Tool/Weapon Repair - How would you like to see it implemented?

[Balduranne]

Moving this here from Discord so it doesn't get lost;

How would you envision repairing tools or weapons from a gameplay perspective? Some of the suggested ideas were using a grindstone station, or making a tool repair kit from the respective material. The simplest way would be using a stone or ingot to repair an item, but I know that many people don't like the crafting grid. I'm looking for implementation ideas here, not arguments for or against. 

 

[redram]

There's already a topic on this: 

 

[Balduranne]

On 5/3/2018 at 12:27 PM, redram said:

There's already a topic on this: 

That topic is about damage decreasing with durability and damage types vs resistances, not how to implement a repair system. 

[Stroam]

Depends what breaks. If it's the handle that can be pretty easy to fix with a saw, hammer, hardened wood or metal dowel/rod, sanding device, vice, and a chisel or a knife. If the actual tool head has cracked or a piece has broken off of it, depending on the size you may be able to grind the tool down into another tool but most the time you get rid of it because it the metal fractured once, there's a good chance it'll do it again. 

Generally repaired weapons are always weaker than their non-broken counterparts.

[Balduranne]

1 hour ago, Stroam said:

Depends what breaks. If it's the handle that can be pretty easy to fix with a saw, hammer, hardened wood or metal dowel/rod, sanding device, vice, and a chisel or a knife. If the actual tool head has cracked or a piece has broken off of it, depending on the size you may be able to grind the tool down into another tool but most the time you get rid of it because it the metal fractured once, there's a good chance it'll do it again. 

Generally repaired weapons are always weaker than their non-broken counterparts.

I agree with you, and I think reducing total durability of a tool/weapon is a good trade-off for repairing them (As opposed to letting them break down completely). There just has to be a 'standardized' way of translating that into game terms. 

Depending on how skills are implemented, the quality of a repair tool or smithing skill would determine the loss of maximum durability after a repair, but it would be rendered scrap metal eventually. 

Of course, that still leaves us with the How of adding it to the game. Sharpening stones and wheels would not make sense for a pickaxe, shovel or a hammer. Hence why I feel it needs a good brainstorm.

[redram]

7 hours ago, Balduranne said:

That topic is about damage decreasing with durability and damage types vs resistances, not how to implement a repair system. 

The topic covers sharpening, but whatever, I'm not a moderator.  Just pointing out there has been quite a fair amount of discussion on the topic.  If this were implemented it would need to be in a balanced way;  my other big concern aside from what I expressed in the other thread, is that the system maintains parity with smithing, and is not a way to save metal by avoiding smithing.  

So even though I am against sharpening and tool/weapon repair in general, if it were to be implemented I'd prefer to see it as a repair kit, so that it can be uniformly applied across all tools and weapons regardless of their sharpness/pointiness/bluntness.   The cost will be the same as smithing a new item, and will only work for same tier or lower items.  So if a repair kit will repair 5 items, it will cost 500 metal, and you cannot repair bronze items with a copper repair kit, for instance.  You can, however, do the converse.

While a grindstone is a fun idea, and I'm totally for being able to buy one from the merchant to act as scenery, the implementation just seems messy.   It makes no sense for blunt weapons, and it does not have a logical metal cost.  So it's probably allowing you to circumvent smithing at no significant cost unless items go dull extremely fast, and their overall life is still the same.   I could see perhaps using a grindstone for sharp/pointed items only in conjunction with a repair kit (the grindstone has a slot to store the kit) giving a small bonus in durability and still using repair kit uses.  But nothing major, so as not to unbalance the blunt vs sharp/pointy items.

[Luk]

I know we have a couple people who seem quite knowledgeable about blacksmithing. I'm curious, how does one repair a hammer in real life? Assuming it's the metal that is damaged and not just the wooden haft. Reading Stroam's response, it seems like it would go on the grindstone anyway.
Speaking more bluntly (LOL), it seems like repairs are generally more needed for sharp tools, right? The edge of a sword is certainly going to go dull before a hammer would break. And, actually, a hammer is like the only tool we currently have (off the top of my head) that is really blunt. It seems totally logical to me that one would sharpen a pickaxe or a shovel on a grindstone, since they have edges and points.

I like the idea that repairs refill your durability, but drop maximum durability as well. Potentially a sharpening could temporarily improve the tool's efficiency or something as well.

And while there is concern about it making smithing obsolete... I guess I'm not totally opposed to that? The constantly-remaking-tools concept feels a bit like an artifact from older games to me. You'll still need better tools to get better resources, so you'll still be making new iterations. Just maybe you don't have to make the same iteration over and over. And you would still need metal as well, since you have like 10 other tools to make for whatever tech level you're at. In general, I'm concerned with the balance between tedium and challenge in VS. I'd prefer challenge to come about in ways that don't require grinding. Grinding in the metagame sense, not the grindstone repairing sense. Lol, kind of ironic.

[tony Liberatto]

The problem about durability in the game is that the tool works perfectly fine until it breaks. Thet does not make much sense.

In real life, you use an iron knife, and you keep sharpening it until there is nothing else to sharpen.

In these days where all tools are Stainless steel and we even have ceramic knives that never lose the edge, people have no idea what it means to use an iron knife.

The thing is like this. when you use a copper pickaxe, you will need to sharpen it more often, every time you do it looses material, till it gets to the point that it is unusable. The metal is just gone, there is nothing to repair.

To properly balance the game and still add the sharpening feature, that's what would make sense.

Using a tool does not decrease durability, sharpening a tool does it.

The sharper a tool is the faster it does the work, the dull it is the slower it gets, till it just will not work and you have to sharpen.

If you sharpen your tool too often you will deplete the durability. If you do not sharpen your tool frequently, you will always be working with slow tools.

Now the whole tool durability makes a lot more sense. An iron tool will keep the edge a lot longer than any copper or bronze tool, that means it requires less sharpening.

 

All that said, I must insist that any system created to include sharpening in the game MUST NOT SHARPEN HAMMERS AND MACES,  There is no tool repair kit for a hammer or a mace. Unless you are talking about the handle.

Now what happens with copper and bronze hammers is that they get deformed and I have no idea if they were fixed somehow, but for sure it was not sharpening. 

 

[redram]

5 hours ago, Luk said:

 I'm concerned with the balance between tedium and challenge in VS. I'd prefer challenge to come about in ways that don't require grinding.

Are you saying smithing is grindy and some kind of sharpening mechanic would not be?  I'm unclear.  Because no sharpening suggestion I've seen seems to me like it would be any less grindy than smithing.  It's not like it's a fun minigame or something.   If it's instant it's not grindy, but then what's it adding to the game?

1 hour ago, tony Liberatto said:

The problem about durability in the game is that the tool works perfectly fine until it breaks. Thet does not make much sense.

I don't see how that's a problem, there's tons and tons of things in the game already that don't make sense vs realism.  In the context of a sliding scale of efficiency, I think you actually risk turning off players who are used to the 'all-or-nothing' system, as in minecraft, as they get confused by why their tools work slower, or weapons get worse and worse.  It's a perfectly serviceable system and very familiar to people.  In fact, a sliding sharpening scale sounds to me more similar to the TFC food trimming mechanic.  The player knows that the problem gets worse and worse the longer you let it go so they feel compelled to do it often.  A lot of people hated that in TFC.  I didn't mind it at all, but I know a lot of people did.   I just don't see what we get for sharpening, vs what is lost (reinforcing the metal tiering).  I've still not seen anyone propose a more precise explanation of costs or time scales for sharpening, but in my mind it sounds like you're letting the player use the tool longer for the cost of what? some stone?    And in return they use less metal, and avoid the (to me) more interesting aspect of the game which is smithing and metal working.  They also get to avoid to a degree the hard choices of what tools to bring on a trip, since they can sharpen 95% of them on the road.   I mean, if metal were rare or smithing was actually challenging that might be another matter, but neither of those is true.  Now, if sharpening items required a rare ingredient - diamonds, or coticule - well that's better because now the player has to have that rare raw material.   This replaces the metal cost with another cost that is non-trivial (unlike regular stone). 

But while we're talking realism, how about saws?  They are sharp, but you certainly do not use a grindstone to sharpen them.  We going to make files or a saw set for the player to use on them?  And what about the propick?   My impression of how prospecting picks actually work (and how I use mine) is that it's more about digging rocks out of the mud, or prying already fissured rocks from a cliff face.  They don't need to be sharp, per se.  Just pointy enough to be good for prying. 

Edit:  Here's an interesting short article on anvil wear, and it also mentions hammers.   Sounds like chipping is the main threat, and he does mention that the anvil he had, which was chipped, was due to an inexperienced user hitting the top with the hammer.  He mentions wearing out two hammers and being into a third when he wore out one anvil.  I think hammers would wear out far, far slower than any 'sharp' tool or weapon.  And I don't know that grinding would be used to repair it, because if it's chipped, you're going to have a mis-shapen face at that point.  or if you grind it all around, now your hammer is lighter and smaller faced.  Id' imagine maces would never wear out as they're hitting flesh and relatively thin sheet metal, both of which are way softer.

So in summary, again IF this were to make it in the game (and I hope it does not) AND it's in a sharpening form rather than a repair kit, I'd prefer that the stone is a rare material, and that there is NO sliding speed reduction scale.  I'd rather see the second sharpness meter, with a point at which it becomes suddenly slow and you get a tooltip that it needs sharpening.  OR, no sharpness meter, just a durability meter like we already have, and all sharpening does is refill some of the meter.  A given item can only be sharpened X times (more times for better quality item)  Better quality stones refill more of the meter, and they have a better chance to not add to the overall use count.  Depending on quality of item and stone, the player can expect to get a max of 1 extra use from the item (meaning the player 'sharpened' 100% of the durability back)

[Balduranne]

53 minutes ago, tony Liberatto said:

The problem about durability in the game is that the tool works perfectly fine until it breaks. Thet does not make much sense.

In real life, you use an iron knife, and you keep sharpening it until there is nothing else to sharpen.

In these days where all tools are Stainless steel and we even have ceramic knives that never lose the edge, people have no idea what it means to use an iron knife.

The thing is like this. when you use a copper pickaxe, you will need to sharpen it more often, every time you do it looses material, till it gets to the point that it is unusable. The metal is just gone, there is nothing to repair.

 

While I generally agree, I must argue against this point. With regards to tools that do not require sharpening... When I was young, I was helping out my grandparents with yard duties - The shovel I used broke off, and I would not notice the metal wear and tear up to this point. In the case of several firewood axes I broke, you could see and feel the damage, but it did not really get in the way of their effectiveness as a tool... It just stressed me out that the head is going to fly off and hit something. 

16 minutes ago, redram said:

As for smithing hammers, they don't get damaged, if you're using them correctly - that is, hitting hot metal which is much softer than the hammer. 

All tools get worn from use, albeit at a slow rate.

14 minutes ago, redram said:

At least not at anything even remotely close to the rate at which sharp items get worn down in the  course of their use

Correct.

 

[Luk]

I would assume a grindstone would take less time to use than it would take to make an entirely new tool. Or at the very least, it would take less resources. Which would save time. Which reduces the tedium, at least between those two options. It seems like the metal tiering system would still work fine. There are sitll plenty of advantages to having an iron pickaxe instead of a copper pickaxe. And your tools would still break eventually, assuming max durability would drop with each repair.

I'm assuming the whole point of this discussion is to find a way to reduce the tedium of having to remake tools, right? That's ultimately the purpose of repairing, isn't it? I think smithing is fun, sure, but I don't really have fun making my fourth or fifth pickaxe. Don't you find that tedious, Redram? Or is it just that you're more concerned about a bad solution than a mediocre problem? 

I think effeciency loss is a cool idea in theory, but I agree that it could be quite confusing and frustrating. It would need to be very clear what's happening if it were implemented. Which, it could probably could be made clear quite easily, actually. Just having the 3D model and icon eroding in front of you would probably do it.
I'm not sure I agree about the hard choices of what tools to bring on a trip. I think it's kind of silly to have to bring three pickaxes when you go mining, but it seems like those slots would be filled anyway if you brought repair kits instead, wouldn't they? And they would both be emptied as the trip continued. The kits would be consumed and the extra picks would break.

[Balduranne]

1 minute ago, Luk said:

I'm assuming the whole point of this discussion is to find a way to reduce the tedium of having to remake tools, right? That's ultimately the purpose of repairing, isn't it?

Not entirely, but that would be a nice by-product of it. I'm trying to figure out how to put a system in place to encourage more use of some items rather than just hoarding them "Just in case"

 

2 minutes ago, Luk said:

I think it's kind of silly to have to bring three pickaxes when you go mining, but it seems like those slots would be filled anyway if you brought repair kits instead, wouldn't they? And they would both be emptied as the trip continued. The kits would be consumed and the extra picks would break.

I haven't even thought about it before that way, but now that you mention it, that is rather silly.

[redram]

24 minutes ago, Luk said:

Which would save time. Which reduces the tedium, at least between those two options. 

I'm assuming the whole point of this discussion is to find a way to reduce the tedium of having to remake tools, right? That's ultimately the purpose of repairing, isn't it?

Well, if smithing is actually tedious to people, then yes that needs to be addressed.  It doesn't bother me, no.  But I also enjoy mining (and enjoyed it more in TFC with cave-ins), and propicking in it's current form, and didn't mind food trimming in TFC.  So I'm odd like that.  Maybe it's that I always smith four things at a time, to use the forge most efficiently?  Maybe looking at my 3 different bronze anvils makes me happy?  I think for me, I'd prefer to sit down and do a focused task for awhile,  vs being interrupted often in my tasks to have to do a trivial task (like sharpening).  As for not wanting to constantly forge new tools and weapons, I would presume that down the road mechanization would address that (though I would hope that smithed ones would always be superior)

And yes, repair kits could be advantageous in an inventory sense.  Probably not insanely - I rarely take more than two picks with me.  But somewhat.  I do sometimes get uneasy when my sword gets low on durability, and I'm going caving.    I simply think it's a shame to reduce the smithing work.  At least if repair kits themselves require smithing, that maintains some of it.  And as mentioned earlier I would prefer that they require an amount of metal equivalent to the number of extra tool/weapon use you get from them so as not to circumvent metal.  UNLESS they themselves require some non-trivial materials, though they should require at least some metal.  And they should be tier sensitive. 

 

[tony Liberatto]

As gameplay mechanics go, everytime you introduce a new feature, you are allowed to take something from the player as long as you give him something else.

When you introduce sharpening you are using the player time, time that he rather use to mine, instead of sharpening the pickaxe.

What if the system would work like this.

Right now the copper pickaxe has a 300 durability.  That means the player can break 300 blocks of any kind.

 

The first thing you do is to multiply the durability by a factor of 3, so now the copper pickaxe has a durability of 900. But, that does not mean the player can effectively break 900 blocks.

 

There is a sharpening bar on the tool: a sharpened tool will be green, after X blocks it will get yellow,  at this point the tool is slower by 25%  and the  player needs to get a sharpening stone from his inventory and use it on the pickaxe, this action takes durability out of the pickaxe, but it restores the speed. 

If the player ignores the yellow and continues to use the pickaxe the bar goes to orange, at this point, the tool is slower by 50% and it can only be fixed at the base using a Grinding Stone, takes a lot more durability out of the tool.

In the end, if the player is careful with the tool he gets a maximum of  600 blocks broken with the copper pickaxe.  

The result: you make the player have an extra activity that takes time and effort, but you are rewarding the player,  you just cut his smithing in half. His tools will last double.

The only observation is that for all this to be realistic, the player is not supposed to be able to make a grinding stone while 100 blocks deep inside a mine. It needs to be expensive in material and time, so the player will build one and have it at his base, and once placed it cannot be removed without destroying it, otherwise, the player would just have it always with him.

Although if the player conserves his tools properly he should not need to use the grinder, as it really eats up the tool durability.

It's late here in Florida, Midnight I really do not feel like making the Math to get the exact numbers, but I think anyone can understand the concept. really have to go.

 

[Luk]

Redram, I could see how smithing wouldn't feel tedious if you smithed really efficiently like that, and I can understand not wanting to lessen the smithing experience. Out of curiosity, would it still bother you if the smithing system was left completely like it is? So theoretically, you could keep playing the game as you like, but others could use repair kits or grindstones if they want to. Would the incurring resource inefficiency bother you? Or would you feel like the smithing system has been done an injustice because people are less likely to use it?

I'm not super opposed to smithing repair kits nor to them being tier sensitive, but I dunno, putting those two things together with a 1 to 1 equivalent metal cost seems like you should just smith the tool instead.

Also, I think your concept sounds pretty good, Tony. Admittedly, I think I just like the idea of durability being visible in the 3D model and icon. 

[Erik]

I'm strongly against the loss of tool speed. It would probably drive me crazy, because I would want to repair my tools every time I used them (when sharpening is used for repairing) or I would wait just before breaking to repair it (when repair kits are used for repairing), making mining a long process.

I feel repairing tools should be some technological advancement that allows you to have more durable tools, but not replace durability. So here's my idea:

Copper and other copper alloys can be remelted into their respective material. They would lose a tiny bit of metal (alloy dependent, some late game alloys would maybe lose no amount of metal) when doing so, but it's very efficient. The tool can then be reforged easily.

Iron and steel is a very different story. While iron provides two times as much durability as the best alloy (while at almost equal stats), it and other steels can't be molten into ingots again. To counter this the player can construct a sharpening stone, which must be powered by mechanical power. The sharpening stone can convert the maximum durability into durability,  so it only serves to extend a tools lifetime, not to make it infinite. 

When holding right click on the sharpening stone, when powered, while holding a tool in the selected slot (i.e. in the hand), the durability bar of the tool will turn invisible and the tools durability will be raised every tick while the maximum durability gets lowered every tick. The "minigame" is to judge when the tool is repaired and not overdo is so the tool wouldn't lose durability. Alongside this there would be a lot of sparks and noise to capture the feeling of actually sharpening a tool.

The advantage of the sharpening stone is, it preserves the tools stats (not  relevant now, but when something like quality is introduced). The repair-to-loss ratio (durability repaired / max durability lost) is dependent on material and tool quality. Iron would have a fairly low repair-to-loss ratio (maybe like 1.5, so it would only last two and a half times as long), compared to steel (maybe 2.5). Copper and alloy tools can also be sharpened, but it's harder to time it (much lower durability) and they would suffer a great loss in metal value when remelting them (dependent on maximum durability / initial maximum durability).

The durability jump between iron and steel (as well as steels and other steels) wouldn't be that high, because the repair-to-loss ratio jump would counters this.

This whole idea would really distinguished steels and alloys, while possibly making both useful at any stage of the game: Alloys are very material efficient, can essentially be reforged (almost no loss of material) indefinitely, while steels have a finite pool of durability (material cost), but don't lose their quality and can be made into better tools.

[tony Liberatto]

The idea of a "Repair Kit" that magically restores my pickaxe, seriously offends my sense of logic and realism.

I can understand for the player to get a file and sharpen the point of the pickaxe, this would make it faster and better at breaking stones.

I just cannot envision how a "Repair Kit" works.  What does it do? Is it magic?

I think in a similar way it also offends people sensibility that a tool would break and just puff out of existence. Where does the broken picaxe go? Is it magic?   

I realized long ago, that it is actually about the coding of the game. The Game Developer would have to create a new block (Broken tool ) for every tool in the game, with different attributes for each metal. How much material can actually be recovered from a broken tool?

In most cases is just not worth the time of the developer, he/she could be creating new content for the game.  

If one is willing to do the math and the code, you could create a mod that would add durability and speed for any tool that is sharpened, this way, if a player does not care for the system he/she can just not have the mod, also even if playing on a server that uses the mod, he/she could just never sharpen the tool the first time and use his tools the way he is acostumed to do.

 

[Balduranne]

3 minutes ago, tony Liberatto said:

The idea of a "Repair Kit" that magically restores my pickaxe, seriously offends my sense of logic and realism.

I can understand for the player to get a file and sharpen the point of the pickaxe, this would make it faster and better at breaking stones.

I just cannot envision how a "Repair Kit" works.  What does it do? Is it magic?

A whetstone, a replacement shaft, nails, glue or leather straps, maybe a little hammer to bend it back into shape. The name is just a catch-all for something other than a sharpening stone.

[redram]

9 hours ago, Luk said:

Out of curiosity, would it still bother you if the smithing system was left completely like it is? So theoretically, you could keep playing the game as you like, but others could use repair kits or grindstones if they want to. Would the incurring resource inefficiency bother you? Or would you feel like the smithing system has been done an injustice because people are less likely to use it?

Nobody's suggesting changing smithing, so is this a nice way of asking me to stop telling others how to enjoy their game?  The weakening of the role of smithing would bother me and I do feel would detract from the game because it's replacing it with a trivial (and to me annoying) mechanic, but that is just my opinion (among many here), I do acknowledge that.  However the circumventing of metal requirement (in absence of a rare material or equivalent metal component) is, I feel, genuinely bad for the game balance.   That's even assuming a repair kit scenario.  never mind a scenario where some tools can be sharpened and others can't, creating imbalance amongst them. 

And then there's the notion of recycling spent tools, which is even worse.  At least sharpening has the one mechanically redeeming feature of possibly reducing inventory clutter a bit (unless it requires rare material, in which case it also improves the use scenarios of those materials).  Tool recycling does nothing but let the player skate by on less metal, in a world where nearly half the world height is devoted to mining, and at least currently there is no shortage of metals.

@Erik  The differing treatment of low tier materials vs iron+ sounds to me like a recipe for confusing players.  The minigame you suggest (the first actual suggestion of how it would work as far as I can recall) sounds pretty decent.  Though it's going to make it more a chore as the player regularly starts and stops to check the sharpness.  Which is actually a good approximation of rl sharpening.  It's definitely more engaging that combining a repair kit or whetstone in the grid.  I will point out that irl using an old fashioned grinding wheel properly does not produce sparks or very much noise.  Which isn't to say VS shouldn't do it (it doesn't stop hollywood or the rest of the games industry) but I'm just saying.

[Erik]

3 hours ago, redram said:

 The differing treatment of low tier materials vs iron+ sounds to me like a recipe for confusing players.  

Considering the different production (bloomery vs campfire) of said materials and different crafting (anvil vs casting), this change would only further differentiate the materials and  probably wouldn't cause confusion. 

[Stroam]

When tools break, it is rare that they would be worn down to a nub especially before modern times where metallurgy becomes a science. All metal made from raw ore is going to come with impurities. These impurities are eventually going to cause any metal to chip, fracture, crack, and shatter. If you were a cheap Smith, or it was a ceremonial piece, or just desperate you'd use a large nail to gouge out the crack, use a bunch of flux to remove the oxidation and then pour softer metal in, then spend a lot of time sanding and polishing. The repaired tool would last only a little bit before breaking again, likely in the same spot. It was much better to just reforge the piece by melting it down and recasting it.

If I were to make a mod that remade tools this is what I would do. WARNING Stroam level complicated!

• ore veins - make them more like reasonable realism which makes them easier to find, last longer, and as you'll see with tin and copper they form knots of ore.
• ore - not only has units but purity.
• purity - is determined by the distance to nearest stone block and type of ore. This makes the inside of a vein higher purity than the outside. This is not shown on a tooltip. 
• ore smashing - ore can be smashed as the first step in metal refinement and removes the most amount of impurities. This step alone removes most of the impurities. If this was the only thing you did it'd produce decent tools.
• molten metal - when stuff is melted and mixed all the impurities are averaged out. 
• measuring purity - by placing ingots on a scale you can compare the weight of two ingots. If you know the purity of one of the ingots, that'll tell the purity of the other. (ingots assumed to be of the same volume.)
• refining metal - varies. skimming, smelting, roasting, cupellation. All techniques and developed during the bronze age and well understood by the Romans. Add more stuff to do in game and more types of furnaces to make. This refining of metals can be ignored but a superior tool starts with superior metal. Each step is removing a very small amount of the impurities but results in more uses on average for a tool before it breaks.
• Remove durability - replace it with a chance to break determined by impurities and hardness.
• handles - different types of handles that have different chances of breaking. Variety is the spice of life
• breaking - When a tool is used both the handle and head roll the dice to determine if either chip or break. tools chip before they break. When one of them break the tool is no longer usable. A broken handle can be replaced at a tool bench. A broken tool head must be reforged at a loss in metal units. A chipped tool loses much less weight can be reforged at significantly less metal lost than a broken tool. Can not recover handles.
• weight - both tool heads and handles have weight. Determines swing speed, energy usage, and damage. 
• sharpness - converts blunt damage to a higher amount of piercing/slashing damage. A completely dull sword is going to do some blunt damage but a sharp sword is going to do more blunt + slashing damage. When a blade is sharpened the tool loses weight. This increases swing speed but also reduces damage. 
• hardness - all metals have a certain hardness. Harder metals have a greater chance of breaking than softer metals. Harder metals stay sharper longer. Tools can be work hardened to decrease the rate at which a tool becomes dull without increasing the chance of the tool breaking.

Implications, questions, and answers.

Does this mean a wooden, bronze, and steel mace deal the same amount of damage? No, they weigh different amounts and therefore different attack speeds and damage.

Does this mean that if a copper sword weighs more than an iron sword it'll deal more damage? Yes, at the cost of slower attack speed. Ideally, you want swords to be light to take advantage of the blunt to slashing damage conversion for higher damage per second.

Why are no ratios and numbers listed? Don't you know the devil is in the details? Yes, I know it's all in the details which would have to be worked out in testing so not much point in assigning numbers to anything except maybe as a starting point.

I don't like it. I like strict tiers where A is better in every way to B which is better in every way to C, etc. It simplifies things. That's a valid opinion. That sort of system works great in certain cases such as reducing the chore of whittling down meat tanks with increasing amounts of HP.

 

[Luk]

7 hours ago, redram said:

Nobody's suggesting changing smithing, so is this a nice way of asking me to stop telling others how to enjoy their game? 

No, that's not what I'm saying, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I've been participating in this discussion for the sake of considering new ideas and trying to understand our players' perspectives. Your posts seemed to indicate that you felt smithing was endangered in some way by "repairing" as a game mechanic, so I was just trying to find out what was endangered. Whether it was the importance of smithing in the survival process or if it was the act of smithing for you personally. And even if the issue is just that you happen to like playing the game a certain way and this repairing concept endangers that, that's still important for me to know.