How Zelda’s Depression Made Weapon Deterioration Great Again

The Soapbox feature allows individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random content of interest. todayKate examines how Nintendo learned economic lessons from past Zelda games with ‘Tears of the Kingdom’…

Like me, Hyrule has always been bad with money. That’s not surprising. In an economy where cold hard cash is found in rocks, trees, bushes and pots, grassYou don’t have to be a financial expert to know that inflation will happen at some point, even if you’re lying on the floor sometimes.

In most games, money is spent to make the game better, be it upgrades, new weapons, new skills, etc., but in Zelda games, those are sent by the Goddess. Why should I buy a new weapon when I have the Master Sword? Why should you learn new skills when you can get everything you need in a dungeon? do you want?

And money matters are even more complicated. Ultimately, even though you have a lot of money, you have very little to spend on it, and the poor rupee feels undervalued and useless. So why the rupee in the first place?

The thing is, games are all about dopamine. We play a game of racing like rats in a maze for delicious cheese prizes. We are reward-oriented creatures. something It is to entice us to explore, to discover, to open the box with excitement to discover something new. That means designers have to come up with something to put things in. of A chest that does not interrupt the game. The rupee is therefore not a prize per se, promise That you can win even bigger prizes in the future through the exchange of money and goods.

Here’s the problem. The rupee itself is not a prize.they must be worth To have any value to the player, you have to put them in to buy something. When a Zelda game struggles to offer an exciting buy, the rupees in the treasure chest might be the same as a piece of paper that says, “Yo, here’s a gold star!”

Past Zelda games have tried to iterate to make the rupee economy a little more exciting, but all have failed.

• Ocarina of Time has multiple wallet sizes, each with a capacity limit, but this feels like a limit for the sake of limits. If Link can carry a bomb, a shield, three tunics, a pair of shoes, and a whole chicken in his pocket, why not give him a little more money?

• Majora’s Mask resets rupees at the start of each cycle to increase their value, but also introduces a causally proven bank that can hold rupees across cycles, nullifying the reset point entirely.

• Wind Waker requires you to pay Tingles to purchase plot-needed items, and then introduces Magic Armor, which consumes Rupees instead of Hearts for damage, which makes Rupees useless, especially late in the game. just emphasize the

• Phantom Hourglass introduced a rupur that deducts rupees from your wallet, but you can easily get that money back with a single acquisition of the treasure.

You know what I mean. Opening a treasure chest of rupees in a Zelda game now feels (again) like a stocking Christmas present with a cosmic joke being played on it. However, as I played the last few Zelda titles, things started to change.

Skyward Sword Appears treasure Of course, it wasn’t the first time they appeared in the game, it was the first time they existed free from the economy. You can sell them, but they are primarily used to upgrade your weapons and items (such as the crafting system). Suddenly, treasure chests became a more attractive proposition. Because it might not be a stash of coins, but a rare treasure.

In “Breath of the Wild”, it has expanded from Treasure to Materials. Again, you can sell them, cook them, craft them, upgrade your armor, and even create elixirs that boost your stats and promote survival. Item descriptions also guide you towards better use of these resources. The description of the Dragon’s Claw says, “You can sell it to the shop, but I’m sure it has other uses.”

Weapon degradation allowed the designers to put something in the insane number of treasure chests scattered throughout Hyrule: cheese in the open-world maze.

However, major changes to Breath of the Wild’s treasure system have caused controversy.Weapons now break after only a few uses, despite being like swords and shields in particular It is designed not to The weapon degradation system was born out of a well-intentioned design to encourage players to experiment more aggressively, mix things up, and value their sword treasures less. It also gave the designers something to put in the insane number of chests scattered throughout Hyrule: cheese in the open-world maze.

But players didn’t like BOTW’s weapon degradation system, right? It was cumbersome, unfair and frustrating, especially when you had to switch weapons during a tense boss fight. Besides, shouldn’t the Master Sword be a little stronger and last longer than a dish sponge? Isn’t it already alive in hundreds of years of Zelda lore? Why was it nerfed into something more than a spiky stick that needed a nap? Sure, Hyrule’s treasure chest had a new purpose, but it was a system where someone would break all their pencils. Thanks to

In Tears of the Kingdom, narrative reasoning about weapon degradation (bad magic has spoiled the weapon!) and its fusion system (chicken leg stuck in spear to make +5 chicken spear!) appears. Basically, the number of items in the game hasn’t changed all that much – Bokoblin fangs, rusty halberds, and dragon scales are still available – but suddenly, the combination possibilities make weapon degradation and treasure hunting a whole lot easier. Turn it into a new ball game.

all Now a treasure worth owning, limited only by your imagination. Do you like to keep your distance from your enemies? Combine a crappy spear with another crappy spear to create a double-length DOUBLE CRAPPY SPEAR. Are you trying to fight Lynel and aim not to die a billion times? Combining an extremely durable wooden club with one of his rarest materials (perhaps a black Bokoblin horn, or a diamond), from Lynel’s health bar he can take out chunks with a single swipe. make things Every treasure chest is either an unknown and exciting thing, or a real gift, something that can actually be put to immediate use rather than being put in a money jar for an as-yet-undetermined purpose.

Shouldn’t the Master Sword be a little stronger and last longer than the dish sponge?

Of course, rupees still exist in Hyrule in TOTK, and can be found – infrequently – under rocks or in urns, but mostly they’re fun reminders of the old days, but they’re often found in degraded weapons and fusions. Thanks to the ubiquitous and diverse existence of the treasures of the world. , Rupees no longer have to bear the weight of the player’s dopamine production. Instead, they can be obtained as quest rewards or by selling items to merchants. On rare occasions As a prize in a treasure chest (or as a lifeline for a poor bluepie). You know, it’s like real money. It’s as if Rupee has been allowed to retire comfortably with decades of Hyrule’s treasure economy on his glorious back.allowed to revert to a monetary economy meaningful.

Listen, a lot of people are probably still upset about the continued deterioration of weapons in Tears of the Kingdom (heh). I get it – it’s still a little loud, a little frustrating, and a little unfair. But the price is that every cave, every chest, and every Bokoblin camp will be exciting again. Naturally, money is more precious. Because money has a lot of prizes to compete with.

As you know, dopamine is not really intended for rewards. It’s not about the cheese at the end of the maze. Dopamine is what drives you towards those rewards. So really, that’s all there is to it. expectations. You’re much more likely to get excited about finding a chest and opening it than what’s inside it. That’s the thrilling part. Knowing that a chest is likely to contain the exact same prize as the previous 10 chests reduces excitement and releases less dopamine.

However, in Tears of the Kingdom, there are hundreds of items, weapons, clothing, shields, bows, arrows, etc., and every treasure chest is unknown, and even if you get what’s in the chest, still not sure what it is do When fused with other items.

The joy is in the unknown, and Tears of the Kingdom is the least-known Zelda game ever. I hope you don’t know everything. I wish there was always a little more cheese hidden somewhere in that maze.