There's an APPA group in Skyrim.esm which contains five qualities of each of the following: Alembic, Calcinator, Retort (clearly alchemy); Tongs, Hammer, Bellows (clearly smithing); Grimoire, Censer, Talisman (probably enchanting). Don't know whether these can actually be used... they don't appear to have any model data, for starters.

I only see one unidentified data point in the ARMO record structure. Could be durability... could be something else. Didn't check WEAP.

There are several "Condition" GMSTs for armor, weapons... and guns. Obviously Fallout leftovers; whether the ones that might be relevant are still hooked up is anyone's guess.

What could be used, is keywords. Rather than a smooth numeric transition, it would be simplest to have a set of specific condition levels (e.g. undamaged, used, worn, damaged, useless) and a very small random chance of moving down one rank after a hit. The existing keywords include material types, so e.g. dwarven could be configured to take a lot more use than glass.


Incidentally, KhadirgroGhurkag: Phitt is right about what could and couldn't be done in Oblivion, and why. Inventories are implemented as a list of FormIDs with some extra data, including count: six longswords in your inventory are represented by only one longsword entry, and the number 6. Enchanted items are implemented by creating a completely new form, not as a modifier to the base. Furthermore, the "associative map" type you started the debate with doesn't even exist in OBSE. People have repeatedly asked for it, but it's not feasible because FormIDs outside of Oblivion.esm are load-order specific, whereas saved games are not.

Simple-ish fix - make workbench and grindstone "improvements" temporary. Needs a way to track # of hits / # of blows but probably can be done fairly easily.

I don't care much for this personally, though.

This is exactly the part that can't be easily done. But I agree that your idea is a good compromise.

ScriptEffects? But unfortunately would make enchantments not workable.

Technically speaking, Bethesda did intend there to be degrading. I remember some interview or something where someone from Bethesda said that the upgrades you can make at grindstones and work benches would be temporary. The improvements would wear off, the items would go back to their base stats, and you'd have to go back to the grindstone/work bench to improve them again. They wouldn't drop below the base stats, but IMO that's fine.

No one knows why they removed it, or even if they intended to remove it (for all we know, it could be a bug that prevents the items from losing their improvements).

They said there would be a while ago, but many things they mentioned didn't make it into the actual game. I'm sure it got cut for one reason or another. Or it could be broken, who knows. I doubt a major game mechanic like that would be broken though...

The fact that stuff used to deteriorate was implemented in a pointless way. Armorer hammers were incredibly trivial to buy so you could get your armorer back to 100% regardless of how terrible your Armorer skill is.

I mod Oblivion so that you can only use one hammer a day, thus making it actually possible to not keep your armor at 100%.

Then of course, the gold supply is retardedly huge so you have to mod that down as well or it'd be equally trivial to just pay an armorer to keep it at 100%.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, Bethesda has way bigger gameplay problems than deterioration.

Every time you take damage there is a small chance that a random piece of gear will degrade or be permanently destroyed!
Ultra hardcoe mode!

Extend this to anything in your inventory. Potions and alchemy materials can be destroyed when you take damage! LOL

Hearing all these people defending what was a poor design decision in my opinion reminds me of something.

Its a paraphrase of that old Jefferson saying:
Those who would sacrifice a little balance for a little immersion deserve neither and will receive none.

Put simply it constantly amazes me how often people willingly defend a decision to remove yet another feature instead of asking for it to be improved.

The item health (aka durability) statistic is an important part in the decision about which item or items to use. If damage/damage resistance is the only measure then people will only use the highest damaging weapon/armour. Statistics like weight and health allow the designer to balance out a weapon, by making powerful weapons heavier or with lower health. This means the player makes an evaluation about what to use - hence engages the brain and makes the game more interesting. It adds depth not complexity.

Now maybe the method in Oblivion of carrying around hammers wasn't good. If that is the case Bethesda could have changed it, thought of a new way of doing it (like they did for Fallout 3). But no, instead they just got rid of it - like they have done for dozens of other features already that never made a return.

And what do people do? Instead of posting on the forums asking for Bethesda to create an engaging system for managing item durability, they come on and congratulate them for removing the entire feature. You may not have liked how morrowind and oblivion managed repair - but that does not mean that the removal of item durability is a good thing. It has made the game less engaging and you should expect better.

Btw I agree with the original poster that it is most definitely broken and needs a fix - its like saying a car built without an engine isn't broken because the manufacturers made a conscious decision to remove the engine in the decision stage. Of course it is broken.

That car isn't broken. It's just built without an engine.

Or rather, it's built with an engine that never breaks down or runs out of gas. And you can beat on it every once in a while to make it go even faster.

I agree, with the new smithing system they could have limited repair to using forges ect. instead of the magical hammers.

Also, the thing that gets me is they say they removed item durability to get rid of the monotony of it, yet they KEEP the stupid 'have to recharge your enchantment every 5 seconds'
They even brought back the enchanting skill, they could have had a regenerating charge based on it, with the option of a quick recharge with soulgems.

Instead we have to scrounge around for soulgems all the time because you can't pay people to recharge enchanted weapons anymore either.


Anyways, I realy wish item durability was left in. I rebalanced the weapons in Oblivion having differeing levels of damage, weight, health ect based on the model appearance and the material type.
(Steel was lighter than Iron for example)

The redesign of armourer makes sense because it fits in with more modern game design. Rather than punishing people for not choosing something, you reward them for choosing something. Reward is inherently more enjoyable (woo, I smithed the damage up by 1!) vs (oh no the damage has gone down by 1, I need to smith it) and prevents issues with skills becoming mandatory or traps for new player. For example, playing a fighter and didn't take armourer? Well, you'll fairly rapidly discover you're screwed and either have to carry dozens of repair hammers to keep yourself going, thanks to your lower starting armourer and slower skill gain, or just reroll after a few hours of constant weapon breakage. You get skill synergies that way (smithing + 1handed = win), rather than dependencies.

It's not as if the degradation/upkeep itself is wrong, it just needs to be more positive. It would be interesting if the smithing boost degraded gradually for example, and that'd also serve the function of allowing you to level smithing more naturally- rather than needing to forge a hundred daggers, you just top up your damage bonus every time you return to town. Whilst that still has the degradation mechanic, it avoids punishing you for not taking it- you simply have to continually use it to gain its benefits.

I knew they had removed weapons degrading and breaking, but didn't realize until later that not even sharpening your blades or doing other improvements with the grindstone never wear off! I was thinking you'd have to use the grindstone whenever you got a chance to retain that damage buff...

I was disappoint

Yknow, I like to read the modding forum because for the most part you can get away from the pointless arguments you find on the general forum. Most of the time there's more respect for the diversity of opinions here.

Some people like item durability in games. Some people don't. TES isn't the only game series that's had it in some installments, and not in others. There are good arguments both for and against it, and the pendulum swings back and forth.

Nobody's wrong here... they just have different preferences. The whole point of mods is that everybody gets to play the game they prefer Assuming it's technically feasible of course, heh. That I won't venture an opinion on

I wouldn't like full on degradation back in, but I wouldn't specifically mind that previously mentioned 'Improved Equipment slowly goes back to normal and needs to be upgraded again' stuff.

yep same here

i would prefer full degredation

but if thats not possible them id be happy to tleast have to sharpen my weapon every once and a while!

I love there's no lugging around a dozen repair hammers myself. Working on stuff at the forges and not having my weapons and armor constantly falling apart is way more immersive and fun to me.

Hopefully a modder will fix this.

Well, a modder WILL fix this, we just have to wait

That's fine, but this is irrelevant to the post you quote. Echonite's post stated, correctly, that this feature is not "broken" and therefore it is not proper to say it needs to be "fixed." The word you want to use in this instance is changed.

To all who are using semantics to try and shoot down this idea, I ask "why bother?"

If you don't like an idea don't download the mod.

In terms of execution I like TTT's idea and would love to see that implemented.

So lugging around mined stone, ore, ignot, and many other types of material to forge weapons, armor and what not is easier?! Sounds a little backwards to me.

As i said before which seems my post was really never read, there are options , well in Oblivion there was to have someone else repair your stuff,
no one said you need to lug around anything, yet in this game we can, and in fact i am, lugging around maybe 15-20 types of mined metals.

Degradation happens, there's a smaller chance if fighting someone without armor then there is fighting someone with armor.

My sword wont get dull?, or stuff wont degrade?, well what are you hitting your weapons againsted?, what are you getting hit by, gigantic dragons,
many sorts of monsters, bandits, war hammers, magic, and all sorts of stuff, from all that beating constantly I can see armor degrading pretty fairly quick or in some sort of time from all the sorts of enemies
and consistent enemies in no time, having it degrade quick would be dum but being realistic I think it will degrade faster based on the type of creatures, and people you go against,
they may have weapons, magic or whatever, I could see leather armor tearing.

Don't tell me a dragon about the size of a house or bigger isn't that powerful enough to stick his claws and rip your precious non degrading armor right off of you.

This brings me to another point, the damage system don't seem realistic, its seems weak.

If you want to be realistic which i prefer for the limits of a game anyways, how many times
do I have to swing a sword at a guy who has no armor, or helmet on yet when i hit him the head with a sword hes not taken down, same for others when I hit a guy with armor on theres
ghosted distance from when you strike, its like your not actually hitting them.

Maybe with magic I can see that np, but swords, shouldn't there be a clang, same with a sword againsted a sword, a sword againsted a shield, sword againsted armor,
how about a sword againsted the hide, or spikes, of a horned creature.

it seems like the amount of force applied does not effect the actual amount of damage give for a weapon, be it a sword, arrow, 2 handed sword. The amount of force should
be applied realistically based on the weight, and velocity it would swing, so your either going to get cut down, knocked down, knocked back, pierced or something.

There is a bit of that already in the game, Im not saying there isn't, im just saying that it seems to take wayyyy to much to kill a guy, creature, all depends.
Of course thats another subject.

Im all for a mod.

I agree with this. I think it would be pretty cool if grindstone and workbench upgrades were temporary and wore of after so many weapon swings or armor hits and had to be re-done the next chance you got. Would make those grindstones and workbenches in dungeons more exciting as well.

Umm. I was agreeing there was nothing to fix and it worked as intended.. Your counterpost seems the more pointless to me. I agree though that "Broken" was the incorrect word in the first place. I actually submit most of thepeople on the board have NO CLUE what broken really means.


Thef fun thing about mods is we can both have what we want. I would not be opposed to some sort of really slow degredation that you needed to repair things at the different stations but never never want to go back to needing repair hammers in the field and ruined weapons and armor after 1-2 battles, I'm sure it will get modded back in for others,