Why did ANet choose to make Legendaries Gen 2.5 all about boredom and wealth?

[Ashantara.8731]

I have crafted more than half a dozen legendary weapons, mostly Gen 1s, and some pre-LWS3 Gen 2s. I call the ones from LWS3 and further on Gen 2.5.

 

With the former (i.e., pre-LWS3), you had a real mission. You received quests like scavenger hunts that sent you across Tyria to collect rare things (like certain plants to create your own garden), find mysterious creatures (like mystic ravens) or seek out and hunt creatures in the form of a wolf, or master certain tasks in some fractals. Those were all so much fun to do and the best part about crafting those weapons! <3

 

With Gen 2.5 legendary weapons, you grind the HoT maps for currencies over and over again and either acquire on your own or via the Trading Post the _insane_ amounts of materials needed. **Insane** amounts indeed. It's just very tedious, repetitive, but mostly crazy expensive (compared to Gen1 legendaries for sure).

 

Why did the devs decide to change the way of acquisition, turning it from mostly fun to "Here, let me enter my chamber of hoarded gold and spend some"? That's no achievement, it's just boring. :/

[Mazreal Blackknight.1564]

Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts. A company can not please everyone and the louder voice was heard. The people who didn't mind the collections, mission, hunts, events... had no reason to complain.

[InvaGir.9158]

They should've made all gen 2.5 legendaries follow the same process of doing collections like the first 4 legendaries.

 

[TexZero.7910]

Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

 

Essentially the workload became too much for them to maintain and caused so much of a backup that we wouldn't have new legendaries without the change to the system.

Mike O'Brien covered this though so if you do just a tiny bit of research i'm sure you can find the much more detailed answer.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Mazreal Blackknight.1564" said:

> Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts.

 

Wow. I wonder why one plays an MMO when you don't enjoy adventuring through the lands. That makes it feel so much more like you have actually achieved something in the process.

 

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

 

I'd rather get new legendaries less frequently than the (mostly) ugly ones they have thrown at us and that are using this terrible new system of acqusition. Thanks for the explanation, though. :+1:

[Neural.1824]

> @"Mazreal Blackknight.1564" said:

> Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world

..and hope that broken event chains happened to work so they could get a token for the collection

> and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts.

Many of which were broken, which resulted in a lot of unhappy players

 

>@"TexZero.7910" said:

>Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

Most likely the biggest factor here.

 

The one thing that has not changed between 2.0 and 2.5 is the gold sink.

 

The devs in this game come up with some fantastic quests and collections, but unfortunately the "polish" on this game is more of a bondo job in some cases. I feel bad for the people at the base development of these things, because the things they have to work with are not in the best state to start with, and then after they've put all this effort into creating interesting quests and collections that can get players excited about making a legendary, someone at the upper levels always seems to come through and say "oh no no, 18,000 elderwood logs is fine, and the 10 hour grind for the zone currency is great, but we need a sink of 500gold too!".

 

The system for crafting legendary weapons was in a great state when it comes to weapons like HOPE. I enjoyed that one, but overall there are still imbalances to the system that make it less attractive, and the majority of the problems are tied to one of two things:

1. Raw gold sink

2. Gold sink through the Trading Post taxation.

 

Under the "scarcity and chaos" business model Anet appears to have chosen for this game, those things are necessary to drive gem sales. If the Legendary weapon crafting process could be completely detached from that, it would allow for a bit more freedom for the devs to come up with unique and enjoyable ways of spending the time needed to make one.

 

Unfortunately, it is what it is, and all we can really do is either make suggestions, or write down our ideas in hopes that another game developer might hear them during the creation of a new game. (and I don't say that in any bitter manner, there are simply some things that while they are good ideas, would require changes to GW2 that Arenanet simply can not make at this point in the game).

 

 

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Mazreal Blackknight.1564" said:

> Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts. A company can not please everyone and the louder voice was heard. The people who didn't mind the collections, mission, hunts, events... had no reason to complain.

Actually, no. They did it because the original gen 2.0 way was unsustainable and required way too much effort. If you don't remember, they originally just went and abandoned gen2 legendaries after the first 4. If people didn't call them on it, we'd likely not get any legendaries after Chuka.

 

> @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> They should've made all gen 2.5 legendaries follow the same process of doing collections like the first 4 legendaries.

That unfortunately wasn't an option. There was either the current 2.5 way, or no new legendaries at all.

 

[Charrbeque.8729]

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

>

> Essentially the workload became too much for them to maintain and caused so much of a backup that we wouldn't have new legendaries without the change to the system.

> Mike O'Brien covered this though so if you do just a tiny bit of research i'm sure you can find the much more detailed answer.

 

Yep. Too often open world events break and can't be completed making it impossible to progress your collection achievements for a legendary you're working on if a specific event in a specific map is always broken.

 

Example: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rescue_the_villagers_and_defeat_harpy_kidnappers Have to complete this event for the Sunrise 1 legendary collection. The problem was that 1 of the villagers was always missing and the event was impossible to complete. (By missing I mean the NPC was not there at all) I was actually working on that legendary and it took a while before I got lucky enough to find an instance of the event that wasn't broken. The daily achievement happened to be to complete 4 events in Fields of Ruin and luckily the event wasn't broken when I got there. (this was some time before they managed to fix that event though) This specific event was eventually fixed though. Granted, you can complete the other event to prevent the villagers from being kidnapped by the harpies, but it doesn't help when they've already been taken captive and 1 NPC is always missing and it's permanently stuck.

 

It's not so much being a gold sink or too lazy to have players do content for legendary collections. It was mostly about it being too much trouble having to constantly fix broken events that blocked player's progress on completing their legendaries.

 

Seriously. Some players get down right angry if they can't have their legendaries due to a bug in the game. Remember when ArenaNet said they were putting new legendaries on hold for a while? Some players were angry about it and wouldn't stop complaining until they said they were going to continue making them again.

 

Legendaries are serious business for some players.

[GW Noob.6038]

The only thing legendary about ArenaNet's "Legendary" weapons is the monumental hassle that they inflict on you in the course of crafting one!

[phs.6089]

Guess it was taking way too much time to develop collections, tye to old/new events etc.Prices from Gen2 and Gen2.5 almost same. But Gen2.5 doesn't have those 'oh hell i need this old event, nobody does anymore'.

You also can re-craft Gen2.5 starting from precursors 3( ascended ).

 

P.S. what was the fun on running for old events around the world I dunno.

[zealex.9410]

Tbf the gen 2 legendaries have alot of hot grinding regardless of whether they have a quest or not.

[Dami.5046]

I was glad I didn't have to pug a fractal or a dungeon.

Can't think of anything worst in the current gaming climate.

[Jumpin Lumpix.6108]

I keep saying they need to lock new legendaries behind extremely high skill level content. Preferably content that must be soloed so that it assesses your skill level better. If its content you can or have to team up for you can be carried, so i think solo is the better way to go. They should lock legendaries behind this difficult content, at least then we would have some legendaries based on skill and not just wealth grind and boredom. The legendaries would actually mean something, instead of just opening your wallet and or standing around at events and pressing 1 in order to obtain them.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

>

> Essentially the workload became too much for them to maintain and caused so much of a backup that we wouldn't have new legendaries without the change to the system.

> Mike O'Brien covered this though so if you do just a tiny bit of research i'm sure you can find the much more detailed answer.

 

This is the correct answer, here the dulfy link which summerizes the official news on it (this is obviously out of date, since after player complaints, the legendary 2.5 system was put in place): http://dulfy.net/2016/03/25/gw2-new-legendary-weapons-development-canceled/

 

Here is the official statement on continuing work on legendary weapons and the new streamlined system which is essentially legendary weapons 2.5: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/legendary-weapons/

 

> @"Jumpin Lumpix.6108" said:

> I keep saying they need to lock new legendaries behind extremely high skill level content. Preferably content that must be soloed so that it assesses your skill level better. If its content you can or have to team up for you can be carried, so i think solo is the better way to go. They should lock legendaries behind this difficult content, at least then we would have some legendaries based on skill and not just wealth grind and boredom. The legendaries would actually mean something, instead of just opening your wallet and or standing around at events and pressing 1 in order to obtain them.

 

Legendary weapons and legendary items in general have always been designed as a drain on the in-game economy and supply. There is no reason or indication that this will ever change, especially since legendary items have progressively become more expensive.

 

So while this is your personal desire (and maybe that of other players like myself), it is not guaranteed to be in the games best interest nor that it will ever come to pass.

 

What they might do, is very challenging group content (raid armors sort of fall here and the not yet complete ring), but the cost will never drop. I doubt challenging solo content will ever be a target for these items.

[Sarrs.4831]

I like that the legendaries really give you a breadth of opportunity on how to acquire them. You can get the new Longbow by completing Auric Basin a lot! That's great!

 

I hope that they consider keeping those legendary 'storylines' especially as they've seemingly gotten far more efficient at offering them. Looking at things like the Requiem armor questline. Maybe not put the legendary weapons behind them - but legendary accessories like Aurora, which are supposed to be seasonal capstones? Sounds like a great idea to me.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

The only loss I'll miss thanks to Gen 2.5 is that, since they don't have collections, they don't get a cool unique item specific to the legendary. The Minstrel getting a novelty instrument recently for example (it makes a lot of sense), Mystic Chromatic Ooze for making Colossus (Juggernaut's precursor), Chuka and Champawat tiger "backpacks" and lair access, even Wolf Totem from Holwer's very first collection.

 

If only they had that bit more time to add a novelty item or something to each legendary.

[Malediktus.9250]

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> Because Gen 2 legendaries took too much resources. Almost every patch after they're release they had to do fixes for events, items, art etc..

>

> Essentially the workload became too much for them to maintain and caused so much of a backup that we wouldn't have new legendaries without the change to the system.

> Mike O'Brien covered this though so if you do just a tiny bit of research i'm sure you can find the much more detailed answer.

 

They only have themselves to blame for leaving broken events unfixed for years and having it backfire later. It is a 400 employee company, I will hold them to higher standards than an indie company.

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

> @"Dami.5046" said:

> I was glad I didn't have to pug a fractal or a dungeon.

> Can't think of anything worst in the current gaming climate.

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. I've picked up two or three new active guild members from pugging 3 or 4 fractals one afternoon earlier this month. One of them is quickly becoming a good friend and is already obviously officer material.

[Dami.5046]

> @"Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946" said:

> > @"Dami.5046" said:

> > I was glad I didn't have to pug a fractal or a dungeon.

> > Can't think of anything worst in the current gaming climate.

>

> I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. I've picked up two or three new active guild members from pugging 3 or 4 fractals one afternoon earlier this month. One of them is quickly becoming a good friend and is already obviously officer material.

 

Nice to know.

[SkyFallsInThunder.8257]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Mazreal Blackknight.1564" said:

> > Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts. A company can not please everyone and the louder voice was heard. The people who didn't mind the collections, mission, hunts, events... had no reason to complain.

> Actually, no. They did it because the original gen 2.0 way was unsustainable and required way too much effort. If you don't remember, they originally just went and abandoned gen2 legendaries after the first 4. If people didn't call them on it, we'd likely not get any legendaries after Chuka.

>

> > @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > They should've made all gen 2.5 legendaries follow the same process of doing collections like the first 4 legendaries.

> That unfortunately wasn't an option. There was either the current 2.5 way, or no new legendaries at all.

>

 

See, what you say here is true. Though not necessarily because the resources to make the collections were that large, but because of the million other broken stuff that ANet has not yet fixed, and where the collections would lead you. Basically, these collections shined a light on a lot of dirty little things ANet was yet to fix, and did not want to commit the time and resources to fix.

 

But that's not the issue, and that's not the choice. The issue is that gen2 legendaries and their new crafting process was A SELLING POINT FOR HOT. They said "buy HoT, it will contain this and that, isn't that great?". And after HoT was released and it turned out that not all legendaries were available at release (I mean, why would they?!), they had their prerelease and postrelease sales, and then boom WE WILL NO LONGER MAKE THIS THING THAT YOU LITERALLY PAYED FOR BECAUSE OMG WE DONT HAVE RESOURCES. Their lack of resources is hardly the buyer's problem, isn't it? Why promise more than you can deliver?

 

Sorry friend, that right there is scummy behavior.

 

I'm not saying that gen2 legendaries were the focus point of HoT, or that people would not have bought it without them. But that is not the issue. The issue is that they put this on the list of selling points for HoT, and then they had the nerve to try and remove it. And that is unforgivable.

 

Regardless, this is a moot point. With the next update we should get the last gen2 legendary, the gs, and with that they will have finally delivered on this thing from HoT, almost 4 years after HoT's release. I doubt there will be any more legendary generations.

 

And, after this experience, I doubt I would even want another.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"SkyFallsInThunder.8257" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Mazreal Blackknight.1564" said:

> > > Because enough people complained about having to go all over the world and/or they didn't want to do missions or be stuck on scavenger hunts. A company can not please everyone and the louder voice was heard. The people who didn't mind the collections, mission, hunts, events... had no reason to complain.

> > Actually, no. They did it because the original gen 2.0 way was unsustainable and required way too much effort. If you don't remember, they originally just went and abandoned gen2 legendaries after the first 4. If people didn't call them on it, we'd likely not get any legendaries after Chuka.

> >

> > > @"InvaGir.9158" said:

> > > They should've made all gen 2.5 legendaries follow the same process of doing collections like the first 4 legendaries.

> > That unfortunately wasn't an option. There was either the current 2.5 way, or no new legendaries at all.

> >

>

> See, what you say here is true. Though not necessarily because the resources to make the collections were that large, but because of the million other broken stuff that ANet has not yet fixed, and where the collections would lead you. Basically, these collections shined a light on a lot of dirty little things ANet was yet to fix, and did not want to commit the time and resources to fix.

>

> But that's not the issue, and that's not the choice. The issue is that gen2 legendaries and their new crafting process was A SELLING POINT FOR HOT. They said "buy HoT, it will contain this and that, isn't that great?". And after HoT was released and it turned out that not all legendaries were available at release (I mean, why would they?!), they had their prerelease and postrelease sales, and then boom WE WILL NO LONGER MAKE THIS THING THAT YOU LITERALLY PAYED FOR BECAUSE OMG WE DONT HAVE RESOURCES. Their lack of resources is hardly the buyer's problem, isn't it? Why promise more than you can deliver?

>

> Sorry friend, that right there is scummy behavior.

I'm far from defending Anet, but technically they did fulfill that promise. We did get new crafting system for gen1 precursors, we did get a new generation of legendaries as well. The collections themselves weren't really a high selling point for HoT, because we had only some vague info about those before launch.

Unless you're talking about the delay, in which case you're right, but it has nothing to do with the differences in crafting system between gen2 and gen2.5, and so is something that probably deserves a separate thread.

 

>

> I'm not saying that gen2 legendaries were the focus point of HoT, or that people would not have bought it without them. But that is not the issue. The issue is that they put this on the list of selling points for HoT, and then they had the nerve to try and remove it. And that is unforgivable.

Yes, and that's why the backlash was so severe, that it forced them to reconsider and resulted in gen 2.5

 

>

> Regardless, this is a moot point. With the next update we should get the last gen2 legendary, the gs, and with that they will have finally delivered on this thing from HoT, almost 4 years after HoT's release. I doubt there will be any more legendary generations.

Some datamined info suggest they may be working on generic (skinless) legendaries now. Hard to say, of course, what will come out of it. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps something. I do agree however that gen3 seems pretty unlikely at this point.

[Raknar.4735]

> @"GW Noob.6038" said:

> The only thing legendary about ArenaNet's "Legendary" weapons is the monumental hassle that they inflict on you in the course of crafting one!

 

Yep, the only legendary thing about Legendaries is the grind.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> This is the correct answer, here the dulfy link which summerizes the official news on it (this is obviously out of date, since after player complaints, the legendary 2.5 system was put in place): http://dulfy.net/2016/03/25/gw2-new-legendary-weapons-development-canceled/

 

Now, _that_ explains why most Gen 2.5 Legendaries are so butt kitten ugly and ridiculous (even worse than The Dreamer or Moot or Quip, or all of them combined): it was a mere act of revenge on the players who were complaining about the legendaries' cancellation! =)

 

> @"Raknar.4735" said:

> > @"GW Noob.6038" said:

> > The only thing legendary about ArenaNet's "Legendary" weapons is the monumental hassle that they inflict on you in the course of crafting one!

>

> Yep, the only legendary thing about Legendaries is the grind.

 

But that's what my original point was all about: that the Gen 1 and early Gen 2 legendaries were NOT all about grinding. They were fun to make (especially the scavenger hunts and other quests).

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > This is the correct answer, here the dulfy link which summerizes the official news on it (this is obviously out of date, since after player complaints, the legendary 2.5 system was put in place): http://dulfy.net/2016/03/25/gw2-new-legendary-weapons-development-canceled/

>

> Now, _that_ explains why most Gen 2.5 Legendaries are so butt kitten ugly and ridiculous (even worse than The Dreamer or Moot or Quip, or all of them combined): it was a mere act of revenge on the players who were complaining about the legendaries' cancellation! =)

>

> > @"Raknar.4735" said:

> > > @"GW Noob.6038" said:

> > > The only thing legendary about ArenaNet's "Legendary" weapons is the monumental hassle that they inflict on you in the course of crafting one!

> >

> > Yep, the only legendary thing about Legendaries is the grind.

>

> But that's what my original point was all about: that the Gen 1 and early Gen 2 legendaries were NOT all about grinding. They were fun to make (especially the scavenger hunts and other quests).

 

Do note that the scavenger hunts for gen 1 *precursors* was added with HoT. Prior to that, it was all RNG or TP.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> Do note that the scavenger hunts for gen 1 *precursors* was added with HoT. Prior to that, it was all RNG or TP.

 

Yes, and since it was added, I find it even more ridiculous how Gen 2.5 was re-designed in concept. Anyway, I only wanted that one Gen 2.5 skin, so I am all good now and shouldn't care. It's just a real shame Gen 2.5 weapons are no fun to get (regardless of whether the skins are appealing or not).