prfsnl_gmr wrote:FYI...Demon's Souls employs this approach. IMO, however, weapons in that game do not dull or break quickly enough. (I agree that they break too quickly in BOTW, and I think a happy medium lies somewhere between the two games' approaches to the mechanic.)
I think the Souls games in general do some different things with it. Normal use usually doesn't make it anything to worry about - remember to repair stuff from time to time, or in DS2/3, durability resets when you rest anyway so it's only an issue if stuff breaks.
However, at least prior to weapon arts in 3, special moves ate into durability. Or you'd occasionally have acid environments or attacks that'd degrade gear. A couple of the DS2 DLC bosses, offhand, had accelerated wear that necessitated repair powder or alternate weapons.
What Exhuminator is talking about sounds more like what King's Field IV did - weapons degraded down to 50% of their original damage, making swapping to new ones appealing, but fixing the old worked too. Or you could be like me, not realize that's how it works, and derp through the game doing half damage.

Still, I agree, I'd have rather seen a system that let me stick with weapon types I liked more readily.