Anyone else avoiding combat in this game?

The weapon durability is horrendous in this game. I find myself ignoring 99% of all the enemies in this game and hoarding all the high level weapons I'm finding in the world for boss fights later. Enemies drop no XP (there's no XP in this game, I know), crummy weapons, and useless cooking material. If I see an enemy with a weapon I've never seen, I'll usually kill it and swap it out with something else I have if it's higher level. Most enemies can easily be run away from, or sneaked around.

I really wish they would have just went all the way with the open world WRPG aspect of the game. Let us upgrade Link with XP, and spec him out the way we want to. At the very least, offer some sort of crafting or upgrade path for the good weapons in the game. The item management is killing this game. As of now, I explore, run, hoard, cook, explore some more, run, hide, and do as many shrines as I can. I haven't actually engaged an enemy in about 16 hours of gameplay.

Yeah, the weapons so far in my ten hours with it break every 10-20 hits or something; that is ridiculous. Also the ragdolling when you get hit hard is tedious. Enemies notice you so quickly, too, and the chests that unlock when you clear them out have been underwhelming so far. I've been doing the same as you, and that is where the game shines. Those shrines are brilliant, the villages are delightful, and the characters are fabulous. The combat involves too much management from what I've done so far is all. The side-dodge is a pathetic little jump that doesn't help much at all. Doing a perfect dodge seems the only way to make it satisfying, when it goes slo-mo.

I enjoy nailing a headshot with the bow, though.

I was but not because of weapon durability. Weapons are everywhere so I don't care if one breaks.

My problem with the combat is just never knowing where they placed enemies who had weapons that would obliterate me in one swing. I'm fighting a lot more now that I've gotten more hearts.

I find a game where you are incentivized to NOT attack enemies very refreshing. The weapon durability forces you to be very selective about who and why you fight, and ties into the difficulty.

In most games, you'd get tons of practice on low-level enemies, trying out different techniques and weapons, but Zelda doesn't afford you that opportunity. If you want to get good at the Zelda combat, you have to sacrifice time and weapons. Over the course of the game, though, you gain a lot of abilities and knowledge about the world that lets you mitigate that, and you can play around more loosely, learn more about what moves are used for what, and generally learn the combat.

There are some pretty crazy things you can do, and every conceivable problem you might have with enemies can be mitigated through preparation, equipment, and runes, even if you don't have the techniques down pat.

It reminds me a lot of what I wanted Witcher III to be. You learn that monsters have been terrorizing a village: you go scope out their camp. Some are sleeping, others are dancing around the fire. You cook some healing items in case you run into trouble, plus a stealth elixir. You drink it, sneak into the camp, and kill the sleeping monsters where they lie. You climb their tower, and kill their lookout. Then you jump from there, glide over the fire, and drop a bomb in it to knock the revelers and their weapons away. Now you only have to fight a couple hand-to-hand, and they're weakened from the bomb blast. If things go south, and they get their weapons back, you down a speed elixir and dash around them, dodging arrows.

To be able to do all that, though, you need to have learned stuff. You need to know about the glider-bomb thing, you need to know what items mix to create elixirs, you need to know how to stealthily approach a camp, and how to negate the lethality of enemy archers. There's so many other techniques you could use, depending on your equipment or the environment, and knowing all those things will help you even more.

The game teaches you all this by making straight combat very counter-productive, especially early on, when all your weapons are shoddy, forcing you to find alternate methods of dispatching foes. It's pretty cool.

You're being too cautious if you didn't engage an enemy within 16 hours. You can do so if that's what you enjoy, but if you're only doing that to avoid breaking weapons don't bother. I haven't ran into anything that needs a super powerful weapon that I've horded since hour 1. The boss I fought last night I killed with a low power Zora spear and a 10ish power bow. Didn't take long at all. You can get enough inventory slots to have 2 or 3 strong weapons while constantly rotating out another 4 or 5 weapons pretty early as long as you're finding Koroks while you wander.

In my opiniom, the worse thing about the combat so far is its not readily apparent when an enemy has a weapon that can do 5 hearts or 3. That gets better once you get more hearts though.

Just don't fall into that JRPG trap of hoarding all your shit for moments that never come. Just break those weapons who cares.

Monster parts are used for upgrading your armour and getting special items so no. (also combat is fun) Once you get more weapon slots it becomes less of an issue.

I don't really avoid it at all. I think people make the system more oppressive than it is. You will almost always have plenty of weapons, and I constantly have to fling my weakest away to pick up a better one.

Hoarding is not worth it, just use the stuff you have. You will get more and better weapons all the time.

No? I've generally had one weapon slot that I just cycle through weapons on. Generally when you kill an enemy and break your weapon you can just take theirs.

But I haven't fought everything I see. If I want to get somewhere, I'll just run past them and eventually they stop following.

And some enemies I've had to just run away from.

I took some comments to heart and decided to try playing with no love of my weapons at all -- as counter-intuitive as that is -- and I've found it more manageable. They do break way too easily at this early stage, I won't pretend that feels good or is clever game design. It is kind of oppressive. Just 20% more durability on the lesser weapons would be enough to get more enjoyment out of fighting, for me, but if people like it that's fine. It's certainly different. It's just weird when a huge sledgehammer breaks so quickly.

I did a combat shrine and went through all seven of my melee weapons and all bows. Literally killed the automaton on the last strike of my final weapon before it shattered. Crazy! He dropped some dope gear that I will hate to lose.

@brunothethird: It should get better soon in terms of durability for you. Most of the weapons I'm using now in the 20-25 power range are able to last through quite a few fights. I can't speak for every major location since I've only been to visit one so far, but I was given a gift that solves the issue a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being a common reward throughout the game. You do have to be very scrappy about it early on though. It's made me appreciate the weapons I have right now while they last, and I don't miss any of my previous broken weapons. There's always something better to get on the horizon that will put your previously cherished weapons to shame. I'm glad to hears its a bit more manageable for you though.

I just think of them like guns in a FPS. Use what the game gives you, throw them away when they're spent and pick up the next thing you come across.

Even with THAT attitude I find that I constantly have a full inventory though.

@mezza: I am getting a flow for the constant switching since deciding to view my weapons as disposable tools. Actually fighting was no issue, I can fight off multiple upper-echelon dudes at once with my measly four heart containers (I buffed my stamina twice; need to focus on health next). The combat shrine fight gave me an axe with a 60 rating. The highest I saw was 20 before that, ha.

Having an amazing time anyway. Thanks for the encouraging info! I feel better about the mechanics now.

Don't follow what Jeff has been saying. Just do what you need to do. Don't purposely go out of your way not to fight as you're actually only going to make it harder on yourself if you just actively avoid. Enemies do drop some dope shit. I pulled a Dan and went into Hyrule Castle super early (R.I.P my horse) but was able to get some weapons that are rated 50 and higher just by playing smart and learning the systems. You'll always find weapons so don't worry about it. You can get new clothing, level that up, make food and potions to boost your defence and power. You need to think of it like the new DOOM. While the guns didn't break, you often ran out of ammo and were forced to change your style. The game has forced me to stay on my toes a lot because if I block too much, my shield could break on the first hit of an enemies 2 hit combo and easily kill me. It keeps fights unique and exciting as you can't just mash attack and expect to win. Fights aren't you one on one with an enemy, sword and shield. The game is Mechanics: The Game, so use them to your advantage and experiment. I found out today that if you set Chuu's on fire, when they die, their gel will be explosive. It's stuff like that and countless other things I enjoy and I wouldn't have even discovered if weapons were just permanent.

That said, wish there was no damage to the shields while surfing because that shit is fun as fuck.

I got some kind of giant Guardian Axe a little while ago that did 45 damage. I killed one giant with it, then got halfway through another before it almost broke. That really sucks because I thought that weapon was pretty awesome. I'm fine with it being as limited as it is, but I wish I could easily repair weapons if I hang on to them before they break.

That said, it's generally not a problem. I've been throwing away weapons all the time for better ones while hanging on to one or two for bigger encounters.

I really need to go find the Korok village at some point, though. I know it's somewhere north of Kakariko Village, but I'm not sure where and I haven't gone up there to look quite yet.

@justin258: the issue being that if you could repair weapons that you like, you'd never pick up the hundreds of weapons enemies drop once you found a few that you like. It's just not that game.

I think the bow would have been better served just being a tool though. There's really nothing interesting about them beyond the numbers. There's a very small handful that have special effects but they're usually too obnoxious to want to use anyway.

I have no problems with it and I like the combat. A repair system wouldn't be too bad but I don't think this is a game where you need to fawn over loot too much.

Armour is where it's at!

I'd totally pick up everything if the inventory wasn't limited. Stack of one thousand Boko clubs? Sure! I'll just throw all of them!

I realize the game isn't balanced around this and, for the most part, it hasn't bothered me. Still, I also haven't come across a bunch of weapons that I want to keep quite yet. That Guardian Axe was just the first example of a weapon that I really liked that I wanted to keep. It looked cool, it was really powerful, and after using it for a bit it's gone. I wound up throwing it at a different giant altogether for some pretty good damage. I can see myself being real bummed if I have an inventory chock full of weapons that I really like and I see them all dwindle away.

A way to repair or reforge most things would be nice. You can get a handful of weapons reforged, but the materials to do so are not especially common.

I've been alternating between going into combat and avoiding battle. The thing is, I've had more fun sneaking around enemies than I've ever had in the forced sneaking parts in past Zeldas. Sneaking into the Hyrule Castle is one of the best moments I've had in games in a long, long time.

I really haven't had a problem with enemies dropping weak weapons. Usually the weapons the enemies drop are just as good as the ones you have, granted you're in a "level" appropriate area. The weapons I've ended up hoarding are things with special attributes, like elemental damage (and I always try to have a woodcutter's axe and a Korok leaf in case I need them). The two problems I've had with the inventory (which are no fault to the game) are that I always end up with a backpack full of two-handed swords that I rarely use because they're too unwieldy in regular battles, and that I always cook food that is too strong so I'll just end up eating apples if I get hit during combat.

You're supposed to be getting a steady stream of weapons in and out, like a modern FPS. The game doesn't deincentivise combat but instead it encourages you to pick your battles and not engage low level enemies with your best stuff. Although, better weapons do seem to last longer. I really like this aspect of the game since it has me always thinking about what to use when.

My only issue with the combat system is that I wish we could throw shields and bows. Hopefully they'll patch in a way.

I think this was an issue for me, since it concerned me in the week or so leading up to release, for a total of maybe an hour?

Eventually I just stopped caring about it once it started essentially raining swords on me. The only things I tend to keep are a leaf, axe and hammer (and if I come across a new one and I've used the old ones even once, I'll switch out), while actively using whatever other weapons I have. I also have about 200ish arrows so I snipe things a lot, or spam bombs on the weaker enemies.

The only enemies I try to avoid are ones that look intimidating, or have effortlessly wrecked me in the past. I'm fine Far Crying my way up to a small camp and clearing it out in some fun way. Snipe the lookout and then deal with the rest.

While I hope there is an unbreakable weapon later on just to have something that's permanent (I mean, I can hazard a good guess at one potential obvious weapon, but I'm still pretty early in), I'm surprised at how okay I am with this system.

I really need to ask how? I'm always out of arrows since I also mainly snipe enemies and I haven't really found a way to get a good stack. Any tips would be appreciated.

I have definitely been avoiding combat, but not for the sake of weapons. If there is an enemy camp that's off my desired trail, then they get to live another day. However, I'm perfectly willing to mess up some dudes if they're in my way.

@capum15: I would also like to know where you've gotten so many arrows? The most I've ever had was 50ish, and they were all gone within the hour.

I am enjoying getting terrified and running away when 3 bone-Moblins pop out of the ground. I feel like I always have too many weapons to pick up at the moment, keep having to throw weapons away in shrines when opening chests.

You can buy arrows from any store or merchant in the game. There are usually merchants at the various stables littered across the world. Also, if you see camp of baddies, odds are they'll have 1 or 2 archers perched on platforms. Those archers usually drop a bundle of 5 arrows. There's also a story related mission in the game where they introduce you to a near limitless supply of shock arrows.

Following up on my thread... I've come across some really nice weapons that I still refuse to use on regular enemies. I have two 50+ weapons, and two 30+ weapons in my inventory at the moment. I keep one "beater" weapon that I'll use on mobs or camps if I HAVE to. I'm still avoiding most combat in the game in favor of exploration. I also have a huge supply of cooked meals that do all sorts of bonus effects. This has made dealing with bosses in this game a breeze. I beat my first real dungeon boss with only 4 hearts, which is kind of crazy the game is so open that this is possible. I ate a bunch of movement speed mushrooms, and whacked the boss with my 50+ weapon, and shot his second phase with my 30+ bow with shock arrows.

@pkmnfrk: You can pick up pretty much pick up all of your regular arrows you shoot and all regular arrows shot at you. I gathered about 60 or 70 just going from one place to the next because so many people were shooting at me. Or you could buy them, but I've found money harder to come across than arrows.

gotta kill enemies to get better weapons sometimes, so I wouldn't worry too much unless it has like crit+ or attack+ (save those for bosses or something).

Finding the Master Sword alleviates a lot of these problems too, especially against the bosses in the story.

Saving powerful weapons does matter. I've fought enemies that have required me to burn through multiple bows (and all my arrows) and multiple 26+ damage weapons and then *still* scramble using bombs to finish them off. That said, I've had no real troubles engaging with general enemies in the world because you can just spam bombs and reserve 1-2 slots for fodder weapons. The parts are useful because I need the rupees.

@pkmnfrk: @retris: It's been a mix of finding tons of them in those square crates (along with apples, I had so many apples before I found another cooking pot), getting 5-packs off of archers, and buying out store stocks of regular arrows. I've only spent rupees on arrows and a couple of food items so far. I haven't bought any special arrows though.

You can also farm them if you want to be bored out of your mind. I only did that once but enemies have seemingly infinite arrows so you can either dodge or somehow get them to shoot the ground in front of you with positioning, then run and pick up a bunch before repeating. Only got about 20 before stopping that.

I had roughly 80-90ish arrows by the time I finished the starting area, and since then I've hovered around 130-150ish (after going from about 170 to 130 to cheese a guardian so I could climb a tower). I tend to use a bunch in one or two fights and then change it up and melee for a bit, along with bomb spam.

I suspect the key to fights like that is heavy use of charged attacks and attack-increasing food to squeeze as much damage out of your weapons as possible.

I must admit, I'm growing to enjoy the breaking weapons. It's forced me to utilize a variety of weapons and think more about how I hit enemies (and with what).

there's something satisfying in murdalizing enemies with their own weapons tbh.

too many goddamn chu chus tho.

Enemies drop materials that can be sold for rupees, so it's not like you get nothing out of fighting.

I won't lie though, I've had this awesome giant boomerang for a while that's awesome and giant and I'm going to be bummed when I've eventually used it up. Part of me wish that I could have a box or something where I could put all the neat looking stuff I find that's not as strong as my best stuff but that I want to keep cause it looks cool, but maybe it's for the best that they don't let you hoard stuff like that.

I enjoy fighting stuff, except for maybe the skeleton dudes, so I don't really avoid fighting unless I'm going somewhere specific or am way in over my head in an area.

I'm loving the combat. I ran around last night for two hours and just fought stuff. Never had any issues with weapons. There were always way more than I needed everywhere I went.

@jacksukeru: There is a way!

Keep playing and you'll find it.

The interesting part of the weapon durability, in my eyes, is that it acts as a stand-in for leveling up. If you don't have powerful enough weapons, all of your weapons will simply break before you are able to kill a difficult enemy. This has consistently been the reason I have been unable to fight super-hard enemies, and were it not for this limitation, I would cheese my way through combat scenarios that the game was designed for me to not yet be able to finish.

As far as regular run-of-the-mill combat, I haven't decided to avoid a fight simply because I don't want to break weapons. There are always more weapons.

Do you find them in crates very often? I am aware of the other two methods but I've never thought of looking for them in crates.

I may be playing the game a bit out of sequence (although what sequence is there?) but mostly these encounters have been extremely agile enemies that could easily 1-hit KO me making charge attacks basically unusable

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it at first, but I've come to enjoy the "flow" that comes from constantly having your arsenal change. I think it goes a long way to keep the combat from growing stale, like it would if you could just pick your favorite weapon and use nothing but that. With an ever-changing set of equipment, the way you approach combat situations keeps changing from one to the next. I've clocked a lot of hours into the game and I've felt like every skirmish I've gotten myself into has been drastically different from the last.

In that way, I think this game avoids the problems that other big open world games, like Skyrim, suffer, where at some point you reach a point (or perhaps even reach this point early on) where you hit upon your optimal/favorite strategy and then never have to think about combat again.

You definitely have to learn to "let go" though -- kinda goes against my typical gamer instincts, because yeah, when I find a shiny weapon the last thing I want is to lose it. But I quickly found out that there's just so much cool shit in this game, that it tends to work out that I find new awesome weapons by the time my last ones break. There's a good momentum to it, too. If you happen to find yourself against really hard enemies with nothing but cruddy weapons to your name, all it takes is struggling against one enemy, who will almost certainly drop an awesome weapon, and suddenly you're back up to speed and use that weapon to crush a bunch of other enemies. And bam, you're chock-full of sweet-ass weapons again.

I've been seeking out combat, I take every fight I see (unless I think the enemy is way beyond me).

I've just been trusting the game to give me weapons constantly and always using the weakest I have in my inventory. Been doing just fine so far. The combat is pretty intuitive to me as an old Zelda vet so I can usually win any bokoblin etc fight as long as I have some thing better than a korok leaf.

It is a little counter intuitive though, naturally you want to preserve the good gear and you are worried about losing power those weapons represent. You just got to be willing to fight trash fights with the trash (boko spears, clubs etc) and use the good stuff for the tougher foes.

Has there ever been a "reason" to fight the enemies in Zelda? They've never given more than a heart or a few rupees. If anything, the chance of better weapons and materials gives more of a reason.

Nope. Enemies drop arrows and crafting materials and usually guard treasure and food. As for using your good weapons? Just use theirs against them. Use bombs. Use fire. You have so many options to not waste your good weapons. If you're short on inventory space, drop one of your good weapons in a place you'll remember. Stealth kill an enemy. Take his weapon. Throw it at the next enemy. Pick up the one he drops. Repeat. And when you're done go pick up your good weapon again. If you're fighting an enemy that's strong. They'll likely have a good weapon. If they're weak then they're weak enough to use crap weapons on them.

The color of the enemy is a good indication. The darker the color and the more elaborate their ornamentation, the tougher they'll be. Watch out for guys with war paint!

The brown square crates tend to almost always drop apples and arrows for me. I don't know if I'm just lucky, but if I find a group of like 3-4 stacked together, I take out my woodcutters axe and break 'em and tend to get a handful of each item (they only seem to drop single arrows and not a 5-stack). It's never a ton, but it's enough to help compliment what I have. And seeing as I barely chop down trees right now, that axe gets use from crates to justify it's inventory slot.

I honestly had like 60 apples at one point, and I'm sure the majority were from crates. I'm unsure of wooden barrels though; I haven't tried breaking those. Overall it's not a gold mine or anything, but it helps. Also don't use bombs to break them unless you like running around a lot (though I suppose it does technically make it rain apples and arrows for a few seconds). Every time I accidentally catch some crates with a bomb meant for an enemy I regret it.

Its easier if you see them as ammo and not weapons.

Also I think last night I finally got used to the transience of the weapons. I use the weakest weapon I have and as soon as I find a better one, I chuck the weakest (into water whenever I can because it just feels good to say "fuck this thing") and switch to the newest weakest. I don't know if I'm just going to places I shouldn't really be at yet but I seem to constantly find new, better weapons just messing around now that I'm a few hours past the starting area.

@capum15: I've found that by burning the crates using the torch the apples you find are just immediately 'baked apples' which is incredibly helpful.

I adore the combat in this game, it takes a while to get used to but once you really start utilizing the stuff its so much fun. Using bombs and especially stasis on enemies is such a big part of combat to me. Bombs may not do much damage but they can knock weapons/shields away from enemies, and then I can run up and take it and they are basically just done.

The best thing about encounters in this game is how much it involves the environment. Like many places if you look around the fight area they have placed out many tools for you to use, like explosive barrels or boulders. These are SO fun to use. My absolute favorite thing is using explosive barrels and stasis and using them as cannons into the enemy base. Especially when they also place more explosive barrels inside camps, so you can just create this huge explosion from afar. Fighting some enemies can be much harder simply depending on where they are.

Or using magnesis and dropping stuff on enemies is also a lot of fun.

Its really rewarding to play with and utilize the systems in the game, rather than just going up and locking on and attacking them until dead. Which is something that is reinforced with the durability, also as someone said above I think its a stand in for levels which is really neat. All in all, the more I play the more I just come to love the durability system. The idea of them doing double damage when breaking is brilliant too, as it means running around for lost weapons mid fight, picking up one that even isn't very good is something that is good to do, since throwing it at an enemy will knock them around/deal damage.

I spent like 4 hours today just running around, actively seeking out fights, taking shrines as I go and looking for the locations of the memories you get from photographs and absolutely loved the entire time.