1. Preface
I’m sure this has been suggested before but after looking through multiple pages of suggestions and not seeing anything similar I decided to make a new topic.
This is not meant to be a QQ about the grind for Legendary weapons.
This is not meant to be a “maek legendarees easier 2 get!!!1” thread.
This is meant to be a constructive discussion about how the acquisition of Legendaries could be made more interesting and rewarding.
2. The Problem
Right now there is nothing actually difficult about acquiring a Legendary weapon. It’s just a massive grindfest wherein all you have to do is commit a certain number of hours a day and you automatically get a Legendary after a certain amount of time.
Yawn…
Legendaries are Legendary weapons. They should be difficult to acquire, not simply take a long time to acquire.
3. Suggested Solution
Instead of making the Gifts for crafting Legendaries require exorbitant amounts of materials, gold, karma, etc., make them require unique achievements from each aspect of the game.
4. Example
Take Twilight for example (I choose Twilight because it is generally the most popular Legendary). This weapon currently requires:
- Gift of Mastery
* 200 Skill Points
* 525,000 Karma, 250 Laurels, or 3750 Fractal Relics
* World Completion
* 500 Badges of Honor (WvW) - Gift of Fortune
* 250 Ectos
* 77 Mystic Clovers
* Total of 2,000 t6 crafting mats - Gift of Twilight
* 100g
* Superior Sigil of Blood
* Total of 1,600 t6 crafting mats
* 500 Ascalonian Tears - Dusk
* Sheer dumb luck or ~800g depending on TP prices
There is absolulely nothing challenging about those requirements. It’s just a lot of mats/currency to farm. Instead consider the following with meta-style Achievements wherein you must complete x number of achievements within the category to earn the item:
- Gift of Mastery Achievements test your general skills in PvE and WvW
* Full completion of all the “Explorer” category achievements
* Achievement similar to “Lifetime Survivor” (earn 500,000 Exp without dying) but make it not count crafting Exp (because that’s just cheating!)
* Mini-meta WvW achievement similar to the current “Premier Season Veteran” meta. - Gift of Fortune Achievements test your skills with currency (the “grindy achieve”)
* New fifth tier of the “Gold Hoarder” Achievement (a little bit of a grind isn’t a bad thing)
* Reach level 400 in all crafting professions
* Buy an item that costs some high amount of karma - Gift of Twilight Achievements test your skills in specific areas of PvE/WvW
* Complete x new fractal-style achievements in Ascalon/Twilight Arbor (or some other dungeons) that require you to do special things related to each boss (like defeat Kholer within 5s of killing the Cave Troll or prevent Hodgins from taking any damage during the “Archive of the Resting” event, etc.). Each different Legendary Gift could require achievements from a different combination of dungeons
* Complete x new WvW achievements similar to the PvE achievements above. Examples could include (these are terrible examples but you get the general idea): Kill a player within x seconds of them using their Heal, or retake a keep within x minutes of another realm having conquered it, etc.
* Completion of all of the “Activities” achievements - Dusk
* Make Dusk account bound and have it be a 500 Weaponsmith craft (like current Ascended Weapons)
* Optionally make the recipe to craft Dusk require some kind of achievement like those listed above (I’m out of ideas for this one, maybe something to do with Fractals?)
These are just hastily thrown together ideas to get my point across. I’m not suggesting ANet use the above examples literally because I’m sure they have staff that can create far more interesting and balanced goals than I did.
I am sure that if ANet so drastically changed how Legendaries are acquired then people would complain for whatever reasons they may think they have (like “how come players get to have fun getting their Legendary when I had to grind my butt off to get mine! QQ!”). But honestly if we’re afraid of upsetting a small minority of the players then how will anything in the game ever be improved?
My revised requirements for Twilight were just a quick example of how ANet could make acquiring Legendaries feel like an actual hard-earned accomplishment instead of just feeling like a second job.
Put a stop to Grind Wars 2!
Prismatic Science: Engi
Prismatic Dream: Mesmer
(edited by Prism.5649)