Item Durability

[storminmormon]

Skyrim Durability via Scripting

 

All armor given “durability” points, from 3-50(?), based on it’s weight, style, and value; glass breaks incredibly easy (one or two battles easy), but provides excellent protection; leather has long lasting protection, but not as much as other armor; ebony is all-around bad-awesome. This will be further developed after release.

 

Different armors best against different weapons—or weakest; ie, chainmail is good against marksman, but poor against two handed weapons; plate-type armor is best against two handed; glass is good against anything, but weak to magic; elven is best against magic; leather works better than anything else against one handed—all of these are dependent on skill of armor and weapon/magic, level, and maybe amount of fatigue—better logic will be developed through research into real world armor and the way it is incorporated into the most time-tested similar fantasy settings.

 

Any equipped item must be taken care of; if durability points are allowed to decrease to negative three before removal, armor breaks beyond repair and is lost forever (removed from inventory), giving a several minute Damage Base Health “wound;”

• For enchanted items, a character with at least 25 Enchant can “salvage” a piece of the item (except rings/amulets), and have a small item similar to an enchanting stone—however, it can only be used on the same type of item.

• Rings are broken mostly by the PC using weapons; this part will be highly customizable, and completely optional. The logic is, based on experience, you don’t wear rings when melee fighting (SCA), because they bend out of shape and break due to weapon blows. Gloves/gauntlets and the type of ring help alleviate this, as well as skills.

• Amulets will be susceptible just based on being attacked, alleviated by armor type and skills.

• Enchanted amulets and rings both will be susceptible to magic attacks, due to their own magical nature.

• Most clothing will have very low durability, but as certain skills/fatigue/etc are increased, the PC’s ability to take and dodge hits to protect the clothing is increased exponentially, making it more viable to be partially or wholly unarmored, as well as giving bonuses to preservation of clothing items worn.

• Armor and clothing will be damaged by fighting/magic, and (optionally) by the environment; Skyrim is the harshest climate yet (except maybe Vvardenfell… save it for another time), and so it would make sense to me, at least, that jumping in a frigid river and then running around for a day would cause serious rust/damage to what you’re wearing. Living in Alaska and having been in places like the Bob Marshall Wilderness, this makes perfect sense to me. In turn, this will bring on various diseases and penalties, especially based on the current weather and time of day (night, blizzard… bad)(scripting allowing). Different armors will be less painful for this, such as Nordic armor being the best, but something like Elven being ill-suited to the environment. Extremely optional.

• Wearing full sets of certain armor will decrease the likelihood of them breaking, but there will also be benefits from mixing and matching—-advanced Dwarven and Elven armor, magical nature of Elven and Glass, the similar protective qualities of Ebony and Orcish, the various types of Nordic and Orcish, etc.

• Artifact type weapons and armor are indestructable, making them much more appealing to at least keep one on hand. Certain magical armors even provide extra durability to anything else worn, exponentially raising their value.

 

These benefits/weaknesses will be applied to NPCs and PC alike, and the mod’s chief goal will be not only to increase Skyrim difficulty, but to enhance the gameplay based on the need to replace and seek new armor types based on more than them just looking cool. Above all, modularity and enjoyment are the goals.

 

Any thoughts, suggestions, or criticisms would be appreciated. I'm even interested in talking about why one might think this is entirely a good or bad idea. People with aforementioned real world experience or who are involved in something similar to SCA are extremely welcome to reviewing my logic.

 

Pending idea: Armor Class systems, such as rough/basic leather to dragonhide, dark ebony to bright ebony, restored or original dwarven etc, but I'm still working on the weaknesses of this idea in terms of a TES game. Also, racially-based armor benefits?

Edited October 18, 2011 by storminmormon

[headbomb]

Best keep it simple.

 

Items health points depends on material

 

Wood 75 / Iron 100 / Steel 125 / Silver 150 / Dwarven 175 / ...

 

Every attack made with a ranged weapon has a 5% chance of removing one health point

Every successful strike made with a melee weapon has a 50% chance of removing a health point

Every hit received has a 100% chance of damaging a random piece of armor by one health point

Every blocked hit has a 100% chance of damaging the shield (or weapon, if blocking with a weapon)

 

Armor & Weapons go from 0 to 100% health, giving from 0 to 100% protection/damage.

Anything above 50% can be repaired to top shape.

Anything below 50% take a permanent 10% efficiency penalty

Anything below 25% take a permanent 25% efficiency penalty

 

Items on NPCs should be in the 50-100% range

Random magic items should also be in the 75-100% range [the idea being that magic confers some protection]

Random non-magical items should be in the 0-100% range

 

Repairing yourself costs 10% of [item's health] x [item's worth]

Or pay an NPC 50% of [item's health] x [item's worth]

Permanent damage costs triple to repair

 

Indestructibility as an enchantment feature.

Smiting perk to repair permanent damage.

Edited October 20, 2011 by headbomb

[blackhalo321]

All armor given “durability” points, from 3-50(?), based on it’s weight, style, and value; glass breaks incredibly easy (one or two battles easy), but provides excellent protection; leather has long lasting protection, but not as much as other armor; ebony is all-around bad-awesome. This will be further developed after release.

 

Different armors best against different weapons—or weakest; ie, chainmail is good against marksman, but poor against two handed weapons; plate-type armor is best against two handed; glass is good against anything, but weak to magic; elven is best against magic; leather works better than anything else against one handed—all of these are dependent on skill of armor and weapon/magic, level, and maybe amount of fatigue—better logic will be developed through research into real world armor and the way it is incorporated into the most time-tested similar fantasy settings.

 

Thats interesting, if anything a small bonus but I don't see some armors being better against different weapons mattering much in this game

(aka I'd barely care if it didn't exist since its a few static numbers that play so little into what I'm doing or what I am going to do since you spec into 1 weapon type and are EXTREMELY encouraged to stick with it and only it for the entire game)

 

also having glass armor break so easily is just begging for it to be useless. I have never been to an armor smith (now the only place to repair items) after every 2-3 fights and never want to be, in the end it will just destroy its practicallity. If glass armor wasn't really made of glass and it was just some misnomer for a magical shielding that prevented a mediocre deal of most types of dmg* and it was just 'repaired' threw spending magicka or something of the likes I'd think that it would be cool and usefull, especially as a back up armor :)

 

*-maybe it could have some kinky special effect like it stopped much more dmg from higher dmging hits or had more armor the more magicka you have in your bar atm, or even if part of the dmg prevented hit your magicka and if your magicka hits 0 the armor fizzles out for the bit, just random thoughts off the top of my head

 

Amulets taking damage would be odd.. probably not bad, but rings breaking on melee characters would cause a mutiny. I know too many people addicted to having like 10 god damn rings on a finger, if for nothing else than to have 10 god damn rings on a finger. It'd be pretty interesting though, mages can have a full load of rings, sword and boards can have half and deul/2-handers can have none. It would make deul/2-handers even worse specs though and i already see them coming to be the bottom of the totem pole :/

 

All i really want to see though is just a way that physical dmg-ing toons can compete with mages for entertainment since they get about a hundred spells to cast while melee has 2? attacks*.. 1 block... I think that part is and always will be extremely dull silly. Any form of more engaging, realistic combat would be oh so appreciated. Still good thoughts though, I appreciate pushes for realism in games like this :)

 

*if you count the new charge ability skyrim is adding in then its 3... and yes attacking sideways versus overhand is the exact same thing since it does the exact same thing with just a different animation..

Edited October 22, 2011 by blackhalo321

[blackhalo321]

Armor & Weapons go from 0 to 100% health, giving from 0 to 100% protection/damage.

Anything above 50% can be repaired to top shape.

Anything below 50% take a permanent 10% efficiency penalty

Anything below 25% take a permanent 25% efficiency penalty

 

I'd be sad if my best weapon I worked oh so hard to get got permanently 25% worse just because I got in a pickle and had to keep using it...

 

If you want to make reforging weapons a great deal of the game I would just make it not this flat 10% less or 25% less but instead a gradual decline like (would have to be play tested) 5+% of the durability lost can't be reforged,

 

that and rework inventory so you can easily have 2-4 good weapons carried on your charector to switch between since you will need them.. maybe have equipped armor and weapons weigh half or 1/4 as much and make it so you can 'equip' those 2-4 weapons on your charector (you'd look like a weapon junkie though with a sword at each hip and maybe a 2-hander on your back or a shield and bow) that would mean you can actually have to worry about repairing and be able to pull most of the good loot from a dungeon...

 

Best keep it simple.

 

Its easier to keep it simple not necessarily better ;P

Edited October 22, 2011 by blackhalo321

[storminmormon]

Items health points depends on material

 

Wood 75 / Iron 100 / Steel 125 / Silver 150 / Dwarven 175 / ...

 

Yeah, I'm looking into the pros/cons of that, or a Base Health system of, say, 100 pts, with different 'Durability Sheets' for equipment; basically, everything has the same health, but loses it differently. Saves from having to assign amounts of health to each piece, so the Base system is especially helpful in dealing with mod-added content.

 

Thanks! I've saved your comments, they're really good!

Edited October 25, 2011 by storminmormon

[headbomb]

Items health points depends on material

 

Wood 75 / Iron 100 / Steel 125 / Silver 150 / Dwarven 175 / ...

 

Yeah, I'm looking into the pros/cons of that, or a Base Health system of, say, 100 pts, with different 'Durability Sheets' for equipment; basically, everything has the same health, but loses it differently. Saves from having to assign amounts of health to each piece, so the Base system is especially helpful in dealing with mod-added content.

 

Thanks! I've saved your comments, they're really good!

 

Yeah anything that creates something similar would work. Instead you could have something like

* Everything has 100 HP.

** When receiving a hit, roll to see which piece of armor is affected [1, 2 = Main armor, 3 = Helmet, 4 = Gloves, 5 = Boots]. Do a material resistance check [see below] for that piece of armor.

** When blocking a hit with a shield/weapon --> Do a material resistance check for the shield/weapon.

** When striking with left/right hand weapon --> Do a material resistance check for the left/right hand weapon.

** When striking with ranged weapon --> 10% of the time, do a material resistance check 10% for the ranged weapon.

 

Material resistance check

*Leather = 60% chance of losing 1 HP, Iron = 50%, Steel = 45% chance, Silver = 40 %, Dwarven = 35 %, etc...

 

Of course all numbers [both in this post and my previous post] are just placeholders for whatever gives a nice balance.

[blackhalo321]

You probably can skip the random allocation since I'm pretty sure they added in an actual hit allocator in this game (since only the limb hit sprays/is soaked in blood).