similar feedback as a lot of other people have given, but i wanted to put it into what i believe is a rather different perspective on the issue.
to start, there seems to be three main punishments for death: wasted time, wasted consumables (i.e, healing items), and wasted durability.
the first two, wasted time and consumables, are quite reasonable to have, because there’s a reward that counterbalances it: enemies stay dead even after respawning.
however, that third one, wasted durability, is just too harsh. it causes a positive feedback loop that locks the player out of the area they’re trying to progress in:
- the player dies.
- some of their gear breaks.
- because they don’t have the gear to fight, they die again.
- even more of their gear breaks.
- repeat ad infinitum.
see the problem? it becomes increasingly difficult to push through an area because of durability. when everything breaks, the player is then forced to spend time going all the way back to a blacksmith — and that’s time spent not having fun.
the main suggestion everyone has been giving for this is outright removing durability. i honestly have no objections about that, unless the system gets completely reworked and repurposed in a way that serves the gameplay better.