GW2 Legendary Weapons: Best GW2 Feature Yet

I love cosmetic rewards.  I think they are possibly one of the greatest ways to influence players while maintaining balance and integrity of gameplay.  I’ve written about this before, but I think raids shouldn’t give better weapons than crafters can make, or better than players can obtain from epic quests, but instead should give players a way to make their character look unique or look more powerful.

In yesterday’s dev chat on the Guild Wars 2 twitch.tv channel, Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum discussed what sounds like the best GW2 feature yet: Legendary items.  Here’s a quick rundown of what we know:

  • Components from a lot of different areas of the game.
  • Not any more powerful than top-level exotic weapons; No gameplay advantage
  • Based off a top-level exotic weapon but look cooler.

This is the type of thing I love to work towards in a game.  It’s a personal milestone for me.  In WoW I was always rushed and worried about getting my legendary or special weapon.  Back in the day of the Rhok’delar bow and Benediction/Anathema from Molten Core (I was a server first owner of both) I raced to get them because I knew how much more I would be sought after for raid spots by having one.  In the end, it ruined my fun.  In GW2, these legendary weapons just make the player look cooler and turn heads.  The harder they are to obtain the better.  Whereas in a game where they actually add a gameplay advantage, and are only for the hardcore, it creates a have and have not system.

Some examples of Legendary Weapons were talked about:

  • A bow that shoots rainbows with a unicorn head on it.
  • An ironman “juggernaut” weapon with liquid metal footstep effects that also changes your armor appearance.
  • A piece of night or day sky into a single greatsword that changes appearance of night and day.  Looks like you’re holding the sky.  Hardest of all legendary to get because you have to earn two.

I love the idea.  Bring on the cosmetic rewards.  Ideally, keep the epic cosmetic rewards out of the cash shop.

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  • so if cosmetic rewards can’t be part of the store, and power items can’t be part of the store, what can be part of the store?

  • Nice! I do think that players can lose track of why they are playing a gear-oriented game, that is the difference between recognizing habituated Skinner Box behavior and fun…

  • I hope that these legendary weapons have additional customization options, so that every one doesn’t appear exactly identical to another of its type.

  • The GW2 hype is getting silly. Not as silly as “A bow that shoots rainbows with a unicorn head on it.” however, which sounds absolutely awful.

    I agree with the concept of epic cosmetic rewards though. That’s a great idea, though their allure will fade with time as more and more people achieve them.

  • The cosmetic items on the store are only for your town look. The good stuff on the store that i like is the ability to buy more bank slots, character slots, and stuff like that.

    I also do like the fact that your gold can be turned into gems and has a real like stock looking widget built in showing how much gold can be turned into gems and vise versa. I agree with whats on it now and they should leave it at that. The Legendary’s should definitively stay off the store though, or any components that need gems.

  • @Merec, Obviously more people will get them as time progresses, but hopefully they will stick with the model of releasing paid for expansions quite often, plugging more and more (meaningful) content into the game.

    Prestige gear is a fun and exciting mechanic that doesn’t break the game, so I’m all for it. Although since they have a cash shop I’m certain it will be tied into that in some way. They do want to make money still, obviously. Truckloads of it. And there is only one way to continue making truckloads of money without subs.

    I’m certain the hype for GW2 is exactly that, mostly just hype. (Anyone else remember how awesome WAR sounded in those podcasts? Sigh) But at present it is still the best shot I have at a decent pvp MMO. So I’ll still get suckered into playing it.

    At least I’m getting better, I didn’t fall for SWTOR or TSW!

  • @PorceleinEve: I meant to say I hope that the legendary cosmetic items are not sold in the cash shop. While they would not influence gameplay, they would diminish earning them if they could be bought for $6.95.

    @Gankatron: Differentiation is always good.

    @Merec: I assume that’s when they would add more of them.

  • It sounds cool, and no doubt I will partake in said grind!

    My question becomes things like –

    1 – in an expansion, can we transmute this hard-earned legendary onto any other weapon? Or will there be restrictions, or more expensive transmutation stones, etc?

    2 – will they lower the requirements for obtaining these items in future expansions? Because, it seems, the level will be raising in expansions so therefore the stats almost assuredly will raise as well… which makes #1 above more important.

  • And thats the way it should be.
    Do not want to raid? Thats fine… in GW2.

    In wow its raid or die.

    Off topic:

    SMITE beta keys for Keen and Graev readers.

    F1683-C55C3-78AB4-09EBF-81824
    F18AE-EE23F-54B64-0B680-F1E41
    F140C-4A4C5-423E4-95994-38116

    Anyone with beta access can check their account on hirezstudios.com then go to keys and share them.
    Come on share the love. Post more.

    I did not win in the SMITE blog contest, but got one of those gempackages after reading about SMITE here. That gave me beta access and these spare keys.

    Enjoy.

    Btw.. take a bit getting used to if your used to LOL, but its quite fun.
    And Keen.. I disagree about getting to few favor points ingame.

    You get 5 standard gods at lvl 1.. and by lvling to lvl 30 you gain 29k favor just from lvling alone. thats 5 free gods to pick of your choice. Plus those you earn with valor from games played.
    Thats 10 gods out of a roster of 20 currently.

  • Why/where did you get the impression that the levelcap and stats will increase with expansions?
    I’m not saying they won’t but I’ve heard of no such thing.
    In GW1 the levelcap stayed the same through all expansions, same was true for stats.

  • If I say “I agree”, Keen may label me even more as a GW2 “fanboi”, but I’ll take the risk… 🙂

    I like the idea of ‘legendary’ weapons which are not mandatory for playing, and which are not requiring a raid of 25 persons to acquire. Like many GW2 features, this reminds me some aspects of Asheron’s Call a lot. You got the best weapons of the game available to everyone without any forced route, and then you had special weapons, not more powerful but with specific effects, available through special quests or events.

  • My only issue is I was going to main an Engineer but now I may go warrior just because of legendary weapons. I really want that mace…

  • @ The Merovingian – legendary weapons in any game aren’t required. And I also suspect you won’t be able to acquire a legendary without the help of others in gW2.

  • Ahh thanks, that was a major bummer, can’t say I like it but it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

  • Merec, I bow that shoots rainbows with a unicorn head is never awful.

    That is a fabulous addition to anything. And now I want one.

    Make it so number one err… GW2

  • @Zyler: Thanks for those SMITE keys, I got one yay!

    I kinda like the idea of the legendary weapons being not super powerful but more of a cosmetic thing. I like the approach with keeping the gear treadmill under control. A part of me likes the treadmills I won’t lie, weather it’s a raid treadmill or a camp treadmill. At the same time I’ve realized that it takes away from the “fun” of playing the game in most cases. Not sure about the whole unicorn rainbow bow though…..

  • Like it or not they are going to have to put some enticing things in the cash shop. I think they could get away with items that increase rare drops that may be required for these legendary looking weapons. An idea I had went something like this:

    There would be a hat or amulet or something in the shop that increases drop for rare items needed for legendary weapons or whatever but the catch is it has no other stats then that. There’s a tradeoff you’d have to do, stats for drop chance and you’d pay that small fee to be able to use that option.

  • @Proximo: It dose not really matter in GW2. Levels don’t have the same meaning as you get scaled down in lower zones and scaled up in PvP. Levels just mean you cant go right to the end content, so they can release a new expansion and add 10 levels so you have to play through some of the content without it making the rest of the game trivial and without it making your top of the range gear trivial

    @keen: They never added the hard to get weapon graphics to the cash shop in GW1, and although GW2 is clearly going to cost more to run, I doubt very much they will add them in GW2 either

  • GW2 is all about having options that cater to the widest group of players possible.

    After five years of raiding in WoW I am done with raiding. I am done with gear treadmills. Time to add the social element back to MMO’s. Time to add meaningful PvE content in the least painful way possible. Time to add fun activities back.

    GW2 ticks all of these points and more.

  • Sorry Keen but this felt like pandering to the GW2 fanbois after your previous post.

    That said, cosmetic gear means nothing to me as a gamer. GW is a CoD clone imho. Outside of its pvp, it is a hollow shell with a store attached.

  • @keen: yeah, I got that you spoke highly of GW2…but it didn’t stop the march of the GW2 fanbois.

    Sheesh, the hate that’s gonna rain on that game post release boggles the mind.

  • Hate rains on all games these days Jim. From what I’ve played of it so far, I sure don’t hate it…