LE Breakable Equipment

[cooltrickle]

In Oblivion:

 

Your weapon and armour would gradually degrade in condition as it inflicted and absorbed damage, respectively. As their condition decreased their ability to function became worse, so if you wanted your weapon to deliver maximum damage you were forced to keep using your smithing hammer to make sure it was at 100% (125% for Master Armourers). I doubt anyone would melt their sword down and fix it up after every fight, but that is what I actually did, just to keep my sword at max damage.

 

In Skyrim:

 

Equipment never degrades or breaks. Okay, it gets rid of the tedium but it's just gone to the other extreme. This is hollow, and means your equipment is essentially, immortal. Once, you have your preferred gear sorted, that's it, for the whole game.

 

Now, I don't want to return to the Oblivion system, but I think your equipment should still degrade with use. But, instead of it's function being affected, it should just increase the chance of your equipment breaking in combat. So, your sword will always deliver maximum damage but if it's in poor condition, it's just more likely to break. I think once a sword is broken, you can't just fix it, you actually need to make a new one. Obviously, certain items should not be breakable and therefore not disenchantable either, such as Daedric artifacts.

 

At this point, I have to say it's no fun at all if a unique item is destroyed forever, or if a unique item is lost due to being disarmed. For this reason, anything that is capable of being broken or can be disarmed from the player, should be disenchantable. This ensures that the player can always make a new one. Of course, it should not be worth much as it's just a copy of the original. The player will have to decide whether they want to disenchant the priceless original, in order to learn how to make a copy, or risk losing it forever, if it's broken in a fight.

 

As a warrior, with unbreakable equipment, I have never learned how to use Arcane Smithing, nor do I pay any attention to the disenchanting table. The only magical equipment I have are things I found, like a shield that absorbs extra damage, and some gloves that do extra damage with bows. I would be pretty gutted, if these items got broken, but as things are, I don't have to worry about it. Well, when you don't worry about anything, the game is less interesting.

 

Skyrim with breakable equipment, that cannot fixed up immediately, but instead must be forged again, would add a lot more excitement to a fight. Especially, if you're fighting a powerful enemy. Even if you initially have the upper hand, that enemy might just break your shield or sword if the fight drags on too long. Without that equipment, you might just lose your edge and suddenly the fight is a lot closer than you want it to be, or even unwinnable and you're forced to run away.

 

Here's some rough numbers to show how it might work.

 

Condition of Equipment (Chance of Breaking) (%)

100 (0)

80 (5)

60 (10)

40 (15)

20 (20)

0 (25)

 

 

SUMMARY

 

Breakable equipment:

 

I want:

 

a) Weapons that get old, with use. They can't be repaired, but don't lose damage.

b) A small chance of weapon breakage, related to weapon age. Older weapons are more likely to break than new ones.

 

I don't want:

 

a) Weapons that lose damage with use, and require repairs.

b) A small chance of the sword breaking, at any time, not related to weapon condition.

 

Benefits:

 

1. Makes disenchanting and smithing more relevant to players like me, who normally don't bother with crafting.

2. Will create more purpose for all those ingots you've got stock-piled.

3. Makes power-leveling armour and weapon skills harder.

4. Makes combat more exciting and less predictable when playing the game at a challenging difficulty level.

5. Adds a strategy dimension to fights - you can't just let the enemy hit your shield. Sometimes you need to dodge or use a dragon shout.

6. Being disarmed and losing the weapon is less of a nuisance as you can forge a new one.

7. You actually have to win the fight now, not your equipment.

8. Not being able to just repair your weapon makes it expensive to replace broken weapons.

 

If you don't like the sound of these benefits, this mod is not for you. However, you are free to use any part of the mod when it is made to modify for your purposes.

Edited December 23, 2011 by cooltrickle

[TolarisOmega]

First off, if you don't like something, its not lame.

Second, have ever tried cutting with a dull blade? Even raw chicken is difficult if you don't have a properly sharpened knife. How about cutting wood with a hatchet that has no edge? You use five times the energy for half the cut, you end up pulverizing the log, not cutting it..

The Oblivion style of dulling weapons is closer to reality. Somewhat difficult to argue for considering Skyrim is high fantasy, but physics is physics, and it should be consistent from chapter to the next.

 

If you swing a weapon and make contact, the weapon is going to get damaged. Even if you hit bone, you could damage the edge. I've seen a knife end up with a chip on the blade because it hit a big deer bone.

It's going to get more damaged if it hits armour, or stone. If you hit a car, you will dent it.

 

Maybe the smithing hammer in Oblivion should have been a sharpening stone for weapons, to take the small nicks out of the edge before they got too bad.

 

Although...... if you add weapon breakage to the repair requirement, it may be even better. If you sharpen a knife, you remove material. If you remove enough, the blade loses some strength. Might take a really, really, long time but may get there eventually.

Armour would require material added to it to repair, and get a lot heavier if it was repaired in the field, unless it was repaired by someone who was trained and had the proper tools. Just like making a patch or using a spare tire if you get a flat, to get you to a gas station that has tires.

Edited December 19, 2011 by TolarisOmega

[cooltrickle]

First off, if you don't like something, its not lame.

Second, have ever tried cutting with a dull blade? Even raw chicken is difficult if you don't have a properly sharpened knife. How about cutting wood with a hatchet that has no edge? You use five times the energy for half the cut, you end up pulverizing the log, not cutting it..

The Oblivion style of dulling weapons is closer to reality. Somewhat difficult to argue for considering Skyrim is high fantasy, but physics is physics, and it should be consistent from chapter to the next.

 

If you swing a weapon and make contact, the weapon is going to get damaged. Even if you hit bone, you could damage the edge. I've seen a knife end up with a chip on the blade because it hit a big deer bone.

It's going to get more damaged if it hits armour, or stone. If you hit a car, you will dent it.

 

Maybe the smithing hammer in Oblivion should have been a sharpening stone for weapons, to take the small nicks out of the edge before they got too bad.

 

Although...... if you add weapon breakage to the repair requirement, it may be even better. If you sharpen a knife, you remove material. If you remove enough, the blade loses some strength. Might take a really, really, long time but may get there eventually.

Armour would require material added to it to repair, and get a lot heavier if it was repaired in the field, unless it was repaired by someone who was trained and had the proper tools. Just like making a patch or using a spare tire if you get a flat, to get you to a gas station that has tires.

 

First off, anything I say is obviously my opinion and I'm entitled to make that opinion. Don't tell me otherwise. I'm aware that blades get dull, I'm saying it's tedious in a game. But, having unbreakable equipment is not the answer.

 

Secondly, I said power-leveling is lame. Again, this is my opinion. Repeating actions like allowing yourself to get hit over and over to level-up your armour or hitting friendly NPCs, to increase your weapon looks lame and is lame, IMO. Breaking equipment, wil make this a little more difficult. Some people that use exploits a lot, might appreciate a little limitation. If not, no biggie.

 

My suggestion adds challenge without the tedium of repeatedly sharpening weapons, and over-analyzing things. The player still has to keep an eye on the weapon condition but they are not forced to spend time hammering stuff after every fight. This is not fun IMO, hence the changes I proposed. Having your weapon break, on a realistic basis isn't fun either. So this mod will break weapons just at the right frequency to add some danger to combat, in the same way dragons add a little danger to exploration, if they show up at a tricky moment.

[gigantibyte]

I wonder if 'degradeable' is simply an option that is in the game engine, but has been disabled in Skyrim. Probably not. Adding new properties to base items, like level of repair, may not be too easy unless the upcoming ck has more in depth scripting options than previously.

[Tizsht]

I have a slight diffrent take on this. Maybe it's suited for the more Realism mod that has been suggested, but I kinda like the idea not to be 1000% safe.

Weapons getting dull, armour getting cut up etc. Maybe IMO the degrading should be a bit more slow.

Say you use your awesome armour set of doom and end up in a fight. each hit on you brings it down with 0,1 so ten hits would make it 90 etc..Same with weapons.

Now here is the twist to what I would rather see.

When you choose to rest, as in sleeping, you spend some of those hours to maintain equipment and thus automatically bring it back up with say, 0.5 per hour resting. So if you have been in a lot of fights then you would have to spend more hours resting/doing maintance.

In other respect then resting you can go to the smithy and repair it there by spending one ingot of whatever base material required.

The third option I would like to see that you give your stuff to your spouse and she/he will do the repairs in say 24h time and the final and fourth option is to give it to an armourer and pay a cost, say 100 gold per 10 points needed to repair, so a weapon at near zero would cost a 1000 gold to instantly get repaired.

Just a few ideas as to the usual, using repair hammers etc.

I would also think that equipment would degrade, weapons and armour basically, over time, say by 0.1 per week. This means if you don't use a dagger that you carry with you that you would have to spend 1h-2h resting per week to keep your carried equipment in tip top shape (Depending on how much you carry with you)

Stuff in chests and in owned houses would not degrade or need attention, ones spouse/housecarl/whatver will make sure your stuff is nice and shiny. (Also makes marriage a bit more usefull.)

Anywho, just my idea on this. Mods are for those who like something diffrent, one doesn't have to like it or not, each to his own. : ) But I like to read neat ideas.

[cooltrickle]

I have tweaked the numbers in my first post to make them break chance smaller.

 

I wonder if 'degradeable' is simply an option that is in the game engine, but has been disabled in Skyrim. Probably not. Adding new properties to base items, like level of repair, may not be too easy unless the upcoming ck has more in depth scripting options than previously.

 

I'm sure it would be possible to add these features via scripts if necessary. I do remember reading a Bethesda developer saying that Script Extender may not be necessary with Skyrim. So, I don't think it will be a big problem to create a degrade system.

 

I see it working a lot like charged staves in Oblivion. There was a simple formula for each staff to work out how many uses you get:

 

Uses = Charge / Cost

 

So a big charge and a small cost would give you a lot of uses from a staff. I think for weapons and armour, the charge could be made constant to keep it simple, and the cost would differ depending on what material the item is made of. For example, an iron sword should break sooner than a steel sword, as steel is tougher. So the cost for each hit with an iron sword should be higher than a steel sword. This will ensure that the health of the iron sword reaches zero before the steel sword.

 

Let's use some numbers:

 

Charge = 2000

Cost = 50 (iron); 30 (steel)

 

So,

 

Uses = 2000/50 = 40 (iron)

Uses = 2000/30 = 66 (steel)

 

We can see that an iron sword will reach zero condtion after 40 hits and a steel one after 66 hits; at zero condition a sword will have a 25% of breaking. At this point, it would be risky to use this sword in combat. If you don't want to take the risk, carry a back-up sword or throw this one away and forge a new one. I think zero condition is reached too soon here, so these numbers will have to be tweaked, but you get the general idea of how this system might work.

 

I have a slight diffrent take on this. Maybe it's suited for the more Realism mod that has been suggested, but I kinda like the idea not to be 1000% safe.

When you choose to rest, as in sleeping, you spend some of those hours to maintain equipment and thus automatically bring it back up with say, 0.5 per hour resting. So if you have been in a lot of fights then you would have to spend more hours resting/doing maintance.

In other respect then resting you can go to the smithy and repair it there by spending one ingot of whatever base material required.

The third option I would like to see that you give your stuff to your spouse and she/he will do the repairs in say 24h time and the final and fourth option is to give it to an armourer and pay a cost, say 100 gold per 10 points needed to repair, so a weapon at near zero would cost a 1000 gold to instantly get repaired.

 

Your ideas include the need to repair equipment. I'm trying to get away from that, as I find it a chore. If you had the option just to hire a blacksmith and put your damaged equipment in a box and he would just repair the stuff, while you sleep, or go off to a dungeon, that would be better. As a compromise, it could be possible to make small repairs to equipment at lower condition but not making them as new. After repeated impacts, the strength of a metal is weakened and cannot just be patched up. Reforging is required.

[gigantibyte]

 

I'm sure it would be possible to add these features via scripts if necessary. I do remember reading a Bethesda developer saying that Script Extender may not be necessary with Skyrim. So, I don't think it will be a big problem to create a degrade system.

 

Probably anyone's guess at this point. 'GetItemHealthPercent' seems to be a valid function in Skyrim, so modding degradable weapons will most likely be easily added.

 

If the property didn't/doesn't exist and we don't have the ability to add new properties to base objects (we haven't been able to thus far even with the script extender), I'm not sure where you would put a script that tracks the health of every weapon in the game.

Edited December 21, 2011 by gigantibyte

[cppcooper]

This looks fun, let me try.

 

First off I like macaroni.

Secondly I have hairy toe-tops.

Lastly I think that the items should not be breakable; rather if possible have their quality degrade. For a weapon you have already improved using smithing enchantments and potions, you don't force the same use of those same things.. just use resources and return them to the quality you already improved them to.

 

So you are out in the wilderness with your legendary axe of "rapemurder" (you know who you are) and after 3 dragons, 6.7 billion forsworn, and 2 bunny rabits your axe's blade is back to unimproved status and has none of the improvement bonuses that come with Legendary status. What do you do, well luckily it is already as improved as it can be, so all you need to do is find a grinding stone to sharpen it on, to do this, you need 5 ingots of whatever metal it's made of. You sharpen it and it is back to normal, and you didn't have to go through much tediousness.

 

This avoids the tediousness of oblivion, avoids the opposite side of the spectrum and keeps you from other tedious activities such as opening your equipment equipping your Alchemist's Crown or your Burning Green Thumb and crafting some potions to help reforge your weapon from scratch. Killing, raping, and trapping the soul of a beggar into your black star, finding an enchanting station and recreating your axe of "rapemurder" from scratch. That would be annoying and tedious, so I like my contribution to the thread a lot more.

[cooltrickle]

gigantibyte:

 

Like I said, the weapon degrade will work like the weapon charge. Weapon charge is in Skyrim, so it should be possible to modify it to work in the way I've described. When a staff runs out of charge, it simply stops working; the effect for a sword that has run down, will be it has a chance of breaking. The game already has things like critical chance. It just needs tweaking to create break chance. If it does break, this will involve putting a message on the screen, informing the player that the equipment has broke, unequipping the item, and putting it in the inventory as broken or just destroying it. I know all of these things are possible.

 

The game already keeps track of the charges on weapons, and it won't need to be "all weapons in the game", just the ones you own. The first step would be to get it working for the player, then the follower and finally enemies. But really, just the player would be good enough for me.

 

Sagenth:

 

Good thing I don't eat macaroni, otherwise you would have ruined it for me with your gross "hairy toe-tops" reference.

 

Sarcasm aside, all you've said is you prefer having a repair system, like Oblivion. And like I've said: it's not very interesting. Bethesda killed weapon repair for a reason. But, if you want to bring it back, all you have to do is make a mod for that. Good luck.

 

Obviously, my idea is not for everyone. Some people like to max out everything and become so powerful that the game is completely safe for them. Then there are people who like the game to be extremely hard. I'm somewhere inbetween; I like some unpredictability and I believe a breakable equipment mod will give me that. Equipment isn't going to break so often it becomes tedious. I would much rather reforge a weapon occasionally and actually use my smithing, enchanting skills, etc., than keep "improving" my sword over and over. That system is exactly like the Oblivion one I'm trying to avoid, only you are "improving" it, instead of using a hammer. I don't want to be constantly maxing my sword damage by using a grinding wheel.

 

The enemies you face are mainly based on your level, not your sword. With your idea, if you haven't improved your sword lately, fights are going to become drawn-out and tedious because you will be scratching away at the enemy. I'm trying to add excitement not take it away. You're also forgetting that equipment breaking during tough fights might actually make combat less predictable and more dangerous. In other words, playing the game is more interesting. Equipment is more likely to break during a long fight than a short fight, but even at zero weapon condition, a sword only has a 25% chance of breaking. At this point, the player can choose to make a new sword, make minor repairs, or take a chance.

 

Also, the chance of breaking could increase during a power attack. If your weapon is at zero condition, a power attack becomes very risky, jumping from 25% of breaking to 35% chance. It would be wise not to use a power attack until the enemy is close to death. That's right, now it's actually a strategic decision whether to use a power attack or not, in some circumstances, rather than just because you can.

 

(If that's too much for you to handle, try a sword-sharpening mod. One week you use the grinding stone in Whiterun, and then, just for a bit of excitement, next week use the one in Riften. Don't forget your ingots! Then, just sit back and enjoy that sword-sharpening menu/animation, as you "improve" your sword after every fight so as not to lose damage. )<-- Sarcasm.

[cppcooper]

Sarcasm aside, all you've said is you prefer having a repair system, like Oblivion. And like I've said: it's not very interesting. Bethesda killed weapon repair for a reason. But, if you want to bring it back, all you have to do is make a mod for that. Good luck.

 

Obviously, my idea is not for everyone. Some people like to max out everything and become so powerful that the game is completely safe for them. Then there are people who like the game to be extremely hard. I'm somewhere inbetween; I like some unpredictability and I believe a breakable equipment mod will give me that. Equipment isn't going to break so often it becomes tedious. I would much rather reforge a weapon occasionally and actually use my smithing, enchanting skills, etc., than keep "improving" my sword over and over. That system is exactly like the Oblivion one I'm trying to avoid, only you are "improving" it, instead of using a hammer. I don't want to be constantly maxing my sword damage by using a grinding wheel.

 

The enemies you face are mainly based on your level, not your sword. With your idea, if you haven't improved your sword lately, fights are going to become drawn-out and tedious because you will be scratching away at the enemy. I'm trying to add excitement not take it away. You're also forgetting that equipment breaking during tough fights might actually make combat less predictable and more dangerous. In other words, playing the game is more interesting. Equipment is more likely to break during a long fight than a short fight, but even at zero weapon condition, a sword only has a 25% chance of breaking. At this point, the player can choose to make a new sword, make minor repairs, or take a chance.

 

Also, the chance of breaking could increase during a power attack. If your weapon is at zero condition, a power attack becomes very risky, jumping from 25% of breaking to 35% chance. It would be wise not to use a power attack until the enemy is close to death. That's right, now it's actually a strategic decision whether to use a power attack or not, in some circumstances, rather than just because you can.

 

(If that's too much for you to handle, try a sword-sharpening mod. One week you use the grinding stone in Whiterun, and then, just for a bit of excitement, next week use the one in Riften. Don't forget your ingots! Then, just sit back and enjoy that sword-sharpening menu/animation, as you "improve" your sword after every fight so as not to lose damage. )<-- Sarcasm.

 

 

Oh, okay so you're saying there is only a chance that 4 of my 16 hits will break my sword when I am killing the dragon.. that isn't so likely... I don't know where you learned statistics but a 1 in 4 chance doesn't qualify for "only" status. You don't hear people say "you only have a 1% chance of success, go on in there now" without sarcasm at least.

 

Somebody already said this previously, it is more realistic that the blade become dull than break entirely. Did you know that metal actually becomes stronger the more you hit it with something.. amazing eh! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_hardening Yea it really exists..

 

In order for the sword to break.. if you do want it to break.. it should be based of the quality level and then it should have a 0.01% chance of breaking during normal combat. If you use it as a shield then it becomes 0.1% if you block a power attack it becomes a 1% chance.. That would be on legendary quality.. lower than that multiply by (edit) 2, 4, 8, etc? but if you have a legendary weapon you kind of expect it to not break, wouldn't be much of a legend would it.

 

-The Legend of Red Eagle (modified)-

The empire was bearing down on him, weakened after felling a thousand men, one confident foot soldier walked up to Red Eagle.. He pulled out his battle hammer and prepared for his powerful attack, Red Eagle just stood there and prepared to block the attack with his legendary sword when the hammer fell(get it hammerfell.. sorry) and made contact with the blade Red Eagle was wielding it suddenly shattered into 3 pieces.. and then the hammer crushed his skull in.

 

Yea it doesn't give the appropriate feel to many enchanted weapons for sure, as well as other weapons which are supposedly "legendary"

 

Why would you think that you would have to keep going back and forth with what I said exactly.. I said after 6.7 billion forsworn.. that means you can make it take however many kills you think would be appropriate.. personally I think that would be probably 540 or so to go from legendary to epic and then less and less each time. You really think that is the DEFINITION of tedious..? Me.. myself.. I believe that is as far away from tedious while still having the functionality as possible.. where as a 1 in 4 chance of my sword breaking means I am going to be making a lot of swords... yea.. I'm the one with the tedious idea.. for sure!

Edited December 21, 2011 by Sagenth