Crafting a Legendary

[Eva.3629]

Hello there, I started playing guild wars 2 aproximately 3 years ago, I don't consider myself an elite or having alot of experience in multiple game modes but I want to share my experience and thoughts on improving the way that the legendaryes are crafted. My first legendary was Frostfang, I gathered every material myself but I can't imagine actually really creating it without the help of external resources of information like gw2wiki page and videos on youtube from content creators (thank you so much guys!). In my opinion, with the future of steam release, it would be great if actually all those information would be displayed inside the game (I myself did not know wikipage existed in my first 6 months of playing). Like for example if there would be like a "recipe" or an achivement list of materials, wich are specifying that, for ex.: for gift of magic you need to combine x list of materials at the mystic forge, and showing were the mystic forge location is (another part of the game that I did not know existed, I discovered it in the same way, from a youtube video, the guy was calling it mystic toilet lol). I feel like the game should present legendary items to players in a better way, to let them know they exist, what benefits they have, since gw2 do not have a vertical gear progresion system like other games, maybe it would be a good idea to actually show players: this is a legendary item, you can equip it on multiple characters simultaneously, you can change its stats just by selecting them from the list, it has cool efects and footsteps, and by presenting all this from the game it does not "disconnect" the player, no need anymore to go on youtube, or wiki page and keep them open all the time and swich tabs all the time to check wich materials you have to combine, wich you can sell and wich not. Maybe to older players my idea doesn t seem something that should be taken in consideration, but I think for new playes and for future of gw2, this is a good improvement.

 

[yavi.3105]

Honestly, gw2wiki is an in-game resource via /wiki. But the way mystic forge works is indeed not fun and pointlessly obtuse.

[Fwog.9387]

I recommend gw2 efficiency. You have to plug your API key into it to use it but it will look at your material storage for you and if you want to craft something, you can have it generate a shopping list of sorts telling you what mats you need to craft the legendary. Its very good at not overpaying for stuff, knowing whether or not to buy of the TP or to craft it yourself. 

[Farohna.6247]

I agree with OP, while wiki is great, it would be better to not have to use an in game encyclopedia to craft.  Some things in the game have the "combine this with five of these to make..", but other things do not. 

Once you get the hang of it, it is better, but starting out it's a bit of a mess.  Even a list of mystic forge recipes when you click on the forge itself would be nice.  Much like how you have your crafting lists and click on them then go from there, it would be nice to have something similar for the mystic toilet.  Granted, I know it's supposed to be kind of mysterious and that defeats the random vibe to it.

[Danikat.8537]

Both of these things are actually by design. The game will never promote legendary weapons to you or push you to make one because they're an optional extra for those who want a long-term goal to work towards and Anet don't want players who aren't interested in that feeling pressured to do it anyway, even (or especially) if they've been conditioned by other games to think they have to be constantly chasing some sort of progression. Similarly the lack of info on how to make them is by design, originally that was part of the challenge and it was kind of a community scavenger hunt to figure out what was required for each one.

The second one they should definitely fix, because I think after the first 6 months or so most people used the Wiki (or other guides) to find out what to do, so it just creates a split between those who know where to find the info or are willing to use sources of info that aren't built into the game and those who don't.

I think a series of collections could be enough. When I've made legendary weapons (both gen 1 and 2) I always started with a spreadsheet listing everything I'll need to make it. I didn't do that with Ad Infinitum, instead relying on the in-game collections to tell me what to do. I only rarely needed to resort to the Wiki to find things out (mainly how to get balls of dark energy, which I could have asked in chat, and checking the exact location of the things I had to find so I didn't hold groups up for too long). Although it might be a good idea for all the collections to unlock at once, because there's some things you don't need until near the end of making a legendary weapon which it's a good idea to start working on early, like the Gift of Battle and Gifts of Might and Magic.

I wouldn't want the game to encourage everyone to make legendaries though. Players will see them sooner or later and see/hear people talking about them, but it should remain something they can ignore if they're not interested, not something the game prompts you to start doing.