What is the purpose of weapon Durability in NRFTW? (Is Death punish mechanic, but let's talk about it)

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1

Weapon durability is a mechanic that is universally hated in all games, especially because is Often implemented only because it’s a trope, without any benefit to the game (and is often justified as “realism”).

There are exceptions to this

In Minecraft, breaking your tools to build new ones is part of the game loop, similar to Zelda: BotWar & TotK, breaking weapons and finding new ones by stealing them from enemies is part of the game’s progression (and in these games too, although the presence of the mechanic is justified, it’s still not appreciated by players).

The only game I know where this mechanic is appreciated is Lies of P, where the weapon loses its edge and can be sharpened during combat (there’s even a power-up that allows you to deal significantly more damage when your weapon is fully sharpened), so essentially in Lies of P, sharpening is a combat mechanic.

In most games every time you hit something with a tool or weapon it loses durability and then needs to be repaired by the blacksmith or at a rest point, This system punishes you by making you waste time and sometimes resources just because you play the game.

The system of weapon Durability in NRFTW at first impression it seems the same, it’s more complicated than that.

Tools like pickaxes, shovels, fishing rods, and axes wear out every time you use them and every time you die. Which is useless and tedious, Tools should not have durability.

But Equipment like weapons, armor & shields only lose durability only when you die, which is actually an interesting system that has a couple of implications:

The first is that every time you die you lose a little bit of money because you need money to repair the Equipment.

The second one is that if you die often you have to take a break.

This system is better than the usual durability system because you are not punished for playing the game but for the mistakes you make.

Also making the player take a break when he dies a lot seems a good idea from a game design point of view, however, that it is a pause that is experienced as a frustrating punishment and not as an opportunity to calm down after the frustration of dying.

Ty For reading this far If you want to continue reading you will find the old solution I proposed.

If you want to read My NEW IDEA read here: Making going back to Sacrament Fair

The system can be improved and I have some ideas on how to do so:

Summary of The Problems:
  1. Many people have misunderstood the function of the mechanic, taking for granted that it works like in other games (Negative association weapon with Durability and similar mechanics in other games and in fact). The fact that Tools and equipment have two different systems makes it easyer to misunderstand.
  2. The only function of this system is to provide a punishment for death and a break when too many deaths occur in a row, but the break is experienced negatively by the player, and the punishment feels too disconnected.
  3. Players who are not skilled end up being punished even in the long run as they have to send more money to the blacksmith, thus making the game slightly more difficult for the non-skilled players and easier for the skilled players.

My idea is that durability is removed and a “Tiredness” Bar is implemented in its place.
This is an empty bar that fills up upon dying.

Passing a certain amount of time without dying causes it to slowly empty.

When it fills up completely, the character becomes tired and his attacks will deal less damage (not too dramatic, something between 10%-25% reduced damage).

Beds empty the bar, special beds increase the size of the bar (allowing you to die more times before the bar fills up) and still give buffs, but instead of being timed they disappear only after the bar is filled to a third, thus allowing you to keep the buff longer if you don’t die too much.

I think that in this way, dying and having to return to Sacrament to take a break seems like a better experience, also because it is clear that it is a direct consequence of for having died many times, and resting still gives you a buff, you do not have to spend money, you have to return less often because you do not need to repair the tools every time you collect resources, the bed and the chests where you put the things are both in your house or in the Rookery, also seeing the character resting makes it more clear for the player that having to return to Sacrament is an opportunity to take a break and not just as a punishment, and also the damage nerf is not so high that you need to return immediately the player can also decide to stay until he fills the inventory.

Obviously given the new mechanics things like the position of the beds and when you find the good beds have to be need to be better positioned within the progression of the game given the current situation where you have to find the blueprints with the RNG.

In particular There needs to be a temporary bed (maybe in a tent) somewhere in the starting area in case someone dies a lot against Warwick, or the player could start without this bar, and the bar is only introduced after you rest in the Rookery (and the beds in the Rookery should be usable).

My idea is inspired by the fact that beds are almost useless and that even after you find the most comfortable beds that give very strong buffs it doesn’t feel particularly natural to use them.

What do you think?

2

I like your “tiredness” idea, but as a hardcore player I wouldn’t be able to interact with that system because it’s tied to dying.

There used to be an MMO called TERA that had “stamina” system. If you died, your stamina was emptied, significantly reducing your life, mana, etc. But it also slowly drained if you fought continuously for hours. You had to take a few minutes break by a campfire to recover. It was neat.

But I have nothing against durability. It gives me nostalgic feeling of Diablo 1 and 2.

3

If you think about it, in Hardcore you don’t even interact with durability (except for tools) for the same reason you don’t interact with the “tiredness” xD.

The reason the “tiredness” doesn’t stack over time is that it doesn’t make much sense to punish the player just for playing.

It might be a good idea if the tiredness bar also filled when the player gets hit, but the problem with that would be that it could activate during a fight if the player isn’t careful.

The reason the nerf you receive isn’t so dramatic is that it doesn’t need to be. The psychological element alone (seeing the nerf icon) is enough to encourage the player enough to return to Sacrament regardless of the effect itself, as long as the nerf is real and noticeable.

4

Indeed. If changes are made to the system, it would be nice if hardcore players are considered.

I agree it’s a good idea.

Even better.

Overall, I wouldn’t mind seeing your “tiredness” idea implemented while keeping/improving the durability system.

5

At min 1:20:20, @thomasmahler talks about the fact that the Death in NRFTW is maybe not punished enough, and that the current delayed punishment system is not understood/perceived by players as punishment for death.

Then he asks the chat if they think adding the “corpse run” mechanic (the same as Dark Souls, Hollow Knight, etc.) the chat has clearly said that they would not appreciate the change, I love the mechanic in Dark Souls and Hollow Knight but I agree that I don’t think this mechanic is right for NRFTW, Losing resources in NRFTW seems much grindier than other games that implement this mechanic.

But the problem remains that the game needs to give clear and immediate feedback to the player who dies that he has been punished.

The system I suggested in the topic solves the “clarity” problem but still does not provide immediate feedback.

I think we can learn from the Hollow Knight “corpse run” mechanic, without introducing the loss of resources:

When the Serim dies as in Hollow Knight he loses a part of his maximum focus, but not his resources, to recover his maximum focus he must defeat an entity that was born in the place where he died.

Obviously “the entity” must not be too strong otherwise it would be too frustrating and in the case of a boss fight it is born in front of the boss’s arena and not inside it, furthermore by defeating “the entity” it gives you back all the focus you had when you died and it heals the damage that the entity has inflicted on you.

What do you think, is this a good idea?

6

I like the ‘tiredness bar’ idea since it seems more grounded than a somewhat artificial gear durability loss.

I also like the corpse run idea because while providing you the tools to safely return to where you died (Thomas said you wouldn’t lose your equipped gear nor consumables), it also feels more punishing and grounded than gear durability loss. Given that there are some indescructible gear sets in the game, with some effort and planning ahead - you can avoid the consequences of constant failures altogether.

If you remember to activate the whispers you’re passing, retrieving the lost gear sack shouldn’t be much of a hassle: you don’t need to go far and you have the tools to get there.

I’m all for corpse run - maybe as a realm or difficulty level parameter to cater to all tastes ?.

But I’d also prefer the ‘tiredness bar’ over the current gear degradation system, since after a few failed attempts at beating Darrak, you still need to return to Sacrament to rest and rethink your strategy / upgrade your gear. It’s essentially the same ‘degradation system’ with shrinking damage output, but the thing being degraded is you, not your gear, which feels more believable and grounded than all of your inventory losing a flat chunk of its durability at once.

7

I really do not understand why they are fixated on the path to punish players for playing the game.

Sekiro (kindof), Remnant 1 & 2 didn’t have punishment for dying it and are one of the best soulslikes.

Also, this game is more diablo-like than souls-like.

This being said, remove durability and associated runes and enchantments, being punished for dying sucks, regardless of how well the system is implemented.

8

Obviously the basic punishment for death is the run back.

but I think that in a game like NRFTW where enemies don’t respawn when you die it doesn’t make sense as the only punishment.

On the other hand, it doesn’t make much sense to take money away from the player because it’s a long-term penalty for a mistake in the short term.

Having the punishment of returning to the city to let the character (and therefore the player) rest makes sense, but it must be said that the game already forces you to return to Sacrament too often due to inventory.

In my opinion, spawning an enemy at the last point where you died makes sense, because in NRFTW if you keep dying continuously, little by little you manage to kill all the enemies and move on. In my opinion, this addition would discourage players from using such a strategy and returning to the area later when they become stronger instead of continuously banging their heads against the wall.

9

Remnant 2 spawned enemies when you died, but had no other punishment, but you could actually use this feature to farm EXP. Enemy respawn on death is annoying at first but once you get used to it you just ignore enemies and run back to where you died.

What I am trying to say is that the run back is the only thing that makes sense. Enemies will be ignored anyway if they respawn.

If you think about it, because of the durability enchantments, the NRFTW durability/repair is like the Lies of Pi repair, so the system is not a bad one, but I would rather not have it at all.

And because of the repair rune it’s not punishing at all. The system works but feels useless to me.

Making it more punishing also doesn’t make sense to me.

TL;DR So either remove it, or keep it like it is if you don’t want to, but making the system more punishing is a huge mistake.

10

My idea works as a way to discourage players from going to areas of too high level and dying non stop from enemies thinking that by doing so, and killing one enemy at a time will eventually be able to continue since enemies don’t respawn, and it doesn’t punish those who play normally.

But clearly does not have the same purpose from the point of view of Role in the game, in Lies of P it is like a sharpening that you want to keep high and you can sharpen during the combat so it is a combat mechanic, and it is even more evident from the fact that there is a status effect that damages the sharpening of the weapon and therefore you find yourself forced to sharpen the weapon mid combat.

While in NRFTW it’s like “if you want to keep the maximum effect of your enchantments don’t die”, which seems a bit redundant to me since you already don’t want to die, and punish the “Bad” players much more than the “good” ones but at this time it is not a real and proper curse xD, I don’t like these types of enchantments.

As I already told you, in my opinion it only makes sense to discourage people from going to places they are not yet ready for.

Which is a weak point of NRTFW since the enemies don’t respawn. A short-term punishment for a short-term mistake, to me it makes sense if it is contextualized well.

But it doesn’t have to be anything exaggerated, and as you say there are a lot of games that don’t have punishments of this type but work very well.

11

By the way, you can’t really do that, if you don’t manage to kill the whole enemy pack they will respawn when you die, I am not sure if it always apply, but I noticed it happening especially for kill bounties, but for other packs of enemies as well. And you are right, they should enforce this feature more to discourage killing one enemy, respawn, and so on.

12

Only for the kill bounties, not for the enemies you find on the path.

So for the main story you can also proceed by killing one enemy at a time every time you die.

13

not a bad take tbh, but it looks to me like the tiredness will be perceived as the same gitgud punishment as durability does now.

i was thinking about a reduced expereince gain on death penalty, but that would probably cause more death and frustration down the line. hmm what about an xp gain buff on death?

bc its annoying enough. we have already wasted too much time, our durability is down, we gotta backtrack, we used up some of our food. we’re struggling, so give us a boost.

we could make that even more interesting, like with every death we give a different kind of buff.

  1. +5% Damage Reduction
  2. +5% Stamina
  3. +5% Damage

once you reach the last it continues with the first, and its stackable, meaning it has a cooldown of 10 minutes that refreshes death. so dying 6 times on a boss gives you +10% of each.

For godgamers that would still be source of shame, and should probably be togglable, but that also sounds like a good “time wasted and catch up” mechanic…

dunno just a thought

14

The main reason why when you die in NRFTW you are punished is to discourage dying to spam as a method of progression (since enemies don’t respawn when you die).

Your suggestion would rather do the opposite.

The reason way I thought of this “Tiredness” Bar solution is to reduce frustration, by encourage taking breaks after constant deaths, Obviously it can be annoying at first but then when the player returns to the boss/challenge the player should be calmer, obviously the number of necessary deaths is high, it’s not like you’re constantly going back and forth.

Also if the player has upgraded the inn or has a bed of a higher rank he will get the bed bonus which is a good buff.

But if the player doesn’t want a bonus he can rest in a normal bed.

Giving buffs on death is certainly an unwanted help for many players, imagine if I want to beat the challenge without buffs and I die and then I get a buff against my will.

It seems like the game is telling you don’t try don’t improve I’ll help you until you win, even if it’s a small buff.

15

(as you can probably guess this is a brainstorm post :wink: )

yeah, i mentioned that

i know, but it is just the same as durability, with the difference that with durability you can remove the debuff at location, without having to go to town.

your way of dealing with durability or tiredness is to only allow the blacksmith or the inn to allow to remove the tiredness/durability debuff.

The problem is: people will always complain, no matter the implementation.
Because they think they are entitled to winning without putting in the effort.
That is the main issue with penalty on death. it is not that it is happening once. The problem is that people think they can just headbutt through the wall without having to get better.

And im kinda the same. every boss i hated and explosively complained about here or elsewhere is exactly the same:

  • I first externalise the fault until i start to reflect what is actually happening, only then will
  • I start to adjust my approach. but it always happens in that order.

It’s an entitled cultural thing. Consume, don’t proactively reflect what is happening. Grind, don’t think.

But try telling that the Karens of the gaming community and you will get review bombed. And i definitely am a Karen as well, i just happen to be better at this game than souls-likes or shooters, etc.

So yeah I don’t think that there is an actual solution to this.

Thinking you should win every fight without having to improve yourself while also not wanting to be helped is a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Or Entitlement

And i would tell the people: Hey you wont fight this boss only once. you will fight it more often eventually, so this current fight is actually a practice run, you get a buff on death so you dont get frustrated too much, so you can at least learn a bit every time you try. Knowing that we got your back and that you will win eventually, even as a pyrrhic Victory.

You might die 5 times at first, then 3 times, then 2. But that is fine, it shows that you are imporving.

And if you think you are entitled to no deaths, put in the work. Prove that you don’t need the training wheels, or switch that help off.

It would probably be nice, to make the buff appear as a blessing from the old gods when you die, maybe only for boss fights, so it would make it seem like dying is just a normal part of it, but that you are also destined to win this fight (which kinda reinforces the entitlement, but yeah…).

The thing is people also compare themselves to others especially when more playthroughs will appear online (like hc/deathless, custom restrictions, etc). So the general sentiment will be that “I don’t want the training wheels,because my favoruite streamer also doesnt need them”

What we could do is give the people a choice. Either:

  • Get a buff on death, or
  • Get a permanent buff to drop rates
  • Or another buff like getting one more resource when farming etc

I think it would make sense putting that option as an unlockable ritual at the seneschal, which would create another incentive to going there early.

Difficulty modes could have a different starting buff, like:

  • Easy/Normal: Buff on death.
  • Hard: No Buff, have to unlock it at the Seneschal.
16

I know but I still want to answer you.

It can also be done in this system, just replace the “repair powder” with coffee or something like that xD.

It recovers over time, so by playing well for long periods or taking a break from the game in real life, you can still recover.

“People will always complain” in not the problem, the goal is to build a better game, not to stop the complaints.

Sometimes complaints are useful criticism, sometimes they are not.

My system:

  1. Resolves the ambiguity, as durability is confused with durability in other games.
  2. Gives the player the opportunity to take a break and a buff after dying multiple times in a row.
  3. Makes everything less frustrating, without trivializing death.
  4. Better integrate beds into the game, (currently ignored by most players)

Yes, but the fact that there is a buff to help you makes you question how much better you really are and how much the buff has helped.

It’s not a problem that would only bother hardcore players, when these functions are interfered with in games they are never appreciated.

For example, in Super Mario Bros., there was a function that made it so that after you died 5+ times in a level a block would appear that is designed to help you.

Even the fact that this block appears and you don’t have to use it is hated by players, it is seen as the game telling you that you are bad.

This function was available for 2/3 games and then it was not implemented anymore.

And super Mario bros. is a much chiller game than NRFTW.

The problem is that an automatic buff on death makes the player unable to compare himself with his previous self because there is always the doubt that it was the buff that made the difference.

This encourages players to die every time the buff ends, resulting in the buff being permanent.

and then to make this happen the buffer is so small as to be imperceptible, and therefore nothing will be solved.

I would understand adding it to easy, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. If you’re interested in talking about difficulties, you could read this: Game Accessibility, Menu Difficulty Settings Vs In-Game Difficulty Settings

In any case it seems like you’re missing the target, I want to make death in NRFTW better integrated into the game, less ambiguous, and have a better version of the systems that are already implemented and therefore improve the gameplay experience Not making dying a positive experience, dying should remain a punishment, I’m improving the system around death to make the game a better experience.

Waking the game easier is not part of the plan. Removing the money cost makes sense because it punishes less skilled players much more than skilled players and I would like the difference to be minimal, furthermore it punishes players in the long term for a mistake in the short term which doesn’t make much sense in the context of a video game where dying to learn is normal.

17

Since essentially everything you wrote in this message is related to my topic, I will continue the discussion on my topic.

The bar is in the inventory not in the game interface, at most there is an extra animation when you die that shows the bar filling up.

Fair take.

Maybe there’s no need for bosses, but for the adventure, yes, since the enemies stay dead and don’t respawn every time you die.

The idea would be that if there are no consequences then it’s only a matter of time before they make it or not, and a punishment would make this style of game even less approachable. Just think that there are people who explored the giants’ tomb in DS1 as the first area.

But maybe it’s true that it’s useless, and that if someone is the cause of one’s own suffering then so be it.

Yes, I think the “Tiredness” Bar has a certain respect for the original idea, but also solves most of the problems. But at the same time, removing the durability without any compensation could still be the best solution.

18

I think losing durability become non consequential very very quickly

you can’t give the excuse “you lose money” since money rapidly become very easy to produce and going back to the blacksmith to repair all is extremely just a very very minor consequence, since resource respawns losing money make no real sense.
the current system is more a “waste of time” than anything, quite irrelevant even.

Although I dont want death to become like a dark souls either, like losing resource permanently or such.

I think it quite hard to balance the cost of death in a game that is very close to many top down view ARPG like Diablo, PoE and such.
Any death penalty if it require times is just more like the game forcing you to not play is not a good mechanic
Im against the mechanic that if I die I can just “wait it out”, no, I want to play the game.
Although I would be against most death penalty in general because I can’t see any that could be interesting

19

Good thinking

Fair enough

I don’t have the numbers, but I do know falling deaths are the #1 deaths, I expect boss deaths to be #2, and #3 being exploration enemies/hazards.

From what I can tell about you, I think you’d agree that we don’t need/want extra punishment for falling deaths, the ‘well that was a silly move’ is probably enough embarrassment on its own.

Similairly Boss Fights shouldn’t demand that the player be interrupted every 10~20 attempts.

So the extra punishment, Durability loss, is to compensate for enemies not respawning after you die during exploration?

This would mean that the extra punishment on death is to compensate for the least occuring death, that being death to overworld enemies.

I do not have the exact numbers, so this is based on assumptions. So if you believe that I’m off with my assumption, do let me know.

Nonetheless, even if all deaths were to overworld enemies, I still wouldn’t want busywork to be the punishment. I did add an adendum too my last post in my own topic, I suggested Moon just lies to the player and introduces a Senua’s Hellblade or Sekiro’s dragonrot-esque mechanic. Make the punishment about feeling fake dread instead of actual annoyance at busywork.

If I may ask, why do you feel it’s necessary to compensate for non-respawning enemies?

I see your point, but align most with ^ statement. Locking doors is boring, leaving them open with obvious warning signs allows those weird outlier gamers to do and discover fun speed-run tactics, for example. Plus its the least amount of development cost.

Immense respect for trying to stick to the essence of the original idea and roping in the sleeping mechanics. Maybe I’m more of a ‘kill your darlings’ instead of ‘salvage the most we can’ person.

20

I like this idea, it might need some tweaks but still more interesting than the current system of loosing currency and keeping track of the durability