A case against durability

[Sy]

When I was researching my first long-term graphical game, I had a number of things in mind and one of which was the consequence of death.

I was recently made to think about durability, and have changed my position on it. I think it's terrible and must not be in em8er. I don't know if a decision has been made yet, but I want to make the case while it's on my mind because it's pretty significant to some underlying game philosophies and should be addressed early on.

Many games cite the need to have a resource sink. However, if it is gear then it punishes players who are unskilled (for now), do risky things or have a niche job which requires taking damage.

This sink means that taking combat damage is taking resource damage. You may as well replace shield numbers with their resource pool without the lie of repairs.

Durability makes hesitant players stay shy; hiding behind cover or running away instead of.. playing the game and having fun.

No durability (and easy revives) encourage risky and silly playing. This is something I found incredibly fun with Destiny.

There has been discussion of death being an eject where the pilot can run around, but I'm not convinced that's a good game to play. Dying and being able to be revived by an ally has been really fun for me.

Destiny requires the player interact with the corpse, but there is additional opportunity with em8er.

- A regular frame would act the same; doing whatever equivalent to pressing x to revive and not being able to shoot, use abilities, or move much.
- An engineer might drop a repair drone that would act on it's own but need to be defended for a longer period of time.
- Healers might just need to target with a healing ability, use it, and have the ability locked out while it's acting and for a cooldown after the rez.
- Without the aid, a timer would let the player resurrect at the nearest base. I'd also give them a movement buff based on how far away they died. Yes I'd let them cheese that and be maniacs murdering enemies near enough for it to be in effect, but maybe just give it a timer, or remove it when they next reload or use a non-movement ability.

In summary..

Durability is not fun, it is an excuse and one which negatively impacts gameplay.

 

[liandri]

It's definitely something to be considered for the final gameplay loop. How about:

- Positive durability / temporary gear improvements, and
- Negative durability on destroyed items only.

Say items do not have a visible durability value, but instead can be temporarily reinforced with a sum of resources depending on the item and its components. Say you have an armour piece that provides a base +10 armour. It will always provide this base value and it is assumed in the player's downtime (when the user is offline) that this is maintained. If you're about to go out to face a great foe or want a bit more of an edge, you can buff your armour up to gear tier-defined limit, costing you an exponentially higher amount of resources. This could allow you to even move up a tier or two depending on the available world tier. Something like:

Tier 1 Shoulder: 10 Armour -- Base value
Tier 1 Shoulder +1: 15 Armour -- Resource cost 100 Common 10 Rare
Tier 1 Shoulder +2: 20 Armour -- Resource cost 300 Common 30 Rare
Tier 1 Shoulder +3: 30 Armour -- Resource cost 700 Common 70 Rare (equivalent to Tier 2, available if World Tier is 2)

This would allow players, instead of grinding for resources for a noticeable upgrade to gear (weapons, jets, etc.), they can temporarily upgrade it, but it will degrade over time with use down to a lower level. Have it be affordable enough for players to do it as needed, but the encouragement to upgrade to the next tier is less "maintenance" cost and the ability to temporarily upgrade further. This would also make older gear more viable for players who don't have time to grind (since they won't be using the gear as much anyway).

For "destroyed" items, I don't know if the plan is to still have the pilots eject and call down a new frame, we'll have to wait and see what the plan is exactly (maybe it'll be a KS demo consideration?). Perhaps frames could go into a lockdown mode where, if you take too much damage and are essentially "dead", your frame locks up and a ping is sent out to nearby players to come and repair you? Or you have time to trigger a repair drone of your own if you can?
But being completely destroyed needs consequence, and since you'll want to avoid it, and as you're supposed to have multiple frames, a repair cost sounds reasonable so long as you can get back into the action quickly.

 

[Pandagnome]

Dying and being able to be revived by an ally has been really fun for me.

I really like reviving folks they may think they are about to respawn and suddenly taada Hero time revive.

This would allow players, instead of grinding for resources for a noticeable upgrade to gear (weapons, jets, etc.), they can temporarily upgrade it, but it will degrade over time with use down to a lower level. Have it be affordable enough for players to do it as needed, but the encouragement to upgrade to the next tier is less "maintenance" cost and the ability to temporarily upgrade further. This would also make older gear more viable for players who don't have time to grind (since they won't be using the gear as much anyway).

Perhaps frames could go into a lockdown mode where, if you take too much damage and are essentially "dead", your frame locks up and a ping is sent out to nearby players to come and repair you? Or you have time to trigger a repair drone of your own if you can?
But being completely destroyed needs consequence, and since you'll want to avoid it, and as you're supposed to have multiple frames, a repair cost sounds reasonable so long as you can get back into the action quickly.

 

[Ronyn]

These are the kinds of discussions I like to see on the forums. Nitty gritty game talk!

One quick note: The current plan in Em-8er is that any piece of gear that can be "destroyed" can be rather simply remade/replaced. Once you've done what it takes to initially craft a piece of gear, re making it is much less taxing, and does not require the same hard-to-get resources.
This is ensure that it is nothing like the old permabreak durability system of firefall v6.

 

[PartTimeJedi]

These are the kinds of discussions I like to see on the forums. Nitty gritty game talk!

One quick note: The current plan in Em-8er is that any piece of gear that can be "destroyed" can be rather simply remade/replaced. Once you've done what it takes to initially craft a piece of gear, re making it is much less taxing, and does not require the same hard-to-get resources.
This is ensure that it is nothing like the old permabreak durability system of firefall v6.

THANK THE HEAVENS!
*the old FF permabreak durability system contributed to my hair falling out**

 

[Sy]

A temporary buff is interesting and more; it reveals a new meta layer.

What if a player could craft armor-type items and one of the "attributes" could be reserved for efficacy (cost to repair) or efficiency of temporary buffs?

The min-max players would do the classic grind or trade for resources and spend them like this on their gear just like they would grind to buy flasks in other games. This would drive a part of an economy, some player interaction and be an optional resource sink. This way players could opt out during regular gameplay then buff up when they want to "get serious".

I think, however, there needs to be a field option for this. I wouldn't want a player to come across a patrol and worry so much about engaging it that they regret not buffing and have to withdraw to go to a base to buff. I still like that constraint though, so perhaps a craftable (maybe consumable?) item could do that. Personally I'd restrict that to engineer-type characters because everyone should love the engineers. Or else.