(Edit: This has been patched out as of 1.2.1. As of 2 Feb, Techland issued a statement saying that the patching out of this and similar mods was an unintended side effect and will be restoring this functionality as soon as they can.)

One of the things that really bummed me out about Dying Light was that there seemed to be no way to keep a weapon I liked for very long. Weapons could only be repaired a few times and then they were broken forever - I found this was making me have less fun with the game, so, I fixed it. I know there are a couple of skills that make melee weapons decay at a slower rate and make repairs have a chance to not consume repair cycles, but I didn't want to have to constantly worry about not fighting zombies just in order to save my weapons in case I may need them later. There may even be something in the game later on that allows one to keep weapons indefinitely, but I still haven't found it.

Here's how you do it:

• Extract SteamApps\common\Dying Light\DW\Data0.pak with 7zip or WinRAR to your desktop.
• Go to your desktop and find \data\skills\default_levels.xml and open it with a plain text editor.
• Once default_levels.xml is open, search for the word durability and you'll see two variables: BluntWpnDurabilityLoss and CutWpnDurabilityLoss. Change these values to 0 and save the file, now exit your text editor.
• Copy and paste the modified default_levels.xml file to \Documents\DyingLight\out\data\skills - you may have to create these directories manually.
• Start game and enjoy weapons that never decay or need repair!

There is a whole lot more you can change just in that one file, but I suggest doing one thing at a time and of course not modifying your original files just in case you mess something up and want to go back. If you don't like the idea of weapons that never lose durability no matter what, you can set the variables to something like 0.5 or 0.2 which will significantly slow down the rate of decay, but not make your weapons last forever. Play around with some of the other variables here, I especially like setting BluntCritSevereLimbProb to 1.0 :D

@mb: Sounds awesome! Weapon decay's almost never fun, so thanks for this!

Now if I can only get the game to run at more than 15-20 fps on my R9 280x, that'd be just greaaaat....

@sharkethic: What kind of processor you rocking? I've got an old ass i7 920 with a 280x and I've managed to get a mostly solid 30 frames (locked through RivaTuner), while still looking good. Try these settings out:

Vsync off, texture quality high, shadow map size medium, foliage quality high, view distance at minimum, ambient occlusion on, HBAO+ on, depth of field off, motion blur off, antialiasing on, field of view default.

@doctordonkey: AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core, so it would seem maybe the game just hates my CPU (or any AMD CPU?):

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-920-vs-AMD-FX-8120

I've tried everything. Turning everything off/dropping everything down as low as it'll go, makes no noticeable difference what so ever. I've even modded the game to remove the grain, which some people suggested would improve performance - nothing. I usually run everything on very-high/ultra no problem, so I'm calling poor optimization on this one, and will wait for a patch or something...

@sharkethic: There is a benchmark list somewhere in the PC performance thread that shows AMD CPUs performing like absolute garbage on this game, so that's probably it. Crazy, the 920 is 3-4 years older than the FX-8120, they have a lot of work to do to optimize this thing.

Yup, it's pretty ridiculous. I think I'm going Intel/Nvidia next time around...

For the console fellows, my suggestion is to buy/find high end weapons for your level (oranges get 5 fixes), mod them with the "extensions" I believe and use them. My theory is that instead of futzing with lower level/quality weapons, find the best thing you can and mod it as much as you can and use it till its gone. A few levels later, find the newest best thing you can and repeat. It's not foolproof, but it seems like the best way I can find to play and manage decay rates.

Why do games like this insist on doing weapon decay when almost nobody likes it?

It also makes no sense to have a knife explode after killing a couple of zombies with it.

I actually like weapon decay in this game since I'm more inclined to avoid combat or rather find a way to engage without having to use the weapons a lot or to use them efficiently (e.g. targeting the head) or to take advantage of the environment (e.g. kicking zombies into the spikes or kicking gas canisters into a mob).

Adapting towards a certain play style is something I would do when it comes to certain imposed restrictions that exist in a game.

Nonetheless, that text edit mod is still pretty neat to fuck around within the game so thanks for sharing, MB.

I don't see a problem with weapon decay, especially when you get later in the game with the combo of skills that mitigate the complete loss of a weapon and "higher tier" weapons that are more durable (including the mods that further increase the durability) with more "repairs" I've had 2-3 weapon particaluar weapons that have lasted me hours.

They should patch in the ability to "revive" a weapon for a substantial fee at the Tower.

No weapon durability breaks the game, if you don't believe it does, hope on Co-Op session of Dead island with others users using hacked items that don't break the game becomes trivially easy.

Bottom line: If you are going to cheat, consider not going into co-op with those who don't mind the games design as is.

The game isn't optimized so great so for some reason it maxes the hell out of one of your cores which is why AMD CPU's are getting hammered hard while Intel ones are faring better.

I'll try out this mod but I'm just going to slow down the rate of decay.

Also, lower level weapons can be de-constructed and used to repair other weapons. Super useful once I spotted that tip.

They claim to have patched out the ability to cheat via editing files, as well as the item duplication. A friend said it was no longer working for them. The film grain fix still works though.

@mb

Fixing games for the people!

CPU boss is bad for comparisons. Intel CPUs are consistent, AMD can be all over the place - they aren't as efficient. (though Dying Light is definitely a worst case scenario)

Definitely go for Intel on the CPU side, AMD have unfortunately not been able to recapture the glory of the AMD 64 days. They've been getting slayed by Intel in the mid-high end space since Core2Duos came out. :/

@finaldasa: I've been deconstructing low level weapons into parts instead of leaving them in the field when I'm low on inventory space. Very useful feature especially since you can get Metal Parts out of it.

CHEATERS!!! But ya, I'm playing on console and it gets annoying. It seems rather pointless except I guess to prevent you from being completely overpowered all the time... when you pick up that huge hammer near the beginning you can rip people's faces off with it in one swing. The game is probably easy if you can just use that all the time.

Yah man, this looks like straight up cheating, dunno how I feel about that. Unless you're into that sort of thing.

@mb: For sure. Honestly I haven't had too much of a weapon breaking problem. The quartermaster usually has fresh supplies a lot and I'm always finding something at least close to what I already have. And there is always a mod or 2 I can make to boost certain weapons.

Oh ya, and not to mention that hammer is not repairable...I think? I couldn't repair it once it broke anyhow. So if you are able to make it never break... that's kind of game breaking. But if that doesn't detour the game's experience for you then more power to you.

Ehh, I only see a problem with it if you're bringing in those kinds of weapons into coop games, but it doesn't matter so much any more because the performance fix patch that was just released on PC also removes those kinds of gameplay tweaks

lol

I find after being maybe 8 hours in, it becomes less of an issue. You can farm good weapons (greens) from random bandits and often find blue/oranges in vans that are "Very Hard" to unlock. Plus the skill that randomly doesn't use a repair when you have to repair seems to hit 33%+ of the time. Find 3 or 4 weapons you like that work well and you're hard pressed to run out until you find the next good 3 or 4. Balance totally acceptable.

@mb: Hi, yes, tech support? I wrote everything you said on my PS4's hard drive but it's still not working. Does it need to be in pen? Maybe crayon? Please respond. Also, how do I get the AOL to work on here? Does AOL have this game?

Direct those concerns to @zombiepie

First, get on your PS4 web browser and go to this site. Follow the instructions and get back to me.

Man, you just made this game way more interesting for me. Thanks

@abendlaender: So does it still work because according to the recent patch you shouldn't be able to do that anymore

bummer of a system. needs a nice weapon dupe glitch like dead island.

so is it a design decision to encourage you to run away more and fight less?

edit: oh, a quick search and yeah it's got the same glitch as dead island. imagine that.

@mb: Ive been trying for about 2 hours to get this thing working. i dont know what you mean by find \data\skills\default_levels.xml on my desktop. its in the text editor, which means i cant open it, i can only look at it in awe. im using winRAR and notepad ++. dont know if theyre the right things to use. HELP PLEASE

You jerks, AOL is a completely acceptable e-mail provider.

If you patched your game they took the ability to edit these files out today.

If you didn't patch it...I don't know man, read the instructions and go step by step, I thought they were pretty clear. Otherwise we're talking about some absolute basics of modding and I'm not sure I can help you any further.

@mb: im basically new to file modding anyway. ive only ever done it on games that support it. i was just so fed up with the weapon decay. thanks for the help anyway :)

Nice! I had started playing on PS4 but I might have to switch over to PC...

its patched. sorry dude

Unless he still has the game downloaded in his Steam library. Then just Properties - Do Not Automatically Update This Game.

Seems strange that the developer would fight mods like this, rumor has it a mod that removes film grain was taken down due to a DMCA claim.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2uaqvs/dying_light_is_filing_dmca_claims_on_mods_and/

I can understand them not wanting people to play online with modded stuff, but this is quite an extreme measure.

Would it be that hard to simply disable online if the game detects you using files that differ from the originals? Or just not let you connect to people with differing files, like pretty much every game with online does.

If you're worried about weapon durability though, don't be. I don't think I've used up all repairs on a single weapon yet because you constantly find new (and better) ones, and I'm almost done with the game. It also quickly gets to the point where every weapon you find will one-shot zombies, making durability even less of a problem.

There are conflicting reports out there that this method still works under 1.2.1. Can anyone running this version confirm?

What was "blocked" was modifying the game file and then repacking it back into the original archive, Dying Light now sees this as a corrupt file and won't launch. But the \Documents\DyingLight\out method is still reported to be working. I'm not going to update my game to test it, though.

Boy, do I suck at finding weapons even when there are dozens of boxes all over the place. I'e even taken to raiding a bit at sundown because the pinged boxes are a bit easier to see.

@sparky_buzzsaw: Don't forget police vans! Every van you see with the rear doors closed can be lockpicked. Ambulances give you 1-2 medkits and police vans almost always give you good weapons. Don't worry about running out of lockpicks since they're super easy to make.

@dezztroy: There is a set of vans(one ambulance with medkets and one police van) that served me very well near one of the east tunnel entrances. The Police van one is a very hard lock so it always has something very good. I'm not quite sure what causes it to respawn(sleeping maybe?) but they definitely do.

@dezztroy: oh cool! Thanks for the tips!

@mb: Definitely does not work any more. The same technique to remove film grain still works, but that is a different file type. Must only apply to certain files.

Weapon degradation is always a real bummer. Can we just write it off as an archaic and terrible game mechanic and just never implement it again? If you want people to use new weapons, give them something more powerful or different. If you don't want people to use weapons, then why are you giving people weapons? Conversely, why not just make it more dangerous to get close to zombies and instead give us limited use throwables?

Also, is that metal pipe really only good for 20 hits before it becomes ineffective? Really? Is that how it works in the real world? Come on, game designers. It's a metal pipe. I don't care if you're using it to bash human skulls in, thick metal pipe > human skull.

A few hours further in and weapon degradation is barely an issue. A mid game skill sometimes will not use a repair when you repair greatly extending life. By mid game, you really only want to be using modded, upgraded oranges. And if you're picking up good weapons and selling them after fighting bandits, you're pretty cash rich midway through. By the time you've got through 5-8 repairs on an Orange, you're leveled past it and should be ready for your next modded, upgraded orange. I have three in my rotation and have moved past a couple of earlier ones.