Guild Wars 2

Let’s start by saying that any item can require any amount of Effort that you wish to impose on yourself to buy it.

If I decide to impose the rule of earning only 1 silver per day, even something simple as getting an Orichalcum Mining Pick would take me 4 days to acquire.

Therefore, the “grind” is self-imposed for many items, unless imposed by the game such as time-gated currency/materials.

Effort = the MINIMUM work required to guarantee obtaining an item.
Edit: Exclude Luck.

Obtaining a Legendary, or any skin that can be placed on the Trading Post for that matter, has an actual worth of 0 Effort, given that “credit card this way” is the
“least amount of effort required to obtain a Legendary”.

Someone who just started the game can acquire a Legendary within less than 10 minutes if they wanted to. I know of at least 3 people who simply bought gems to acquire their Legendary, 2 of which do not even have Map Completion.

Not to discuss Legendaries obtained by “miraculously receiving one through the mail”.
(Everyone knows what that means)

If you decided to grind your way to obtaining gold in-game through Legendaries, then it falls under the same category as obtaining 1silver per day for an Orichalcum Mining Pick above. (The grind is self-imposed, not necessary to acquire the item)

Obtaining an Ascended Weapon, requires Ascended materials. Given that Deldrimor/Elonian/Spiritwood can be acquired on TP, We are going to assume 0 Effort for these, as well as 0 Effort for making 500 in any Crafting Profession.
(Gems > Gold > Mats > Crafting 500).
What Ascended Weapons require, that are not tradable and require Effort, are Dragonite Ingots and Empyreal Stars, as well as Bloodstone Bricks. None of these items can be acquired without actually playing the game.
Dragonite Ingots require a mixture of World Bosses/WvW. ~17 World Bosses.
Empyreal Fragments require a mixture of Dungeons/JP/WvW. ~20 Dungeon Paths.
Bloodstone Bricks still requires Champion Loot Bags, which implies killing Champions, even though it is so abundant we start throwing it away.

Therefore, having one Ascended weapon proves that the player made the Effort(played the game) for it.

Each Ascended weapon says the following about the player:
The player killed ~17 World Bosses worth of Dragonite Ingots, ~20 Dungeon Paths worth of Empyreal Fragments, or the player is a JP Pro/WvW Pro.
(Going to exclude Bloodstone Bricks math here, but it is also relevant)

Having multiple Ascended weapons multiples this amount of Effort.
(it is cummulative).

tl;dr
Legendary = Legendary credit card
Ascended = Actually played the game

For those who actually acquired a Legendary by getting their precusors, World completion etc etc, you have NO proof that the item did not come from TP, was mailed to you from “someone outside” or that you made any kind of Effort to acquire the item.
For those who actually acquired an Ascended Weapon, you have earned it.

Same concept applies to titles,
Fish Slayer > The Emperor’s New Wardrobe.

Please dont feel offended if you crafted a Legendary. You know in your heart that you made the effort, even though everyone around is just saying that your credit card is shiny.

You can drop ascended weapons as well, though, so it could even be simple luck instead of effort.

Imho, the only things that really display effort in this game are the tribulation mode skins.

Sounds like someone is trying too hard…

Glad you like your ascended weapon. Running Champ trains in FGS for dust, lame world bosses for ore, and CoF for empyreals is exactly impressive either. No matter how everyone got their legendaries, they still look cooler than ascended weapons.

You need not do WvW, Dungeons, nor Jumping Puzzles for Empyreal Fragments. But, you do have to, at least, run around the starter zones. =P (They drop from those tiny chests. Lol.)

PraetorMortis.8610:

Sounds like someone is trying too hard…

Glad you like your ascended weapon. Running Champ trains in FGS for dust, lame world bosses for ore, and CoF for empyreals is exactly impressive either. No matter how everyone got their legendaries, they still look cooler than ascended weapons.

You are correct. Legendaries do “look” cooler. However, looks have absolutely nothing to do with effort. Therefore we are both correct.

Legendaries might as well be a simple very expensive skin in the gemstore like the Zodiac sets, but have max switchable stats(an implied pay2win statement).

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You need not do WvW, Dungeons, nor Jumping Puzzles for Empyreal Fragments. But, you do have to, at least, run around the starter zones. =P (They drop from those tiny chests. Lol.)

Correct as well. But the above remains true,
Ascended weapons imply someone played the game, regardless if it is making the effort to run around in starter zones opening chests, that still counts as playing the game.

Lets see here
Precursor= Gold or Luck
Gift of X= Gold
Gift of Fortune= Gold AND Luck
Gift of Mastery= Actual effort

This is coming from a person who is very close to quip

Everything can be bought. You cannot prove that someone didn’t buy their account from someone else.

SeNoZinD.9874:

Lets see here
Precursor= Gold or Luck
Gift of X= Gold
Gift of Fortune= Gold AND Luck
Gift of Mastery= Actual effort

This is coming from a person who is very close to quip

Sorry, but a Legendary does not really require any of those items. You can buy Quip directly from the Trading Post…

@Healix
I hope you dont get infracted for discussing things that are against the ToS…

I’m disappointed as well that you can simply buy your legendary with real life money. Legendaries shouldn’t be tradeable imho. All the things you have to do to get one (world completion, WvW tokens,………………………) and then having this Trading Post shortcut just looks like the heads of the company had a veto at the designers decison that you have to do content to get one.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Healix.5819:

Everything can be bought. You cannot prove that someone didn’t buy their account from someone else.

I hope you dont get infracted for discussing things that are against the ToS…

He is right though. If you are going to impose zero effort for legendaries just because people can whip out their credit cards to get it, then you also need to impose zero effort on everything in this game because people can whip out their credit card to get everything in this game. Just because a very small group of people whip out their credit card to get things, doesn’t mean you put a general “zero” effort on the items.

Actually like someone else suggested, everything in gw2 can be bought.

I could just buy an account with legendries and ascended weapons. I could also use my cc to buy gems convert it to gold and level weapon smith to 500, none of the mats required for an ascended weapon take any skill to get, mindkitten ss fights do not require any skill nor does running cof or any other ez dung.

Same goes for titles such as dungeon master, could pretty much pay someone else to run you through all of them.

Pointless thread is pointless.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m disappointed as well that you can simply buy your legendary with real life money.

Have fun spending 1k $ for a skin.

I did my legendary by hard work, 0 luck and im close to make second one (just need pre)

I had to farm cof p1 like mad – for pre
I had to farm karma in orr – for shards
I had to do wvw for badgets – i actually did that in solo roaming, not by jp and i had a lot of fun.
I had to make 100% map

Rest gold/mats i needed came from farming karma in orr

Sorry but i don’t see how ascended takes more effort.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m disappointed as well that you can simply buy your legendary with real life money.

Have fun spending 1k $ for a skin.

I did my legendary by hard work, 0 luck and im close to make second one (just need pre)

I had to farm cof p1 like mad – for pre
I had to farm karma in orr – for shards
I had to do wvw for badgets – i actually did that in solo roaming, not by jp and i had a lot of fun.
I had to make 100% map

Rest gold/mats i needed came from farming karma in orr

Sorry but i don’t see how ascended takes more effort.

Proof of your hard work? Looks like that $1k came in somewhere…
See? No proof.

I dont hate Legendaries, I am just saying that Legendaries should really feel Legendary, and they dont. Whatever Effort you actually did in game to acquire your Legendary is worth as much Effort as the one who whipped out that credit card to gems > gold then buy it off TP. Your hard work Legendary is worth as much as a credit card Legendary. Ascended items, on the other hand, require a bit of Effort on the part of the account owner, and feel like end-game gear.
(I will not discuss Ownership change as I do not want to be infracted)

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m disappointed as well that you can simply buy your legendary with real life money.

Have fun spending 1k $ for a skin.

I did my legendary by hard work, 0 luck and im close to make second one (just need pre)

I had to farm cof p1 like mad – for pre
I had to farm karma in orr – for shards
I had to do wvw for badgets – i actually did that in solo roaming, not by jp and i had a lot of fun.
I had to make 100% map

Rest gold/mats i needed came from farming karma in orr

Sorry but i don’t see how ascended takes more effort.

Proof of your hard work? Looks like that $1k came in somewhere…
See? No proof.

I dont hate Legendaries, I am just saying that Legendaries should really feel Legendary. and they dont. Whatever Effort you actually did in game to acquire your Legendary is worth as much Effort as the one who whipped out that credit card to gems > gold then buy it off TP. Your hard work Legendary is worth as much as a credit card Legendary. Ascended items, on the other hand, require a bit of Effort on the part of the account owner.
(I will not discuss Ownership change as I do not want to be infracted)

Its require a “bit of effort” as buying mats off tp:

-Dragonite > shatter+golem mark daily is enough to to get it if u dont rush. 0 effort, just sit in zerk, target it once and enjoy autoattack

-Empyreal > again just do daily cof p1+2, the easier paths ingame. Once again 0 effort

-Bloodstone > join champion train, actually easier and faster item to take.

Thats all about the hard work for ascended. Its all about gold, and farming in zerks.

Btw prove me that ur ascended weapon comes from crafting, not from a drop.

proof that your precious ascended weapon didn’t drop from Tequatl, while you were lucky enough to leech the event off off a TSS, TKS, etc guild?
If legendary is 0 effort because you could have payed around 3000 dollars to get it, then ascended is 0 effort because you could have gotten it as a drop.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’m disappointed as well that you can simply buy your legendary with real life money.

Have fun spending 1k $ for a skin.

I did my legendary by hard work, 0 luck and im close to make second one (just need pre)

I had to farm cof p1 like mad – for pre
I had to farm karma in orr – for shards
I had to do wvw for badgets – i actually did that in solo roaming, not by jp and i had a lot of fun.
I had to make 100% map

Rest gold/mats i needed came from farming karma in orr

Sorry but i don’t see how ascended takes more effort.

Proof of your hard work? Looks like that $1k came in somewhere…
See? No proof.

I dont hate Legendaries, I am just saying that Legendaries should really feel Legendary. and they dont. Whatever Effort you actually did in game to acquire your Legendary is worth as much Effort as the one who whipped out that credit card to gems > gold then buy it off TP. Your hard work Legendary is worth as much as a credit card Legendary. Ascended items, on the other hand, require a bit of Effort on the part of the account owner.
(I will not discuss Ownership change as I do not want to be infracted)

Its require a “bit of effort” as buying mats off tp:

-Dragonite > shatter+golem mark daily is enough to to get it if u dont rush. 0 effort, just sit in zerk, target it once and enjoy autoattack

-Empyreal > again just do daily cof p1+2, the easier paths ingame. Once again 0 effort

-Bloodstone > join champion train, actually easier and faster item to take.

Thats all about the hard work for ascended. Its all about gold, and farming in zerks.

Btw prove me that ur ascended weapon comes from crafting, not from a drop.

All of these require playing the game to get. Getting an ascended weapon drop also requires playing the game to get. Getting a Legendary does not.

Farming CoF = Playing the game.
Farming Shatterer = Playing the game.
Getting an Ascended Weapon drop = Playing the game.
Pulling out credit card = Not playing the game.

Therefore, no matter how little or pointless the Effort of getting an Ascended weapon is, it is greater than the Effort of getting a Legendary, simply because it involves playing the game.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

All of these require playing the game to get. Getting an ascended weapon drop also requires playing the game to get. Getting a Legendary does not.

Farming CoF = Playing the game.
Farming Shatterer = Playing the game.
Getting an Ascended Weapon drop = Playing the game.
Pulling out credit card = Not playing the game.

Therefore, no matter how little or pointless the Effort of getting an Ascended weapon is, it is greater than the Effort of getting a Legendary, simply because it involves playing the game.

You can be in the right place at the right time, place one hit on Tequatl and get it. I would argue that if you decided to get a legendary with a credit card it’s so much more effort, because you spend months in a work place 9 to 5 just to save up the money. Also you can’t equip a legendary unless you’re level 80, so you’ll still have to play the game. The fact that you could have hit tequatl once as a level 60 and got an ascended means that you could have put just as much effort for both.
I’m going to call troll post on this one.

^ Nuff said

Nothing in this games proves effort other than a few achievements, minis and SAB weapons. Rest is just time invested.

(Has 2 ascended weapons)

Effort for grinding for amors?ROFL..Nobody cares about that effort.Hey i wasted 100 hours of my life grinding for ascended and legendary amor.Other people:yeh…..

This topic gets reposted in one form or another almost every week.

Mirta.5029:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

All of these require playing the game to get. Getting an ascended weapon drop also requires playing the game to get. Getting a Legendary does not.

Farming CoF = Playing the game.
Farming Shatterer = Playing the game.
Getting an Ascended Weapon drop = Playing the game.
Pulling out credit card = Not playing the game.

Therefore, no matter how little or pointless the Effort of getting an Ascended weapon is, it is greater than the Effort of getting a Legendary, simply because it involves playing the game.

You can be in the right place at the right time, place one hit on Tequatl and get it. I would argue that if you decided to get a legendary with a credit card it’s so much more effort, because you spend months in a work place 9 to 5 just to save up the money. Also you can’t equip a legendary unless you’re level 80, so you’ll still have to play the game. The fact that you could have hit tequatl once as a level 60 and got an ascended means that you could have put just as much effort for both.
I’m going to call troll post on this one.

Hitting Tequatl once > Your Legendary.

Whatever else you do outside of the game, be it winning the Lottery or becoming King of Burger Kings to pay for the Legendary does not concern GW2.

Isnt it time Arenanet changes that?

Neither proves a thing.

Say someone unemployed mooching off the system spends 12 hours a day grinds out an Ascended. Then someone working a real job for 12 hours a day decides to buy a Legendary by charging up his credit card, because he doesn’t have time to grind it.
The premise of this topic says the unemployed guy is better and puts in more effort. Yeah, he put more effort into a game. Guy 2 put more effort into real life and bought his luxury item.

Point is, you can’t judge anyone without knowing how or what they did.

MrRuin.9740:

Neither proves a thing.

Say someone unemployed mooching off the system spends 12 hours a day grinds out an Ascended. Then someone working a real job for 12 hours a day decides to buy a Legendary by charging up his credit card, because he doesn’t have time to grind it.
The premise of this topic says the unemployed guy is better and puts in more effort. Yeah, he put more effort into a game. Guy 2 put more effort into real life and bought his luxury item.

Point is, you can’t judge anyone without knowing how or what they did.

The guy with real job does more effort hands down.

Where is this magical place where you can mooch off the system and still live and have cable?

I just bought off a legendary from the trading post respect me for my effort.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Whatever else you do outside of the game, be it winning the Lottery or becoming King of Burger Kings to pay for the Legendary does not concern GW2.

Isnt it time Arenanet changes that?

No.
This argument does not work. You don’t want to reward people with jobs and higher levels of disposable income…..and instead want to only reward people with alot of free time on their hands?

I sense sarcasm…

popcorn

Solution Legendary weapons should be cash shop exclusive only so that it solves the grinding problem and rewards people who does real effort.

It is what actually takes effort.

Ascended is just a grind, same as legendary except ascended is much easier to obtain.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

~20 Dungeon Paths worth of Empyreal Fragments, or the player is a JP Pro/WvW Pro.*

I parked 5 characters at the end of a JP. I log in once a day to them and loot the chest for an average 40ish Empyreals a day for 10secs total effort switching between them. Am I Pro yet?

MrRuin.9740:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

~20 Dungeon Paths worth of Empyreal Fragments, or the player is a JP Pro/WvW Pro.*

I parked 5 characters at the end of a JP. I log in once a day to them and loot the chest for an average 40ish Empyreals a day for 10secs total effort switching between them. Am I Pro yet?

No.

Scoobaniec.9561:

It is what actually takes effort.

Ascended is just a grind, same as legendary except ascended is much easier to obtain.

That picture is great.

And a mini Liadri tells everyone who’s boss. An Ascended weapon is way under that, but a Legendary is even lower due to the credit card. That’s my point.

On an Effort scale of 1 to 10, Mini Liadri would be 10, Ascended would be 1(or 0.5 if you want, i dont care), and Legendary would be 0.

Shouldn’t Legendaries inspire more respect in game rather than be called credit card owners?
Maybe make the incoming set of Legendaries that they are going to create “Account Bound” so we can show that we made the Effort? Right now every rich kid who have 10 minutes playtime have a Legendary.

And the “being 80” thing to equip the weapon, i dont buy that.
Credit card > mats > max all 8 crafting > level 80 = 0 effort.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Shouldn’t Legendaries inspire more respect in game rather than be called credit card owners?

Not really….
Honestly, I dont give a rats @$$ about how someone got their weapon or how much money they have or how much they love to grind.
All I care is that they know how to use it in the situations they need to, be it dungeons or whatever. If you want any kind of “respect” in a game environment, which is kinda of ridiculous to begin with, earn it by knowing how to play. Not by showing off the flashiness of your Ascended or Legendary.

So i guess the answer to this debate is:

Both Legendaries and Ascended Items are obtainable through effortless luck/buying, but it’s just easier to prove you put effort into making an Ascended due to it’s Account Bound mats and unavailability of the item itself on the TP.

Tobbygnome.6793:

So i guess the answer to this debate is:

Both Legendaries and Ascended Items are obtainable through effortless luck/buying, but it’s just easier to prove you put effort into making an Ascended due to it’s Account Bound mats and unavailability of the item itself on the TP.

Exactly that. A Legendary takes as much effort as a Commander title.
And it should not be that way.

Having an Ascended weapon(maxed weapons) is equal to “played the game”.

popcorn

/15char

Thank goodness I don’t give kitten about what others think about what I choose to equip. There is no way I could afford CC it and I wouldn’t want to. It is for my personal enjoyment, not for anyone else.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

For those who actually acquired a Legendary by getting their precusors, World completion etc etc, you have NO proof that the item did not come from TP, was mailed to you from “someone outside” or that you made any kind of Effort to acquire the item.
For those who actually acquired an Ascended Weapon, you have earned it.

Okay, dude:

I made 3 legendaries so far, which took me like 1800 hours of playing the game (world completions excluded). Making one ascended weapon takes less than 100 hours. I don’t have any proof? Let me show you my evidence:

Vatras.2806:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

For those who actually acquired a Legendary by getting their precusors, World completion etc etc, you have NO proof that the item did not come from TP, was mailed to you from “someone outside” or that you made any kind of Effort to acquire the item.
For those who actually acquired an Ascended Weapon, you have earned it.

Okay, dude:

I made 3 legendaries so far, which took me like 1800 hours of playing the game (world completions excluded). Making one ascended weapon takes less than 100 hours. I don’t have any proof? Let me show you my evidence:

Not really impress.

I have both and Legendary = more effort. -.- way more.

Hello,

As this thread is not inviting to a constructive and healthy discussion, it is now closed.

Thank you for your understanding.