Legendary Weapons earn high marks

Many years ago I was sitting around with some friends and talking about how cool it would be if certain gear in MMOs could level along with you. This was not a new idea nor one that a myriad of other would be and professional MMO designers had not thought of in parallel, of course, but I still felt it was a feature worthy of discussion. In my vision, weapons would have levels and each time it achieved a new one you could buy stat bonuses, damage and effects. It was also my dream that you could name them and certain feats would unlock special bonuses only available to those who had participated. This could be anything from completing a specific quest, defeating a raid encounter or just killing 5,000 blue slimes. The possibilities seemed endless and that dream is now (at least in part) a reality thanks to an MMO design decision by Turbine. Lord of the Rings Online has legendary weapons! In an effort to skip writing a guide and get right to the commentary I would like to note that Turbine provides an exceptional guide to legendary weapons in the lore book. Anyone seeking more details than I provide can peruse that article to ensure there is no ambiguity.

The Good

I have a history when it comes to my commentary where I really focus in on the bad. I’ve sometimes felt that doing so makes me seem ungrateful for the extensive systems we do have that are working well. In reality, I’m just trying to provide honest feedback and make suggestions that I feel would improve a mechanic. To avoid doing just that I’m going to spend some time and discuss what is good about this system before I fall to my usual routine of what I dislike.

The fact that legendary weapons exist at all is quite a positive in my book. I am thrilled that I can find a weapon and tailor it to my play style and my desires. The legacy system lets me focus in on the abilities I want to improve, while the relic portion helps me improve upon statistics. With any system some will be more desirable than others but there are more than enough options to meet your exact niche. You can create a flavor of the month weapon or shoot for something extremely specific. The possibility for both is there and the system is easy enough to understand to make achieving your goals quite possible.

Turbine was also kind enough to create re-specialization points in the life of your weapon to ensure that you are not stuck with poor decisions. Each time your weapon reaches a “zero” in its level all of your relics pop free and all of your spent points are refunded. This ensures that you will not have too many regrets with your purchasing choices. This feature cannot be under valued as it really reduces the barrier of entry.

While some players might dislike grinding out weapons, I am a big fan of anything that keeps my guild members logged on. With the daily quests and item experience they will have a reason to log on when not leveling their characters. With a bit of luck nobody should have to level too many weapons and I’m all for this sort of alternate advancement.

This may be a minor positive but one that I have always enjoyed in my MMOs. Legendary weapons generally have a particle effect associated with them. I’ve felt that MMOs have really proliferated the use of effects but they feel right in LotRO. When my sword lit up for the first time I was quite pleased.

The Bad

I am not the first to say this and I will not be the last but the greatest complaint when it comes to legendary weapons is the fact that the legacies you receive are randomly assigned. At first I liked the prospect of diabloization because, much like in that game, you could roll a one in a million weapon. In practice, however, this lottery is anything but thrilling. When you receive your 20th weapon with the “wrong legacies” on it your morale starts to wane. Legendary weapons quickly lose their “rare and special” feel. They’re just garbage that you pick up, clean up just enough to find out it won’t be appearing on Antique Road Show, and then deconstruct into a relic. The wonder and excitement turns to disappointment and cynicism. In my eyes that is a shame.

Some of you might be confused when I say “wrong legacy.” To make the point a bit more clear it seems that for each class there are legacies that you would almost never use or show up too frequently. As a champion I run fervour almost all the time. Legacies that give me bonus to my tanking skills are rarely useful. When it comes to my class, if the weapon doesn’t have an increase to fervour damage, it is junk. That, unfortunately, isn’t the end of the story, either. You have to worry about the legacy’s tier.

Each legacy can appear from tier one to six. The higher the legacy’s tier, the less it costs to upgrade. If the legacy you want does not show up around tier three to begin with, it is not worthwhile. At level 20 you are allowed to upgrade one legacy to a higher tier but it randomly picks two out of all your group. If the one you want isn’t there you are out of luck. This essentially means you want as few legacies as possible to ensure that your chosen one is improved. Once more a little random goes a long way to ruin a good thing.

It is due to these issues that you have experiences like mine. Items drop that can be turned in for legendary weapons at a vendor. To show just how worthless these things are I wanted to mention that just last night I turned in twenty tokens and received zero items with a bonus to fervour. Some items didn’t offer a bonus to anything that works with my play style or the flavor of the month. It was quite sad as one of my dream MMO design features quickly started to show that it wasn’t what I really wanted. Instead, it seems to be some evil version that would injure me more than pet my head.

But…

Despite the disappointment that all the random chance brings into this system I have to again say that I love it. If you get past the lottery and do get the weapon for you it is a wonderful experience. You can name that weapon, change its damage type, add the statistics you want and improve the abilities you use most. It adds another bar for you to watch and it is exciting to grow an item along with you. I would not trade this system for diabloized loot for sure.

The system could easily be improved by letting players purchase the legacies they want and attach them to a “naked weapon.” The legacies could be earned through quests, item drops or anything along those lines. This would also free up the “new legacy” levels for more “tier improvements” or even something else completely new. Ultimately we need less random and more control when it comes to our legendary weapons. In the future we might see that as it seems Turbine does a decent job of reacting to their players.