How do you want Legendaries to be Found and balanced in Ashes?

ArchivedUser

Echoing many of the views here about rarity and impactful meaning.
As there are 10,000 players. You could have...
1 exist items - legendary (The gods craft these often through their subjects)
10 exist items - epic (master crafters can make/repair but the crafter sacrifices much tree versatlity to craft them...tailor made to specific builds)
100 exits items - exceptional (highly skilled crafters can make/repair but the crafter sacrifices a lot of tree versatlity to craft them..more flexible build matching)
1000 exist items - quality (skilled crafters can make/repair but the crafter sacrifices some tree versatlity to craft them...greater flexibility of build matching)
10000 exist items - common (anyone can make and wear)
...or along those lines where new items can only come into being where the old ones are destroyed through usage or decay.
So condition of crafting is 1, skilled enough, 2 space to exist in world, 3 lucky enough to be chosen out of the many candidates that satifsy 1 & 2

But for me personally on the legendary one offs;
These should be things with their own specific godly purpose and identity that should be tuned to specific build types (class/race locked).
They should be the only antidote to a node nemesis of some kind that can/will destroy it.

The most controversial part that causes all of the guild animosity described above...
..they should be node gratification items rather than personal gratification items.
They should buff the node, only offering node benefit rather than personal benefit because it is the node they are designed to protect rather than any one player.

This is not a solo game for personal gratification. We need to get out of that mindset to fix the death of community within the MMO genre. That can only happen if many players of many different playstyles and many specialisations are 'required' to track down and recover a legendary item that benefits 'all' of them. Even if only one player of one race and one class can wield it.

ArchivedUser

Bajjer said:

I dislike the idea that legendary items are unique. I think that creates too many problems for an MMO with tens of thousands of distinct players on a server. I am fine with maybe only 20 or 30 people (or even less) on a server having the time and will to seek a legendary. I just don’t want them to be unique – to have one person gain and prevent every other person from achieving the same, no matter what happens in the ensuing years.

There has to be enough out there to excite people with the lure of ownership – a single item in the hands of a single player will likely never be seen by the vast majority of people.

Incredibly rare, sure. Incredibly difficult to ascertain, definitely.

I prefer legendaries be gained through a combination of all aspects of the game. They can start in multiple ways (a basic quest, an exploration discovery, a raid boss kill, a pvp goal, etc). I would like all legendaries to exist as part of a long quest chain that would then take the player through all other parts of the game – requiring a raid, some exploration, some gathering, some pvp, some dungeons, some crafting. 

This then removes the ability for any player to cry about how they are “forced” to do something in order to get their legendary. Every player will be “forced” to participate in every aspect of the game so it will be a completely level playing field.

I would envision that it would take many months to complete the entire chain and then have either an event or have a Master Crafter produce the weapon from the pattern and all the rare materials that have been gathered through the quest line.

I think that the legendary should become more of a community challenge. I can still remember being a part of the effort to get the first Windfury for the tank in our guild. This was 10 years ago (and my memory is less than stellar) and I can still remember the majority of the quest, and the final world event boss fight. These are the memories that I would like the legendaries to create in Ashes – moments and experiences that will resonate throughout the years.

This actually sums up my opinion perfectly, On a side not, I prefer that legendaries only give a cosmetic benefit and be the same power wise as top tier gear. For example a legendary sword with a fire theme gives a flame aura to your hands and changes all the FX on your attacks to have flames.

ArchivedUser

I could see there being such a level of item. In no mythology, legend, theology are such items crafted by multiple mortals or copied. They are singular, Deity touched or made and only wielded by Heros who have preformed exceptional feats. If these are attainable, they should be easier to lose than attain. Keep your Amazing weapon in your guarded tower till you leave to kill the dragon because if you dishonor a deified weapon by reaping unworthy victims with it YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!