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[Zacfoldor]

Weapon durability killed my enjoyment of BOTW. If Nintendo’s argument is, “well, we just want the players to try all out the weapons”, well, my counter argument is to make sure all the weapons are fun to use so that’s less of an issue, not having a player enjoy a weapon style and then slap it out of their hand after two dozen swings.

Weapon durability was really their way of making the piddly drops impactful.

They should have tried a more complicated solution to make the drops meaningful rather than "your weapon breaks every few hits so you always need to search for new ones."

That said, there isn't a super elegant solution that I can think of for that problem. Like, making them non-breakable and adding Nioh loot is not the answer in a game of this quality. I think the answer is out there though.

I think they went the direction they did because it tied into their "survival game" deal where they wanted us to have to cook, eat, climb, ect within the limitations of the world. They wanted us to suffer as Link suffered, in the same way Fromsoft designs suffering into their games as a way to make non-suffering all the sweeter.

I think they could just change philosophy and keep most of the same programming. Do we really need weapon drops in Zelda? Perhaps maybe 3 or 4 big quests to upgrade the sword. It's hard to make that work in an open world but still prevent things from being trivialized. It's a hard problem if they don't want to rely on traditional solutions. I think the main reason BotW felt so good early on(and also totk) is the struggle. It's real the first few hours and those are the best hours of those games for me(especially totk). It just starts to wear on me really quickly after the first game/tutorial area.

Also after BotW it happened too quickly in TotK that I saw the "man behind the curtain" or rather, Nintendo's hand guiding me along. It became apparent too quickly. In the first game it took 100+ hours in TotK it took maybe 40 because I had already played BotW. I knew these tricks.

Perhaps moving away from the survival mentality and much less menial labor would allow the world to shine once again. I think they'll get it right. TotK is still one of the best and most innovative asset flips of all time, and a great game but I think the formula is getting a little tired and they should change it up this time.

 

[MagnesD3]

I would love if they added some linear gates amd allowed for progression by unlocking items again through interesting complex dungeons but I dont think we will ever get that again even if there are ways to allow for a large amount of freedom.

 

[MMaRsu]

The Windwaker 2 obviously.

 

[Alexios]

Breaking weapons worked fine in BOTW, maybe got a bit grating by TOTK (though adding components was really neat for me) but no more than requiring all the building stuff for those who prefer the core gameplay instead. Maybe another solution is to grind them into (or just use them as is as) materials to just repair your constantly degrading weapon, similar to how Fallout 3 did it where the common loot was also more useful than in previous bethesda games by allowing you to repair your used stuff with it, or replace it if it was so much better you'd keep and repair that instead (but of course make all the unique gear repairable with the common variables, if to a lesser extent, rather than have them impossible to repair as it could happen in that game if I don't remember that part wrong, lol). So you can play it like BOTW and constantly change, or just repair your favorites.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

I wouldn't mind them going for a bit darker tone and direction. Keep the super stylized materials and lighting but make it grittier.

Zelda HD (Wii U tech demo) still looks fresh.

The problem with that demo Nintendo has been long removed to release hardware to create a game that looks like that, not even remotely.

 

[DonF]

Go back to roots imo.

a "return to form" you say??

 

[SyberWolf]

next for zelda. probably a switch 2 exclusive.