If there's going to be durability, I prefer it handled in a manner similar to the way SaGa 1 and 2 or most Fire Emblem games handle it.

Specifically, nearly every weapon has a number of times it can be used; this number is displayed right next to the item name in every menu, so you can easily keep track of it. Also, it's a precise number, so you don't need to guess how many uses a weapon has remaining.

Also, this works best if there isn't an obvious escape from the durability system. In SaGa Frontier 2, for example, you can get around it by using magic as your primary means of offense; unlike most games, magic is something you can use as your primary form of offense, while physical attacks need to be conserved.

With this durability system in place, there are some interesting things you can do. For example:
1. You can create powerful weapons, but limit them by durability. For example, in SaGa 1 and 2, there's the Glass Sword, which is powerful but will break after one hit (or, at least, it's supposed to, but SaGa 1's English version (Final Fantasy Legend) messed it up, giving that weapon 50 uses instead of 1), as well as Nuclear Bombs, which are also single use but powerful (and they even hit all enemies at once). Meanwhile, there are weapons like SaGa 2's Gungnir Spear, which hits an enitre group for lots of damage, but has only 30 uses before it disappears.
2. Spells can be treated like equipment. This gets rid of the problem of most RPGs making it easier to make a physical attack than to cast a spell. You want a Fire spell? Well, here's this magical book that allows you to cast it. Use it like a weapon, and you can cast the spell 30 times, but then it will break and you need another.
3. You can do interesting things with the mechanics. For example, in SaGa 1 and 2, the fewer uses remaining in a martial arts attack (like Punch), the more damage it does, and you also get a triple damage attack with the final hit. This creates an interesting dynamic where you need to use an attack for it to become strong, but then you need to conserve it so it doesn't break too soon.

Also, don't forget how robots could break the entire weapon system in special ways! As I understand, currently popular game has an inexact durability system and no predictability in when a weapon will break.

What is the "highly discussed game" you mention in the OP?
Oh and next time choose a better thread title, this one is misleading because of "your". I thought it's a funny theme.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, to finally stop being coy.

The game warns you when the durability is low.

In some games, being starved of resources and making do with what little you can lay your hands on, durability makes sense -- it's yet another strain on the limited resources. So I guess in games like survival horror where you scavenge for resources and try to avoid confrontation, it makes sense, it can add to the game. Finding the weapons, finding the tools and resources to fix them, fixing them, keeping them fixed, finding bullets to actually shoot, that's all part of the experience in a horrendous oppressive world where you just try to hold on to whatever you can to survive. I guess old fashioned roguelikes can fit in a similar camp.

In most other types of games, I don't really see it improving the gameplay. Like, Diablo is an action game to me. Beating things up is supposed to be the fun part. Stopping the beatings and running to town to fix a breaking piece of equipment is just a chore. It is literally stopping the fun action. It doesn't give you any sense of achiement, it doesn't reward you anyhow; again it is just a stupid distraction, a little chore that you have to run through so you can return to the action again.

Now the question of Ethereal items is more interesting, and fair game to me. Items that you cannot repair are basically consumables, and choosing to use them means you get to enjoy its special powers, for limited uses. Too bad all the ethereal items I found in Diablo 2 were actually worthless. At best, they had some minor advantages over non-magical crap items I would've never used anyway. So, potentially interesting mechanic, but poorly executed.

Hunger in Minecraft is another example of a mechanic that just becomes a distraction, a chore, a recurring unavoidable sidetrack without being actually fun or rewarding in the slightest. If Minecraft were a full fledged survival game, then it could be an interesting mechanic. But it is not a real survival game, and the hunger just randomly stops you from doing whatever it is that you play the game for.

By contrast, Dwarf Fortress or The Sims implement hunger about right. The former being a survival strategy game, working out a production chain to keep your dwarves fed across the seasons is a part of the challenge. Sure it can be frustrating if your colony starves, but solving the food problem is rewarding in and of itself. And, in The Sims, your people have a variety of personal needs, all of which need to be satisfied to keep them happy and productive. That is perhaps the core challenge of the game, and success is rewarded accordingly.

See the difference? These mechanisms can be part of the core gameplay, in which case you either like the game or you don't. Or they're worthless slapped-on features that actually degrade the experience, without adding any more purpose to play for.

With no exact time to failure. I saw ChipCheezum's steam of it.

That's not the point though, you're supposed to throw your weapon away when the durability is low and the game does warn you of it, if it hits an enemy it makes him back off and gives you time to switch to a new weapon, if it breaks in the process it also does double damage.

Honestly not a fan of it, only game it's made sense in was Baldur's Gate part of the plot and all.

(Assuming you are talking about SaGa 2)

Actually, in SaGa 2, in the long run I think human mages are better than robots. A robot's AGI based weapon will only hit one enemy (unless you're playing the DS remake and have given the robot a fan), and robots have no good attacks capable of hitting all enemies at once. Human mages, on the other hand, can bust out a book of Flare and wipe out entire enemy parties that way. (Fun thing to do in the DS version: Get multiple enemies to link together when starting a battle, then kill all 50 enemies with a single attack. Late game, if you do this with Flare, you can easily earn more money than the charge of the book costs you.)

With that said, robots get their power much faster and make great evade tanks; humans take longer to become powerful, but once they do, they can basically nuke everything with magic.

(Note that spellbooks are actually more powerful than the corresponding mutant skills; the only exception I can think of is Cure, and in the DS remake that is no longer an exception.)

Games where I hated the breaking items:

Nox

The weapons and armor deteriorate and break up very fast, and they are very expensive to repair at the shops (you'll be spending any loot money you collect to just keep your gear repaired, no savings to buy new stuff etc.), so in the end you have to carry lots of extra weapons/armor with you, and/or use armor and better weapons only for important encounters.

I recall at some point running around in my mere underpants and fighting enemies with any anemic weapon I had picked up from earlier enemies, just because all my gear had broken down. For weapons though, luckily the staff weapon for which you are collecting pieces is unbreakable so once you have it, you don't have to fear of your weapon breaking down anymore. For armor, the problem persists.


The Elder Scrolls: Arena

The early weapons you have just keep breaking down at record speed, so after awhile I started fighting only with my bare fists as they don't break down. Sure it took lots more hits to kill enemies, but oh well. Towards the end though you got weapons made of more durable materials (like that dwarven something something, or was it ebony?), but at that point I was already so used to fighting with my mere fists even though I was a spellcasting mage...


A game that did it right IIRC was Betrayal at Krondor. There I wasn't annoyed by armor and weapons slowly deteriorating, and you could improve your repair skill anyway so you could fix them yourself when you were on the road, as long as you had that sharpening tool or whatever to fix them. You only needed to bring them to repair shops if you wanted to get them back to 100% mint condition (repairing them yourself usually left them something below).

So in BaK I found it more like a nice semi-realistic touch than an annoyance. I recall BaK also had that if you kept food in your inventory too long, it would become rancid, so you had to eat your food fast enough as well.


Generally though, I prefer RPGs where the items don't break down. Fallout games, Baldur¨s Gate 1-2, Icewind Dale...

^ This

When it comes to durability of weapons and amor, Nox is by far the worst game around. Everything breaks every few seconds and it's extremely expensive to repair it. I think I've spent 50% of my game time with inventory management.

^This. It's a game for crying out loud. Let me play it, don't make me grind.

If I remember well, the "durability" of weapons was moddable (like most parameters of the Stalker series) so you could easily customize your game experience (with Notepad) to fit your player tastes. I probably edited that because I totally forgot there was "durability" in those games :o)