IDEA: Declining Durability Rates for Weapons/Gear.

[EmD89]

What if weapons and armor had a declining durability rate?  Perhaps you get a few times to repair with a kit, but eventually you know it's on it's last life.  Then you're either forced to loot for another, or find the materials to make another (assuming you have the schematic.)  It'd really make you stop and think before making hasty decisions and force you to choose your gear wisely when you go out.  I think this would potentially solve some of the loot table issues, too.  Sure, I may find a lvl 4 Steel Sledge or Auto Shotgun on day 10, but how long will that last me? 

One of the issues I find myself in while playing is the eventual feeling of being over powered.  There just comes a point where you don't feel any challenge in the game, and that tends to happen relatively quickly.  I just went to day 20 on Warrior and had all the Level 5/6 weapons (SMG, Sniper, All Shotguns, All Rifles, Steel Sledge, etc) and full military armor, plus a freaking Gyrocopter (found all the schematics). By that point, there's little motivation to look/explore, IMO.  

Thoughts?

[Jarod_Silverstar]

I agree. There needs to be something to cause weapons and gear to wear out and be removed.

It used to be that you could wear items out but they removed it a couple versions ago.

[Dragonsblade71uk]

I think this was in the game at ome point and they removed it. 

I`m not a fan of it myself, but it might make the game more interesting for some. As an option maybe.

As an idea, maybe it could be set as degrading if you use repair kits, unless you repair it at a workstation. Would give workstations more use, and make things a bit more tactical. 

[RipClaw]

I think with the current parts system and the random stats, it would frustrate players when durability also decreases. The random stats were introduced to give the incentive to loot even in the late game. And already this system frustrates the players because you can find items with better stats but with a lower quality and therefore less modslots. 

 

That you will find an auto shotgun or a steel sledgehammer by day 10 is unlikely, unless you set the XP to 300%. The tier of what you find depends on the gamestage. I'm on day 42 with gamestage 115 and still find very few tier 3 items and those are of rather poor quality.

 

Anyway, I don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with looting. Looting is basically grinding. There's nothing creative behind it. Just running through POIs, killing zombies and opening one loot container after another. It is like a shooter where you do the same over and over again. I prefer to spend my time with building and testing new ideas for late game horde bases .

 

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Dragonsblade71uk said:

I think this was in the game at ome point and they removed it.

The difference was that back then you had 600 quality levels and not 6 and you could combine items and parts in the workbench to upgrade them. You made 5 quality 500 pickaxes and then combined them to a quality 600 pickaxe. After the pickaxe was a little bit worn out you just had to combine this pickaxe with a low level one to bring it back to full quality.

 

Besides you could still loot zombies. After a horde you had several crates full of loot. Everything was in abundance.