This system is really bad and doesn’t fit this type of game. Not only do I need to manage my weight, but I can’t even practise on enemies out of fear for losing my gear. Also, it becomes scary to invest in a build, knowing that my set may break, weapon and all. I’d rather have all enemies respawn upon death than dealing with a system that prevents me from getting good due to severe punnishment for messing up a few times. This also makes exploration super risky, as it is super easy to fall down from high places.
Concusion: Remove gear break/wear down in general and implement a respawn-enemy-upon-death system. This will also let players practise on enemies as well as letting them farm XP for upcoming boss fights. Simply respawning all enemies is a good enough punnishment for this kind of game, as players must now face them all over again upon dying.
I have to respectfully disagree. Repairing becomes trivial after the beginning. There are very little penalties for dying in this game, you don’t lose experience or gold unless you are using plagued equipment.
The only things you lose are some durability (which they have already decreased significantly) and consumable items like food.
If they rid of it, then they would need to add experience loss on death or something else as it would trivialize the game.
I personally find the durability loss on death to be a lot more forgiving than most souls-like games. You should be going back to town anyway to offload materials and or upgrading gear anyways.
“Repairing becomes trivial after the beginning” +
“If they removed repair, it would be trivial” =
“This mechanic adds nothing to the game, except to add tedium and frustration in the early game”
Not the most compelling argument.
while I agree that the durability is a poor mechanic here, I do think there should be consequences for death. (Note that From Soft removed durability completely from Elden Ring and trivialized it in DS3.)
Dropping XP ala souls like wouldn’t work as there are no respawns and it would be trivial to collect it.
Instead I suggest taking a page from Salt and Sanctuary: what ever MOB killed the player takes all the accumulated XP in their current level. If the player defeats that MOB they get their XP back. If they die again, the XP is lost. You could also take a % on each death until there is nothing left.
I can also see that repairs are a money sink so a small amount of copper lost on death, to balance out what is spent on repairs currently, would not be the end of the world. Though I would cap that so players can’t go broke.
So what would you suggest they add instead to penalize death? Nothing? Almost every arpg/rpg starts you out on the weaker side of the curve. It is intentional, as the power you later obtain gives you something to strive toward and rewards you for overcoming challenges.
I would be fine with the S&S system or experience loss if people are finding the durability system to be this horrible horrible system, which many are making it out to be. I personally find it extremely forgiving.
I’ve explained the issue(s) in great detail elsewhere in my own feedback thread.
I’m not particularly invested in which way they’d like to solve it. There’s no prerequisite to make losing impose a penalty on your time and patience. That’s a ridiculous notion. That doesn’t add difficulty or interest in any way. In fact, as someone else mentioned above, it tends to subtract from both, as being arbitrarily punitive about losses significantly lowers the ceiling of how difficult fights can be, or how involved the setup can be, since it all being wiped away after a loss introduces a tedium penalty that is going to drive players away quicker.
There’s numerous examples (which again, explained elsewhere) of how other games with similar mechanics handle things, and why this method restricts the player in a way none of the others do, even though they all have costs associated with them. They could make refillable health, they could remove durability, they could make local enemies/resources farmable, they could do some other thing.
They could, in fact, remove every single one of these systems, and lose virtually nothing from what is actually enjoyable about the game: exploring, finding secrets, fighting challenging enemies, looting and upgrading, making builds, developing the city. None of the issues with the boss fight loop enhance any of those things, they’re punitive tedium for punitive tedium’s sake. They don’t make the game more “hardcore” or immersive or anything else, they make it poorly designed.
Not entirely sure what you are arguing here, you just seem frustrated at differing opinions?
The reason souls likes make you drop XP is it gives the combat stakes. Some people enjoy having a risk reward system in place. There are only three things you can risk in game like this (off the top of my head): Levels, XP and money. I remember deleveling in EQ, I’m glad games do not do that any more.
The devs have made it clear SL games are the backbone of the combat in this game, which means there will be some form risk aka cost to death.
I agree that durability is (mostly) a tedious mechanic which is why I suggested S&S a model.
If the only cost to death,. the only risk, acceptable to you is the time to run back than this may not be the game for you?
I think your proposition is sound but it might not be how the feeling of the game is intended.
I much prefere enemies respawning than losing XP for example. I actually have no problem with the durability mechanic because it kind of never happens and is very cheap to repair. But losing XP is a no go for me as it gets really frustrating and I thrive on gaining XP in RPG games.
The idea of having enemies respawn after death is good, like you said it would pose as a punitive challenge to go through defeating the same enemies again.
However, from what I understand, the game tries to sell the player the idea that the world is kind of evolving, or at least organic. If you have to go through the same enemies again, dying again and again, it would feel quickly repetitive (like in souls game, which I did not enjoy in their entirety because I felt like a speedrunner in the end, trying hard to finish a sequence before starting a new endless loop of dying an trying again).
The other aspect is that it kind of kills this feeling of evolution that happens when you cleared a path and you can roam freely in an area. Then after some time, as you “forget” your path, new encounters and items are spawned.
I believe it has to do with the rythm of the gaming experience that would suffer greatly form enemies being respawned constantly.
I do not have a better alternative for players who are frustrated with the durability system but (and it’s a totally different topic) a lot of players are comparing No Rest For The Wicked with FromSoftware games, and that’s a bit unfair imo. They are not the same at all in my eyes.
This one is far easier, structured around a clear story, integrating some “hardcore combat” elements but lays much closer to a classic a-rpg experience. It is not a PoE or Diablo-like either as it is paced much slower for you to enjoy animations, story, and the general art direction. I think it is fundamental to the game, so it serves little purpose to try to make it closer to those examples that goes in very different directions, difficulty and gameplay-wise.
It’s just a thought but they are trying a sort of in-between that can stand on it’s own. It is not perfect but needs solutions adapted to the core essence of what the game is trying to be or convey.
Sorry for going off trails here but I still believe your argument is understandable.
I mean I hate to get involved in gamer cred, but if we have to do it…
I’ve beaten every FromSoft game since Dark Souls, I’ve beaten both Jedi games on Grandmaster, I’ve beaten Sekiro charmless with demon bell (I’ve also beaten all the boss rushes save for mortal journey), I’ve beaten Lies of P, I’ve beaten Sifu on Master mode, and for “games that make you play deliberately with resources” purposes, I’ve beaten both Dragons Dogma 1 and 2.
All of which is to say, “maybe this game just isn’t for you if it’s too punishing” is not even close to the issue here. What every single one of those other games have in common is they do not impose a tremendous penalty on your time for wanting to challenge a difficult boss. There may be some downside to losing, but that downside is never a positive feedback loop that makes it increasingly impossible to even play the game at all. That’s a bad system if challenge is your goal, because it discourages actually engaging in a challenge, because losing doesn’t punish you, it disables you.
every ARPG has a death penalty, just some examples:
Diablo 4: -10 durability on all equipped items
Path of exile: -10% exp when you die (+ you have limited deaths for each map in the end game, if you die 6 times, you’ll lose the map you are doing)
V-rising: when you die, all your inventory is dropped to the floor and you have to run to your death mark to pick it up
Elden ring etc. : souls dropped to the ground, if you die again before picking them up you lose them forever
Nioh etc. same as elden ring
Grim Dawn: exp loss (depends on what difficulty you are playing)
also SL are ARPG, so yeah, as you say, they ADVERTISED the game as a ARPG, which is what the game actually is
for the durability mechanic, im pretty neutral, after the patch, it never happened for me to risk the destruction of some equip/tool, even after several deaths, but i can understand it can be a little frustrating for someone, still, if they get rid of it, they have to add something else, like exp or gold loss, with the possibility to pick them up if you reach your “deathmark” without dying again.
I think durability is fine as punishment, yet implemented poorly.
There is quiet a few things in the game that introduce problems for player, but provide nothing for solving them.
Durability renders it self usless, since all it does is stalling player at the start, and only later it becomes something that doesn’t feel bad to deal with.
If devs would introduce buffs or bonuses on having full, repairing items would be something players want to do, though price should be blanched out for the start.
IMO it’s even worse than that. Because durability loss is designed to prevent the player from re-attempting on repeated loss, it means that bosses can only be designed to be a certain ceiling of difficulty.
Fighting Isshin or Malenia for hours, or days, or even weeks (depending on the player) isn’t a bad thing. But if that same player has to leave to repair between attempts, it’s likely going to lead to a lot more complaints (understandably), and I’m worried boss difficulty will be reduced as the workaround. I like difficult bosses. They’re the ones I remember from the games I play.
I’m at the beginning, and it’s tedious as hell, and I’m sick of dying while I watch my gear wear down knowing I have to go all the way back to the smithy or get lucky enough to find repair powder, and my luck is garbage. I love how the game looks, I like the npcs and the story, and the combat is ok. I just hate losing my gear just because I try to learn the game, not to mention the fact that it’s hard to invenst in a build knowing that your weapon and armor with decorations and all will be lost if I run out of powder, wich is downright dumb. I’m an ok gamer, but i gotta start somewhere before i get good, and losing my gear because of it ain’t fair.