BlueMoonP
Experienced
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
- Messages
- 133
- Reaction score
- 263
My proposal is to give armour, swords, bows, fishing rods etc etc spawned in chests a random durability. Right now every item starts at full durability.
The idea is that every item (or at least every item that can break) will spawn with lowered durability. My proposal would be to use a positively skewed distribution, meaning that on average, most items will have a durability below 50%, but items with a durability of, say, less than 10% don't really occur.
This is what the loot from a couple of chests could look like with this system:
Now you're probably asking "why the hell would we do that?" There's a couple of good reasons:
It creates an incentive to keep items rather than to burn them or throw them away. In the current game, if you get an iron chestplate and a chain chestplate you are obviously going to throw the second one away, burn it, put it in a remote chest, you name it. With my proposed system however, there's a good chance that the iron chest will have a very low durability, say, 15 hits left. Now that changes things - a couple of arrows and fishing rod hits, and your armour is gone. It might be a good idea to keep that chain chestplate as a backup, maybe even dedicate a hotbar-spot to it so you can quickly right-click it on.
It basically functions as an item-sink - right now people throw away a lot of good gear simply because they're already in full iron, and that set will last them the entire match. If the gear has reduced durability however, the player should actively search for new armour parts, iron parts to combine with his current armour, and chain/gold parts to have backup armour.
The same goes for weaponry: if your sword, rod or bow breaks during a fight you are in quite some trouble - it's not a bad idea to keep a backup weapon/utility.
Obviously all this backup armour, weaponry and tools will take inventory space, which will motivate people to put more thought in their inventory management. Right now my hotbar has all the weaponry and food I need, and my inventory itself is filled with the odd random crafting material and some food. If it's filled with armour, swords, and other gear to use if my current breaks, it will be a lot more important to arrange everything in such a way that I can quickly find what I need. Inventory management will become a useful skill instead of an OCD-trait.
It will also motivate people to craft their own gear. I wouldn't mind seeing more iron/gold ingots and leather spawn in chests if the durability of items is reduced. Collecting 8 iron ingots for a chestplate will be quite the hassle but it will definitely be worth it - the chances of your chestplate breaking near the end of the game are slim.
To summarize: Giving spawned armour, tools and weaponry a random, reduced durability is a good idea because it makes gameplay more complex, specifically:
The idea is that every item (or at least every item that can break) will spawn with lowered durability. My proposal would be to use a positively skewed distribution, meaning that on average, most items will have a durability below 50%, but items with a durability of, say, less than 10% don't really occur.
This is what the loot from a couple of chests could look like with this system:
Now you're probably asking "why the hell would we do that?" There's a couple of good reasons:
It creates an incentive to keep items rather than to burn them or throw them away. In the current game, if you get an iron chestplate and a chain chestplate you are obviously going to throw the second one away, burn it, put it in a remote chest, you name it. With my proposed system however, there's a good chance that the iron chest will have a very low durability, say, 15 hits left. Now that changes things - a couple of arrows and fishing rod hits, and your armour is gone. It might be a good idea to keep that chain chestplate as a backup, maybe even dedicate a hotbar-spot to it so you can quickly right-click it on.
It basically functions as an item-sink - right now people throw away a lot of good gear simply because they're already in full iron, and that set will last them the entire match. If the gear has reduced durability however, the player should actively search for new armour parts, iron parts to combine with his current armour, and chain/gold parts to have backup armour.
The same goes for weaponry: if your sword, rod or bow breaks during a fight you are in quite some trouble - it's not a bad idea to keep a backup weapon/utility.
Obviously all this backup armour, weaponry and tools will take inventory space, which will motivate people to put more thought in their inventory management. Right now my hotbar has all the weaponry and food I need, and my inventory itself is filled with the odd random crafting material and some food. If it's filled with armour, swords, and other gear to use if my current breaks, it will be a lot more important to arrange everything in such a way that I can quickly find what I need. Inventory management will become a useful skill instead of an OCD-trait.
It will also motivate people to craft their own gear. I wouldn't mind seeing more iron/gold ingots and leather spawn in chests if the durability of items is reduced. Collecting 8 iron ingots for a chestplate will be quite the hassle but it will definitely be worth it - the chances of your chestplate breaking near the end of the game are slim.
To summarize: Giving spawned armour, tools and weaponry a random, reduced durability is a good idea because it makes gameplay more complex, specifically:
- It gives players an incentive to keep and actively look for spare armour pieces to use as backup;
- It encourages players to keep track of weapon/armour durability before, during and after fights, adding a new factor to pvp;
- It rewards good inventory management, adding an extra level of skill to the game;
- It encourages good hotbar management - are you going to spend that last spot in your hotbar on an extra flint and steel or on a spare helmet?
- It will function as an item-sink for the large amounts of gear in the game after refill;
- It will encourage players to craft their own, high-durability armour rather than gathering everything from chests.
