Guild Wars 2

I would really love to get a legendary someday.
But right now to get one, it would cost around $1200 if I purchased gold via Anet’s gold exchange

The precursor alone for the staff is 450g+

On the other hand, one could just visit an RMT site and spend $300-ish

I would love to be able to go out and do hard dungeons or farm… but:
Apparently you can’t farm well. I have full mad king’s socketed with MF, and all MF accessories socketed with MF. And even when I’m using omnom bars and mf boost at jormag or farming in frostgorge, I rarely get anything of value.
Doing this I would be lucky to get 6g a day. Which means it would take me 75 days of non-stop farming to get -just- a precursor.

Dungeons are completely pointless for gold making. For example I just did a large number of Arah runs (which are a disgrace to this game due to the 50+ different glitches and bugs, and nearly everyone exploiting it), each taking around 90min – 4hours.
Did I get -anything- good from these? No. In reality I probably lost money or broke even doing them due to repairs.

Which brings us to the “most used” option. Playing the trading post. Nearly every time I ask someone with legendary how they got the gold for it, I get the same answer. Either “play the trading post” or “spend $200 at randommrmtsite.com”.
Playing the trading post essentially involves buying low and selling high. What this means is that when prices are low people buy 100s of the item (preventing those who need it / want to enjoy the game from getting it at market price), and then sell it high (probably resulting in all the people crying about how hard it is to make gold).

This “playing the trading post” stuff is against ToS in most other MMOs out there. I used to play FFXI, and a huge amount of people were suspended/banned for doing it (as they essentially doubled or more, the prices of all the in-demand gear). From what I’ve heard, people control the “legendary” market, inflating prices in a similar way. I’m not sure if this is true or not. But when I started my quest for the legendary in october, precursors were around 200-250g. Now they are 450g+.

So to get a legendary, your best bet seems to be to either play the trading post and kinda screw people over. Or buy from RMT and promote account-hacking, child labour, etc.

The -worst- part about this is that legendaries are supposed to be a status symbol of the work put into them. And the way they have been designed, it is only a status symbol that you probably exploit/rmt/screw ppl on the trading post. Further, it doesn’t seem like people who purchase 400g from RMT get in trouble for it (as some people with legendaries essentially openly admit they got it via RMT and that people who buy from Anet are stupid for wasting money, since it’s triple the cost for gold)

There are easy solutions to these problems. For example, sell precursors on the trading post for 8000gems ($100) but make them auto-account-bound. This would reduce in-game demand lowering prices, and dissuade people from going to RMT’s for the gold to get their precursor

Or make precurosrs available in alternative ways. For example, 1million karma, or 300 skill points. Things that allow players to actually -ENJOY- playing the game instead of doing the same CoF or AC dungeon 50times+ a day to get gold.

Or best: Make precursors attainable by a special item that drops randomly -everywhere-, and has a higher drop rate from mobs that aren’t killed as often (including lower level ones). So this way people have an incentive to actually go into mid-level zones, which are for the most part completely dead now.

By doing somthing like this people might quit repetitive dungeon farming, or sitting in lions arch “day-trading” for hours messing up prices, and actually -PLAY- the game.

Every single person would benefit from this.

And to anyone who is going to post the cookie-cutter “but legendaries are supposed to be super rare and no one is supposed to have them” thing. How does buying your legendary for $300 from an RMT make it super elite or rare?

So I honestly don’t understand this Legendary system. It pretty clearly promotes RMT and “playing the trading post”, both of which seem to seriously hurt the game. I mean you can farm a month straight for a precursor or you can work a minimum wage job for 2 days and purchase the gold for it from an RMT site. Which makes more sense?

The current procedure is subject to change soon, iirc. As legendaries aren’t stronger than any other item, they were always intended to be a long-term goal.

Good read OP.

Having farmed a huge portion of the gold required for a legendary by doing events repetitively (around 70% done) i can say that there is nothing legendary about the experience in getting a legendary.

Off course, you could take your time and play as you normally do and get it in a year or two but there is nothing unique one has to do in order to get a legendary. The fact alone that the gold i have to pay for a legendary is directly determined by power traders (very rare materials, precursors etc) strips away my will in to using real money in order to support the company, no matter how tempting it is.

In fewer words, had i been involved in a legendary adventure which would offer me a unique experience i would gladly spend good $, not to get the legendary but out of gratefulness for the experience that i have had.

The only thing worthwhile during my adventure was the 100% exploration, which itself only offered the 2 gifts and absolutely no other reward. Just the site seeing.

Amra.6028:

The current procedure is subject to change soon, iirc. As legendaries aren’t stronger than any other item, they were always intended to be a long-term goal.

Well, Legendaries will supposedly track the current tier weapon power, so as vertical progression kicks in they will be stronger than today’s exotics. But, the good news is that they will be grind insurance for the weapon slot. That alone should make them truly legendary. Anything that can stop a gear grind in a slot is a goal to be pursued with vigor.

What you describe above is the very foundation of “Grind.” Something that this game was supposed to be 100% anti, however somehow seems to be the very core of the game itself. The grind in this game is just quite simply not worth the time.

McSlappy.1372:

What you describe above is the very foundation of “Grind.” Something that this game was supposed to be 100% anti, however somehow seems to be the very core of the game itself. The grind in this game is just quite simply not worth the time.

I don’t think you understood what they told you.
It was not about being unable to ever grind, which is impossible in almost any kind of game, it was about not being forced to. Since getting full exotic is nowhere near hard or extremely time-consuming, there’s no forced grind to be on par.

Raine.1394:

Amra.6028:

The current procedure is subject to change soon, iirc. As legendaries aren’t stronger than any other item, they were always intended to be a long-term goal.

Well, Legendaries will supposedly track the current tier weapon power, so as vertical progression kicks in they will be stronger than today’s exotics. But, the good news is that they will be grind insurance for the weapon slot. That alone should make them truly legendary. Anything that can stop a gear grind in a slot is a goal to be pursued with vigor.

Good point but with Ascended gear becoming commonwealth in the future, the effort required to get an ascended weapon versus a legendary would be so little that its still more efficient to not get a legendary for years. If you go through the grind for a legendary you will know what i mean.

When I see someone in full T3 armor and at lest 2 legendaries I always lol,cause the first thing I think of isn’t a status symbol.

legendary weapons should be a long quest and take awhile to get,not who has bought the most gold.

Yeah, the only thing legendary about legendary weapons is the grind. They totally shot themselves in the foot by washing the whole thing through the trading post.

Banjal.7328:

When I see someone in full T3 armor and at lest 2 legendaries I always lol,cause the first thing I think of isn’t a status symbol.

Nonsense; it’s clearly a Trading Post achievement, it’s just hidden in your achievement page.

To the OP,

Imagine if legendaries were not part of the game. People would have no reason to farm and prices would be even higher.

Ayrilana.1396:

To the OP,

Imagine if legendaries were not part of the game. People would have no reason to farm and prices would be even higher.

what if legendaries only required rng account-bound drops. Then the only way to get them is to farm, and by farming you make gold on the side.

Azurymber.5193:

Ayrilana.1396:

To the OP,

Imagine if legendaries were not part of the game. People would have no reason to farm and prices would be even higher.

what if legendaries only required rng account-bound drops. Then the only way to get them is to farm, and by farming you make gold on the side.

No. They would not make any gold because there would be no demand for the items (crafting components).

Gold is easy to make in this game. You don’t have to buy gold to get items in this game. It seems the attitude of a lot of people nowadays is that they want it not without putting any work into it (this is not directed at the OP).