That would totally work for me. We've talked about how to improve smithing before (not tying your ability to craft to just your perks and all that), and I think this would make the perks more worthwhile. Selecting Smithing Perks would allow you to increase damage and slow down the rate of decline for your weapons.

Even though it's pointless, I still stop at grindstones and work benches every time I'm in town. I just enter the menu and let the animation go for a bit, so it feels like I was maintaing my weapons and armor. Stupid and pointless, but I still do it.

I think I might go revitalize that thread I made about a new Smithing Perk Tree and stick these ideas in theire, if you'd like to continue discussing.

It should be like Morrowind's system. The charges naturally regenerate, but soul gems can speed up the process

I much prefer that method.

I'm going to fully endorse this post, and let it go at that.

I would have preferred some degradation system. Because as noted in many other places the choice of weapons and armor have become largely cosmetic decisions.

But have weapon 'health' could help distinguish between light and heavy armor, or two-handed weapons and daggers.

Tbh, I will guess they removed it due to memory issues. If you are battling bloated leaky code as they clearly do, then having to track a few extra parameters per character could have been the deciding factor.

this is one of the features i miss from previous TES. i really liked how equipment repair worked in daggerfall. it was very immersive and made you think of your next step or what you were going to do. do i take a guild job to make some money to fix my equipment? or do i fix my equipment and try to get by on some of the stuff i got stashed. in skyrim you have workbenches,sharpening wheel, forges etc but once you make all your iron daggers and get daedra armor their is no point to them, they are just there.

I dont miss degradation.

You could have forced players to find an anvil or a grind stone in order to repair a weapon. Not to mention that all the stuff left around by enemies could have been much more useful.

It wasn't as useless as you make it sound. Now people craft hundreds of useless iron daggers to increase the smithing skill.

I think this is a mistake.

They could always reduce the rate of degradation of items, cap it to as low as 50% (never broken), create many "repair spots" in the world which allows you to repair things without repair hammers (like the numerous crafting stuff out in the open) but at a lower efficiency, or do whatever they did in Fallout. Despite introducing gun condition degradation, it didn't stop Fallout from being fun.

Introducing degradation would also be an alternative and intuitive way to increase your smithing skill, by repairing your gear.

I'm down with that. We're already getting out of the scope of the topic in this thread.

Weapon degradation added another level of game play - in that your fully repaired sword would do more damage than one close to breaking point. So if you're dungeon diving and run out of repair hammers you run the risk of having to fight bare handed. It adds tension, atmosphere, preparation and planning - complexity. It should have just been improved rather than scrapped - something like M&B where shields actually break apart if they're bashed enough.

If was removed purely for some perceived 'tedium' factor then why is the far more irritating soul gem ammo mechanic retained?

Degradation mechanics are a joke if you ask me, look at the New vegas repair system.

You have a sword but cannot sharpen it on a wetstone (yes you can find those), you can however take a similar weapon and slam both of them together and youre original weapon is repaired.

its the bethesda mentality "if it needs improvment, toss it to the curb and start lookin' for a more busted way to replace it"

edit: and also people thought oblivion was an action game so they cried about something that got in the way of the action (there is supposed to be things that are tedius in an RPG you know... all smooth sailing is not anything near realistic so there has to be soemthing annoying now and then), thats what brought beth's mentality down on degredation

The usual answer: if it's broke don't fix it, get rid of it completely. Skyrim took that to new levels with mixed results. Skyrim really is far less repetitive than it's predecessors - good. Skyrim is much more shallow than it's predecessors - bad.

My $02 on how to implement degradation:
No breaking repair hammers, just a single kit that doesn't break.
Weapons degrade per Oblivion.
Players are able to repair with the kit but not fully.
To completely repair a weapon it has to be taken to a smith or repaired by the player at a smithy.

Now you have degradation, the need to repair, the ability to improve, but no bag of hammers. Such a system would still produce hordes of folks who think it "boring", which is why TES games are so desperately in need of a hard core system aka Fallout NV. Turn it on if you like it, leave it off if you don't.

I just want to see cosmetic damages and possibly a defense decrease, (like if arrows actually left marks)

My guess is because weapon and armor repair is considered a pointless, repetitive task that nobody wants to do all the time.

By the same token, I think that healing is a pointless and repetitive task as well. After all, if my health is running low, I'm just going to pause the game and pop healing potions anyway. If I happen to die, I'm just going to reload anyway. Healing is an annoyance. As such, I propose that the health bar be eliminated in the next TES game.

I don't think Todd Howard designed the game either. Bruce Nesmith is the Lead Designer. Project "Director", is more like the team choreographer. Keeps everyone moving forward more so than dictate specific featuresets.


You obviously know nothing about firearm maintenance. Yes, it doesn't transition logically to melee weapons (Except maybe power fists), but you can't just "Hammer" out a new receiver or bolt for a gun.

Yeah, the repair mechanic in fallout 3/NV made sense for guns (scavanging spare parts ect.) but doesn't realy work for melee weapons....

Still. With all the new crafting/smithing set peices repair work could have been interesting and a good part of the game. The whole upgrade mechanic could have been combined with 'repair' with your equipment slowly falling into 'worn' level of quality requireing you to re-upgrade after time.

Having said that, I do agree the rate of degredation in previous games was a little over the top. A sword shouldn't break after clearing one dungeon (unless you got hit with a ton of disintergrate weapon spells =P )
A freshly made weapon in good condition should last about a week of adventuring (less if your getting into heavy combat alot) depending on materials and weapon type of course.


Also, I would like to see armor repair and rating work a little different. So that armor blocks all damage at full health, and will rapidly degrade protection as it gets damaged.

Mmm, not quite. First off, as long as you have sufficient charge, the weapon works 100% as well as when it's fully charged. You can wait a lot longer than a single battle to worry about charges. As equipment degrades in Oblivion, it loses a proportional amount of effectiveness. So I get this urge to repair it after every blow, let alone every battle. That's not fun at all. Second, getting charges for an additional effect makes more sense to me, and it's a lot less tedious. It certainly encourages some questing. Er, what MB am I in? OK, no open spoilers here. This quest:


After that, switch to a weapon with soul trap as needed. Capture one and recharge. It figures directly into the gameplay, as opposed to being nothing but a chore.

Then again, you may disagree, and tell me they're both still about the same thing. Fine. It's a judgment call, one Bethesda call that I happen to agree with, for once.