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Breath of the Wild Is the master sword lacking?

Jirohnagi

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In BOTW we find that it's got durability and it's damage is kinda crappy when compared to some of the later game weapons you get in fact it's best use is strictly guardians and anything malicey. Even when fully empowered it lasts for a piddling 166 hits before requiring recharging.

When i heard we'd get the Master Sword back i had assumed once we'd have this almighty weapon that'd cut through anything but i'll be honest the Lynel crushers are far far better for killing with. They sank the Master Sword into the same category as the magic rods, something that is handy to have under certain conditions but otherwise uses up a slot that could've been filled with something better.

So what's your thoughts on the master sword?
 
Joined
Jun 7, 2017
The implementation of the Master Sword in this game makes no sense, not to me. It's too easy to get 13 hearts and get it, but then it's relatively weak unless used only to "seal away the darkness". But when that happens, it IS very useful ... 60 damage per hit, and about 200 durability. Recharge time is only 10 real minutes, and from what I understand, the recharge times for everything are about 2x as fast when in Hyrule Castle ... so in there, it's almost a permanent weapon.

But back to my point ... The fact that there IS durability in this game is what causes the first issue/hurdle to deal with. How can you give a permanent weapon that's supposed to be "the bad-ass" to someone with only 13 hearts, early in the game? Your only real reason to use a different weapon in this game would be (examples now): Blizzard Rod for crowd control ... a spear for when you need a little extra reach ... or a two-hander for if/when you want to do the "spin to win" move. Other than that, this game would just become a pure slash-n-hack combat system with an unbreakable mid-range power sword. That can't happen, not the way this game is made.

So, my idea would have been to be able to get the sword early on ... maybe at 10 hearts ... but like in past games, you have to slowly power it up during your progression (but that too presents another potential problem, since this game wants to do as little to direct you as possible). Trial of the Sword (via DLC) is a nice adder in that it allows you to power up the sword to 60/200 permanently ... but that should have been A) in the base game design ... and :cool: should have been something like, you can't even do the beginning trials until you've done X ... then only AFTER that ... you have to go do Y before you can do the middle trials ... and then you can finally get to the Final Trials after completing task Z. Now, even more importantly, there would HAVE to be some required linear progression system in the game that kept you from getting through that process too quickly ... so that you don't have the fully powered master sword until "late in the game" so that you're prevented from having an over-powered, almost permanent weapon too early on.

Not to get off topic ... but as great as this game is, the degree of "open world" that this game allows is too much for a Zelda game. I don't want strict linear, hand-holding like some of the past games, no way. I do want, however, a required linear progression where it's not a straight line. Sets of tasks to complete, but done in whatever order you want ... but you have to do "all that stuff first" before you can start getting into other areas and new tasks ... and you slowly get powered up along the way. This way, you can allow the freedom to explore areas just like now ... but you may be limited to say, 1/5 of the map until you've cleared that area ... then you get to the next area, so on and so forth.

Anyway, back to the point... I think that given how the weapons/durability/combat/leveling-up in this game works, the MS is fine ... I just think that overall, it's a bit weird. If the MS is going to be in the game, it needs to be a bad-ass, at least eventually. That happened in this game, but only via DLC. Think about it ... a 60/200 weapon with a 10min recharge is VERY powerful, especially knowing you can take it from it's "like new" state into any battle and clear out everything in the area.
 

YIGAhim

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If I were Nintendo, I'd make it harder to obtain, and slightly better to begin with.

The Trial of The Sword was great and all, but unless they were to add something like that (That would slowly level up your sword), then it is back to being crap.

It should be a dynamic weapon, that adjusts its power based on the "level" of the player, or possibly by how much usage it gets, kind of like unlocking attachments in Call of Duty
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
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They have pussified it big time. This is supposed to be the series ultimate weapon. The sword of evils bane. The only weapon that can kill Ganon...

Unfortunately there are other more effective weapons in BoTW rendering the attainment of Master Sword a pointless endeavour which serves only to cater to the players nostalgia, whilst serving no purpose in the story of the game.

The Master Sword in Breath of The Wild SUCKS!
 
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What they should have done was have it always available in a depowered state, and make the fully active form (60/200/glowy) the form that "breaks". The depowered form could sit somewhere in the 20-25 damage neighborhood, making it better than most mundane weapons but still weak enough to incentivize the use of other things. Then if they still felt the need to nerf it, you make the cooldown time and/or durability be the thing that gets improved, not the base power.
 
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I didn't care all that much about powering up the Master Sword to increase it's damage output, but I wish they had fixed it to being unbreakable upon completing the Final Trials. It's hard enough for most people to complete it, that it seems like a decent treat. That or have it become unbreakable upon completing the main story.
 
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Jun 7, 2017
They could have made it so that its the ONLY weapon you can kill Ganon with, along with this list of "things" to consider - all of which would require a pre-disposed progression in the game:
  • You'd obviously have to find the sword, and be strong enough to get it in the first place (this is already done, good on you Nintendo)
  • When you first get the sword, it's not even usable at all (it's still broken from the battle 100 years ago)
  • Now you have to find out how to get it repaired (ie: a sage/smith that can at least put it back to a workable state)
  • Then you have to go on MULTIPLE expeditions to slowly power it up (similar to past games)
  • These missions would need to be (in my mind) things that required quite a few steps per each level-up for the sword - ie: with each Divine Beast you take back (in whatever order you want) you are given a clue on where to go, what to do, etc. to start to power it back up
  • After doing ALL FOUR BEASTS, and getting all the clues, and figuring them all out, and doing what they tell you to do ... you can FINALLY have the master sword at "full power"
Now, the real trick is ... at full power, it should be unbreakable with no "recharge" or cool-down time. Problem is - Durability. How do you make that work in this game? If you have a super-powered sword that's unbreakable, what incentive do you have for using other weapons with the exception of maybe the elemental rods? You don't ... so now you have to tweak the entire weapon system to work with this unbreakable, super-powered sword. THAT is the hardest part of all of this.

My solution is ... even though this game is NOT a linear game ... You'd have to make sure that pretty much whatever it is that finally gets the sword to full power is right before you can almost guarantee that the player is going to head for Ganon and get in the final battle and end the game. To do this, you almost need to make most all the content in the game (less side quests) required. You could make finding and completing all shrines a part of powering up the sword ... you could have had dual-use korok seeds for 1) expanding inventory, but 2) trading with people along the way to help you do the required tasks to power up the sword - which makes you explore and find more of them ... you could make it such that NO OTHER WEAPON can harm Ganon, so that powering up the sword is a requirement, period, end of story there ... so on and so forth.

In a progression like this ... you can still have the open world ... you can still have all the other weapons with durability ... you can still have things done in just about any order you want, as long as you do them all along the way to getting the master sword ready to defeat Ganon.

Something like this - even though my above scenario is not fully thought out - would keep the open world , solve the problem of the under-powered master sword, which also nerf's the durability thing if you have it at 60/200 ... and really promote (require) you to experience every piece of major content in the game.
 

Jirohnagi

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It's even worse when you consider that when fighting Ganon the sword does barely anything unlike the lynel, christ i did Ganon in Master Mode and had utter hell because i couldn't chip his health off fast enough with the master sword before he regens.
 
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They have pussified it big time. This is supposed to be the series ultimate weapon. The sword of evils bane. The only weapon that can kill Ganon...
In LoZ, Ganon died from the Silver Arrows, and the MS wasn't even in the game.

In ALttP, you could only stun him with the MS; you still needed the SA to finish the job.

In OoT, you were only able to stun him enough for the sages to seal him, not kill him. In TWW and TP, it killed him, yes, but only once he lost the ToP in both games.

In the Oracles, you could kill him with even the Wooden Sword, and due to how it's obtained and the fact that it's not in Hyrule, the MS isn't even canon in the OoX.

The MS is far from being the only weapon that can kill Ganon, and has only done so in two games in the series,(unless if we're counting Yuga's merge with Ganon in ALBW, which would still only make three)

On topic, I don't mind the use of the MS in BotW; From a gameplay perspective it's genius; you have a weapon that doesn't do extraordinarily high damage, but not appallingly low damage either, but damage that hovers in the ''average'' area, still giving you incentive to use other weapons while also not being permanently breakable, making it worth seeking out so that you always have a permanent weapon that doesn't leave your inventory.
 
I dont like it. Its a shame they nerfed it. Would have been nice if itbwas **** the Hylian Shield in SS which didnt ever break.

It makes going through the hassle of getting it pointless. It still breaks, its not that powerful and you dont even NEED it.

Did Link impale C. Ganon with it? No he didnt.
 
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