[Feedback] Legendary Obsidian Armor

[Ashantara.8731]

I really hope the upcoming steps in crafting a set of Obsidian Armor will involve traveling the world and completing cool tasks along the way instead of the monotonous Essence grind we are seeing right now.

I am merely doing this for the skin, as I have no need for another set of legendary armor, but I still want to kind of enjoy the process and have fun with it rather than feeling bored (and eventually close to burnt out). 😉

[Surelia.2651]

It seems that the set is a rift grind basically.  Aside from completing the Astral Ward armour first, you need to collect thousands of essences (at least according to the wiki page) so not sure how "fun" that will be.  I prefer to raid tbh considering how buggy the t3 rifts are at the moment.  Also not sure if they capped the amount of essences you can get daily since quite a few times they seem to stop dropping, even when you have the correct rare toggled.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Surelia.2651

[GeraldBC.4927]

The first thing that sprung out to me seeing the prospective recipes is that they are somehow cheaper to make than envoy armor, on top of not being gated behind raids. Only half a set of condensed trophy gifts per piece? Really? 

That is of course unless the idea is that you only have might OR magic to make, but in exchange you have to make 2 for each piece. 

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

unless the Legendary Obsidian Armor for females is a bikini, no thanks.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

1 hour ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

The first thing that sprung out to me seeing the prospective recipes is that they are somehow cheaper to make than envoy armor, on top of not being gated behind raids. Only half a set of condensed trophy gifts per piece? Really? 

That is of course unless the idea is that you only have might OR magic to make, but in exchange you have to make 2 for each piece. 

keep in mind that the Astral Ward Armor requires the gits of venom / blood/ etc... plus the rift essence grind... and they are also -pre-reqs for the precursor armor collections (i presume they are the precursors since there is one per piece)

i just hope that the map 3 armor won't also be as expensive as the Astral Ward Armor

[Brangwen Liana.5632]

I am enjoying the new expansion a lot. I was super excited about the new path for another leggie armor set. I have full set of lightweight armor from Raids, and am working on a heavy set in WvW. I wanted to do my medium set using this new PvE path. I am 82% into the collection achieve so far. I have watched a couple of videos of ppl actually calculating the cost and time it is going to take to get the set, and I don't think I have it in me, knowing getting raid armor is going to go much quicker, to work on that set. Its too expensive, and its too grindy for those essences. I get that its leggie armor, but if you want to put that in reach of the general player who has been wanting a set, but doesn't raid and doesn't PvP, and doesn't WvW, its too much. You are going to end up with this cool looking set of armor that most ppl are never going to bother with because its too big of a grind. I am a raider, I WvW, and I don't even want to grind it out. Urgh. Disappointed for sure unless this gets nerfed into the realm of actual possibility. I will likely go back to raiding for my medium set. 

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

The first thing that sprung out to me seeing the prospective recipes is that they are somehow cheaper to make than envoy armor, on top of not being gated behind raids. Only half a set of condensed trophy gifts per piece? Really?

You haven't calculated the costs correctly. They are at least 50% more costly at the moment, and we don't even know the full price yet.

[Darklord Roy.2514]

13 hours ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

The first thing that sprung out to me seeing the prospective recipes is that they are somehow cheaper to make than envoy armor, on top of not being gated behind raids. Only half a set of condensed trophy gifts per piece? Really? 

That is of course unless the idea is that you only have might OR magic to make, but in exchange you have to make 2 for each piece. 

Not quite, when you factor in that the Astral Ward armor collection by itself requires 6 total material gifts, several clovers, 300 ecto (minimum), AND 3000 research notes. And that isn't even accounting for the map/meta currencies or rift essences.

That is all for just one part of the full collection, and it doesn't even get you the precursors. There will be plenty more to make after the 3rd map releases.

It's panning out to be a significantly more expensive collection than raid armor, just based on material costs alone.

[Bordone.1053]

i'd rather do rift grinds then a bunch of fetch quests, rng drops, and jp's if you are into that you can raid for your legs

[Lucavi.9783]

My understanding, and ideas/thoughts on this new path to PVE legendary armor has come to these terms:
 - In Its' current status - It's looking to be heavily committed to only the expansion and related maps, whether current or future.
      Thought:  I find this to be a set up for another trudge through the Surmia Tar Pits straight to a Searing Burnout. As with the release, we are grinding heavily on only 2 maps. I wouldn't put it past many players already nearing the current "brick wall" of progress to finish all the prerequisites, if not very soon. - I know this suggestion coming would probably be an oddity to implement, but I think it's still quite feasible given thought to all the "Current Status and Present Lore" of the World of Tyria.
     TL:DR Main theme: I suggest implement Static, guaranteed item drop and/or progress from other PvE areas, and refine the craft cost to rift hunts.

       Idea: I would hope that the expansion maps only grind ends with the current investments to the final product, and future additions or reworks input a broader investment, Such as the Open World areas that are featured as "Fractals" in one of the new maps. Implement those "real" open world zones to be a true part of the building process. Since you've already used the word, Fractal, in the new expansion. Implement the whole of Existing and Future Fractals of the Mists to give progress. This should return traffic to an area that already has lots of commitment to give to it, provide an incentive reward to invest in those dailies, game type, team building strategies/builds/etc. And we all know that Raids are out, and Strikes are In, so they should definitely have some say in the matter. 

- The "Precursor" required collection relies on a player completing the SooO Storyline completely, along with unlocking the thematic armor, Astral Ward set(s).
      Thought: I think this is a pretty good start to the overall unlocking process. You have your "New World" starting point with storyline. The Story unlocks the collections and shows you the next steps over time. You have to unlock the Story Thematic armor to progress.
      Idea:  The current investment process seems too heavily focused on Rift hunting, and crafting or buying higher tier motivations which also are required for the grind. Material costs on Crafting the motivations should be refined in a manner that makes material investments worthwhile, or more fruitful, and less disruptive to progress. Possibly even removing the lower tier investment into the higher tiers craft recipe, and just giving a static increase may do the trick.
      My Reasoning: The dulling of the will to keep doing this mostly stems from the cost to craft the Tier 2 and 3 motivations, without enough return of investment to continue crafting the required material to open said rifts, AND still have a steady progress boosting my supply. This definitely comes back to forcing players to grind Tier 1 with or without motivations, and/or spend a ridiculous current gold price from TP. The materials alone to make Common is already diving into a hefty cost, let alone using almost all the same materials doubled in the next level, plus the common item to boot.

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, Bordone.1053 said:

i'd rather do rift grinds then a bunch of fetch quests, rng drops, and jp's if you are into that you can raid for your legs

Like I said, I only want the skin, I have no actual need for another legendary armor set (my account is fully equipped with legendary gear), and I know I am not the only one in that position.

We will see how you will feel about the monotonous grind a few months from now. 😉 I doubt anyone is enjoying it.
 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Ashantara.8731

[Aravind.9610]

According to wiki, next update will include something called Convergences, where we kill legendary bosses for essence or something.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Secrets_of_the_Obscure

[Gibson.4036]

4 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Like I said, I only want the skin, I have no actual need for another legendary armor set (my account is fully equipped with legendary gear), and I know I am not the only one in that position.

We will see how you will feel about the monotonous grind a few months from now. 😉 I doubt anyone is enjoying it.
 

So, about the skins…

The road map indicates we’ll get Obsidian armor in two tiers over update 2 and 3. When I saw that, I figured there might be an extra glowy version like WvW armor.

But then, looking at the Astral Ward collection, it refers to Astral Ward Legendary armor.

This makes me wonder. Is the tier one of the Obsidian armor just Astral award skins with legendary functionality? And those going for the Obby skins will be crafting a set of leggie armor with Astral skins in order to then craft Obby skins?

It would seem unlikely, but for the Gen 3 weapons, which do require building a legendary you may not want in order to them pursue another legendary skin.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

6 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

The road map indicates we’ll get Obsidian armor in two tiers over update 2 and 3. When I saw that, I figured there might be an extra glowy version like WvW armor.

I was interpreting it as two tiers of precursor collections - in same vein they did with raid legendaries.

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

We already know a bit about it, I hope you enjoy doing rifts (A LOT) for all 3 armor sets.

[Hindenburg.3415]

45 minutes ago, NotTooFoolish.7412 said:

We already know a bit about it, I hope you enjoy doing rifts (A LOT) for all 3 armor sets.

Well, maybe people start to appreciate what they have already and acknowledge that making raid armour while doing even only 1-4 wings in 3hrs per week is much more simple and fun. 

[Gibson.4036]

2 hours ago, Hindenburg.3415 said:

Well, maybe people start to appreciate what they have already and acknowledge that making raid armour while doing even only 1-4 wings in 3hrs per week is much more simple and fun. 

That’s how that works. I’m sure of it.

Don’t like something? Find something more annoying. Just might make you like the first thing after all.

[zigzag.8159]

do we need to do 6 times mapping for a leg set?

[Zaoda.1653]

.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Zaoda.1653
Reason for edit - I can't delete my posts - and since my opinions & suggestions to improve GW2 aren't welcome, I'm deleting everything.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I think a strong case can be made that they had to make the PvE legendary take noticeably more time and materials (and hence more grinding) than the Raid, PvP and WvW legendaries. The other legendaries all require you to commit to either getting good enough to do raids or playing against other players (which is harder than most PvE). Sure it's possible to get the PvP and WvW legendaries without being very good at playing against other players but if you don't do anything to get vaguely competitive then it's going to be a very painful grind (and also take longer in PvP I think?).

One of the main goals of the PvE legendaries seems to be removing the need to do any difficult game content. I can see this is very useful for a subset of players but it seems only fair that they take longer than the legendaries which involve more challenging content.

[Aravind.9610]

10 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

One of the main goals of the PvE legendaries seems to be removing the need to do any difficult game content. I can see this is very useful for a subset of players but it seems only fair that they take longer than the legendaries which involve more challenging content.

It doesn't take longer. Hell, it doesn't even have a time gate like the other methods. What it is, is that its much MUCH more boring than the other three. But it is exactly what everyone asked for. Nothing to do with pvp or instanced content.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Aravind.9610

[notebene.3190]

On 9/5/2023 at 4:25 PM, zigzag.8159 said:

do we need to do 6 times mapping for a leg set?

I was wondering how this works as well, looking at the wiki. If I wanted to make 3 weight sets, or 18 pieces, I would need 18 characters to do map completion across all 3 maps? I have 12 that could do it, in theory, and was actually working on (very slowly mind you) my 'new 9' (of which I have 3 done; thus proceeding to 12; 5 is right out!), but holy smokes. 

[Manasa Devi.7958]

18 minutes ago, notebene.3190 said:

I was wondering how this works as well, looking at the wiki. If I wanted to make 3 weight sets, or 18 pieces, I would need 18 characters to do map completion across all 3 maps? I have 12 that could do it, in theory, and was actually working on (very slowly mind you) my 'new 9' (of which I have 3 done; thus proceeding to 12; 5 is right out!), but holy smokes. 

You can do the repeatable achievements "Illuminating [area name]" for repeat map completion awards by lighting the Starlight Lanterns.

[notebene.3190]

23 minutes ago, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

You can do the repeatable achievements "Illuminating [area name]" for repeat map completion awards by lighting the Starlight Lanterns.

Ohh! That makes sense. Thanks!

[draxynnic.3719]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:42 AM, Zaoda.1653 said:

I think if there was an item that could teleport you to the various t1, t2 and t3 rifts without any cooldowns, then the grind for the mass amounts of essence would be a lot more do-able and encourage people to rift hunt more.

My worry/fear is that once people have their legendary armor skins, the map may become another deserted map and grinding rifts for essence will become much harder, so there has to be a really good incentive to keep going back to the maps. Maybe some unique armor and weapon skins that can be dropped from the bosses of the rifts too, might help with incentive.

Like the skyscale weapons, perhaps?