Board 8 > Breath of the Wild is redefining open world games for me.

(+) Yeah! (+)

KamikazePotato posted...

Bought the DLC because why not

https://i.imgur.com/3yOlmVs_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

My current Hero's Path! I've been a busy bee.

Access to i.imgur.com was denied. :/

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Weapon durability complaints were always silly to me because it's such a non-issue if you actually just keep playing the game. I get that it rubs people the wrong way they spend 15 minutes climbing a mountain to find a cool new sword and it breaks 10 minutes later but the game would need to be completely different without durability.

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having to stop what you're doing and switch to a different weapon every time one breaks isn't strategy, it's an annoyance that comes up way too often for combat to feel worthwhile even when you do have weapons to spare

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I dont think it would need to be completely different. You could remove it easily and not change anything that would matter

Shonen_Bat posted...

having to stop what you're doing and switch to a different weapon every time one breaks isn't strategy, it's an annoyance that comes up way too often for combat to feel worthwhile even when you do have weapons to spare

It's a strategy learning how to manage it so they don't break as often.

Or just use them with reckless abandon, too. You can do that.

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there isn't really a way to have them not break as often except to just not fight

once every enemy is a white/silver enemy with thousands of hit points you're going to be breaking a weapon on basically any of them

except bokoblins, maybe you can kill two or three

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KamikazePotato posted...

Question for the topic - is the DLC worth it? $20 doesn't seem too bad.

The first one is a big long combat section in the style of Eventide Island. Its great IMO.

The second one is story based with 16 more Shrines and an extra Divine Beast-style dungeon, but one of the mechanics it introduces and briefly forces on you is really awkward IMO.
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weapons not breaking at all would be completely insane for BotW, everyone would just be full power forever

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It doesn't take long to switch weapons if one breaks. Using the quick menu takes merely seconds. Anyway, more durable weapons would need to be offset by spongier enemies for the gameplay loop to work as intended (weapons break fast, but a majority of the enemies in game drop the weapon they're using when they are defeated). This game wouldn't be as fun imo if the durability system were implemented like Dark Souls, such that you only had to worry about your weapon every couple of trips to a level-up station.

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small gameplay annoyances still add up if there's a lot of them

and there's a lot.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

there isn't really a way to have them not break as often except to just not fight

Parrying

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In a game where you can go anywhere at any moment it would be pretty stupid if you find a flame sword after 10 minutes and use that for the rest of the entire game.

So yes the game would need to be completely different, some kind of gated progression system probably

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Also utilize techniques to make each hit hurt a lot more. You can eventually kill nearly any non-boss in a couple hits if you utilize your gear really well.

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Something that really makes me feel good is parrying Guardian lasers

Once you get good at it you feel unstoppable
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I mean all you need to do to balance it would be to both increase the durability substantially but not to a point where it's not an issue, and then add a way to repair items that costs some expendable resource. Like how the champion weapons can be reforged but actually good.

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Square One is a fun place to return in BotW, hence Eventide

CaptainOfCrush posted...

Also utilize techniques to make each hit hurt a lot more. You can eventually kill nearly any non-boss in a couple hits if you utilize your gear really well.

gotta love opportunities of getting air from grass burning and nailing enemies in the face with a handful of arrows

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean all you need to do to balance it would be to both increase the durability substantially but not to a point where it's not an issue, and then add a way to repair items that costs some expendable resource. Like how the champion weapons can be reforged but actually good.

Might be neat if you could just permanently hold one of each weapon, they all break, but they can also all be repaired.

(And obviously you could swap out the broken one for a fresh one if you find one)
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Theres already nothing really stopping you from breaking the game equipment wise. If you remove the breaking you just save lots of time and effort. The pros (and theres literally 0 for me) dont seem to outweigh the cons to the system. I mean what even are the pros of stuff breaking? You can try out all the weapons and new strats even if they couldnt break.

Jakyl25 posted...

Something that really makes me feel good is parrying Guardian lasers

Once you get good at it you feel unstoppable

One of the most satisfying moments in the game

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

I mean all you need to do to balance it would be to both increase the durability substantially but not to a point where it's not an issue, and then add a way to repair items that costs some expendable resource. Like how the champion weapons can be reforged but actually good.

agree on the first part, I can stand to reason durability being increased a bit, just don't go crazy with it

on repairing....... it still seems completely worthless and rises more of a need from obsession than actual necessity. good weapons are easy to obtain, including literally any item you specifically want you will be seeing it again. that being said, it's a feature that could in theory at least easily be ignored and not really change beyond those specific obsessions -- although if the game starts getting balanced around having to repair weapons that would be significantly more annoying to the gameplay loop than weapon loss is in the first place

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swordz9 posted...

The pros (and theres literally 0 for me) dont seem to outweigh the cons to the system.

I'm not sure why you're looking for pros/cons for a gameplay element that restricts players. Would Diablo be better if characters didn't have to spend mana? Would Dark Souls be better if you didn't have a stamina system?

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swordz9 posted...

Theres already nothing really stopping you from breaking the game equipment wise. If you remove the breaking you just save lots of time and effort. The pros (and theres literally 0 for me) dont seem to outweigh the cons to the system. I mean what even are the pros of stuff breaking? You can try out all the weapons and new strats even if they couldnt break.

Exploration is at least partially encouraged by the thought of discovering a new weapon. Also, enemies drop their weapons upon defeat OR if you manipulate the game to force them to drop it. For example, an enemy with a very strong sword is a threat, but if you could somehow electrocute that enemy, there's a chance they'll drop that strong sword, which then allows you to swoop in, steal it, and replace it with a literal tree branch that they might actually pick up and try to use against you. This is stuff I had never seen in a game before, and I don't think Nintendo would have even thought to introduce gameplay like this if the weapons were all "traditionally permanent".

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Grimlyn posted...

on repairing....... it still seems completely worthless and rises more of a need from obsession than actual necessity. good weapons are easy to obtain, including literally any item you specifically want you will be seeing it again. that being said, it's a feature that could in theory at least easily be ignored and not really change beyond those specific obsessions -- although if the game starts getting balanced around *having* to repair weapons (like a Monster Hunter whetstone) that would be significantly more annoying to the gameplay loop than weapon loss is in the first place

Oh yeah I mean, I'm envisioning something that's fairly expensive but not as expensive and obnoxious to do as the Champion weapons, so that you would really only be managing 1-2 things you REALLY want to keep around, if you wanted to.

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Well I was more asking what people who actually DO like it consider to be the pros of it. Like what about it do they find good that they couldnt do if it didnt exist...

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Oh yeah I mean, I'm envisioning something that's fairly expensive but not as expensive and obnoxious to do as the Champion weapons, so that you would really only be managing 1-2 things you REALLY want to keep around, if you wanted to.

yeah something like this is certainly welcome, just properly restricted by opportunity (location of repairing, materials) or the cost of holding onto a weapon using up a slot that you might reevaluate wanting to repair it if you find something similar, stuff like that

but yeah I certainly have my own OCD tenancies so even if not really beneficial I would totally get the desire and implemented right I'd like it too

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Skyrim and Banjo are bad comparisons to make to this game.

I also feel like people who don't like the weapon system used a lot of tree branches and rusty weapons and didnt properly collect enough good weapons.

I mean, by the time you max out your weapon inventory, you should have collected enough good weapons that you're not really running out of them without finding enough to replace them. The enemies that use up more weapon durability drop multiple weapons anyway.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

I mean, by the time you max out your weapon inventory, you should have collected enough good weapons that you're not really running out of them without finding enough to replace them. The enemies that use up more weapon durability drop multiple weapons anyway.

I feel it has more to do with one's personality and how they approach gaming. I can totally understand it being hard to view a sword as "ammunition" when you've never had to see it that way in a game before. I'll state again that I went into BotW with some reservations because I had no idea how I'd take to this weapon system, and luckily, I quickly grew to love it. You basically have to look at your melee weapons the same way you look at your arrows.

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I think it would be good if every weapon's durability was improved by about 50%, but other than that I have no issues with the weapon system at all

I felt accomplished the first time I fought a guardian, because I had to build up a collection to beat it.

Nothing ever was as difficult as that again. And that was pretty early on in the playthrough.

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swordz9 posted...

Well I was more asking what people who actually DO like it consider to be the pros of it. Like what about it do they find good that they couldnt do if it didnt exist...

It would just be more boring. You would have three permanent weapons or a small selection that I guess you could upgrade, but then what do 90% of the chests end up containing? The whole cycle is that you break your weapons to find new ones that are better and then you end up breaking them in the quest to find even newer and better ones.

The entire gameplay loop falls apart without it because there's no immediate reward system in the game.

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Shonen_Bat posted...

having to stop what you're doing and switch

you just...push some buttons to switch.

Like in real time on the fly.

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I mean yes it would be more convenient if Link could do everything perfectly and nothing ever broke but that's part of what makes Breath of the Wild work

like pj said if you just make it more like a conventional video game it becomes more boring

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

I felt accomplished the first time I fought a guardian, because I had to build up a collection to beat it.

Nothing ever was as difficult as that again. And that was pretty early on in the playthrough.

The difficulty peak for me was my first Major Test of Strength, and yeah, I think that the first quarter of the game or so is the hardest. That's one of the reasons I loved Great Plateau so much - it presented constant challenges and I had to be careful - but I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed 100 hours of that same difficulty.

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HanOfTheNekos posted...

Skyrim and Banjo are bad comparisons to make to this game.

I also feel like people who don't like the weapon system used a lot of tree branches and rusty weapons and didnt properly collect enough good weapons.

I mean, by the time you max out your weapon inventory, you should have collected enough good weapons that you're not really running out of them without finding enough to replace them. The enemies that use up more weapon durability drop multiple weapons anyway.

I notice these mentions along with not wanting to fight enemies due to the "cost" of breaking weapons........... which would explain why they don't gain weapons because they're afraid of breaking their weapons on them

this is the mindset that the game wants you to break from, and once you do you realize you really don't have to worry about your weapons at all because of how incredibly easy it is to build them back up

*edit* Although it will certainly be more of a struggle until you build up at least a few inventory slots - which is fair *but* that also means it's more of a struggle in the introductory phase before you've even come to terms with the system yet which will be more annoying. Because when you have a fair amount of inventory slots your stockpile of good weapons becomes pretty overwhelming

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Paratroopa1 posted...

I'm okay with the core Zelda formula

Why do people who don't like Zelda feel the need to hold onto this idea so much?

If you prefer BOTW's non-dungeons over the regular Zelda dungeons, then you don't like the regular dungeons. If you think BOTW's is better for not having progression, then you don't like the regular item-gathering formula. It's really simple and there's nothing to be ashamed of. The vast majority of people agree with you.

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foolm0r0n posted...

If you prefer BOTW's non-dungeons over the regular Zelda dungeons, then you don't like the regular dungeons. If you think BOTW's is better for not having progression, then you don't like the regular item-gathering formula. It's really simple and there's nothing to be ashamed of. The vast majority of people agree with you.

it's not an either/or situation

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foolm0r0n posted...

Why do people who don't like Zelda feel the need to hold onto this idea so much?

If you prefer BOTW's non-dungeons over the regular Zelda dungeons, then you don't like the regular dungeons. If you think BOTW's is better for not having progression, then you don't like the regular item-gathering formula. It's really simple and there's nothing to be ashamed of. The vast majority of people agree with you.

dude, don't make me ignore you, I'm so tired of your schtick right now

I dunno, liking different things sounds impossible

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LeonhartFour posted...

it's not an either/or situation

It is

Unless you're saying that both designs can be put in the same game, which you're totally right and I am really optimistic that Nintendo will do it for the sequel.

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I know the internet has acclimated us to an age where it has to be one or the other and never both but it's okay to like two different styles even if they're very different

there's a real hot take

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For anyone who likes or wants to play more open-world games with an emphasis on exploring with tons unscripted, cool/bizarre/memorable encounters, try Far Cry 2 and 3.

Those are two of my favorite games, and when I had a topic about my 100 favorite moments in gaming, my #1 was something unscripted from Far Cry 2.

I'm not a big Zelda fan, especially their 3D offerings, but I am excited to begin this one as it seems to have a good shot at supplanting Majora's Mask as the best 3D Zelda.
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Maybe I'll try a Far Cry game sometime but it seems like the typical sort of gritty realistic shooter that I never really get into - a big part of the reason I like BotW so much is that it has a lot of warmth to it, it's a very relaxing and pleasant place to be even though it's a post-apocalyptic land swarming with monsters. It just kind of has a vibe to it that I can't recall seeing in another game like this - like I really gave Skyrim my best try but the game experience felt a little too dry for me

I prefer old school dungeons by far but also haven't liked the set piece direction they've been going in pre-BotW. So I prefer something different done well over same thing getting stale.

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I think I just played out the plot of Princess Mononoke on fast forward. I saw a giant random glowing blue pillar of light on a faraway mountain, so of course I dropped everything and ran towards it. Used three stamina regen foods to climb up through fucking rain, and I was not disappointed when I finally made it to the top. I'd found this beautiful spring filed with those glowing blue rabbits that drop rupees when you hit them, with their apparent leader in the center. It had this ethereal quality to it, like Xenoblade's Satorl Marsh at night. I had to stop for a bit to sit there and take in the splendor.

Then I snapped a pic of the Lord of the Mountain for my Compendium and started shooting bomb arrows in the middle of the herds to maximize damage effectiveness.

Paratroopa1 posted...

it's a very relaxing and pleasant place to be even though it's a post-apocalyptic land swarming with monsters.

I'm struggling to think of an open-ended game with a similar tone.

Waluigi1 posted...

Access to i.imgur.com was denied. :/

Oh oops

https://i.imgur.com/4csXOQ0.png

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LeonhartFour posted...

I know the internet has acclimated us to an age where it has to be one or the other and never both but it's okay to like two different styles even if they're very different

Sure, that's definitely how people are comparing BOTW with the other Zeldas

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I mean I don't care for the traditional Zelda formula which is part of the reason I like BOTW and MM so much

but I also ended up liking TP a lot anyway so whatever

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Well MM isn't fair since it did the traditional formula better than the others AND it did open world better than BOTW

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BotW is a much better game than MM.

MM is a bad game.

foolm0r0n posted...

Sure, that's definitely how people are comparing BOTW with the other Zeldas

Isn't it though? Are we reading different topics here?

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I'm also on the MM > BotW train, though I should say the two of them make up my top 2 Zelda games, lol. Funny enough considering how old it is, I'd still hold up MM and the quests stemming from Clock Town in particular as one of the best examples of "open world" in video games.

BotW NPCs have schedules just like Clock Town's characters do but the game does absolutely nothing with it - can you imagine if the towns in BotW were as deep and vibrant as Clock Town was? Holy bajesus that would be an incredible game.

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