PvE Open World Legendary Armor Proposal (draft)

[Linken.6345]

12 minutes ago, TinLizzie.7308 said:

I love some of the ideas here 🙂  Anet, please allow us loners who only rarely join groups have something to work towards armor-wise that doesn't require us to live in WvW (a game-mode that is definitely not for me) nor in raids (which forces us into groups and locks down our playstyle in favor of whatever benefits the group rather than what we enjoy playing).  Yes, I'm an introvert who actively avoids being forced into "endgame" group content that forces me off my main character or into a playstyle I do not find enjoyable.  I've not even done the DE meta yet as every map instance I've randomly joined into has not had enough dedicated people- and I'm not the type to go hunting them down.  I just want stat-swappable armor I can grind away towards as I play and enjoy random open-world PvE content.  Give it a cruddy skin with no sparkly bits, I don't care... but having the ability to stat-swap my armor quickly, easily, and for free (once acquired) would be worth a long grind/collection sequence.

Then fail your way through spvp seasons?

[TinLizzie.7308]

Why would I join spvp for anything?  I despise trying to fight other players (who are all going to murder me in about 1/2 a second flat) - this is also why I don't wvw.  I'm a node-farmer, I do random events in PvE, occasionally do world bosses if they're a daily or I happen to be in the map when they're spawning.  For me, GW2 is a chance to "zen-out" and relax from a stressful day at a job that demands perfection.  When I log in, I am not looking for a challenge, per se.

 

Just make PvE legendary armor a lengthy grind with some lore and history thrown in, not requiring a bunch of instanced content nor a group of high-flying people to achieve.  I'm just a filthy casual kitten who would like to see my game time be a little more personally rewarding.  I don't even sell 99% of the mats I farm, I use them in crafting.

 

Maybe I'm not neurotypical enough and am asking too much.

 

 

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

3 hours ago, Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

There's no reason to reinvent the wheel, the crafting system for gen 2.5 legendary weapons could easily be adapted for armor (just make a legendary shard recipe, let's call it "Shard of the Envoy", that uses silk and thick leather the way the weapon shards use mithril and elder wood, and you're basically set).

 That would be throwing money at the problem. You cannot fully swipe for gen 2.5 legendary weapons, but you can do that for majority of materials required. Is there any sense of accomplishment attached to that?

Also, if you look at the current options you have timegates as a part of every single one:

PvE (or Raid+Fractal+HoT armor, if ppl are really mad at PvE part): 6 weeks of full clears for 1st set, 12 for each subsequent set (now you can skip Dhuum and Qadim, cuz you get 2 LI from EoD CM + weekly Strikes)
PvP: 3 normal seasons reaching a full cap
WvW: 22 (yes, 22) weeks fully capped on tickets

What kind of timegate is balanced enough (looking at those above) to justify an Open World armor set?

I am not saying that people don't deserve to get legendary armor if they dislike the 3.5 game modes above. I simply think that Anet should make ppl work for it a bit, regardless of game mode they choose...

Edited April 28, 2022 by NotTooFoolish.7412

[Linken.6345]

8 minutes ago, NotTooFoolish.7412 said:

 That would be throwing money at the problem. You cannot fully swipe for gen 2.5 legendary weapons, but you can do that for majority of materials required. Is there any sense of accomplishment attached to that?

Also, if you look at the current options you have timegates as a part of every single one:

PvE (or Raid+Fractal+HoT armor, if ppl are really mad at PvE part): 6 weeks of full clears for 1st set, 12 for each subsequent set (now you can skip Dhuum and Qadim, cuz you get 2 LI from EoD CM + weekly Strikes)
PvP: 3 normal seasons reaching a full cap
WvW: 22 (yes, 22) weeks fully capped on tickets

What kind of timegate is balanced enough (looking at those above) to justify an Open World armor set?

I'd say 36 weeks of killing Soo-Won daily would be a decent start

[Cynder.2509]

On 4/27/2022 at 3:37 AM, Labjax.2465 said:

This is somewhat based on the WvW legendary armor set to be similar in spirit and I'm also just taking some generic components from it. Any numbers are rough draft concept, apart from copying those in WvW armor. I have not done the math part and leave that to people who enjoy math more.

 

Components for each piece (*names of new items are intentionally silly placeholder names, the proposal itself is serious):

(Gift of Taxiing)

1. 1,000 Glowing Egg Timer (acquired from successful completion of meta bosses, time-gated, more on this below)
2. Eldritch Scroll (50 Spirit Shards)
3. 50 Obsidian Shards
4. Cube of Stabilized Dark Energy (1 Ball of Dark Energy, 75 Stabilizing Matrices)

(Gift of Tagging)

1. 100 Bottle of Adventurer's Sweat (acquired from completion of Events)
2. 100 Bent Spoon (acquired from completion of Hearts, more acquired from repeatable Hearts in end-game zones)
3. Certificate of Repetition (purchased with 50,000 Karma)
4. Certificate of Reading Map Chat (purchased with 250 Proof of Getting Downed, acquired from Hero Points, either ones you haven't completed yet on the character or repeatable ones daily)

(Gift of Position Rewinding)

1. 100 Essence of Jump Dodging (acquired from Jump Puzzle final chests and can be traded with other players)
2. 15 Mystic Clovers
3. Gift of Condensed Might
4. Gift of Condensed Magic

Precursor: A piece of Ascended Armor (the kind with the skin you would get from crafting or rare boxes, e.g. not including WvW ascended armor or the like)

Glowing Egg Timers Summary: I don't like time gates, but that's the trend with legendary armor, so what I propose is that an amount of these is awarded from the successful completion of each meta event through the daily chests*. These would also have a weekly limit, so you can still get your daily chests after you've hit the limit, but you can't get more Glowing Egg Timers after you've hit cap for that week. This would encourage you to do a higher variety of meta events each week, so you can reach your weekly cap more quickly.

*some metas would need daily chests added to them so they aren't left in the cold

Glowing Egg Timers Rotation: some metas award more Glowing Egg Timers on a daily rotation, so that more meta events get attention (e.g. people don't just do the easiest all week and ignore other metas).

Anticipated Questions:

"You have a currency from events, but there's already karma." Yep. A new one on top of karma that is specifically for legendary armor would avoid the problem of people with mounds of karma having a headstart, or newer players needing an obscene amount of karma to get even a single piece. I'm thinking of karma cost as the Badge of Honor equivalent currency.

"You don't have a nine part series of collections, is this even a legendary?" Collections aren't something I get much out of, so it's not something I want to put much thought into proposing as part of this. I'm focusing on what the components might look like, mostly. You're welcome to add ideas.

"This seems like a lot." I know, legendaries in this game are really something and I'm trying to model this after others.

"This seems like nothing and is too easy." I know, legendaries in this game are so easy and I'm making it even easier.

"Hey wait a minute, you're changing sides there." I know, some people they just can't be consistent, it's really something.

 

Your Thoughts: What are they? Keep in mind this is not meant to be a final draft type of proposal for the game, but something to chew on for possible design if they were to go this route and help move this conversation past yes/no. And on that note, please do add your thoughts about what could make this work. Please don't pollute the thread with debate about whether there should be an open world legendary armor.

No. 
Raids are already PvE content. 
If you don't have the skill or dedication then it's not for you or just git gud. 
Legendary weapons are already a joke to unlock. It's good that the armor is locked behind actual "hard" endgame content. However raids in gw2 are a joke compared to raids in other mmos so even casuals should at least one full weight tier done easily. 
I've seen people under 10k AP with full legendary stuff so it's definitely doable. 
If raids ain't your thing you can still get the WvW or PvP legendary armor. Those are also very easy (especially the WvW one) to get. 
When the legendary fractal backpack came out nobody whined about it as well being locked behind fractals. 
We already got a very low effort legendary trinket thrown at us last year. Legendaries have the same stat increase as ascended with only a few comfort features. Ascended gear is already thrown to players like nothing. Continuing this trend with legendary stuff isn't the best actually as even ascended meant something a few years back as it was actually hard to get. 
I miss the days when mmos actually needed effort to reward you... 

[Labjax.2465]

As I stated in OP, please don't pollute this thread with the same debates about whether there should be an open world legendary armor. There are plenty of other threads for that. There has already been some interesting discussion on specifics and valid concerns raised, and I'd like to keep it possible for people to discuss that stuff, which is hard to do with the loop that goes nowhere brought in here.

[Erise.5614]

17 hours ago, Albi.7250 said:

you basically want Bonus loot on OW play. 

 

As all suggestions before it that armor is cheaper, faster to get, more profitable to get while being disconnected from anything challenging.

On one side, this is the same "hurr durr lazy" point that keeps being repeated all the time while not holding any merit. That factor is entirely subjective and honestly feels like it's mostly shared by people who went through the motions and don't want others to enjoy their time getting to a similar point. Out of spite. There is no need to add such rewards to the highest yielding OW farms and plenty of OW content has rewards far below the other modes. Some of it is even popular. Just because people like the content.

But even the premise of legendary armor as bonus loot is wrong. By making the armor more accessible without trying to push people into failed game modes you also increase the amount of players who craft it. If well implemented it is an excellent introduction to legendary crafting. Taking years for 3 sets while only taking a month or two for the first piece. This increases mat drain from the economy, decreases material supply, increases material value. This would mess up the current reward structure and require ANet to increase supply. Which could be done, for example, by increasing WvW and raid rewards. Dumping lots of mats at players.

Meaning technically, players get a tiny amount of "bonus" to their gameplay / farming. But in practice it just shifts value around to the point where it can even reduce the attractiveness of some of the notorious OW farms and solve several reward structure problems we have in the game right now. 

I don't necessarily agree with the suggestion in this thread. I still believe specificity is not helpful to the discussion. But that narrative of bonus loot, free legendaries, lazy players and this somehow leading to ANet handing out easy and quick legendary armor is just wrong and only intended to attack the character of others who make suggestions. Rather than pointing out specifically how it would harm the game, which could be discussed, it just aims at the other person painting them as spoiled and bad intentioned. 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Then fail your way through spvp seasons?

Because that doesn't hurt PvPers at all?

[Linken.6345]

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Because that doesn't hurt PvPers at all?

Do it matter since your after you rewards?

Not like alot of pvpers stay in bronze league for long.

[SlayerXX.7138]

2 hours ago, Labjax.2465 said:

As I stated in OP, please don't pollute this thread with the same debates about whether there should be an open world legendary armor. There are plenty of other threads for that. There has already been some interesting discussion on specifics and valid concerns raised, and I'd like to keep it possible for people to discuss that stuff, which is hard to do with the loop that goes nowhere brought in here.

I agree.

8 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Perhaps by having the character carry a token to qualify for the other elements and which debuffs gold find.

I don't think that is helpful no farm makes gold with gold find.

 

If we go off the PvP or WvW armor it would be a good idea to find an analog in OW which isn't included in gold farming.

 

WvW Claim tickets/PvP league tickets:

Badges of honor/PvP League ticket:

Certificate of heroics/Ascended Shard of Glory:

Memories of battle/Shards of glory:

Gift of battle/Mist core fragment:

 

Lets start with Memories of battle/Shards of glory:

They are the farmable currency you get no matter what. An good analog is gathering as you can do that on any Map.

Lets say if you gather any random note you have a chance to find Aurenes wild magic<a 1 time item> that does send you to Taimi. Taimi explains to you that aurene magic is scattered around the world and we have to collect it. She gives you Aurene gathering tools that function like Volatile/Unbound Gathering tools and a Absorb badge(i come back to that later).  Looking at some other items in the wiki, you should need around 6000-10000 of aurenes magic per Piece.

 

Certificate of heroics/Ascended Shard of Glory:

Badge of absorption replaces expansion Hero point challenge loot with Aurenes Crystal and allows to commute with hero points to also get a crystal. That would have the added benefit to make Hero points trains more desirable and help players to unlock the elite specs. If you don´t wanna group at all you can test your Valor in battle against arrowhead in a solo match or just go for the hero points which only need to be found. There are a 100 Points in the expansion. Give it a daily cap of 30 or a weekly cap 200 otherwise player will burn themselves out doing them all. To be comparable you would need around 800 of these aurene shards.

 

WvW Claim tickets/PvP league tickets:

The strongest time gate. There are 38 Different maps in Core+ expansions. I am excluding Living world as these are behind a gem purchase. Bottle of Adventurer's Sweat 4 per Event per week per map. Means a maximum of 152 Bottle of Adventurer sweat. To keep in line with WvW you would need 400 of those per Piece(faster then WvW if you try hard).

 

Badges of honor/PvP League ticket:

100 Essence of Jump Dodging I don't know about the numbers here as Jumping puzzle are hard to gage for me. I would like if someone who does them often could give some input.

 

Gift of battle/Mist core fragment:

1,000 Glowing Egg Timer actual seem a little to high probably 500-600 would be more comparable. An alternative would be any combination of 2 expansion map completion. Gift of battle and mist core fragment aren't that hard to get.

 

That way it encourages exploring and moving around the world. It also discourages Gold farming. If we put bonus loot on stuff like gathering or doing Event in queens dale I'm totally fine with it. I just don't want that Guild Wars Devolves to Gold farming the game.

[Ashantara.8731]

10 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I respect the honesty and agree that making legendary armor more accessible is probably a good idea at this point in the game's lifespan.

Legendary Armor is relatively young in the game's lifespan, so... no.

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, Parasite.5389 said:

so... 4 meta's in HoT, 4 in PoF, another 4 in EoD - 12 daily metas, if you do all of them every day for the 6000 you'll need for a full set of legendary armor, you'll need to play for 500 days.

something not quite right there

There are more map metas than the map metas for expansions. There are also metas in some core maps, and in LS ones. Even if we limit ourselves only to metas ending in a big boss event (or something similar, like in Tarir where there's no real boss at all), and remove world bosses that do not have a meta chain before them, you are still left with quite a number of those. If we add stuff like Tequatl/TT to this, and perhaps instances like Marionette and Dragonstorm, and let the harder metas give more than one token, it should probably be fine (depending on the weekly cap - personally i would use somewhere between 25 to 30 weeks of capped timegate for this)

[Astralporing.1957]

17 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Legendary Armor is relatively young in the game's lifespan, so... no.

It is something that already existed for longer than half of this game's lifespan, so calling it "relatively young" is at this point like calling that someone in their sixties.

[Vayne.8563]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

Do it matter since your after you rewards?

Not like alot of pvpers stay in bronze league for long.

Sure it  matters.  It matters for two reasons. You're spending time doing something you're not into at all JUST to get a reward, for a fairly long time, making the game less fun. I did it for a couple of pieces, severely cut down my play time and it still hasn't gone back up to what it was, nor am I spending as much money on the game, because I'm not playing as much.

 

More to the point, not everyone who likes PvP is great at PvP and some people don't get into and stay in gold or higher, even if they're having fun with  PvP. Having people who afk, or stop fighting after five minutes affects new PvPers who might stay and love it, but they get frustrated, and think it's crap and stop playing.  It's a bad introduction for new people in general. 

 

When I PvP, I PVP. To win. I'm not going to sit there and inconvenience 4 other people who might actually want a win. So I try. Sometimes I do fairly well, sometimes less so, but I never give up even if we're behind.  Other people are pretty much just goofing around and it feels lousy.

So yeah, I think it does make a difference.

[Ashantara.8731]

29 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It is something that already existed for longer than half of this game's lifespan

Wrong.

PvE legendary armor was introduced on May 2, 2017, so not longer than half of the game's current lifespan. PvP and WvW armor followed in August of the same year.

By your age comparison, it's in its mid thirties rather than in its sixties.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[Randulf.7614]

21 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Wrong.

PvE legendary armor was introduced on May 2, 2017, so not longer than half of the game's current lifespan. PvP and WvW armor followed in August of the same year.

By your age comparison, it's in its mid thirties rather than in its sixties.

May 2017 is closer to launch than today, albeit only by a few months. So it is over half the age of the game… just

Sprightly 40 year old perhaps 😉

Edited April 28, 2022 by Randulf.7614

[Belorn.2659]

If we look at each different kind of content we can see that each reward progress towards different form of legendaries. Hearts give progress towards map completions that reward progress towards legendary weapons. PvP provide back piece and armor. WvW same as PvP. Raid towards legendary armor. Open world map meta towards legendary trinkets. Some smaller PvE events also goes towards Legendary weapons, especially the collections for the precursors, and dungeons are also connected to legendary weapons. Jumping puzzles exist as requirements for both weapons and trinkets.

The content that primarily do not provide any progress towards a legendary item are the story journal, fishing and strikes. The new strike CM's are also lacking good rewards.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Belorn.2659

[yoni.7015]

8 minutes ago, Belorn.2659 said:

If we look at each different kind of content we can see that each reward progress towards different form of legendaries. Hearts give progress towards map completions that reward progress towards legendary weapons. PvP provide back piece and armor. WvW same as PvP. Raid towards legendary armor. Open world map meta towards legendary trinkets. Some smaller PvE events also goes towards Legendary weapons, especially the collections for the precursors, and dungeons are also connected to legendary weapons. Jumping puzzles exist as requirements for both weapons and trinkets.

The content that primarily do not provide any progress towards a legendary item are the story journal, fishing and strikes. The new strike CM's are also lacking good rewards.

Strike CMs could be a good way to implement another legendary armor set. Still I don’t think that another way is needed, there already are three ways. Open World is not challenging enough to justify legendary armor.

Edited April 28, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Minna.7895]

7 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

I'd say 36 weeks of killing Soo-Won daily would be a decent start

I'll still add all 4 gifts of exploration  (Tyria, HoT, PoF and EoD) to every single piece of armor and we're good to go. While you can still farm gold while doing these you can't spam drizzle over and over and get these on the side.

[SlayerXX.7138]

8 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

I'd say 36 weeks of killing Soo-Won daily would be a decent start

That seems a little excessive. 8 Weeks of doing 10-12 Metas daily seems more reasonable.

 

34 minutes ago, Minna.7895 said:

I'll still add all 4 gifts of exploration  (Tyria, HoT, PoF and EoD) to every single piece of armor and we're good to go. While you can still farm gold while doing these you can't spam drizzle over and over and get these on the side.

All 4 seems a little much if you keep the other cost like Gift of might, gift of magic, 8 weeks of meta and so on. But I agree no matter how the armor would look like you should  have to walk away from the gold farms to get it.

[Ashen.2907]

9 hours ago, TinLizzie.7308 said:

Why would I join spvp for anything?  I despise trying to fight other players (who are all going to murder me in about 1/2 a second flat) - this is also why I don't wvw.  I'm a node-farmer, I do random events in PvE, occasionally do world bosses if they're a daily or I happen to be in the map when they're spawning.  For me, GW2 is a chance to "zen-out" and relax from a stressful day at a job that demands perfection.  When I log in, I am not looking for a challenge, per se.

 

Just make PvE legendary armor a lengthy grind with some lore and history thrown in, not requiring a bunch of instanced content nor a group of high-flying people to achieve.  I'm just a filthy casual kitten who would like to see my game time be a little more personally rewarding.  I don't even sell 99% of the mats I farm, I use them in crafting.

 

Maybe I'm not neurotypical enough and am asking too much.

 

 

No judgement here, you enjoy what you enjoy, but with what you describe as your playstyle, why do you want legendary armor?

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Legendary Armor is relatively young in the game's lifespan, so... no.

I didnt say legendary armor's lifespan. I said the game's lifespan. The game is almost a decade old.

And legendary armor has been around for (slightly more than) half of the game's life so far.

[Dami.5046]

13 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

No judgement here, you enjoy what you enjoy, but with what you describe as your playstyle, why do you want legendary armor?

why does sPVP need legendary armour?  You can use 3 pieces of white gear and weapons. It's all about the amulet and rune.  

[TexZero.7910]

Not enough use of salt in the creation of this set of legendary armor.

Too much salt on the market anyway, even vendors trying to get rid of it.

Lets add a Salt sink to the grind.

[Dami.5046]

mr confused you may what to read this :

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Build

You only really need chest, leg and boot pieces, the rest doesn't count.

and it doesn't have to be purple either.