Poll of the Day > Breath of the Wild isn't a good Zelda game.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Fight me

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Please stop making topics.

True
It's a great game, but a bad Zelda game

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The lack of actual dungeons was a real bummer tbh. It had some good concepts, but felt lacking overall. Weapon durability was a really stupid mechanic they added as well.

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dragon504 posted...

The lack of actual dungeons was a real bummer tbh. It had some good concepts, but felt lacking overall. Weapon durability was a really stupid mechanic they added as well.

I understand why they did it, but it felt terrible

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The story was poorly done even by Zelda standards, imo.

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So, the Nintendbros are finally ready to admit that it was 10/10, huh?

I still loved it. Every minute of it.

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Cacciato posted...

Please stop making topics.

Please stop making topics

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BotW was literally the best Zelda game ever made. The old formula was great but you can't keep making the same kind of game over and over again and expect to keep people interested.

The old formula is welcome to return every now and then but change was very long overdue.

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What's funny is some Youtuber reviewers got slammed hard years ago for daring to rate this game an 8.5/10 or something like that.

I love the old games but BotW is definitely my favorite Zelda game

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dragon504 posted...

Weapon durability was a really stupid mechanic they added as well.

This didn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would, mostly because you can't walk 5 steps without tripping over another weapon to stuff in your pack.

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It's shocking to me that weapon durability made it to the final product, it's such a bad mechanic.

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Cacciato posted...

Please stop making topics.

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Despite giving over half of Zelda games a fair shot, I dislike all of them.

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Naw, it was great. Top 3 for me at least

Blightzkrieg posted...

It's shocking to me that weapon durability made it to the final product, it's such a bad mechanic.

It's because they don't give a shit about player convenience, and are willing to frustrate you to achieve their own expectations.

In this case, they want to force you to explore and consistently use new weapons, so durability exists solely to break every weapon you've ever liked in order to prevent you from getting complacent and sticking with something you like.

Whether or not you consider that bullshit depends a lot on whether or not you think creator intent is more important than player preference.
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dragon504 posted...

The lack of actual dungeons was a real bummer tbh. It had some good concepts, but felt lacking overall.

Conceptually, I like the idea of splitting the puzzles up into shrines instead of continuous dungeons, but the combination of the aesthetic uniformity and the sheer number of shrines that were just copy+pasted combat trials (the first 1-2 of which at a given tier were reasonably challenging, but quickly became a trivial slog) made it all more tedious than I would have liked. It also didn't help that you had basically all the available tools to work with almost immediately, so most of the game's puzzles don't rely on learning any new, interesting mechanics.

dragon504 posted...

Weapon durability was a really stupid mechanic they added as well.

I can understand going for the "you've just woken up and you have nothing! Try to survive!" theme, and it works well enough for creating that sense, but that sense really doesn't last past the Plateau and handling durability just ends up being more of a chore than anything (a chore that undermined the excitement of finding any powerful new equipment, no less). Scrapping the mechanic entirely at any point in the game would have felt weird, but there should at least have been some way to work around it (not counting the infinite durability upgrade for the Master Sword from the DLC, because that's just too specific).

Really, that's a problem that plagues a lot of survival games (and is generally even worse in games that tack on survival mechanics instead of properly building around them): For the sake of providing a sense of progression, the survival mechanics become gradually less demanding as the game goes on, until eventually they're nothing more than an occasional annoyance that contributes nothing of value (namely, no more sense of desperation) but can't just be eliminated entirely because there's no plausible explanation for it. If done well, either it remains a significant issue throughout the entire game that adds a layer of challenge to whatever you're doing (i.e. air in Subnautica giving a time limit to anything you try to do outside of a sub/base), or there's an option available to make the problem disappear in a way that's plausible in-universe (i.e. adding depth modules to subs in Subnautica so your maximum exploration depth isn't so limited by air). There's a delicate balancing act between creating an enjoyable gameplay experience and creating an enjoyable atmosphere, further complicated by not being able to switch abruptly between the two without disrupting the game's immersion.

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adjl posted...

Scrapping the mechanic entirely at any point in the game would have felt weird

Tier system.

Start with strong degradation, forcing you to swap often, because you're mostly using improvised weapons or crap looted from enemy corpses.

At a certain point you gain access to stronger, better weapons - this is the point where you begin to scale back durability (they're made better, so they last longer).

Ultimately, you reach a tier where everything is either masterwork or magical, and you drop durability on those items entirely.

It's not hard to do. It's just that, like I mentioned earlier, it's not what they wanted.
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thedeerzord posted...

Fight me

Why? I have been saying the same since I first played it.

Decent game, terrible Zelda game.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Tier system.

Start with strong degradation, forcing you to swap often, because you're mostly using improvised weapons or crap looted from enemy corpses.

At a certain point you gain access to stronger, better weapons - this is the point where you begin to scale back durability (they're made better, so they last longer).

Ultimately, you reach a tier where everything is either masterwork or magical, and you drop durability on those items entirely.

It's not hard to do. It's just that, like I mentioned earlier, it's not what they wanted.

I mean more powerful weapons do take longer to break, acting like the weapons you get in the first 1 hour of the game last as long as the weapons you find off the most powerful enemies is a joke.

Another garbage topic from shit gimmick, jr

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Tier system.

Start with strong degradation, forcing you to swap often, because you're mostly using improvised weapons or crap looted from enemy corpses.

At a certain point you gain access to stronger, better weapons - this is the point where you begin to scale back durability (they're made better, so they last longer).

Ultimately, you reach a tier where everything is either masterwork or magical, and you drop durability on those items entirely.

It's not hard to do. It's just that, like I mentioned earlier, it's not what they wanted.

That is basically what they did, just never reaching the point of stuff being unbreakable, with the sole exception of the DLC-buffed Master Sword (the vanilla Master Sword also kind of does it, just in a way that works for plot but not for combat). Expanding that, you can't really have dropped items be unbreakable (because then one drop obviates every single future one, rendering the drop system pointless), but it would have been possible (and quite fun, actually) to include difficult side quests to unlock infinite versions of each weapon class.

Actually, the fact that they had a system for repairing the Champions' weapons as they wore out makes me wish they'd taken it a step further and allowed us to forge unbreakable versions. There's lots of room for interesting worldbuilding in sidequests like that, though the idea of providing alternatives to the Master Sword does go against the in-universe idea that it is the ultimate weapon (not that there haven't been better options in other Zelda games).

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BotW also suffers from Oblivion syndrome where the entire world levels with you

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Zareth posted...

BotW also suffers from Oblivion syndrome where the entire world levels with you

That, I found, did work pretty well with the durability system. Weapon durability did outscale enemy durability, so it didn't interfere with the sense of progress that came with upgrading to a new tier of weapons, but having same-level enemies available at all times meant you didn't ever have to worry about running out of weapons of your current tier (or roughly thereabouts). Once you started getting into the top-tier Lynel stuff, obviously that requires specific farming, but that would be the case regardless of how the rest of the world levelled.

The problem with Oblivion's levelling wasn't that enemies levelled with you, it's that the levelling system was incredibly counterintuitive and there was a very real risk of enemies outscaling you if you focused on levelling your core skills (the ones that increased your character level) instead of levelling everything else (which is the exact opposite of how character growth normally works). Fundamentally, having variable levels in an open-world game makes a lot of sense: You get the freedom to go wherever you want whenever you want, without worrying about being smacked down by something vastly beyond your abilities. More linear progression can also be enjoyable, since it gives a clear sense of being able to do new stuff because of how much you've grown, but if a studio wants to create a less linear game, that's a reasonable way to do it. It just becomes a problem when the levelling system is so convoluted that levelling up doesn't actually correspond to character empowerment unless you specifically set out to force it to.

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I hated the durability system.

sure you can "repair" them with the balloon enemies, but still.
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I can't imagine thinking BotW was good in any way. Maybe if you've never played another open-world game before but even Ubisoft's games have more substance.

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The problem with the world leveling with you is that it kills the incentive that you might find something cool while exploring, because the reward is going to be leveled towards you as well.
Like, some of the coolest shit in Morrowind is just lying around in dungeons waiting to be discovered, while in Oblivion, everything is shit til around level 20-ish, then every random bandit has god tier gear on them.

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Monopoman posted...

I mean more powerful weapons do take longer to break, acting like the weapons you get in the first 1 hour of the game last as long as the weapons you find off the most powerful enemies is a joke.

Yes, but:

adjl posted...

That is basically what they did, just never reaching the point of stuff being unbreakable

My point was that a jump from breakable to unbreakable isn't completely insurmountable, you just need to slowly scale to it. The game as it exists basically does that, it just doesn't take the final step.



adjl posted...

Expanding that, you can't really have dropped items be unbreakable (because then one drop obviates every single future one, rendering the drop system pointless)

Not necessarily. Plenty of other games manage to handle this problem just fine.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not necessarily. Plenty of other games manage to handle this problem just fine.

Plenty of other games have gear drops that are obviated by finding something better, but it's awkwardly inconsistent to abruptly switch between relying on gear drops to replace breakable gear to having something unbreakable drop. If games have unbreakable gear drop, that's usually because all gear is unbreakable, and you look for upgrades in more regards than just "will this break?".

As much as the difference between "so durable you can mostly ignore its durability" and "actually unbreakable" is fairly small in terms of practical impact, they are quite different, thematically. Given the option, I much, much prefer to engineer or otherwise earn a genuinely infinite supply of a resource, rather than just stockpiling enough that I'll never need to worry about it (example: setting up a decent-sized wheat farm in Minecraft vs. killing a couple thousand cows in the wild and sticking the cooked steaks in a chest). That should, however, take actual work that makes it feel plausible and rewarding, whether it's a matter of solving some kind of logistical puzzle or completing a side quest that awards it. Fundamentally, the limited resource is meant to be a challenge that must be overcome or worked around, so if an infinite solution is just handed out naturally over the course of the game (such as dropping from higher-level enemies that become more common as the game progresses), that makes the limitation feel much more artificial and eliminates any sense of accomplishment associated with permanently overcoming it.

Conceptually, the Master Sword did a reasonably good job of this. It takes effort to acquire it, and there's a plausible explanation for it being better than ordinary weapons, which makes the recharge mechanic feel right and also rewarding. There's room for improvement (the recharge is kinda slow, and having to wait until it's fully depleted to start recharging is lame), but it makes sense. I just wish they'd done more of it.

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I think the durability was put in to make the weapon system matter, let me put it this way if weapons were unbreakable most weapons would just be worthless. You would only care about how the weapon feels and the stats on it, so 99% of weapons that drop especially later in the game would just litter the ground.

Now they might have pushed it to far the other way, but this is one of the only Zelda games where you can try out a vast array of weapons, other Zelda games have basically one typical weapon the sword which you upgrade, and then other items like Bow, Bombs etc.. which all are limited use.

I found the durability slightly annoying at times, but it never really affected me that much, I always had loads of solid weapons in inventory. I also think a repair system would have been a nice olive branch to the players, maybe it require some work to prevent using it for every single weapon over and over again though.

The game never once hints at the Picori being around. It made me sick.

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Yeah, the durability issue wasn't really a big deal to me. Lot of far more annoying shit in other games

Monopoman posted...

let me put it this way if weapons were unbreakable most weapons would just be worthless. You would only care about how the weapon feels and the stats on it, so 99% of weapons that drop especially later in the game would just litter the ground.

If weapons weren't breakable at all, I would expect more of a focus on finding equipment in chests, shops, or as rare drops, sort of like how most traditional JRPG's handle the matter. Equipment dropping on nearly every kill really only works with either a durability system that forces high turnover (as BotW did) or a stat system that's complex enough for it to take many randomized drops to find an upgrade to a given piece (like most ARPG's). If neither of those things applies, weapons simply wouldn't drop so often.

Monopoman posted...

I found the durability slightly annoying at times, but it never really affected me that much, I always had loads of solid weapons in inventory.

The mechanic wasn't particularly bad itself, but incorporating the concept did mean it wasn't possible to have cool equipment as a reward for completing sidequests and whatnot (or at least that any such rewards were too finite to want to use them until they were more readily replaceable). It also quickly stopped being an actual problem to worry about, which meant it didn't really add anything to the game that justified losing that sense of progression and reward. In a series where most of the progression comes from finding new gear and getting to use it in interesting ways (replaced mostly by runes in BotW, which also showed their hand quite early), I would call that a bad move overall.

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Too poor nowadays to buy a Switch so I never got to play it.

Probably have to sell some organs to upgrade my GTX970 too.

I don't like games were enemies level at the same time. it's fun to level past enemies and wreck them
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

I don't like games were enemies level at the same time. it's fun to level past enemies and wreck them

Im like this as well.

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I agree with you. it is horrible. overrated because...nintendo puts the money over the table. especially on internet. this website is a clear example of that. you will NEVER see anything bad about nintendo.

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gdaubian posted...

this website is a clear example of that. you will NEVER see anything bad about nintendo.

lol

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I will add that the rest of the game more than makes up for the durability thing. I found BotW's open world to be a hell of a lot more engaging and lifelike than something akin to Skyrim and etc.

Even something stupid like figuring out you can hold an apple and feed it to the horse you just fell out of the sky on and captured is handled really well. I got this way way later than most, and I'm kind of pissed I slept on it for so long before giving it a go.

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Its my first zelda game and I loved exploring and adventuring more than classic puzzles and such. Survival is more fun. plus the sheer amount of haha funni stuff that can be done like the spring loaded hammer, Boom Zooms, Shield Surfing, etc.

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