Guild Wars 2

Pawstruck.9708:

To all of you complaining about how long it takes to get a Legendary weapon, consider the alternatives for a moment:

• Random drop chance -

Isn’t that like, exactly how it it’s implemented currently? Apart from the fact that not only you have only a random chance to get some of the parts, it’s also COSTING you an investment. At least with WoW, you didn’t lose all your gold if you didn’t get that random drop.

Mirta.5029:

So you would rather invest unbelievable amounts of time or money into obtaining an item that would effectively allow you to quit playing the game? This game tends to have very slow gear progression if any at all, getting new and new powerful weapons seem to be far far more easy than getting legendaries for all of your characters. It’s a vanity item, because it’s only a skin, it will never have stats ABOVE the strongest weapon in game and the next strongest weapon will always be easier to obtain than a legendary.

No, I would rather invest unbelievable amounts of time or money once so that I don’t have to do it every single time the game devs decide to add new tiers of gear (which will likely be at least frequent enough to be in every new expansion).

Yes, it’s a massive grind and will always be larger than the grind for new gear. On the other hand, eventually the grind for the 3-4 tiers of new gear will surpass the grind for a Legendary, so why would I be motivated to do anything other than grind out a Legendary if it means that I get to hop off the gear treadmill and actually enjoy the game?

Why do you think people have been asking specifically for Legendary-tier armor? You think it’s just because it would look pretty? It’s because they can see the upcoming treadmill of gear grind (as the devs have already said they believe in vertical progression) and they want to be able to hop off of it before it gets rolling.

Voltaic Spear in GW1 was a vanity item. A GW2 Legendary not a vanity item as it serves a distinct function (anti-grind protection), and that function should only be available to the most skillful players in the game, the ones willing to trek the entire globe searching for chunks of these artifacts and fighting off the terrible bosses who guard them. There should be story behind these things, actual tangible lore.

The fact that WoW’s equivalent of Legendaries have more story and a better mix of grind-and-quest than GW2’s Legendaries is frankly rather embarrassing, considering that GW2’s devs were toting it as the next step forward in MMO design. Yet in this category it’s clearly several steps backwards.

Toxyn.9608:

I disagree that there is nothing Legendary about these items. I also disagree that they can be “grinded out”. How difficult it is depends on the player for the most part, so that bit must be ignored.

No, there is nothing difficult about gathering 250 of several items that are literally sitting in a vendor shop or out in a field. They can be grinded out (or just bought if you’re lazy) and in fact the developers expect you to.

Obsidian Shards, for example, are also available in the Fractals and can be easily grinded out with numerous Fractals runs. Dungeon tokens require grinding of a dungeon. Badges of Honor require that a player subject himself/herself to WvW or (gods forbid) sPvP and grind out kills there.

The only thing on your list that isn’t a grind is the Gift of Exploration, which is by far the easiest item on the list to finish.

As to the notion that they’re deserving of this “Legendary” title, I ask you a simple question….the same one that GW2’s original game videos asked us all the time: What is their story?

I guarantee that you can’t answer that one simple question. Which is precisely the problem. Only one Legendary (The Flameseeker Prophecies) has any degree of story behind it, and that story doesn’t explain why someone fused a book into their shield. Every other Legendary in the game is an amazing-looking item meant to be extremely powerful and rare, and yet….there’s literally nothing about any of them in existing Guild Wars lore. And there should be. There should be a huge story about how these items were made, what their purpose was, and how they fit into the world at large. That would make them far more epic than they are right now, and would bring them up to a level that goes beyond WoW’s own version of Legendaries.

But right now? Yakkington’s Ring, an Ascended ring in the Fractals vendor shop, has more story than every other Legendary in the game. So does Khilbron’s Phylactery. And Adelbern’s/Rurik’s rings. Do you know how shameful it is that a simple ring only tangentially related to a historical figure has more story behind it than a beautifully crafted sword like Twilight?

There is one problem though. They can be purchased on the TP. I think removing the option to sell Legendary items would go a long way in giving these items the status they deserve. The four participation factors I mentioned should not be able to be bypassed by people willing to purchase large sums of gold with real money.

The developers (allegedly) have no intention of changing this, because “the achievement only works if you equip a Legendary, not if you make one” so it’s apparently not considered a problem.

As someone who has grinded out 800+ ours in order to obtain my first legendary, I have come to the following conclusion: The ONLY thing that needs changing is the method of obtaining precursors is the mystic forge (because kitten does it suck to get nothing useful from chucking in hundreds of rares).

I have no problems at all with:

1. Obtaining the fine crafting materials: These are farmable, you can also upgrade t5 to t6 or buy of the trading post. Does it take a long time to gather? yes, but the weapon wouldnt be legendary if it only took 2 hours to gather all the materials so shrugs

2. Getting the lodestones: Having had to gather 100 onyx lodestones myself I can honestly say that this grind HURTS A LOT. I wouldnt mind if anet increased the drop rate/farming spots for certain lodestones. However this part of obtaining the legendary is the most challenging and hence grants the most satisfaction once you manage to gather all the necessary lodestones (its an awesome feeling srs XD)

3. 500 tokens for the gift of battle. Dont like killing people in wvw? do the jump puzzles. The one in your home borderlands is usually free if people are camping the other ones. Only 5 tokens? Get on 5 characters and do it 5 times. This part can be done in 20 days just by doing 1 jumping puzzle over and over again. Easy

4. Mystic clovers. The chance of getting is 1/3. Now this isnt really that bad since when you fail to get a clover you usually get some useful crafting materials or even a lodestone if you’re really lucky. However I do feel you guys who ended up going 5 or 8/100 attempts and to that im not really sure what to say :/

Suggestions for improving the method for obtaining precursor:
Gw2 has implemented the token system quite successfully and people seem to like it for the most part. My suggestion is this.

When combining 4 rares in the mystic forge give a 25% chance of returning a legendary precursor token instead of a rare or exotic (of course different types of precursor tokens should exist for different weapon types e.g: sword, rifle etc). Combine 100 tokens of the same type at a merchant to get the legendary precursor. This gives players a sense of progression towards obtaining their precursor rather than just dumping hundreds of rares with nothing to show for it. The difference between this token system and the mystic clovers is that I think these tokens should be sellable so if someone gives up on obtaining a precursor they can sell the tokens to help somebody else.

Any thoughts? ty

I agree with the OP. The current method hits that sweet spot where everyone can get one, but not everyone will. I think the precursors need to be tweaked a bit so they aren’t going for 400g apiece on the TP, and so the market on them can’t be cornered. But right now anyone who starts knows that they will be able to finish and get their legendary. Again, not everyone does. But anyone could. This is a good thing.

I don’t see any reason for the devs to deny some segment of the population the chance to have grind protection. All the whining about ‘only the best should have it’ – well, only the best do have it. It’s just not the best of the skillset the whiners want. It’s the most determined, most careful players who are willing to experience and succeed at all aspects of the game. Yes, there are a few who just buy it. But frankly that’s a tiny fraction of legendary owners, they’ve only been sold for a few weeks and tons of people had legendaries before then, or are simply more interested in crafting it than buying it. And honestly, if someone can get 2000 gold, that’s pretty legendary.

There are some things I think need to be rebalanced. But if the Orr zone is reworked to be more fun temples will be open more anyway(better lodestone farming). If the diminished returns / PvE rewards that are causing such problems are reworked, that will make it easier for people to farm the mats/lodestones they need. Basically, I think a lot of the things that need to be fixed anyway will make legendaries more fun to get. Precursors do need a tweak so it’s not just flushing exotics down the Mystic Toilet or forking over life savings on the TP. But other than that, looking at the mountain of work it will take me to get Incinerator and Kraitkin, I don’t really have complaints. It’s going to take forever. Well, it’s a legendary. It should take forever. And I know that if I keep going, I can finish.

With Big Brother watching, the only thing I can say is (evidently) that I disagree with people in this thread who are only posting that they disagree with me, without posting any actual evidence or support for their standpoints.

Oh, and that Legendaries should be account-bound. Seriously.

critickitten.1498:

No, I would rather invest unbelievable amounts of time or money once so that I don’t have to do it every single time the game devs decide to add new tiers of gear (which will likely be at least frequent enough to be in every new expansion).

Yes, it’s a massive grind and will always be larger than the grind for new gear. On the other hand, eventually the grind for the 3-4 tiers of new gear will surpass the grind for a Legendary, so why would I be motivated to do anything other than grind out a Legendary if it means that I get to hop off the gear treadmill and actually enjoy the game?

Why do you think people have been asking specifically for Legendary-tier armor? You think it’s just because it would look pretty? It’s because they can see the upcoming treadmill of gear grind (as the devs have already said they believe in vertical progression) and they want to be able to hop off of it before it gets rolling.

Voltaic Spear in GW1 was a vanity item. A GW2 Legendary not a vanity item as it serves a distinct function (anti-grind protection), and that function should only be available to the most skillful players in the game, the ones willing to trek the entire globe searching for chunks of these artifacts and fighting off the terrible bosses who guard them. There should be story behind these things, actual tangible lore.

The fact that WoW’s equivalent of Legendaries have more story and a better mix of grind-and-quest than GW2’s Legendaries is frankly rather embarrassing, considering that GW2’s devs were toting it as the next step forward in MMO design. Yet in this category it’s clearly several steps backwards.

1. Ascended is supposed to be the last tier
2. There’s no guarantee that the level cap won’t be raised with an expansion and level 80 legendaries wouldn’t be obsolete in comparison to the level 90 legendaries. You can’t win an MMO.
3. Quote where the devs say that they want a vertical progression for this game. As far as I remember it’s a minimal difference between tiers and no vertical progression is there. So source needed for that one.

Mirta.5029:

1. Ascended is supposed to be the last tier
2. There’s no guarantee that the level cap won’t be raised with an expansion and level 80 legendaries wouldn’t be obsolete in comparison to the level 90 legendaries. You can’t win an MMO.
3. Quote where the devs say that they want a vertical progression for this game. As far as I remember it’s a minimal difference between tiers and no vertical progression is there. So source needed for that one.

1) I’ve never heard where they said Ascended is the last tier. This would be awesome if true, but source needed I’m afraid.
2) They have said that legendaries will always be best-in-slot. So I don’t think they’ll make lvl 80 legendaries vs lvl 90 legendaries. Given the blowup over Ascended, I think they’ll know better than to do that.
3) http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/qa-with-isaiah-cartwright/
Talks about how they want to ‘keep invalidating old content to a minimum’ (how about not invalidating old content at all guys?), and how ‘all kinds of progression are important’ as an answer to a question about vertical progression. There are other sources, but at this point it’s clear they are including vertical progression of some sort, which is really disappointed me since I bought this game on the premise that once I got to the top I wouldn’t have to keep tweaking my setup every few months. If I wanted vertical progression I wouldn’t have bought this game in the first place.

Mirta.5029:

1. Ascended is supposed to be the last tier

Yes, that’s what I said.

Mirta.5029:

2. There’s no guarantee that the level cap won’t be raised with an expansion and level 80 legendaries wouldn’t be obsolete in comparison to the level 90 legendaries. You can’t win an MMO.

No guarantee except for this one of course:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons. Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items.

Best-In-Slot means Best-In-Slot, period. That means when they raise the level cap, Legendaries should receive a power boost to match the Best-In-Slot items released in that patch/expansion.

If indeed they do release future legendaries of higher power levels….then I guess deserve all of the flak they will definitely get as a result, because they shouldn’t make a promise they don’t intend to keep.

Mirta.5029:

3. Quote where the devs say that they want a vertical progression for this game. As far as I remember it’s a minimal difference between tiers and no vertical progression is there. So source needed for that one.

Okay, if you insist.

The most recent quote is, of course, in November.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

Then there’s posts from Reddit which confirm that the game will have vertical progression moving forward, and that the dev team believes in a vertical progression system.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

Yes the response was definitively expected. We did not intent for the information to come out this way. Going back to my previous answer the issue is that we believe in the vertical progression system we had pre launch and that the introduction of an element into the system post launch was going to cause concern but something we believe in.

….

So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy.

….

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

So, as I said, the team has directly stated that they will continue with vertical progression.

The one credit to your favor is that the team does directly state in that AMA that they do not intend to release other tiers of equipment. We’ll see if they stick to that philosophy or not. I suspect not, because it’s going to be extremely difficult for them to continue forward with vertical progression without adding new tiers of gear. They’d have to rely entirely on level cap raises to pull that off, and (as pointed out earlier) people are grinding Legendaries for the sake of being able to avoid that future grind. So if they don’t end up keeping Legendaries as BiS, I suspect they will be in serious trouble when the game’s first expansion releases.

Gilosean.3805:

1) I’ve never heard where they said Ascended is the last tier. This would be awesome if true, but source needed I’m afraid.
2) They have said that legendaries will always be best-in-slot. So I don’t think they’ll make lvl 80 legendaries vs lvl 90 legendaries. Given the blowup over Ascended, I think they’ll know better than to do that.
3) http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/qa-with-isaiah-cartwright/
Talks about how they want to ‘keep invalidating old content to a minimum’ (how about not invalidating old content at all guys?), and how ‘all kinds of progression are important’ as an answer to a question about vertical progression. There are other sources, but at this point it’s clear they are including vertical progression of some sort, which is really disappointed me since I bought this game on the premise that once I got to the top I wouldn’t have to keep tweaking my setup every few months. If I wanted vertical progression I wouldn’t have bought this game in the first place.

1. I’ve heard them say that the only reason they’re releasing it is because it was supposed to be in the game, but they couldn’t prepare it fully before launch.
2. Best in spot for level 80. No guarantees if they up the level though.

You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons. Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items.

this especially makes me think that they’ll up the level cap. “new legendaries”. Higher level legendaries maybe?
3. the only thing I can find about it:

Q: how important for you is vertical progression in GW2?

A: All progression is important to us, we want to make sure our rewards and progression systems hit a spectrum of players and makes everyone feel excited to play the game.

That is as vague as it can be.

As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

this doesn’t seem to talk about any other tiers besides ascended and legendary.

I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.

The difference seems to be small between the gear sets.

Mirta.5029:

The difference seems to be small between the gear sets.

That’s their claim.

However, I’ve already done the math, assuming a 10% increase in stats (based on their own words stating that the intention is a 5-10% increase in power, as well as estimations based on existing Ascended gear in comparison to Exotics).

The net result is a 23% increase in overall damage as compared to someone with Exotic gear.

That is not a “small” increase.

You’re welcome to check my math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-found-out/page/3

critickitten.1498:

Mirta.5029:

The difference seems to be small between the gear sets.

That’s their claim.

However, I’ve already done the math, assuming a 10% increase in stats (based on their own words stating that the intention is a 5-10% increase in power, as well as estimations based on existing Ascended gear in comparison to Exotics).

The net result is a 23% increase in overall damage as compared to someone with Exotic gear.

That is not a “small” increase.

You’re welcome to check my math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-found-out/page/3

wait, if we take a person fully decked out in exotics and compare to a person fully decked out in ascendeds, every item having 10% higher stats, wouldn’t it be a 10% higher stats over exotics in total?

Mirta.5029:

critickitten.1498:

Mirta.5029:

The difference seems to be small between the gear sets.

That’s their claim.

However, I’ve already done the math, assuming a 10% increase in stats (based on their own words stating that the intention is a 5-10% increase in power, as well as estimations based on existing Ascended gear in comparison to Exotics).

The net result is a 23% increase in overall damage as compared to someone with Exotic gear.

That is not a “small” increase.

You’re welcome to check my math here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/I-just-found-out/page/3

wait, if we take a person fully decked out in exotics and compare to a person fully decked out in ascendeds, every item having 10% higher stats, wouldn’t it be a 10% higher stats over exotics in total?

Not quite.

Damage is a multiplicative factor. Your base damage is multiplied by the amount of Power you have and divided by the overall Armor Rating (Armor + Toughness) of the enemy target. As such, having 10% more Power actually grants you a little bit more than a 10% increase in your damage.

That combined with your increased Critical Damage and Critical Rate means that you’re also hitting harder on criticals and doing them more often, so that, too, will raise your overall damage significantly. And as I indicated in my post, Critical Damage on these new items is actually in general higher than a 10% increase in stats overall, so that’s also contributing negatively to the power increase of the new tier.

Lets design something that is very easy to do and takes a very long time to finsih. It is so easy that a bot can do it. Yea…. a bot.

That my friends is pure design genius right there.

Lets have more please.

Gilosean.3805:

All the whining about ‘only the best should have it’ – well, only the best do have it. It’s just not the best of the skillset the whiners want. It’s the most determined, most careful players who are willing to experience and succeed at all aspects of the game.

Nope.

Grinding is not a skill set. A bot can grind very well, in fact. When people say “the most determined”, “the most devoted” or anything like that, they are simply talking about time spent, not skill. Legendaries are, in fact, the greatest example of “time spent > skill” in GW2.

When Legendaires stop rewarding people who play ten hours a day for 4 months just facerolling over their keyboards as they kill the same easy enemies over and over… Then maybe someone could say they have anything to do with “success”. Until then…

Erasculio.2914:

Nope.

Grinding is not a skill set. A bot can grind very well, in fact. When people say “the most determined”, “the most devoted” or anything like that, they are simply talking about time spent, not skill. Legendaries are, in fact, the greatest example of “time spent > skill” in GW2.

When Legendaires stop rewarding people who play ten hours a day for 4 months just facerolling over their keyboards as they kill the same easy enemies over and over… Then maybe someone could say they have anything to do with “success”. Until then…

What kind of “skill” do you want? There’s PVE skill—raiding—which, by my book isn’t skill at all, it’s just following a script. Even if you DO consider that “true” PVE skill, there are already PVE dungeons that yield Ascended gear for you.

PVP, which I believe requires more skill, also already has rewards of its own.

Legendary weapons are something to work towards. You may be deceiving yourself into thinking “Pfft. If it doesn’t take skill, I won’t do it!” but what you’re really saying is “I don’t want to work for it.” And that’s perfectly fine! Don’t! You’re free to not work for it and still get the best weapons/gear! Legendaries are for those of us who do want to work for them.

Pawstruck.9708:

What kind of “skill” do you want?

Already replied to in one of the many posts adressing you that you chose to ignore.

Pawstruck.9708:

Legendary weapons are something to work towards. You may be deceiving yourself into thinking “Pfft. If it doesn’t take skill, I won’t do it!” but what you’re really saying is “I don’t want to work for it.”

Nope. What I am saying is that what you describe as “work” doesn’t deserve any reward, much less a Legendary. Do you want to see a real life example? People who do mindless, simple jobs often work a lot of hours per day and yet get very low salaries – see Chinese factory workers. Meanwhile, skilled people get considerably higher salaries even when they work less than those Chinese factory workers – see Steve Jobs.

Grinding is just doing mindless things over and over, under the claim that this deserves a reward. Just as the Chinese factory workers are not going to get rich even when working 18 hours per day 7 days per week, grinders should not be rewarded. The skilled players, who actually know what they are doing, and avoid mindless repetition more suited to bots – those deserve a reward.

Agreed OP.

If it was any less time/money-consuming to get legendaries everyone would have one.
The good thing about FoW armor in GW1 was that the majority didn’t have one (at least not until GW1 started to be 6-7 years old).

Erasculio.2914:

Pawstruck.9708:

What kind of “skill” do you want?

Already replied to in one of the many posts adressing you that you chose to ignore.

Pawstruck.9708:

Legendary weapons are something to work towards. You may be deceiving yourself into thinking “Pfft. If it doesn’t take skill, I won’t do it!” but what you’re really saying is “I don’t want to work for it.”

Nope. What I am saying is that what you describe as “work” doesn’t deserve any reward, much less a Legendary. Do you want to see a real life example? People who do mindless, simple jobs often work a lot of hours per day and yet get very low salaries – see Chinese factory workers. Meanwhile, skilled people get considerably higher salaries even when they work less than those Chinese factory workers – see Steve Jobs.

Grinding is just doing mindless things over and over, under the claim that this deserves a reward. Just as the Chinese factory workers are not going to get rich even when working 18 hours per day 7 days per week, grinders should not be rewarded. The skilled players, who actually know what they are doing, and avoid mindless repetition more suited to bots – those deserve a reward.

The biggest problem with making legendaries skill based rewards (especially in pve) is.

Step 1. Some guy who figures it all out first will post a youtube video

Step 2. In 48 hours, everyone will have watched the video and find out how to do it.

Step 3. in 72 hours everyone will have a legendary

Step 4. In 1 week people will have figured out exploits making it even easier

Remember the early days of release (not sure how long you have been playing this game) when kholer in AC used to be everyones worse nightmare, and that 2 weeks later people were speedrunning AC, and now people are glitching him? Yeah, thats the biggest problem with making skill based pve rewards in any game. Somebody will always find a way to make it easy. Unfortunately grinding and RNG seems to be the only way around it (at this moment)

Erasculio.2914:

Gilosean.3805:

All the whining about ‘only the best should have it’ – well, only the best do have it. It’s just not the best of the skillset the whiners want. It’s the most determined, most careful players who are willing to experience and succeed at all aspects of the game.

Nope.

Grinding is not a skill set. A bot can grind very well, in fact. When people say “the most determined”, “the most devoted” or anything like that, they are simply talking about time spent, not skill. Legendaries are, in fact, the greatest example of “time spent > skill” in GW2.

When Legendaires stop rewarding people who play ten hours a day for 4 months just facerolling over their keyboards as they kill the same easy enemies over and over… Then maybe someone could say they have anything to do with “success”. Until then…

Dude(ette), I think I know that being determined means spending time doing something. So, I’m not sure what you think you’re trying to tell me?

Being able to plan is a skill. Being successful in many aspects of the game takes skill. Engaging intelligently with the game economy takes skill. Being able to stick with something through repetition is a skill (or character trait that a person can develop). It’s not all reflex-based skill. It’s not all tactical (although it is strategic). There’s a ton of reflex-based content in the game (all combat, for example). The fact that ANet has made parts of the game not depend entirely on reflexes is great and I applaud it.

Those aren’t skills you like (they may not be skills you have). But they are skills. People without good reflexes have been locked out of game content for years. They’re not locked out of this content. That’s awesome, and people should stop complaining because all of a sudden combat skills aren’t the most essential thing.

What kind of skill would you see replacing the current legendary setup? Logical thinking and puzzles? I would actually enjoy that. More quests? Given how ANet handled slaying a major threat to the existence of the entire world, I am very wary of any more ‘epic’ quests. Plus, probably combat-based, which shifts the skillset needed. How would you pull people into different parts of the game with this?

TLDR: It’s a skillset that you are ignoring (perhaps because you don’t want to have to develop it?). If you’re going to keep on whining, do something constructive and tell us how you’d change things up while still keeping the no-one-locked-out nature.

Change the quality name of these items from Legendary to Mystic. Some people seem to think that Legendary items must be devoid of a grind and must have a lore background (the Legend in Legendary).

I just view these items as a unique-skinned version of the highet stat tier. They are forged – not found – so how can they have a pre-existing lore background? I like to think that we are the heroes which will build the legend behind these items. Already, they have aided in the death of an Elder Dragon.

Why does everything have to be so over-analyzed?

Toxyn.9608:

Change the quality name of these items from Legendary to Mystic. Some people seem to think that Legendary items must be devoid of a grind and must have a lore background (the Legend in Legendary).

I just view these items as a unique-skinned version of the highet stat tier. They are forged – not found – so how can they have a pre-existing lore background? I like to think that we are the heroes which will build the legend behind these items. Already, they have aided in the death of an Elder Dragon.

Why does everything have to be so over-analyzed?

It’s not the name. The devs have no one to blame but themselves for getting everyone hyped about Legendaries. They were the ones who made them sound like they were special, unique, and epic items that only a handful of players would have. The answer to every other MMO’s versions of the same sort of “elite” content.

Or have we forgotten this video already?

Pawstruck.9708:

With Big Brother watching, the only thing I can say is (evidently) that I disagree with people in this thread who are only posting that they disagree with me, without posting any actual evidence or support for their standpoints.

Oh, and that Legendaries should be account-bound. Seriously.

And yet, you haven’t posted any evidence that supports your point either, merely opinions that support your statement, which aren’t objective since you don’t look at the positives of the other points, or the negatives of a resource grind:

RNG

Advantages:

• Artificially lengthens game-play – While not necessarily an advantage from our point of view, it is for the devs, since they can work on more content.

Disadvantages:

• Doesn’t necessarily reward game-play – Someone who has played 1000+ hours might not get anything, while someone else might get it as soon as they hit cap.

Quest

Advantages:

• Provides context – Why is the weapon legendary? Who did it belong to? Who created it? Something that is of Legend, whether it be a person or a weapon, usually has a story behind it, down to its abilities or the person who used them. Look at Caladbolg, Naegling, Hrunting, Excalibur, Mjolnir, Claiomh Solais. If we’re looking at fiction, look at Sting, Narsil, The Elder Wand, The Sword of Shannara, Vorpal Sword. All of these weapons got some sort of back-story to them. As it stands, Pyre Fierceshot Arrowhead, a level 6 accessory, has more context than Legendary weapons.

• Rewards Gameplay – If you complete and work on the quest, you progress. Simple.

• If done in a certain way, its available to everyone.

Disadvantages:

• Resources needed to create the quest-line, testing ect.

Dungeon Progression

Advantages:

• As with RNG, it artificially lengthens game-play.

Disadvantages:

• Forces those who don’t like dungeons / group content / prefer to solo to do that content.

Resource Grind

Advantages:

• Lengthens game-play

• If done in a certain way the option is available to everyone

• Removes gold out of the economy i.e. a gold sink.

• Rewards gameplay

Disadvantages:

• Over time, it can become extremely tedious, if the amount of a particular resource is scarce / based on RNG.

• On its own, it provides no context.

• Easy to implement

Ideally, the process of creating a Legendary should:

Give context as to why the weapon is Legendary – Something of Legend has a story behind it. As you go about advancing, collecting certain items, you learn the lore of the weapon.

Lengthen Gameplay – Legendaries should be a time-sink for those who want to obtain them. Not too long so it gets tedious, but not so short that its easy to get. Can be done by:

• Resource Grind
• Achievement Grind – i.e. You need Max Rank of an Achievement to get a certain crafting resource. Can be used to reduce Resource Grind i.e. instead of needing 500 tokens for a dungeon gift, reduce it to 360 (that’s all 3 paths each day for two days), but have the requirement that you’ve completed every dungeon and every EM path.
• Make the process hidden, so players have to figure it out.
• Have randomised aspects (not the same as RNG), so players can’t follow a walkthrough. For example, each weapon has 3 parts you need to collect in order to assemble a pre-cursor. These parts could be hidden anywhere in the open-world (chests, PoI, at the end of jumping puzzles).

Reward Gameplay – Meaning minimal RNG. If someone needs to kill Champions to get, say, 100 of an item, they should get it, or at least a good chance of getting it. Can also be encouraged. The more variety of gameplay that is rewarded, the better.

Be available to everyone that works for it – While the process shouldn’t be easy, it should be open to everyone that wants to work for it. Comes under ‘rewards gameplay’.

As it stands, the current process of Legendary weapons:

• Rewards game-play to an extent (gold, karma, skill points, map completion).
• Lengthens game-play – Since a lot of materials are needed, the process lengthens game-play.
• Are available to everyone.

However, personally I think they could use work on:

• Giving context to the weapon – Even if it’s just the last part to ‘restore’ power to the weapon, it needs to have some lore behind it.
• Lengthen game-play – Although it does this, it does it in possibly the most one-sided way possible, and that’s grinding a resource. Add some more aspects to the process (achievements, further exploration [mini-dungeons, jumping puzzles ect]).

Gilosean.3805:

Being able to plan is a skill. Being successful in many aspects of the game takes skill. Engaging intelligently with the game economy takes skill. Being able to stick with something through repetition is a skill (or character trait that a person can develop).

You don’t need to plan to get a Legendary; playing a lot of time will give you the resources to get one regardless of planning. You don’t need to be successful in any aspect of the game to have a Legendary; farming over and over is not success. You don’t need to manipulate the TP to get a Legendary, although that helps.

Being able to stick with something through repetition… As you said yourself, that’s not a skill. Enduring well something unpleasant is a character trait, although being willing to do so in a game is somewhat nonsensical.

Ergo… You don’t need skill to get a Legendary. All you need is time, and being willing to play a game (you know, that thing that was meant to be fun) by enduring unpleasant grind.

This makes sense, in the context of classic MMOs. They have been built around the concept of monthly fees, so players are rewarded for playing as much as possible. Since the idea is that everyone should be rewarded merely by playing (and thus everyone would be willing to play, and so pay, more), the long term goals in classic MMOs don’t require skill – they have been made to catter to the lowest denominator. That’s, essentially, what Legendaries are – but given how Guild Wars 2 does not have a fee and, more importantly, has not been built around the concept of a monthly fee, the current Legendary system is just an anachronism.

For me, Legendaries should indicate, that you know Tyria. One way of introducing legendarys: By exploring the world, items(Book/Artifact/… hidden in for player individual preassigned spots[f.e. bookshelves; ruins; drop from special monster; …- ofc there need to be tons of possible spots]) can be discovered which offers playable lore(really hard minidungeon/jp/boss/puzzle…included). So each major region offers 1-2 parts of playable lore. The multifaceted challenge of finding these lore combined with really skill-intense hightlights would guarantee that
+not everyone has Legendarys(it will stay ‘elite’- time consuming without need of repetiveness/grind)
+you need a hell of skill
+you learn the world of Tyria and it’s lore(maprusher won’t get legendarys that easy)
+no randomness(ye, the spotassignment will be random- but exploring and finding the spot won’t!!!)

I’d like this more than running dungeons/farming events/hoping for random drops/grind/…

imbalancedhero.3968:

Remember the early days of release (not sure how long you have been playing this game) when kholer in AC used to be everyones worse nightmare, and that 2 weeks later people were speedrunning AC, and now people are glitching him? Yeah, thats the biggest problem with making skill based pve rewards in any game.

Sounds like a case for more QA testing before release to live, and perhaps a limited public test environment.

Weee…grind dungeon tokens or buy it from the trading post…

Thats a super duper legendary experience !!!!!

/end sarcasm

Seriously….there needs to be a long quest or something…who cares if theres a grind..at least it will somewhat be masked by the fact we are doing something to advance the quest instead of doing the same dungeon over…or buying it off a TP..

Bad implementation Anet.

These quest should send you all over the World…The hunt for a legendary should not be confined to the first game….instead it should expand over many expansion packs/Campaigns etc.

You should have to join different factions…gain unique artifacts/books etc etc from them.

Find hidden items in the world…in the darkest caves….etc etc

Anet should have not added Legendaries for a few years until they had a solid plan/questline and after they had a few expansions/new content release to flesh out the experience.

Gaining your legendary should be a fun/epic/“Legendary” journey of adventure and discovery…..NOT the current omg!!!11!! I grinded this dungeon for 100000 hours….or even worse…I banked my gold/used the ol credit card spent thousands and converted to gold and bought MY legendary (or precursor)…IM so awesome!!11!! (yes and we all know there are people out there who would do this..)

You shouldn’t call these items legendary ArenaNet. There is nothing legendary about gaining them.

Id rather log in and be excited to continue my legendary quest…or sitting on the edge of my seat for that next legendary quest to be added via an expansion/content update…then dreading the whole…gotta do this dungeon a ton more times today only to end up with bad returns halfway through.

Angelus.1042:

Weee…grind dungeon tokens or buy it from the trading post…

Thats a super duper legendary experience !!!!!

/end sarcasm

Seriously….there needs to be a long quest or something…who cares if theres a grind..at least it will somewhat be masked by the fact we are doing something to advance the quest instead of doing the same dungeon over…or buying it off a TP..

Bad implementation Anet.

These quest should send you all over the World…The hunt for a legendary should not be confined to the first game….instead it should expand over many expansion packs/Campaigns etc.

You should have to join different factions…gain unique artifacts/books etc etc from them.

Find hidden items in the world…in the darkest caves….etc etc

Anet should have not added Legendaries for a few years until they had a solid plan/questline and after they had a few expansions/new content release to flesh out the experience.

Gaining your legendary should be a fun/epic/“Legendary” journey of adventure and discovery…..NOT the current omg!!!11!! I grinded this dungeon for 100000 hours….or even worse…I banked my gold/used the ol credit card spent thousands and converted to gold and bought MY legendary (or precursor)…IM so awesome!!11!! (yes and we all know there are people out there who would do this..)

You shouldn’t call these items legendary ArenaNet. There is nothing legendary about gaining them.

Id rather log in and be excited to continue my legendary quest…or sitting on the edge of my seat for that next legendary quest to be added via an expansion/content update…then dreading the whole…gotta do this dungeon a ton more times today only to end up with bad returns halfway through.

I rather do farm for 10000 hours than doing some stupid story quest. I hate story quests in mmorpgs. They are the same as grind, you just do what is told you to do and finish it. I dont play mmorpgs to do quests, stories, I do that only once and never again. I play mmorpgs to develop my character, give him best armor, farm as much gold as I can, farm materials, do dungeons, raids, pvp and play with friends. Quests, stories are the last things I play mmorpgs for and they encourage solo play.

MMORPGs are about playing with each other, why should Legendary be based on some story quest which everyone do solo (as we all know)?! Current way gives you 100x more opportunities to play with friends, from doing dungeons, farm materials, do wvw, etc.

No one is forcing you to craft legendary you know? If you dont enjoy the requirements, ctop cryeing and dont go for it.

So yea. I do agree with OP. Current way of crafting Legendary weapons is where it should be, it can use some tweaks, but nothing major.

I would be more than happy if all dungeon chest had a chance or dropping a legendary weapon. Even if the chance is 0.02 i’d go with that instead of getting a precursor, 100% boring map and do tones of other things that i don’t want to do personally. I want to play a dungeon and have a chance of epic skin, not craft bs…

Kacigarka.5176:

I rather do farm for 10000 hours than doing some stupid story quest. I hate story quests in mmorpgs. They are the same as grind, you just do what is told you to do and finish it. I dont play mmorpgs to do quests, stories, I do that only once and never again. I play mmorpgs to develop my character, give him best armor, farm as much gold as I can, farm materials, do dungeons, raids, pvp and play with friends. Quests, stories are the last things I play mmorpgs for and they encourage solo play.

MMORPGs are about playing with each other, why should Legendary be based on some story quest which everyone do solo (as we all know)?! Current way gives you 100x more opportunities to play with friends, from doing dungeons, farm materials, do wvw, etc.

No one is forcing you to craft legendary you know? If you dont enjoy the requirements, ctop cryeing and dont go for it.

So yea. I do agree with OP. Current way of crafting Legendary weapons is where it should be, it can use some tweaks, but nothing major.

Lack of imagination, you have.

Down in the Flame Temple Tombs, the Ancient Blacksmith considers your request.

“Aye, I can craft that for ye. Ye gonna have to bring me some components to craft if. I’m gonna need you to get some Orichalcum, some Lodestones I can easily shape, a Gift from each of the places of great power, of old and 50 shards of black glass.”

i.e. Orichalcum, Molten Lodestones, 1 of each dungeon Gift and 50 Obsidian Shards.

Exactly the same process as now, just put into story form.

Can’t see why you’d complain about that: you get your grind and opportunities to play with friends, and us who like the story get that.

My opinion is this:

Gift of Mastery is perfect. To make this you need to complete world exploration (Gift of Exploration), play a bunch of WvW (500 Badges of Honor for Gift of Battle), do a ton of events for karma (250 obsidian shards for 2100 karma each), and collect a bunch of skill points (200 for a bloodstone shard). Everything here sounds good.

Gift of Fortune I’m willing to accept. Collect a ton of trade skill mats, ectos, and do a RNG-based money thing for Mystic Clovers. Fine.

Gift of <Legendary> could use some tweaking so it isn’t so gold reliant. Icy Runestones are lame (essentially sink 100g into the weapon), and some of the gifts are very RNG dependent. 250 Unid dyes? 250 Silver doubloons? Those aren’t exactly farmable. Lodestones would be okay if there was a decent way to go about acquiring them.

And I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done about precursors. They stick out as being drastically overvalued in terms of gold. They’re currently too rare and there needs to be a definite way of acquiring them.

Basically I just wish Legendaries were more about time investment and playing the game, and less about winning the lottery. There should be a definite road that if you follow it you can acquire a weapon (much like anything special from GW1).

I completely agree with you OP.

Legendaries should be rare and hard to obtain since they’re the best you can get in the game. ANet have always stated that they aren’t something that can be obtained in a short period of time, but over many months of gameplay.

Making it easier to obtain would just ruin their appeal, no one wants to see every Tom, Dick & Harry running around with one. To be honest, they seem common place already. Maybe we should be discussing how to make them even harder to obtain?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Lack of imagination, you have.

Down in the Flame Temple Tombs, the Ancient Blacksmith considers your request.

“Aye, I can craft that for ye. Ye gonna have to bring me some components to craft if. I’m gonna need you to get some Orichalcum, some Lodestones I can easily shape, a Gift from each of the places of great power, of old and 50 shards of black glass.”

i.e. Orichalcum, Molten Lodestones, 1 of each dungeon Gift and 50 Obsidian Shards.

Exactly the same process as now, just put into story form.

Can’t see why you’d complain about that: you get your grind and opportunities to play with friends, and us who like the story get that.

dont have anything about this suggestion but some players want only story quest in order to craft legendary, i thought your suggestion is same. Sorry then

Mirta.5029:

critickitten.1498:

No, I would rather invest unbelievable amounts of time or money once so that I don’t have to do it every single time the game devs decide to add new tiers of gear (which will likely be at least frequent enough to be in every new expansion).

Yes, it’s a massive grind and will always be larger than the grind for new gear. On the other hand, eventually the grind for the 3-4 tiers of new gear will surpass the grind for a Legendary, so why would I be motivated to do anything other than grind out a Legendary if it means that I get to hop off the gear treadmill and actually enjoy the game?

Why do you think people have been asking specifically for Legendary-tier armor? You think it’s just because it would look pretty? It’s because they can see the upcoming treadmill of gear grind (as the devs have already said they believe in vertical progression) and they want to be able to hop off of it before it gets rolling.

Voltaic Spear in GW1 was a vanity item. A GW2 Legendary not a vanity item as it serves a distinct function (anti-grind protection), and that function should only be available to the most skillful players in the game, the ones willing to trek the entire globe searching for chunks of these artifacts and fighting off the terrible bosses who guard them. There should be story behind these things, actual tangible lore.

The fact that WoW’s equivalent of Legendaries have more story and a better mix of grind-and-quest than GW2’s Legendaries is frankly rather embarrassing, considering that GW2’s devs were toting it as the next step forward in MMO design. Yet in this category it’s clearly several steps backwards.

1. Ascended is supposed to be the last tier
2. There’s no guarantee that the level cap won’t be raised with an expansion and level 80 legendaries wouldn’t be obsolete in comparison to the level 90 legendaries. You can’t win an MMO.
3. Quote where the devs say that they want a vertical progression for this game. As far as I remember it’s a minimal difference between tiers and no vertical progression is there. So source needed for that one.

It isn’t right to say that ascended armor is the last tier, exactly. They’ve said they are either working on or have plans for legendary armor in the future.

Kacigarka.5176:

dont have anything about this suggestion but some players want only story quest in order to craft legendary, i thought your suggestion is same. Sorry then

If you think about what a ‘quest’ is in an MMO, it’s a task. That means it can have whatever requirements needed to complete it.

So yes, while the entire process of crafting a Legendary might be a story quest, it doesn’t mean that it has to be easy.

From what I can gather, a lot of people want a story based quest for the lore and context, not to make things easier.

TheDaiBish.9735:

If you think about what a ‘quest’ is in an MMO, it’s a task. That means it can have whatever requirements needed to complete it.

So yes, while the entire process of crafting a Legendary might be a story quest, it doesn’t mean that it has to be easy.

From what I can gather, a lot of people want a story based quest for the lore and context, not to make things easier.

I’d settle for this, yeah.

My personal preference, though, is for Legendaries to involve a mix of item acquisition and actual skill-based challenges to truly test you and your skill as a player.

I expect if you integrate these two elements well, you’d end up with only the most talented players getting Legendaries. They’d be more rare, if anything, than they are now.

Pawstruck.9708:

• Random drop chance – Anybody who’s played WoW knows what the Ashes of A’lar was. They also know that they have almost no chance of EVER getting that item, because it was like a 0.02% drop chance from a raid boss. I’m not saying GW2 should have no random drops of high rarity, but they only make for a certain degree of RNG-based fun. It’s nothing to build a system like Legendary BiS’s on.

You think the drop rate for precursors is higher than 0.02% chance from a chest?

critickitten.1498:

I’d settle for this, yeah.

My personal preference, though, is for Legendaries to involve a mix of item acquisition and actual skill-based challenges to truly test you and your skill as a player.

I expect if you integrate these two elements well, you’d end up with only the most talented players getting Legendaries. They’d be more rare, if anything, than they are now.

I agree.

If anything:

• There’s not enough Achievement-requirements either, given that the Legendary weapons are supposed to show off ‘what you can do’.
• What is required is too restricted, but you need a lot of it.
• Legendary weapons are artificially hard to get (RNG), and not hard as in it’s a challenge.

My solution would be:

• Incorporate the current process into a massive quest chain. For example, in order to get the pre-cursor, you need to collect 3 parts for him to forge into the pre-cursor of your choice. These would spawn in random locations in the open world.

• Reduce Resource grind and fill the gap in with Achievement grind.

• Add different tasks which you need to do in order to ‘charge’ different items. For example, complete all of the mini-dungeons, jump puzzles, meta-events,get certain Achievements (Survivor, for example), kill 100 Champions, all dungeon bosses, all mini-dungeon bosses and all meta-event bosses with the Precursor equipped. That represents the skill component.

I think the current legendary accqusition is fine, but I wouldnt mind some ADDITIONAL skill tests on top of it.

Wolrok.6143:

Gift of Mastery is perfect. To make this you need to complete world exploration (Gift of Exploration), play a bunch of WvW (500 Badges of Honor for Gift of Battle), do a ton of events for karma (250 obsidian shards for 2100 karma each), and collect a bunch of skill points (200 for a bloodstone shard). Everything here sounds good.

I agree.

Gift of Explorarion is great, a symbol of mastery over exploration.

Gift of Battle is great, too, a symbol of mastery over WvW. Those who enjoy WvW are going to get it simply by playing, no grind required, and the amount of badges required is very reasonable – a full set of invader armor requires almost 4 times as many badges.

The 250 Obsidian Shards are nice, a symbol of mastery over dynamic events. That much karma is easy to get just by playing the game, too, there is no need to grind for it.

The Bloodstone Shard is an interesting idea, representing mastery of playing a single character, but it kinda of becomes diluted since those many skill points are earned merely by earning the Gift of Exploration.

The Icy Runestones themselves don’t bother me. They would represent mastery over making money – if they were the only gold-based component, considering how 100 gold isn’t that much, it would be ok.

Having the need for two maxed crafting disciplines is nice, representing mastery over crafting. But IMO, it’s not enough. I think the Legendaries should require true mastery over crafting, by demanding people to have maxed all crafting disciplines.

Likewise, the dungeon-based gift isn’t hard to get, but I don’t think it’s enough. While it requires only a little repetition (it requires less than six paths), I would rather have a system that requires no repetition at all but favors true mastery of dungeons: IMO, a Legendary should require a player to have the Dungeon Master title.

The rest is very badly designed. The Gifts of Might and Magic are very bad – those are very unlikely to be achieved through normal play, they require either grind to be farmed or grind to buy those materials. The Globs of Ectoplasm are never going to be earned through normal play, without grind; and many of the other components not only require grind, but also A LOT of grind (hi Charged Lodestones!).

Meanwhile, the Legendary system doesn’t reward mastery over the storyline, neither does it have anything to do with PvP.

I would like to see Legendaries changed so they require:

• Mastery of exploration: the current Gift of Exploration.

• Mastery of WvW: the current Gift of Battles.

• Mastery of dynamic events: the 250 Obsidian Shards.

• Mastery of a single character: the current Bloodstone Shard.

• Mastery of making gold: the 100 Icy Lodestones.

• Mastery of crafting: requiring all crafting disciplines to be maxed in order to craft the Gifts.

• Mastery of dungeons: a gift earned when a player achieves the Dungeon Master title.

• Mastery of the storyline: when someone finishes the storyline, they would get a token that could be exchanged for any precursor. This way, even those who are not interested in Legendaries would get a nice reward for effectively reaching the end of the game (an exotic weapon), and precursors would not require RNG to be earned.

• And finally, a long side-story tailored for each individual Legendary, with fun and challenging missions explaining what the Legendary means and detailing how it’s created.

sPvP would have its own way to achieve the Legendary skins, considering how sPvP items are split from PvE and WvW items.

I understand Legendary needs to require some effort.
However I don’t understand why it doesn’t require much combat-skills.

Pawstruck.9708:

Would you really like everybody to be running around with a Legendary?

being legendary just grind based or realmoney based currently its not even a status symbol.

Even talking of RNG people respect more players with fotm skins than people with legendaries.

Talking of skinsm you see dozens of dusk/dawn a day…..seing an infinite light or the anomaly or many other skins is more rare for example making them more unique….

Btw being legendary the TOP tier item, all players should have a chance to have 1.
Otherwise you gives an unfair advantage to few people and this game becomes pay to win.