PvE Open World Legendary Armor Proposal (draft)

[Shadowmoon.7986]

Why not make suggestions for legendary items for slots that do not exist instead of slots that have 3 options already. 

I really want to make legendary aquabreathers or infusions.

[Labjax.2465]

47 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Why not make suggestions for legendary items for slots that do not exist instead of slots that have 3 options already. 

I really want to make legendary aquabreathers or infusions.

Sounds cool, you should make a thread with your suggestions for that then.

[Firebeard.1746]

2 hours ago, Xerxez.7361 said:

 A definite easier version of Raid Bosses since you can respawn or Revive Orb!

All it takes is a timer for it not to matter. See the "Soo won" controversy. I actually would prefer raiding over soo won any day. 

[Infusion.7149]

On 4/30/2022 at 3:47 AM, Erise.5614 said:

To be fair. The wiki is written by players and therefore not the best source. 

But even here your point is arbitrary. Obviously raids are PvE. But PvE only has one opposite. PvP. Even the link you sent considers it as such. Pointing out that WvW is large scale PvP.  Very different in nature, so it does make a lot of sense to differentiate between them. Just like raids or instanced content in general are very different from OW content. Different builds are more or less useful, the objectives you follow, the amount of players around you, the content update cycle and formats. All are drastically different between open and instanced PvE. 

If I understand the argument right, it's just that some in this thread don't consider OW to be end game content and undeserving of legendary armor as possible progression path. While the other three styles of gameplay are considered valid end game content that therefore deserve it.

ANet never clarified it one way or the other. The implementation of content and other legendary rewards suggests they consider OW end game. But they may also hold armor to different standards. So it's really not possible to use any third party source to proof or disproof either side. It's really just personal interpretation... which is gonna be based on how much or how little one enjoys the different game modes. 

Are you refuting the fact that templates and skill balance are based off 3 modes (PVE/PVp/WVW)? It has been that way since the start of the game. In fact PVE and WVW used to use the same equipment even if the skill balance was different.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Infusion.7149
fix quote

[Erise.5614]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Are you refuting the fact that templates and skill balance are based off 3 modes (PVE/PVp/WVW)? It has been that way since the start of the game. In fact PVE and WVW used to use the same equipment even if the skill balance was different.

I am a bit confused. Did you quote the wrong comment or did I phrase my comment in a way that's easily misunderstood or something?

I was talking exclusively about the practice of raid selling and raids in that comment. So I'm a bit confused what the other modes have to do with that.

[Infusion.7149]

59 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

I am a bit confused. Did you quote the wrong comment or did I phrase my comment in a way that's easily misunderstood or something?

I was talking exclusively about the practice of raid selling and raids in that comment. So I'm a bit confused what the other modes have to do with that.

the forum is wonky , scroll up

 

[Erise.5614]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Are you refuting the fact that templates and skill balance are based off 3 modes (PVE/PVp/WVW)? It has been that way since the start of the game. In fact PVE and WVW used to use the same equipment even if the skill balance was different.

The fixed quote makes a lot more sense! Thanks!

Though I still don't entirely get the point. Is the argument that only raids / instanced content is considered PvE?

That WvW and PvE are more closely related than WvW and sPvP? 

That only challenging content can possibly be end game?

Or something else entirely?

Sorry if I have to keep asking but I want to make sure I respond to your points rather than jumping to conclusions and dragging the conversation off topic.

Edited May 1, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

The fixed quote makes a lot more sense! Thanks!

Though I still don't entirely get the point. Is the argument that only raids / instanced content is considered PvE?

That WvW and PvE are more closely related than WvW and sPvP? 

That only challenging content can possibly be end game?

Or something else entirely?

Sorry if I have to keep asking but I want to make sure I respond to your points rather than jumping to conclusions and dragging the conversation off topic.

Legendary armor is per game mode currently. You can't define a gamemode as anything other than PVE, PVP (which doesn't need legendaries period), and WVW. That's not how templates work currently and not how skill balance works since the inception of the game either. Balance notes always list PVE, PVP, and WVW. There's no such thing as "instanced content balancing" beyond the exposed debuff which has nothing to do with gear and also exists in openworld if you pay attention.

The whole premise of the thread is flawed. If you ask people that had to do Coalescence for example , after you beat the raid bosses once the most annoying part is actually Funerary Incense which is an openworld currency. Because Arenanet introduced legendary insights to Strike CMs it's pretty clear that that is the additional or alternative acquisition method for LI which makes it less time consuming. In addition, legendary armor needs chak eggs in bulk which has led to people asking for a list of the acquisition methods including here on the forums. That's on top of other currencies such as Auric Ingots. Nobody can deny legendary armor requires openworld unless they are purposefully obtuse.

People that don't raid fixate on the fact that you need to raid to get legendary PVE armor, but at the same time WVW only players that only do at most living story (which are more likely in the grand scheme of things) are 100% locked out from the PvE accessory trinkets. Over the years many people I know from WVW (some are aged 60+) have stated issues with the jumping puzzles and such and that is by far more limiting (in fact the devs stated Chalice of Tears is meant to be difficult). Previously proponents of "openworld PVE armor" asked for a hard PVE meta, we had Dragon's end  arrive and just look at the number of complaints about it. See also Serpent's Ire or other low reward metas with high failure rate including Drakkar with disorganized maps.

Since Wing 1 through 4 are quite doable by most players especially with help, I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavor or resource drain for Arenanet whatsoever. Some QoL improvement can be implemented such that all the steps don't need to be done in order for example, but I've seen some people that never raided state the collection unlocked with acquisition of EOD strikes' Legendary Insight.

The whole idea is absurd as asking for another legendary backpiece because "fractals aren't openworld".

Edited May 1, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Labjax.2465]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Legendary armor is per game mode currently. You can't define a gamemode as anything other than PVE, PVP (which doesn't need legendaries period), and WVW. That's not how templates work currently and not how skill balance works since the inception of the game either. Balance notes always list PVE, PVP, and WVW. There's no such thing as "instanced content balancing" beyond the exposed debuff which has nothing to do with gear and also exists in openworld if you pay attention.

The whole premise of the thread is flawed. If you ask people that had to do Coalescence for example , after you beat the raid bosses once the most annoying part is actually Funerary Incense which is an openworld currency. Because Arenanet introduced legendary insights to Strike CMs it's pretty clear that that is the additional or alternative acquisition method for LI which makes it less time consuming. In addition, legendary armor needs chak eggs in bulk which has led to people asking for a list of the acquisition methods including here on the forums. That's on top of other currencies such as Auric Ingots. Nobody can deny legendary armor requires openworld unless they are purposefully obtuse.

People that don't raid fixate on the fact that you need to raid to get legendary PVE armor, but at the same time WVW only players that only do at most living story (which are more likely in the grand scheme of things) are 100% locked out from the PvE accessory trinkets. Over the years many people I know from WVW (some are aged 60+) have stated issues with the jumping puzzles and such and that is by far more limiting (in fact the devs stated Chalice of Tears is meant to be difficult). Previously proponents of "openworld PVE armor" asked for a hard PVE meta, we had Dragon's end  arrive and just look at the number of complaints about it. See also Serpent's Ire or other low reward metas with high failure rate including Drakkar with disorganized maps.

Since Wing 1 through 4 are quite doable by most players especially with help, I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavor or resource drain for Arenanet whatsoever. Some QoL improvement can be implemented such that all the steps don't need to be done in order for example, but I've seen some people that never raided state the collection unlocked with acquisition of EOD strikes' Legendary Insight.

The whole idea is absurd as asking for another legendary backpiece because "fractals aren't openworld".

Sigh... in most MMOs, open world would not be considered a distinct game mode. In GW2, it is one. There is nothing to debate there. You cannot look at an environment that gets a lot of, if not most, of the game's content that gets produced, that contains multiple mini-game modes within it: collections, JPs, adventures. That is where the game looks most alive, where it has the biggest fights that make it stand out from other MMOs. So many things about it... and go "it's just another part of the PvE" game mode. 😑

And calling it a resource drain is asinine. How many people play raids? Were they a resource drain to begin with because only a tiny percent of the playerbase engages with them? Get out of here.

This is the game they made, where open world is a distinct game mode and a lot of people primarily play it. They'll go and accommodate people who exclusively PvP or exclusively WvW, but you gotta raid if you play the star game mode of this game??? It doesn't even make sense on the face of it if you look at it in terms of popularity.

The only way it makes sense to me, which is what I tend to believe is what's really going on, is it's not about being accommodating at all. It's about trying to prevent the unpopular game modes from being dead and they are afraid that if they made a purely open world path for legendary armor, it would tank population in modes that are struggling.

[Tails.9372]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You can't define a gamemode as anything other than PVE, PVP (which doesn't need legendaries period), and WVW.

Ofc. you can, it just depends on what basis you use to define the term "gamemode" in which regard the "balancing" is a lot more arbitrary than the official description of the game or just how they phrase things in various newsposts.

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

There's no such thing as "instanced content balancing"

Ofc. there is, why do you think they restricted the usage of the glider, mounts and various gizmos in e.g. the FotM? It's obviously done for balancing purposes which they generally apply to wherever they think it's needed in whichever form they feel like is appropriate for the situation at hand.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Infusion.7149]

53 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Ofc. you can, it just depends on what basis you use to define the term "gamemode" in which regard the "balancing" is a lot more arbitrary than the official description of the game or just how they phrase things in various newsposts.

Ofc. there is, why do you think they restricted the usage of the glider, mounts and various gizmos in e.g. the FotM? It's obviously done for balancing purposes which they generally apply to wherever they think it's needed in whichever form they feel like is appropriate for the situation at hand.

Fractals were made before the introduction of gliders and such and aren't restricted to expansions. If they were to allow gliders and mounts in fractals then core/free players would be disadvantaged even further. Since most aren't designed with gliding in mind more out of bound skips would be possible.

Of course I know you will drag this discussion on and on just like last year.

However, if people were that intent in getting the armor they would have had it already instead of spamming 5000 threads about it. Trainings are run all the time for W1-4 and then it just comes down to doing the ones that you are able to complete with a high success rate.

---

1 hour ago, Labjax.2465 said:

Sigh... in most MMOs, open world would not be considered a distinct game mode. In GW2, it is one. There is nothing to debate there. You cannot look at an environment that gets a lot of, if not most, of the game's content that gets produced, that contains multiple mini-game modes within it: collections, JPs, adventures. That is where the game looks most alive, where it has the biggest fights that make it stand out from other MMOs. So many things about it... and go "it's just another part of the PvE" game mode. 😑

And calling it a resource drain is asinine. How many people play raids? Were they a resource drain to begin with because only a tiny percent of the playerbase engages with them? Get out of here.

This is the game they made, where open world is a distinct game mode and a lot of people primarily play it. They'll go and accommodate people who exclusively PvP or exclusively WvW, but you gotta raid if you play the star game mode of this game??? It doesn't even make sense on the face of it if you look at it in terms of popularity.

The only way it makes sense to me, which is what I tend to believe is what's really going on, is it's not about being accommodating at all. It's about trying to prevent the unpopular game modes from being dead and they are afraid that if they made a purely open world path for legendary armor, it would tank population in modes that are struggling.

They're clearly moving on to other instanced content in the form of strikes as an introduction to raids. If you paid attention what's left of the raid team was absorbed into Living World team. It also doesn't change the fact that everything you mention about JPs/ adventures and whatnot is included in LS3/LS4 trinkets and also in the gen 2 weapons such as Astralaria. Openworld is still included in legendary armor via the resources.

Not really sure why armor was the thread topic either. Arguably Fractal 95 required for the backpiece is far more gated (due to ascended and AR) than raiding is if you have enough people in your guild or able to team with you for raids.

The reason why people do fractals daily is because it has daily rewards. If raids didn't give a few unids after weekly completion more people would be doing them regularly beyond the first clear.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Tails.9372]

6 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Fractals were made before the introduction of gliders and such and aren't restricted to expansions. If they were to allow gliders and mounts in fractals then core/free players would be disadvantaged even further.

That doesn't invalidate anything I just said, these things have been retroactively added to other "non expansion" content so other than balancing concerns there is no real reason why they couldn't have done the same here and your example of "core/free players would be disadvantaged" is a balancing concern in and of itself.

14 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Of course I know you will drag this discussion on and on just like last year.

I don't think you're in any position to be condescending here as you're doing exactly what you just tried to pin onto others. At least I'm adressiing the actual subject matter of the arguments I'm responding to instead of resorting to ad hominems. If you don't want me to "drag this discussion on" then stop clinging to faulty arguments which are seemingly only used to be contrarian, how about that?

[Erise.5614]

8 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Legendary armor is per game mode currently. You can't define a gamemode as anything other than PVE, PVP (which doesn't need legendaries period), and WVW. That's not how templates work currently and not how skill balance works since the inception of the game either. Balance notes always list PVE, PVP, and WVW. There's no such thing as "instanced content balancing" beyond the exposed debuff which has nothing to do with gear and also exists in openworld if you pay attention.

The whole premise of the thread is flawed. If you ask people that had to do Coalescence for example , after you beat the raid bosses once the most annoying part is actually Funerary Incense which is an openworld currency. Because Arenanet introduced legendary insights to Strike CMs it's pretty clear that that is the additional or alternative acquisition method for LI which makes it less time consuming. In addition, legendary armor needs chak eggs in bulk which has led to people asking for a list of the acquisition methods including here on the forums. That's on top of other currencies such as Auric Ingots. Nobody can deny legendary armor requires openworld unless they are purposefully obtuse.

People that don't raid fixate on the fact that you need to raid to get legendary PVE armor, but at the same time WVW only players that only do at most living story (which are more likely in the grand scheme of things) are 100% locked out from the PvE accessory trinkets. Over the years many people I know from WVW (some are aged 60+) have stated issues with the jumping puzzles and such and that is by far more limiting (in fact the devs stated Chalice of Tears is meant to be difficult). Previously proponents of "openworld PVE armor" asked for a hard PVE meta, we had Dragon's end  arrive and just look at the number of complaints about it. See also Serpent's Ire or other low reward metas with high failure rate including Drakkar with disorganized maps.

Since Wing 1 through 4 are quite doable by most players especially with help, I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavor or resource drain for Arenanet whatsoever. Some QoL improvement can be implemented such that all the steps don't need to be done in order for example, but I've seen some people that never raided state the collection unlocked with acquisition of EOD strikes' Legendary Insight.

The whole idea is absurd as asking for another legendary backpiece because "fractals aren't openworld".

Much more specific! Thank you!

First of all. What you or anyone defines as a game mode is arbitrary. All definitions are gonna have weird edge cases and are gonna be inconsistent. OW/Story and JPs have their own patch category. World Polish. Not their own balance. But do they need that? JPs are different from WvW, PvP. Nor are they PvE. You are strictly speaking not fighting against the environment. You aren't fighting at all. So, are they a different game mode? Is the only reason they are not because because they don't have balance patches? What would JPs need balance patches for? I know this is a bit nitpicky but my point is. Where you or I draw lines is arbitrary.

The legendaries do need OW currencies / mats. But the point is that you can simplify or avoid almost all of it. And the bit that remains can be done in a few hours for all 3 armor sets. Most people are gonna spend a lot more time in OW. Sure. But they make that choice. There is no choice for whether one has to play PvP or hardcore instanced content. And it's not a few hours either, it's somewhere between 50 - 100 hours of mandatory participation per set. 

In regards to WvW trinkets. Trinkets are the easiest and cheapest thing to get in the game. I do agree that they should get alternative acquisition paths to those. But it's less of a barrier and less limiting. JPs in stories are annoying. But otherwise they aren't necessary and almost all can be skipped with a single TP to friend. A few need 2-8 TP to friend. 

Dragon's End was a mistake in a lot of ways. There's a reason it's more of an issue than TT. From the presentation within the story, the plentiful bugs like bites, greens exploit, or disappearing indicators. Over design flaws like hit markers that move away from the hit box by massive distances, the funneling of all players into a singular location making visual noise worse, the entire fight having mediocre performance requiring certain settings to be set lest you play an absolute slide show with no valid chance to react to anything. 

But from a different perspective. I don't understand why legendary armor must be locked behind high difficulty. It's already not. WvW nor PvP is difficult. You can set yourself personal goals and make it challenging. But that's not an inherent part of the games systems. So I don't get why that is a flaw regarding OW content. 

Raids are not at all approachable. The participation rate and behavior in LFG are incredibly clear about that. You wouldn't need as excessive gatekeeping if the content was approachable. Most groups ask for significantly more raid experience than is needed for your first armor set and you either have to spend hours waiting and hoping or go out of your way into specific third party resources to get a proper introduction into the content. To receive training. Which is, funnily enough, extremely populated by quite experienced people who just can't otherwise find public groups. Calling that easy is really not portraying the situation honestly.

Undue resource drain / effort for ANet would be about participation rates. If a lot of people spend a lot of time and gold on getting an OW armor it would be a worthwhile addition. We don't have data on that but I'm sure ANet does. In fact, you could argue the other way around that hardcore content had an excessive amount of work put into them given the amount of participation. Where OW would just need a few lines of dialogue, some collections and some economy design. No new content at all. Raids needed new maps, new mechanics, elaborate enemies that are unique to the encounter. Both arguments are about as good as one another. Which is to say, not good. 

An alternative method for legendary backpiece could be interesting too. But I'm not focusing on that at the moment for two reasons.

1. It's already got a significantly higher adoption rate than armor. It is much better received- 

2. It's much more expensive than individual armor pieces. Because armor as a whole is valued at ~2k gold but splitting the progress into 6 pieces it's a much smoother progression curve and could get a lot more people into the legendary grind. Which would have a lot of positive properties. I'm not even opposed to it requiring instanced content, WvW and PvP if those are modes ANet wants to encourage and focus on. In fact, that could be a thing for all legendary items. The important bit is how much is absolutely mandatory. Can you avoid it. Avoiding it can be annoying. Just like you can funerary incense without ever stepping a foot into OW. It requires a bunch of gold and festival vendors. Some of which you can buy or get without playing the festivals themselves (e.g. new years -> exotic luck. Halloween -> Candy corn cob. Winter day -> Snow Diamond). Which you can use once per week during the festivals to buy a tyrian exchance voucher to buy basically all map currencies. Usually 250 or 500 per voucher. 
This level of avoidance would be fine. Slow, not always available and limited. In short, inconvenient. But possible. Leaving only a small amount of absolutely mandatory participation in the modes. And encouraging continued participation by making it faster and more convenient. But not necessitating it. (e.g. For raid armor, you need to run Auric Basin ~2 times for Auric Dust. Everything else can be substituted with WvW/PvP, with gold or currency conversions)

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Erise.5614

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I like the idea. If you are a WvW player you are rewarded more or less passively by just playing this game mode. There is no challenge, you just earn it over time if you play regularly. In PvE this is not the case as very few people do raids.

[Gibson.4036]

42 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

I like the idea. If you are a WvW player you are rewarded more or less passively by just playing this game mode. There is no challenge, you just earn it over time if you play regularly. In PvE this is not the case as very few people do raids.

PvP as well. Just requires putting in the time. With the matchmaker system, if you play well or play poorly, you'll settle into a 50/50 win rate, and still get the same amount of progress toward legendary armor. You can play solo, or you can queue as a two person team, and your progress will be the same. You can endlessly tweak your build and practice your rotations, or you can just jump in and wing it.

Only in PvE is there this need to do scheduled, organized, grouped, challenging content to work toward legendary armor.

_____

Also, the endless argument over the specific definition of "game mode" is absurd and irrelevant to the desire for a non-raid or non-instanced path to legendary armor.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[yoni.7015]

8 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Only in PvE is there this need to do scheduled, organized, grouped, challenging content to work toward legendary armor.

Which is fine. There are two methods that “only” require to spend time, let the third be different. Everyone who doesn’t want to play instanced group content can play WvW or PvP to get the armor. 

[ProtoGunner.4953]

3 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Which is fine. There are two methods that “only” require to spend time, let the third be different. Everyone who doesn’t want to play instanced group content can play WvW or PvP to get the armor. 

I do the WvW armor and I like the game mode, but there are people who despise fighting against real players and I can understand why. And hence there should be an open world PvE armor.

[yoni.7015]

1 minute ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

I do the WvW armor and I like the game mode, but there are people who despise fighting against real players and I can understand why. And hence there should be an open world PvE armor.

Then there is the existing PvE armor, where you don’t have to fight against real players. 

[Luci.7018]

10 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

Which is fine. There are two methods that “only” require to spend time, let the third be different. Everyone who doesn’t want to play instanced group content can play WvW or PvP to get the armor. 

But there could be a fourth one . That takes the same same time/efford  investment , like the PvP/WvW

[yoni.7015]

10 minutes ago, Luci.7018 said:

But there could be a fourth one . That takes the same same time/efford  investment , like the PvP/WvW

Wouldn’t it be a waste of resources? The typical Open World players doesn’t want to invest time and effort, for everyone else there already are three ways to get legendary armor. Why add a fourth? Everyone who wants can get a legendary armor and can choose how to get it. Every game mode offers a way. 
 

Edited May 2, 2022 by yoni.7015

[ProtoGunner.4953]

18 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Then there is the existing PvE armor, where you don’t have to fight against real players. 

Get this: you like WvW or PvP and you just play normal without any challenge and you eventually get your legendary rewards. Then there is PvE and raids where you have to find a group, trying bosses for several times, dying over and over for hours without progress. And you call that evened out. But forget it, you'll argument to death to be right. 

[yoni.7015]

2 minutes ago, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

Get this: you like WvW or PvP and you just play normal without any challenge and you eventually get your legendary rewards. Then there is PvE and raids where you have to find a group, trying bosses for several times, dying over and over for hours without progress. And you call that evened out. But forget it, you'll argument to death to be right. 

The PvE armor offers a unique skin and effects, the WvW and PvP versions do not. So yeah it’s evened out. 

[Luci.7018]

10 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

Wouldn’t it be a waste of resources? The typical Open World players doesn’t want to invest time and effort, for everyone else there already are three ways to get legendary armor. Why add a fourth? Everyone who wants can get a legendary armor and can choose how to get it. Every game mode offers a way. 
 

But the problem  is people want to invest time and effort in something they love and get rewarded for that .

[yoni.7015]

7 minutes ago, Luci.7018 said:

But the problem  is people want to invest time and effort in something they love and get rewarded for that .

What will be the first thing after they implement an Open World legendary armor? Players will flood the forums and complain that it’s too difficult, takes too long and is too expensive. 
People are still complaining about the griffon, the skyscale and the turtle. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by yoni.7015

[Luci.7018]

10 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

What will be the first thing after they implement an Open World legendary armor? Players will flood the forums and complain that it’s too difficult, takes too long and is too expensive. 
People are still complaining about the griffon, the skyscale and the turtle. 

They moan for the skyscale in  the forums , but they still unlock it.

Maybe we should put alternates ways to obtain , for the other modes also ?

Edited May 2, 2022 by Luci.7018