has gotten it right in over 20 years of games with repair systems, no one will in the future either. It requires too much work to go through all the items in every situation to create a balanced decay rate just for it.

This is the very thing I have been complaining about.

Basically this. There's so many logical sources for every competent it wont be a hassle.

Another well thought out post.