Breath of the Wild Do any of BotW's mechanics stop you from playing the way you want to?

[MattWrites]

Wish there was a little more variety when it came to straight-up sword fighitng. Weird to know you could do more in Twilight Princess in that regard.

 

[Zero_Origin]

It's subjective, but boils down to two questions:

1) What can the developer do with this limitation?

2) What did the developer do with this limitation?

With something like durability, you can utilize it in several ways, including adding survival elements to the game or creating a money sink. A money sink is good when money making is fun and a common reward. BOTW doesn't utilize durability as a survival element nor a money sink. The developers put it in there simply because other Open World games use durability, it serves no real purpose for the game, and needlessly restricts freedom.

Yeah, a lot of examples that people bring up seem to be more on the subjective side of the scale. Even with the durability mechanic there is a degree of subjectivity, as some people still enjoyed the way it showed up in BotW, even though it was under-utilized mechanically, while on the other hand some people will dislike durability even in a game where it is utilized as effectively as possible. But yes, you are right that Nintendo did not implement the durability system as effectively as they could have; to do so they would've needed to increase each weapons durability, include a way to repair them, and maybe even implement a crafting system. I could see this creating an inventory space problem though, which was already an issue in BotW such as when you'd open a chest with a weapon and have to put it back due to not having space.

In my case, most of the time I didn't mind the durability mechanic. I had an easy come easy go mentality about weapons, although there were times I wouldn't attack enemy encampments when I felt it would end in a net loss of weapon quality. My main gripe with the system was that it required entering the menu in the middle of combat which breaks up the flow of it. This was jarring compared to SS which had the least amount of menu navigation in Zelda history, whereas BotW had the most by far. Having weapons break less often, while having the ability to pre-select weapons from the menu to auto-quip when the current one breaks would have gone a long way to alleviate this.

At any rate, what other open world elements do you think were under-utilized?