Next Generation of Legendaries?

[ReaverKane.7598]

Following my quest for Amalgamated Gemstones and Mystic Coins, and the fiasco of last week's Gem store patch, i've become a bit frustrated with Arena Net's more questionable choices from the past.With the release of PoF another choice will present itself in the (hopefully) near future: How will Arena Net Handle the next batch of Legendary weapons?

Disclaimer

The following is a recap (with some personal interpretation) of the evolution of Legendary crafting. It's quite long, but i find it necessary for establishing the point. You might want to skip to the next part.

The Story so far:

First we had Gen 1:

• Random Drop Precursors followed by a fairly standard and expensive recipe involving the more relevant Game aspects:
• You had your specific Weapon gift that required Gold, Crafted gifts, and a Sigil, mimicking the crafting of the weapon.
• Then you had your gift of magic that showed your prowess with the game in general, requiring an item that costs Karma, one that costed Hero/skill Points (now soul shards) and two gifts that required you to play WvW and PvE somewhat extensively.
• The final gift was pretty much a proof of patience and luck, persistence or outright gold expense. Being the most expensive part of the legendary it required stuff that was mostly a random drop.

All in all the recipes were pretty balanced and the components merely required you to be a moderately dedicated player to get all the stuff required for the legendary, provided you dropped the precursor. So much so that when i got my first precursor (after two years Arena Net, TWO YEARS after seeing my brother nab a Dusk from a chest in COF path 1) i finished the legendary in a day, having only to buy a few t6 mats, mostly with laurels.You fixed the biggest barrier to getting a precursor with the precursor crafts. Which leads us to Gen 2.

Gen 2 started out with good intentions. We could craft our precursors, it would be a quest to obtain the precursor for our weapon. And that was true for 1/3 of it, the rest was Arena Net making sure we still had to spend the exact same amount of money to get the precursor, or face the consequence of another of their poor choices, time gated materials.After going through the convoluted process of crafting that stuff, or if you wanted a Gen 1 precursor, doing that but selling the materials and buying the precursor for a profit in some cases. You had to go through a smiliar process of crafting the legendary like in Gen 1.

BUT there's a catch. Arena Net decided we all had too much time and gold in our hands and decided to do a few changes to the Legendary recipes:

• From the "precursor journey" you get the precursor and a "proof of crafting" gift that is used on the "weapon gift".

• The Weapon Gift is still somewhat similar. You have two crafting gifts (one of which you get from the precursor crafting), the 100 gold worth of items, but there's a difference. The Sigil from before is replaced with a gift that is intended as "proof of gameplay", requiring 2 items from WvW, one from PvP and one obtained from dismantling ascended gear (linked to fractals, i guess).The final cost for this gift is still more or less the same as before, only it now involves you having to spend more time in WvW and adds PvP. Also you'll have to sacrifice at least an ascended item.

• The gift that was a proof of prowess and playing was replaced by an abomination that focuses solely on you playing the 4 maps that were released with Hot. Instead of something that requires you to show you play the whole game, it forces you to FARM 4 specific maps. Even on Legendary weapons that ostensibly have nothing to do with HoT itself (like the Shinning Blade which is embedded in Krytan History) still require you to farm those 4 maps, because lazyness..Like before you're required to explore maps, but only the 4 maps released with the expansion. These Legendaries don't care for you playing the rest of the game world.Then you're required to spend the map-specific currencies to obtain another gift.Then you have the same as before, one item that requries soul shards, which are proof that you played after lvl 80.So far it's been meh... But now the last piece of this gift is one of the things that makes Gen 2 Legendaries so annoying to get (especially if you're not rolling in gold):You're required 250 Crystaline Ingots which require mostly map reward items, but also 1 item that without spending a ridiculous ammount of gold you can only obtain 4 a day, and even then only after you're forced to be online at specific times of the day to finish the meta-events.This little change turned the "0 Gold, play a lot" Gift of Mastery to a "play a lot and/or pay 400+ Gold if you can't be there for 62 days to finish the meta events".

• The final gift still requires you to have a ton of "fine" craft materials (T6 are now rare, so...), but with a change that makes it somewhat less punishing, you require less of the more rare T6 materials, not that many though, 50 less, so the cost is pretty much the same as before, if you buy them.The main difference is that instead of 250 Globs of Ectoplasm you require 250 Mystic Coins (another poor choice), which rarely drop from very specific instances (mostly fractals) or you have to obtain from Daily Login and Mystic Forger rewards. Both of which are worse than time gated.

So Gen 2 introduced the Precursor crafting, albeit in a very controversial way that is arguably more expensive for the player, and definitely more expensive for Arena Net. So much so that they had to introduce Gen 2.5 to streamline the process (which sadly removes the whole journey and makes it a farm instead). The issue with this generation is that it focus the gameplay to the expansion while at the same introducing the need for items that at the same time are required in very high amounts (250) and are heavily timegated or extremely expensive to aquire. Making the overall difference between a Gen 1 and a Gen 2 weapon around 600 gold. Which can be tall enough hurdle that will discourage a lot of players.It's not all bad, the efforts made to require participation in PvP and fractals are commendable, as are the changes to the Gifts of Might and Magic although these were arguably not very well implemented, since asking for 2 of these per weapon kind of negates the change, trading 50 of each T6 material for 250 t5 plus 50 T4 and T3.

Gen 2.5 was Arena Net's Solution to the problem of having to introduce huge quest lines for the precursor crafting which were creating a need for manpower they couldn't afford. The precursor crafting was streamlined to a more crafting-oriented basis, that requires a ton of materials, which makes the cost comparable to Gen 2 precursor crafting.The Legendary crafting itself is pretty much the same as Gen 2 with the same virtues and flaws.Overall the process lost some of the lore and flavour that was part of the Legendary Journey, but removed the need for time-gated materials, which was very positive.The fact that these can be more easily implemented ingame by Arena Net is a very positive factor, that personally i believe outweighs the loss of the "journey" component.

Generation 3?

Now comes PoF and with it a sort of "schism" on the player base. Because of the way the expansion was sold you now have players that have either one of the expansions but not necessarily the other. And it places Arena-Net in kind of shaky ground in terms of future legendaries: are they going to deny the HoT owners the right to craft the future legendaries?Also the lack of any gifts of exploration from Desert maps indicates that the "Gift of Mastery" recipe isn't going to follow the same model as the Maguuma one. So i think its fair to tackle the problem before it's a problem, and debate how it might be the best recipe for the future legendaries. And how, as a community we would prefer that Arena Net handles the split in paying costumers that results from potentially some of the community owning one or the other expansion. The oens that bought only the core game, sadly are already out of the equation because Arena Net kind of made them already "non-paying".

I think there's a few separate items that need to be answered:Who should be able to make these Legendary Weapons?There's 4 main components that are part of a Legendary, so how would you handle:The precursor?The "Tribute"?The Weapon Gift?The Mastery Gift?

My sugestion:

Who should be able to make these Legendary Weapons?Everyone? I think it's best not to create first and second rate "costumers". So if you bought the game (or at least an expansion) you should have access to making the legendaries, even if you don't get the Living Story advancements. Since Legendaries are not really tied to the expansion, just like Fractals, raids, WvW and PvP shouldn't be.

The precursor?Arena Net already established that Gen 2.5 precursors are the best way for them to roll these out, so although i'd like to see some of the lore parts like on Gen 2, i'm at least grateful that we don't have to deal with time-gated materials.

The "Tribute"?I'd keep the Gen 2 Tribute, but i'd rather see the recipe change to replace Mystic Coins for Ectos. We already have a huge tax on Mystic coins to craft the Mystic clovers.Maybe Even create a *new** gift that uses 250 ectos + 250 ectos + 1 bottle of Elonian Wine + 10 Philosopher's Stone, instead of just 250 ectos.

The Weapon Gift?I think that the Gift of the Mists stands out in this part of the recipe. It makes no sense and had to be relegated to this part of the Legendary recipe because of the choice of focusing the Gift of mastery solely on HoT maps.I'd replace it with a crafted inscription, a specially designed one-fits all ascended inscription.IE: Ineffable Acended Inscription:1 Ineffable Orichalcum Imbued Inscription50 Pile of Crystalline Dust1 Deldrimor Steel Plated Dowel50 Glob of Dark Matter

The Mastery Gift?This is where things change the most.If we're doing this for everyone (as it should be) then we can't really use the same Gifts of Maguuma Exploration.

• So i'd propose 2 Recipes so that people don't have to start trashing their Gifts of Exploration or Gift of Maguuma. The rest of the recipe would be the same, with players having the ability to pick between Gift of Maguuma or Gift of Exploration.
• I'd Keep the bloodstone shard.
• I'd add a revised version of the Gift of the Mists, Instead of a Gift of Battle and a Gift of War, i'd change the recipe to Gift of Glory+ Gift of Battle + Gift of Ascension + Cube of Stabilized Dark Energy. This because the cube can be obtained from any ascended which can be received from WvW, PvP and Raids, not just fractals. The Gift of Ascension is already a item you get from fractal relics, so makes sense.
• The final Item(s) would be a new thing altogether. Each GOLD Adventure chest would drop 1 Ascended/Legendary level Trophy (make a slot in the material collection please). The Mastery Gift would require a stack of 250 (there's enough adventures that you should be able to get at least 10 of these a day, so less than a month to collect them all).

So the final recipe for my version of the Gift of Mastery would be:

• Either Gift of the Explorer, or Gift of Maguuma
• Bloodstone Shard
• Revised Gift of the Mists (With Gift of Ascension instead of Gift of War)
• 250 Proof of Gold Adventures

The price should be consistent with Gen 1 Legendaries, with a slight increase because of the Ascended Inscription. It also preserves the "intent" of each Gift, the Tribute Gift (aka Gift of Fortune) still represents more or less your wealth, and luck.The weapon specific Gift, still requires you to craft but now it brings more of the actual process of weapon crafting to the recipe.And finally the Gift of Mastery is more consistent in that it asks you to play all game modes (except dungeons, but then again Arena Net kinda killed those) without muddying the waters or asking you to specifically farm one part of the game (come on adventures are fun!).

DISCUSS

Please?

[Vavume.8065]

It's kinda likely that we will get a new legendary with the next patch in 2 weeks time, so I guess we are going to find out then how Anet want to handle this, personally I'm not concerned, I have plenty of gift of explorations & gift of maguuma's, so I'm probably covered.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Vavume.8065 said:It's kinda likely that we will get a new legendary with the next patch in 2 weeks time, so I guess we are going to find out then how Anet want to handle this, personally I'm not concerned, I have plenty of gift of explorations & gift of maguuma's, so I'm probably covered.

You kinda missed the point didn't you?What if it doesn't use either of those gifts anyway?

[OriOri.8724]

We still have to finish generation 2, which should take at least all of LWS4, and that's if some episodes release with multiple weapons each. Gen 3 is nowhere near being implemented in game

[TwilightSoul.9048]

Next legendary will still be a HoT Legendary, I believe that has been confirmed by anet somewhere and we have not gotten any comment on wether there will be a gen 3 batch or not. I assume the legendary trinkets will be PoF/LS content.

[thehipone.6812]

At this point, it is probably a 50/50 bet as to whether Gen 3 legendaries are in Guild Wars 2 or Guild Wars 3.

[Palador.2170]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

• The final Item(s) would be a new thing altogether. Each GOLD Adventure chest would drop 1 Ascended/Legendary level Trophy (make a slot in the material collection please). The Mastery Gift would require a stack of 250 (there's enough adventures that you should be able to get at least 10 of these a day, so less than a month to collect them all).

That part right here? Terrible idea.

Lots of people HATE adventures, and plenty of them/us can't get gold in most of them to save our lives. The last thing you want to do is push people towards having to do them, and then try to tell them that it's an "improvement".

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

@OriOri.8724 said:We still have to finish generation 2, which should take at least all of LWS4, and that's if some episodes release with multiple weapons each. Gen 3 is nowhere near being implemented in game

Multiple leges per episodes is not necessary. Gen 2 is missing 6 weapons (Greatsword, Longbow, Scepter, Focus, Warhorn, Dagger), I see no reason to suspect LS4 to have fewer than 6 episodes.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Mike O'Brien confirmed in a Reddit AMA that Gen2 Legendary weapons will be released with Living World Season 4 Episodes, using the same formula as before.

Good luck.

[Fallesafe.5932]

Generation 2?Generation 3?Generation 4?

It's just the same old pig with different shades of lipstick. How about something new to actually do with these weapons? Because, no "legendary" weapon-skins (or earrings) are going to make my 10,000th run of the Cliffside fractal, or the HoT-metas fun and interesting again. I couldn't care less what they do with legendaries until the game's "repeatable content drought" is well and truly addressed. I dont need any more skins to be bored-silly in.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Palador.2170 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

• The final Item(s) would be a new thing altogether. Each GOLD Adventure chest would drop 1 Ascended/Legendary level Trophy (make a slot in the material collection please). The Mastery Gift would require a stack of 250 (there's enough adventures that you should be able to get at least 10 of these a day, so less than a month to collect them all).

That part right here? Terrible idea.

Lots of people HATE adventures, and plenty of them/us can't get gold in most of them to save our lives. The last thing you want to do is push people towards having to do them, and then try to tell them that it's an "improvement".

Git gud?That's the problem with Legendaries right now... They're anything but legendary.You don't have to earn them, just earn the gold for them. They're not a measure of your skill, just your ability to cope with doing repetitive tasks and grinding the gold.And if you can't get gold in 2-3 Adventures at least, you could put in the effort and try?That's why content goes unused, there's no incentive.> @OriOri.8724 said:

We still have to finish generation 2, which should take at least all of LWS4, and that's if some episodes release with multiple weapons each. Gen 3 is nowhere near being implemented in gameWho says that new skins need to use the old recipes.Like i outlined, most of the Legendaries are just random, they are not linked to the story or the moment. Sure a couple (like the shining blade -which was more them capitalizing on an asset from the story than anything else) are somewhat thematically linked to the story, but most really are nothing to do with it. SO it makes no sense they should tie it to HoT.Moreover that's just downright disrespectful for people that only bought PoF (a choice they gave). If they bought the latest expansion they should be getting access to the latest content, that includes legendaries. And since those are tied to exploring the jungle, well lets say if they want to bleed more players that's the right attitude.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Mike O'Brien confirmed in a Reddit AMA that Gen2 Legendary weapons will be released with Living World Season 4 Episodes, using the same formula as before.

Good luck.

Holy shit... Really...Wow, they're not even trying.I wanna see him try to explain that to people that just bought PoF.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Maybe, something will be different. I don't really know the ins and outs of acquiring Gen2 Legendaries, other than completing the Legendary Crafting Mastery. That's a Core Mastery, so....it comes with PoF.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Maybe, something will be different. I don't really know the ins and outs of acquiring Gen2 Legendaries, other than completing the Legendary Crafting Mastery. That's a Core Mastery, so....it comes with PoF.

Well, read my first post, and you'll understand why that's a problem. The Gen 2 recipes require HoT exploration and items bought (and dropped) in HoT maps.

[Cyninja.2954]

@TwilightSoul.9048 said:Next legendary will still be a HoT Legendary, I believe that has been confirmed by anet somewhere and we have not gotten any comment on wether there will be a gen 3 batch or not. I assume the legendary trinkets will be PoF/LS content.

This.

It has been confirmed that gen2 legendaries will remain HoT legendarys. No announcement of any gen3 was made so far, and given how long gen2 took it's highly unlikely to happen in the next 2 years at all.

That said, legendary trinkets will very likely be the next legendarys added to the game and there is still 4 more slots to go for those.

[Vrita.7846]

Holy kitten... Really...Wow, they're not even trying.I wanna see him try to explain that to people that just bought PoF.

They shouldn't have to explain anything. Gen2 legendaries were never sold as PoF content. They have always been HoT content, but it's taken so long to release them that it's dipping into post-PoF content. Why should owners of PoF have access to HoT content if they don't own HoT?

[Vavume.8065]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

You kinda missed the point didn't you?

No, I just made my own points.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Whatever they come up with: I hope that they are a bit more accessible than the previous ones allowing a larger slice of the GW2 player base to actually obtain them. And I hope that these don't involve 'impossible' jumping puzzles like the Chalice of Tears.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Aside from stalled/broken events, or those that relied on failed ones, this generation of legendary weapons has been very accessible to players. Even more so since episode 2 of LS3 as any activity in PvE progresses you.

[Palador.2170]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

Git gud?

Oh! I see. Well then, allow me to dismiss your own concerns with the same serious consideration.

Don't like the current system?Too bad. Deal with it.

[Fox.3469]

I think it would be extremely weird for legendary weapons with post-Path of fire releases to require HoT map completion or farming. If they don't make the new maps rewarding in some way we're going to have a big problem.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Fox.3469 said:I think it would be extremely weird for legendary weapons with post-Path of fire releases to require HoT map completion or farming. If they don't make the new maps rewarding in some way we're going to have a big problem.

Well it wouldn’t make sense to change the recipes with only six weapons left in the set. LS4 will likely have a season-wide currency which can be used to purchase tokens which be be used to craft shards. Those with HoT only can purchase those from LS3 or HoT map vendors.

[Svarty.8019]

MORE Legendaries?No thanks.

[mauried.5608]

If everyone has a Legendary weapon then they are no longer legendary, so the obvious question is what percentage of the player base can have legendary weapons before they are no longer legendary?

[Fallesafe.5932]

@mauried.5608 said:If everyone has a Legendary weapon then they are no longer legendary, so the obvious question is what percentage of the player base can have legendary weapons before they are no longer legendary?

Eventually, anybody who can fog a mirror will have legendary gear. Because the community has sworn, with blood oaths, that they won't accept "gear treadmills." Apparently, mastery-treadmills, and specialization-treadmills, and stat-combo-treadmills are perfectly fine. But the tar and feathers are on standby for anybody who dares to suggest that better items should also be added to the game.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Palador.2170 said:

@ReaverKane.7598 said:

Git gud?

Oh! I see. Well then, allow me to dismiss your own concerns with the same serious consideration.

Don't like the current system?Too bad. Deal with it.

Didn't say i didn't like, only said it's inconsistent with the previous, and expressed my concern for the future one, and made a suggestion for one that is more consistent.Other than it being a lot more expensive than the original legendaries, and relying on failed events for some, it was a good step forward.

I was joking with the Git good. But seriously. I don't like having to be online at specific times to complete meta events so i can get 4 amalgamated gemstones a day, but that's what you have to do. Adventures are so different from each other that if you don't like ALL of them, you're simply being prejudiced and disliking it on principle.Getting a legendary was supposed to be something you achieve, something to be proud, not something you do matter of factly. Adding a skill-based requisite would make owning a legendary something that actually shows your skill, instead of showing that you have been farming the most profitable thing in the game so you can get the stuff needed to make one.

@Vrita.7846 said:

Holy kitten... Really...Wow, they're not even trying.I wanna see him try to explain that to people that just bought PoF.

They shouldn't have to explain anything. Gen2 legendaries were never sold as PoF content. They have always been HoT content, but it's taken so long to release them that it's dipping into post-PoF content. Why should owners of PoF have access to HoT content if they don't own HoT?

Explain how that HoT content existed previous to HoT?You buy expansions to gain access to the most recent content. If they deny that content simply based on lazyness (which is the only excuse not to update legendaries for PoF players), then there's a valid reason for some resentment.But i guess you farmed HoT too much and you need to get those things a destination, am i right?

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Fox.3469 said:I think it would be extremely weird for legendary weapons with post-Path of fire releases to require HoT map completion or farming. If they don't make the new maps rewarding in some way we're going to have a big problem.

Well it wouldn’t make sense to change the recipes with only six weapons left in the set. LS4 will likely have a season-wide currency which can be used to purchase tokens which be be used to craft shards. Those with HoT only can purchase those from LS3 or HoT map vendors.

That's just for the PRECURSOR crafting... The legendaries require GIFT OF MAGUUMA if they don't change the recipe.> @mauried.5608 said:

If everyone has a Legendary weapon then they are no longer legendary, so the obvious question is what percentage of the player base can have legendary weapons before they are no longer legendary?

That's also my point. Legendary weapons right now is just something you farm money to get, they're not an accomplishment since 2013...That's why i think a more consistent recipe that makes them require some more content done, instead of being limited by a price tag and not actually doing something of note in game. My proposal was adding a token of completing adventures. But they can do a lot of other stuff. Like creating different gifts based on different content, like one from Jumping puzzles, one from dungeons, one from pvp wins, one from wvw kills, a fractals one, etc, etc.Pretty much what they did with Legendary insights for Legendary Armor, but applying it to other types of content and legendary weapons.> @Fallesafe.5932 said:

@mauried.5608 said:If everyone has a Legendary weapon then they are no longer legendary, so the obvious question is what percentage of the player base can have legendary weapons before they are no longer legendary?

Eventually, anybody who can fog a mirror will have legendary gear. Because the community has sworn, with blood oaths, that they won't accept "gear treadmills." Apparently, mastery-treadmills, and specialization-treadmills, and stat-combo-treadmills are perfectly fine. But the tar and feathers are on standby for anybody who dares to suggest that better items should

also

be added to the game.

Well, you said it...We already have a gear treadmill, but it's disguised as a different thing, the stat-combos.Adding a gear treadmill would significantly impact the game.Look at dungeons and ascended gear.Dungeons were the end-game for PvE for a long time, and with exotic gear you would struggle with them, Arah P4 was infamous and could take even experienced groups a while to finish. Now with ascended gear (and a nerf to the Dwayna Priestess) you can do it trivially with a PUG. The difference in the overall stats is 5% (iirc) and still it had an overwhelming impact on the older content.

Adding another tier of gear above ascended would trivialize current raids, fractals and open world content, which would either require new end-game content adapted to those items, or having to retrofit the current end-game content to adapt to those new items, which in turn would make it harder for new players and returning players to do that content. I for one think the current approach is best suited for GW2, and has worked pretty well.