More About Breakable Weapons

[wonder's boy]

Apparently from some source I heard, can't remember where, maybe even in the above link...but yes, once he's with no weapons, Murphy can start punching. Granted, I do remember reading or hearing that his punches won't do too much damage.

Now that I think of it, I believe it was in the recently released 8-min gameplay video with the commentary that I heard of this.

[phantomess]

I'm not usually a big fan of limited inventory OR breakable weapons, but I can deal with it. Neither of these will make or break the game for me.

Limited inventory particularly bothers me when you can't choose to discard items to pick up something new, or when a mandatory item (like a key or something) takes up the same slots that are for health and ammo supplies.
Breakable weapons are just irksome- I'd prefer non-breakable ones that you have to discard to pick up new ones. It's good news that it will be different than Origins' system, though.

I just realized how late I am to this topic.

[Doctor Eggnog]

I didn't mind limited inventory in SH4. Ten slots felt like enough and you didn't usually need too much ammo at one time so I didn't mind that ammo didn't stack. Didn't bother me like Resident Evil.

The breakable weapons in Origins bugged me, but I've gotten used to it, and I liked that there were multiple types of weapons that did different combos. I just wish they'd gone with one weapon of each type that didn't break, like the old games. I'd use the Meat Hook a lot!

So I don't think it'd make or break the game for me either. When it comes to the gameplay, I care more about whether the map focused exploration will be back. That's the GOOD part of Silent Hill gameplay.

[thy_butcher]

Hopefully I can find a broom or something to use. I would find that hilarious.
Or have Murphy pick up that old mysterious wheelchair and put it to use!

[Doctor Eggnog]

Riding in a wheelchair would make Murphy do less damage...

UNLESS IT'S ROCKET POWERED!!!

Imagine going down stairs!

[Harrys_Girl]

Fuck the stairs! Stick some wings on the sides of it and fly over the entire city.


I hate breakable weapons, but it doesn't break a game for me. What breaks the game is when the weapons become useless after 3 hits and you have to carry around the crumpled mass. It would make more sense to keep using them until they become dust and/or easily discard them.

[wonder's boy]

^ This is why I'm glad to see that in Downpour, a chair can break and you can still use a leg or other part of it as a weapon, where in Origins I believe things just suddenly "broke" and fell out of Travis' hands.

Hopefully the developers have tweaked this aspect some more to get it to be realistic and smooth in the way a lot of us are hoping it to be, so that it's a successful and utilized gameplay element versus a hassle.

[jeremyjh]

I am kinda late on this topic but the main thing I like about this post is that guns can be used as a melee weapon. I think I heard somewhere that you can only hold one weapon at a time. So this provides an escape route if you do not want to waste ammo. This also provides more strategy for defeating enemy's. I give a thumbs up to Konami.

I also like how the game is being combined of what we liked from the old games but flawed fixed at makes me feel like they are actually listening to our opinion. (Example: More realistic breakable weapons=SHO and Running away from ghost and kncoking stuff down for stopping ghost= SHSM)

[clips]

I'm not a fan of the breakable weapons aspect, because i've never seen a system where it's balanced....a crowbar or an aluminum bat should never break...and the latest combat video at least has revealed to me that the combat at the very least needs some work.

I can roll with maybe a wooden plank breaking and chairs, but armed weapons like a pistol or shotgun shouldn't really be breaking...i mean if they balance the combat a bit to compensate with the breakable weapons aspect, it might work out, but i've never seen a true balanced breakable weapon system.

Which is why i feel it's mostly an annoying gaming mechanic and only serves to make the game more annoying and difficult...i also don't feel that characters need to be holding a gazillion items either, but have him at least have up to 4 weapons (2 firearms and 2melee weapons that don't break) and maybe they can have the character find a back pack or a jacket that adds extra room for the items if they're going for realism.

Limited items can work only if the items you find will be used within the immediate area,..if not you're going to have drop items you don't want to or backtrack (that is if the game is going to have some type of chest or store system) which i don't think it'll have...so the limited item aspect might prove to be another headache...my point is that SH is about the creepy atmosphere and storylines and we shouldn't have to worry about micro-managing items and weapons...

[Yuki]

I'm not a fan of the breakable weapons aspect, because i've never seen a system where it's balanced....a crowbar or an aluminum bat should never break...and the latest combat video at least has revealed to me that the combat at the very least needs some work.

I believe they've said that the crowbar will bend, not break. Also, keep in mind that you'll be fighting supernatural abominations; the rules of "crowbars are extremely sturdy" may not apply.

[stopped_clock]

^Furthermore, if you have a realistic breakable weapons system then you might as well not have one. Realistically it would be the better weapons that don't break, whilst only the flimsy ones do, so once you had one of the unbreakable crowbars you probably wouldn't ever use anything else, thus completely negating the idea of having breakable weapons at all.

[alone in the town]

Honestly, a bendable crowbar?

I can accept that some mutant mindfuck monster is durable enough to deflect such a blow, but it's close to impossible for a person to bend half an inch of solid steel by hitting something with it. You'd break your arms even trying.

Breakable weapons is dumb, but bendable crowbars is extra dumb.

[pink_isnt_well000]

But..a bendable crowbar then becomes a hook? So new weapon...? Yeah, stupid.

[wonder's boy]

I can see Chris from RE5 being able to bend a crowbar somehow with his mutant muscles, but I can't see Murphy even coming close to doing this. Unless, say, the crowbar was some piece of crap tool made out of something besides steel or titanium or something, but that'd be quite a stretch. This might even have to be the case for me to believe the Chris scenario.

Bendable/breakable crowbars = goofy. Being able to break chairs over monsters' heads = awesome.

[Aspiring_Failure]

I think breakable weapons in the way Downpour does it looks fun, personally. Just trying to get whatever I can to smash the monsters, running around for the broken pieces, etc etc etc seems exciting, if the enemies are enough of a threat.

I wonder how much ammo he can carry?

[jeremyjh]

I think breakable weapons in the way Downpour does it looks fun, personally. Just trying to get whatever I can to smash the monsters, running around for the broken pieces, etc etc etc seems exciting, if the enemies are enough of a threat.

I wonder how much ammo he can carry?

I would hope they would balance that through difficulty level but if they don't I hope that he can't carry a lot of ammo maybe something like enough to kill 2 or 3 enemy's it would not be as scary if you had ammo through out almost all the game.

[AdjectiveRyan]

l'm kind of hoping that like shO, there are unlockable unbreakable weapons for additional play throughs. but, it wouldn't make sense based on how l've heard the system is set up. an ammo multiplier maybe? whatever gun you have you get ample ammo for until it jams? kurr-DOOSCH!

[Tabris]

I like the way they're doing the breakable weapons. Keeps it tense, keeps you looking out for new weapons.

Origins was pretty ridiculous. I kinda enjoyed it for what it was, but Travis' pockets were like Hermione's friggin bag.

The breakable aspect pretty much became pointless when you had half of Silent Hill in your inventory.

[Tillerman]

I like the concept of breakable weapons, but I'm not sure if it really makes sense for an open world game, which Downpour will supposedly be. When I think of an open world Silent Hill game, I think of a game where there will be various optional areas to explore, and you will be rewarded with extra health items / ammo / weapons. But how can you be rewarded like this when you can only hold 1 weapon at a time? I suppose it might still be possible to collect tons of health drinks, but then the game would have a pretty schizophrenic design.

What I'm saying is it doesn't really make sense from a design standpoint for an open world game to limit what you can carry. Breakable weapons make more sense for linear games where you need to press forward at all costs. Non-linear open world games shouldn't have breakable weapons and limited inventories, they should allow you to collect a whole ton of junk, because that's a big part of the fun of open world games.

But then again, maybe Downpour will be more linear than we've been led to believe. If that's the case, then I suppose this makes sense.

[clips]

Meh...i don't like the breakable weapons aspect, again if they're going for realism, a crowbar on a bad day shouldn't really be even bending. A chair or tree branch i can understand, but firearms and crowbars? They need to have at least one melee weapon and two firearms that Murphy can hold..

Maybe have murphy find a dead guard with a shotgun with a strap that the gaurd was using to hold it around his back and a small firearm...then maybe have him have at least one melee weapon (crowbar) and i get that you can use the firearms to melee as well, but for the sake of argument when i say melee weapons i mean...a 2x4 or an aluminum bat or something along those lines...