Guild Wars 2

Do you think the methods of acquiring legendaries and other prestige items in this game decreases their value?

When I first saw a legendary months and months ago as a newbie player, I was in awe of it. It was wielded by my one of my teammates for my first run of SE Path 1. The guy just walked around and pools of black ichor shimmered in his wake, I dare you to think that’s not cool on an intuitive level.

Dungeons were still pretty new around that time, and runs weren’t always smooth. So seeing that obviously cool prestige piece, I felt like I was in good hands. I had immediately assigned a skillful competency level to the player, because that’s how prestige items are usually won in other games I’ve played. Then he proceeded to cheese and bug his way through the dungeon like a simpering coward. In the span of mere minutes I had discovered a long term gameplay goal and watched my desire to undertake it evaporate into thin air. I literally felt the smile slowly melt off my face and my wide eyed newbie awe chill into a cold disregard.

Since then I’ve learned what the process entailed, and I can hardly begrudge the guy. But I’ve just never been able to look at them as any kind of real badge of honor ever since.

So what are your thoughts?
Does a having a prestige item be achievable with grind as opposed to overcoming a technical challenge of some kind alter your feelings on it, or does it not matter so long as you get the look you want? If you do or if you don’t, do you think it has something to do with your gaming history? And does this feeling translate to the rewards system at large for even minor things? (Like if you’d gotten holographic wings for the lightfoot achievement as opposed to candy grinding or purchasing, would you feel differently about them?)

There are no prestige items here. There are some cool-looking ones, though. Which is good – there is nothing worse than a “prestige” ugly-looking gear that all “elite” players feel forced to wear to show off.

Nah.

Though, that’s probably because compared to past MMO’s I’ve played, obtaining a legendary in GW2 does involve some skill, and determination.

In past MMO’s I’ve played, in order to get “the big shiny”, you either had to be really lucky, have lots of connections, have tons of in game currency, or kill a single type of mob for months before getting that one super rare weapon drop.

Well, actually, the legendary weapons in GW2 has combined all of those and then some.

I don’t think it’s really possible to have truly challenging content anymore. You just can’t put cool rewards behind hard but fun challenges and not expect everyone to have them. Every single challenging instance is broken down and guides get posted on the internet in hours. Exploits are found, abused and later patched but the damage is done.

Most of us live in a society where every single person is rewarded, even if we lost/didn’t put in any effort. This mindset unfortunately carries over to most games, and when people don’t get their daily pat on the back for just existing, they get angry.

/myopinion

People who feel the need to display how superior they are to everyone else, usually are not.

I thought the game offered “cosmetic” items. Some are more expensive or time consuming than others, but I wouldn’t consider any of them “prestigious”.

In regards to value, well that is pretty subjective.

An unskilled player can easily run around with skilled players and thus achieve the exact same goals and rewards. It also doesn’t mean the unskilled player didn’t work hard to accomplish the goal. So I guess in my opinion it wouldn’t devalue the item.