Yay or nay tool durability?
- Thread starter Snowifer
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milkyi
the people’s princess
tbh, nay. especially because golden tools can break? which they should not?? be able to do? crafting is a fine mechanic for furniture, but i would find myself getting VERY frustrating over having to repeatedly getting new tools. i wouldn't craft them either, i'd just buy them because it was more convenient.
I don't like tool durability. 
Do certain tools even provide different benefits? 
I never understood that throughout Animal Crossing. Why use golden tools or silver tools if they do the same things? (except for the slingshots, of course and the golden shovel in ACPG) 
I actually made an app for Android devices that allows you to keep track of your tool's durability so that you know when to repair them before they break completely. 
Kind of a chore to be using that app every time you use a tool though, but eh, I had fun making the damn thing. 
Do certain tools even provide different benefits? I never understood that throughout Animal Crossing. Why use golden tools or silver tools if they do the same things? (except for the slingshots, of course and the golden shovel in ACPG) I actually made an app for Android devices that allows you to keep track of your tool's durability so that you know when to repair them before they break completely. Kind of a chore to be using that app every time you use a tool though, but eh, I had fun making the damn thing. 
SilverPiper
Member
It's a waste of time crafting.
I actually don't mind it in the sense that it lets me use multiple different designs of the custom tools naturally. Like variants of the star nets, ducky rods ect. I do agree the gold variant should probably be unbreakable though for the cost and effort... Especially since it's no longer the only tool variant (other than silver, which was mid range / unique effect depending on the title)
im not a fan of the breaking golden tools. i was ok with the diy ones breaking because it fit the island theme but, overall i think golden tools should've been an end game type of upgrade. it takes a LOT to unlock them so it's a bit silly to make them just a hair more durable than the regular tools. hope that comes back in the next game.
Nunnafinga
Senior Member
Big nay.How come the vaulting pole never breaks but all the other tools do?Why not make the other tools out of the same stuff the vaulting pole is made of?Geez,even the friggin' watering can breaks.I guess we're watering our flowers too aggressively.
I can't stand tools breaking. It's always in the middle of something, too. I can understand flimsy tools breaking - they're supposed to be flimsy. And i can understand the next level tools breaking, but being able to get more use out of them.
What i dont understand is golden tools breaking. Those were special, and not supposed to break! You could hit a million rocks with the golden axe, and it wouldn't break. Golden tools were the ultimate tool accomplishment, and the reward for earning the golden version was a better tool that didn't break. Pfft....not anymore i guess.
What i dont understand is golden tools breaking. Those were special, and not supposed to break! You could hit a million rocks with the golden axe, and it wouldn't break. Golden tools were the ultimate tool accomplishment, and the reward for earning the golden version was a better tool that didn't break. Pfft....not anymore i guess.
I literally wouldn't care if golden-tools didn't break. It seems so pointless having to grind for them only for them to break easily.
I wouldn't even care golden tools were more task-oriented and you had to do more to get them, atleast it would give me some tasks to do other than landscaping
I wouldn't even care golden tools were more task-oriented and you had to do more to get them, atleast it would give me some tasks to do other than landscaping
The NH crew took a page from Botw with the tools breaking. I personally didn't care for it in Botw and Totk, but just dealt with it because you can find all kinds of weapons (sticks, soup ladle, thick branch, mop, rusty sword ect) that one weapon breaking won't interrupt your whole situation.
With NH it interrupts everything. Unless you planned ahead and have a spare of each tool for when one breaks you're going to have to stop what you're doing, gather/find the resources, go to a spot where you can craft, and then hope the other tools aren't ready to break on you as you return to the point you left off of.
But it's part of the game so there's nothing we can do about that. They should've had it where the first tier tools broke, but everything else didn't and the gold tools did something really special. We're using sticks to put together a fishing rod or net so it makes sense that would eventually snap. It's just a stick.
It was either implemented to force us to use the crafting mechanic more or to artificially lengthen the game's playtime by having us do grindy busywork.
With NH it interrupts everything. Unless you planned ahead and have a spare of each tool for when one breaks you're going to have to stop what you're doing, gather/find the resources, go to a spot where you can craft, and then hope the other tools aren't ready to break on you as you return to the point you left off of.
But it's part of the game so there's nothing we can do about that. They should've had it where the first tier tools broke, but everything else didn't and the gold tools did something really special. We're using sticks to put together a fishing rod or net so it makes sense that would eventually snap. It's just a stick.
It was either implemented to force us to use the crafting mechanic more or to artificially lengthen the game's playtime by having us do grindy busywork.
This mechanic is obnoxious. It's been explained for years why it's awful. I even laid into how stupid and pointless it is, myself. Maybe it's not my place to assume the developers' intentions, but I suspect this thing that no one asked for, NOR wanted, was added to create a gameplay loop of gathering supplies and building items and such with said supplies, but why Animal Crossing, of all games? Were these people sniffing Sharpies when they made this game? At the very LEAST, they could've added visible wear or tear, or just inform the player that the tools are getting worn, since every breakable tool has a set number of uses — they don't just randomly vanish out of thin air. They didn't even account for this. I'll still hate axes not being the only breakable tools, anymore, but I'll still be content if the game actually bothered to give this information to the player. I shouldn't have to do a goddamn count of how many uses my axe has left before it breaks when the older games put in the detail to show them being damaged by continuous use.
I still can't believe WATERING CANS will simply break for no reason when they don't require laborious activity, as a shovel would. Speaking of shovels, this is yet another point against Tool Durability, because you have to use shovels to pick up flowers by the root, instead of by hand, as in the previous games; picking them up by hand only puts one flower out of a bunch in your inventory, which is utterly pointless — they could've designed it in a way where you can pull a bunch out, but still have the option to place the entire bunch, or just a single flower as an item. It's why making flowers indestructible was also a stupid decision — makes the game feel even less of a life simulator. Again: were Nintendo high on markers when they made this game?
I'm calling it now: they aren't going to remove this dumb mechanic in the next game. It takes them two or three games to actually learn from their mistakes; sometimes, they don't even address them at all. It's why a few issues present as far back as the original game still exist in New Horizons.
I still can't believe WATERING CANS will simply break for no reason when they don't require laborious activity, as a shovel would. Speaking of shovels, this is yet another point against Tool Durability, because you have to use shovels to pick up flowers by the root, instead of by hand, as in the previous games; picking them up by hand only puts one flower out of a bunch in your inventory, which is utterly pointless — they could've designed it in a way where you can pull a bunch out, but still have the option to place the entire bunch, or just a single flower as an item. It's why making flowers indestructible was also a stupid decision — makes the game feel even less of a life simulator. Again: were Nintendo high on markers when they made this game?
I'm calling it now: they aren't going to remove this dumb mechanic in the next game. It takes them two or three games to actually learn from their mistakes; sometimes, they don't even address them at all. It's why a few issues present as far back as the original game still exist in New Horizons.
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Nay, very nay. I feel like they just included it because other crafting games did but this wasn't something Animal Crossing normally did aside from axes and we really didn't need it added. Watering cans breaking doesn't even make sense and gold tools breaking makes it seem disappointing to collect them.
Yoshi155
Just smile
Hard nay. Maybe I’d feel different if golden tools didn’t break. That’s one of the most confusing decision they made in the game. I don’t get it, golden tools don’t work any differently than normal tools in this game, at least make them not break. But instead, all they did was make them last longer.
SilverPiper
Member
The only golden tool I have is the golden slingshot. I wouldn't mind a golden shovel, though.
Nay. I'm still to this day confused on why it was even added. In Breath of the Wild the tools breaking serves a purpose in that it forces players to think out of the box and experiment with different weapons and strategies. Whether or not players enjoy that mechanic or think it's a sign of good gameplay is subjective, but at least I can see the possible reasoning behind it. And in Minecraft, the purpose is to get players to seek out better and better materials to craft better and better tools to access. It's part of the progression of the game. Giving players an incentive to explore and making them feel accomplished at the same time. (You can also essentially have invincible tools.)
But I just don't get it in New Horizons. There's zero benefit to tools breaking. There's also no way to avoid the consquences of your tools breaking either. You don't change up your playstyle because of it. You don't get introduced to a new skill or game mechanic through it. And there's no clever way to avoid it. (I know you can customize the tools to stop them from breaking, but I'm not sure that's something Nintendo fully intended. I may be wrong though.)
It's just there. It's busy work for the sake of busy work. You get pulled out of whatever you're doing, then you run to the nearest crafting station or pull it out of your pockets (using up an inventory slot for no good reason), scroll to whatever tool you just broke, then mash the button to get it done quicker, then scroll again to get the "standard" tool made, then mash your button again. And finally, finally, you can go back to actually playing the game.
And it's especially noticeable how badly it effects the game when you play a previous entry. I was shocked at how relieved I felt when I went back to the Gamecube or Wild World or City Folk and I could just fish to my heart's content without worrying about my fishing rod breaking.
But I just don't get it in New Horizons. There's zero benefit to tools breaking. There's also no way to avoid the consquences of your tools breaking either. You don't change up your playstyle because of it. You don't get introduced to a new skill or game mechanic through it. And there's no clever way to avoid it. (I know you can customize the tools to stop them from breaking, but I'm not sure that's something Nintendo fully intended. I may be wrong though.
)It's just there. It's busy work for the sake of busy work. You get pulled out of whatever you're doing, then you run to the nearest crafting station or pull it out of your pockets (using up an inventory slot for no good reason), scroll to whatever tool you just broke, then mash the button to get it done quicker, then scroll again to get the "standard" tool made, then mash your button again. And finally, finally, you can go back to actually playing the game.
And it's especially noticeable how badly it effects the game when you play a previous entry. I was shocked at how relieved I felt when I went back to the Gamecube or Wild World or City Folk and I could just fish to my heart's content without worrying about my fishing rod breaking.
That is the hardest of nays. Breakable tools is an absolutely useless mechanic that adds literally nothing to the game beyond pointless gameplay interruption. I just want to be able to fish and catch bugs to my heart's content, I don't want to have to worry about my tools spontaneously self-destructing while doing so.
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