I'm totally stoked for Fallout: New Vegas.  A few weeks ago, I decided to go back and do another playthrough of Fallout 3 in order to pick up the last achievements I needed for my S-rank, and with the experience fresh in my mind I've been thinking about what mechanics in FO3 I enjoyed in comparison to FO1 and FO2, which ones I hated, and what this means for New Vegas.  
 
I have decided that weapon durability is the worst thing to happen to the franchise, at least the way it is handled now.  It's unrealistic, annoying, and forces you to constantly consider a meta-game outside of the narrative.
 
Fallout 3 made ammo and most healing/medical items weightless in an attempt (I assume) to simplify inventory management and make the game more accessible, but it also introduced a weapon durability system that basically forced you to either carry around loads of different weapons or multiple copies of the same gun so that you could always repair what you had.  For the most part this was annoying but not an insurmountable challenge - if you liked using the Chinese Assault Rifle, you could generally find more than enough of them to keep yours repaired.  But certain weapons, like Lincoln's Repeater of the Chinese Officer's Sword, were either incredibly rare of had no corresponding weapon to use for spare parts.  I guess this was an attempt to make you ration your resources, but all it did was make me shun these pretty cool weapons in favor of something a lot more mundane but easier to repair.
 
Fallout: New Vegas is introducing a "Hardcore" mode, which basically sounds like a list of old Fallout mechanics that were scrapped in 3.  So bullets will have weight again, stims will heal over time, etc.  This sounds intereresting, but what's the point of a mode that tries to heighten realism when you still have to carry around 5 assault rifles for spare parts?
 
If you must include a durability system, I'd rather see something a bit more grounded in reality.  Make the player have to clean her weapons periodically to prevent them from jamming, and make jammed weapons useless until you can get a gunsmith to fix them in town, or something like that.  Maybe find a more realistic way to limit the inventory so that the player constantly has to make hard decisions about what to pick up and discard.  I'd even prefer a a super-restrictive weapon inventory like in modern FPS games - maybe you can only hold a pistol, a rifle, and a melee weapon at once.  My point is, there are better ways to highlight the survival factor and make the player think conservatively about inventory and combat than by breaking her weapon after 100 uses.

I'm totally stoked for Fallout: New Vegas.  A few weeks ago, I decided to go back and do another playthrough of Fallout 3 in order to pick up the last achievements I needed for my S-rank, and with the experience fresh in my mind I've been thinking about what mechanics in FO3 I enjoyed in comparison to FO1 and FO2, which ones I hated, and what this means for New Vegas.  
 
I have decided that weapon durability is the worst thing to happen to the franchise, at least the way it is handled now.  It's unrealistic, annoying, and forces you to constantly consider a meta-game outside of the narrative.
 
Fallout 3 made ammo and most healing/medical items weightless in an attempt (I assume) to simplify inventory management and make the game more accessible, but it also introduced a weapon durability system that basically forced you to either carry around loads of different weapons or multiple copies of the same gun so that you could always repair what you had.  For the most part this was annoying but not an insurmountable challenge - if you liked using the Chinese Assault Rifle, you could generally find more than enough of them to keep yours repaired.  But certain weapons, like Lincoln's Repeater of the Chinese Officer's Sword, were either incredibly rare of had no corresponding weapon to use for spare parts.  I guess this was an attempt to make you ration your resources, but all it did was make me shun these pretty cool weapons in favor of something a lot more mundane but easier to repair.
 
Fallout: New Vegas is introducing a "Hardcore" mode, which basically sounds like a list of old Fallout mechanics that were scrapped in 3.  So bullets will have weight again, stims will heal over time, etc.  This sounds intereresting, but what's the point of a mode that tries to heighten realism when you still have to carry around 5 assault rifles for spare parts?
 
If you must include a durability system, I'd rather see something a bit more grounded in reality.  Make the player have to clean her weapons periodically to prevent them from jamming, and make jammed weapons useless until you can get a gunsmith to fix them in town, or something like that.  Maybe find a more realistic way to limit the inventory so that the player constantly has to make hard decisions about what to pick up and discard.  I'd even prefer a a super-restrictive weapon inventory like in modern FPS games - maybe you can only hold a pistol, a rifle, and a melee weapon at once.  My point is, there are better ways to highlight the survival factor and make the player think conservatively about inventory and combat than by breaking her weapon after 100 uses.

Fair points well made. It's a bit silly that your gun runs out after using it a couple of times, yet you can carry 5 rocket launchers on one person.

 This sounds intereresting, but what's the point of a mode that tries to heighten realism when you still have to carry around 5 assault rifles for spare parts? 

" I'm totally stoked for Fallout: New Vegas.  A few weeks ago, I decided to go back and do another playthrough of Fallout 3 in order to pick up the last achievements I needed for my S-rank, and with the experience fresh in my mind I've been thinking about what mechanics in FO3 I enjoyed in comparison to FO1 and FO2, which ones I hated, and what this means for New Vegas.    I have decided that weapon durability is the worst thing to happen to the franchise, at least the way it is handled now.  It's unrealistic, annoying, and forces you to constantly consider a meta-game outside of the narrative.  Fallout 3 made ammo and most healing/medical items weightless in an attempt (I assume) to simplify inventory management and make the game more accessible, but it also introduced a weapon durability system that basically forced you to either carry around loads of different weapons or multiple copies of the same gun so that you could always repair what you had.  For the most part this was annoying but not an insurmountable challenge - if you liked using the Chinese Assault Rifle, you could generally find more than enough of them to keep yours repaired.  But certain weapons, like Lincoln's Repeater of the Chinese Officer's Sword, were either incredibly rare of had no corresponding weapon to use for spare parts.  I guess this was an attempt to make you ration your resources, but all it did was make me shun these pretty cool weapons in favor of something a lot more mundane but easier to repair.  Fallout: New Vegas is introducing a "Hardcore" mode, which basically sounds like a list of old Fallout mechanics that were scrapped in 3.  So bullets will have weight again, stims will heal over time, etc.  This sounds intereresting, but what's the point of a mode that tries to heighten realism when you still have to carry around 5 assault rifles for spare parts?  If you must include a durability system, I'd rather see something a bit more grounded in reality.  Make the player have to clean her weapons periodically to prevent them from jamming, and make jammed weapons useless until you can get a gunsmith to fix them in town, or something like that.  Maybe find a more realistic way to limit the inventory so that the player constantly has to make hard decisions about what to pick up and discard.  I'd even prefer a a super-restrictive weapon inventory like in modern FPS games - maybe you can only hold a pistol, a rifle, and a melee weapon at once.  My point is, there are better ways to highlight the survival factor and make the player think conservatively about inventory and combat than by breaking her weapon after 100 uses. "

correct me if im wrong but i seem to remember that you could repair the Lincoln repeater will hunting rifles. And that it was similar for many other rare weapons 

" correct me if im wrong but i seem to remember that you could repair the Lincoln repeater will hunting rifles. And that it was similar for many other rare weapons  "

This is where repair mods help and still feels right. Like using scrap metal or tin cans to repair weapons is a good idea.

you can repair the Lincoln rifle with basic hunting rifles ;D