Is Weapon-durability outdated? At least for iron weapons?

[Snowy_One]

I've been playing some Awakening and noticed today that Chrom's blade is, effectively, indestructible. The weapons never seemed outright overpowered though, so this got me thinking 'is weapon durability, at least for basic weapons, outdated'? Think about it. Let's say we just removed weapon durability for all E-ranked weapons. E-ranked weapons were already pretty durable with 35-40 uses on average and they were dirt-cheap to the point of replacing them being super-easy. One could, potentially, buy up all the iron weapons they'll ever need on their first visit to the shop. They're fairly weak in stats too, lacking power and pretty much just there to serve as weapons until you can get to the 'real' weapons in steel. So making them indestructible seems like it would be a good move. It wouldn't really affect anything and it would make it near-impossible (not that it already is) to make the game accidentally 'unwinnable' because you spent your gold and sold/broke all your weapons by removing the 'broke' part.

So is it outdated for iron weapons? Or does having the durability REALLY matter that much for iron?

[Emeraldfox]

Well, Chrom's blade was indestructable because it was special, and plot relevant. Same for the Ragnell in the Tellius games(the others were just special). I prefer unlimited durability on divine/special weapons anyway, but that's another story. Why not expand the infinite use to Bronze weapons as well? Like, they're E rank(but that makes Iron D rank HE HE HE) and give Steels, Iron's durability and give Silver Steel's durability. Braves and Killers can keep the durability they have because why not.

[BlueFire]

does having the durability REALLY matter that much for iron?

No it doesn't really matter if they have durability on bronze or iron weapons.

[Phoenix Wright]

Bronze weapons are inconsequentially priced, as are irons. I'm okay with them being infinite.

If the series is going to start to pit me against dozens of enemies chapter after chapter after chapter, the weapon uses should go up, at least by a little bit. Steel weapons should have 50 uses, Silver 40, Brave 36. All special weapons should go up by 5 uses.

If post-game exists, we should be able to buy Hammernes so that our divine weapons aren't broken forever.

[Lord Glenn]

My response is going to harken back to 2006, so bear with me.

Way back on FESS, our own wonderful and loveable webmaster, VincentASM, was running a map-and-stat-based RP titled 'Miracle of the Sky Dagger'. In it, weapons were relatively scarce, and I honestly don't remember shops ever even showing up - most of the gear was characters' default equipment, dropped from enemies, obtained from chests, or gained via event. In a way, it was kinda FE4-like when it came to item distribution.

Unlike FE4 though, I don't recall weapon repair being feasible; to compensate, however, 99% of the E and D rank weapons had infinite uses (the only exception being the RP's version of the Wo Dao/Shamshir). Anything C and above (with exception to some personal weapons) had uses and also weren't given out in droves either, meaning that players had to ration out the usage of the stronger weapons that each player had divvied out to them. (So, if the group had a Fire Mage and a regular Mage and you got the B rank Fire spell, Arrow, via a drop, they'd have to determine who out of the two of them got to add it to their inventory. I totally don't have the RP's files saved to my computer. Nope, not at all.)

If we were to apply this type of system to a modern Fire Emblem title that did feature shops and less scarce means of upgrading, I think it would be fine to give E and D rank weapons infinite uses (maybe less so for D rank spells unless Intelligent Systems decides to flush them out more and beef up their numbers to be more like the lists of physical weapons - in an environment where higher tier weapons are much harder to find though, infinite D rank spells is fine) so long as C rank and above weapons increase a jump in costs.

Alternatively, you could have Bronze and Iron weapons still have durability, but have them be automatically repaired between chapters - that way it would discourage the player from sending one unit with an infinite weapon from killing everyone on the map with no repurcussions. (That is, if you have them have only a Bronze Sword and use up the entirety of its, say, 60 uses, then they'd be out of luck until the next chapter unless you traded them something from another unit.)

Edited August 23, 2013 by Lord Glenn

[Snowy_One]

If a person is sending one unit to kill everything on a map, the problem isn't his bronze (which I forget exists at times) and iron weapons, it's with the unit itself.

[Refa]

Having infinite use Iron weapons is disingenuous. What, so they can make my crummy weapons last forever, but when I want a REAL weapon with that kind of durability, I'm shit out of luck?

[Snowy_One]

Well, the point is they're already so cheap and durable that replacing them doesn't do much anyways and it helps prevent the, admittedly hyper-small, chance of someone selling all their weapons and then breaking all their current ones and not having the G to buy new ones.

[deleted35362]

there should be an fe that handled weapons like FE2 imo. they always had a weapon to fight with, and could equip a stronger weapon. mages learned magic instead of buying it. it's not like if they have this system they have to make every game after it do the same thing.

[Jotari]

I think it'd be better for them to have extremely high durability. I mean why should they have infinite use? That's something that puts them on par with the legendary weapons of heroes when they're not. They're just ordinary swords. As it's been stated the price isn't really an issue so making them infinite doesn't actually change much of the game. Instead it just leads to a certain amount of confusion.