I have an honest question about the state of legendaries (Fyr’alath in this case as it’s the current one) and hopefully this doesn’t rub anyone the wrong way.
For context as to where I’m coming from, I played this game fairly consistently from 2006 through 2016 (vanilla through WoD). I took breaks here and there but I never really “quit” until just a few months before Legion came out. I resubbed a few months ago for the first time since then and have been having a blast with Dragonflight as well as just catching up on all the expansions that I missed.
Fyr’alath drop rates and the “Bad Luck Protection” seem to be a hot button issue these days and every week there are posts from people about how they’ve killed Fyrakk 15+ times and still haven’t gotten the legendary. This kind of sparked my interest in wanting to understand more about how legendaries have evolved over the years.
The server I play on was once a “Full” server back in vanilla and was pretty well-populated with a lot of high end raiding guilds. Both Horde and Alliance had several guilds who cleared Naxx which was (at least as I recall) quite a feat back then even for guilds who were able to clear T2 and AQ content. Despite the high number of raiding guilds, it felt like only a small handful of people had a legendary i.e. Thunderfury (I think only 2-3 people ever got Atiesh) and being that this was before cross-realm content, everybody knew who they were. It seemed, at least to me, that legendaries were truly meant to be elusive and for the elite of the elite, and even then your chances of obtaining one were extremely low and highly dependent on RNG.
Today, the sentiment almost seems like people are “expecting” (for lack of a better term) a legendary after a certain period of time, which is kind of the opposite of how I remember legendaries. Personally, I don’t do Mythic raiding nor do I have an interest in it. The “peak” of what I do is clearing normal raids + dabbling in some Heroic, so I would be 100% OK if I never get a Fyr’alath even if I’ve killed Fyrakk 100+ times, but maybe I’m looking at it through the wrong lens.
I’m curious as to what the general player base’s perception is around legendaries today and how they should be attained, as well as what Blizzard has done or said over the years to shape this sentiment. I’ve been away from this game for 7+ years so my apologies if I rub anyone the wrong way with this question as that’s not my intention, I’m just trying to catch up with the state of the game today (and want to know if maybe I should be picking up a pitchfork as well given that I main a class that can use Fyr’alath).
I’m on the side of legendary gear remaining rare and not put it in the hands of every players who thinks they deserve it. When legendary gear becomes common, there really is no point of it anymore. I haven’t had time to high level content, but even if my class had a legend, I wouldn’t want it to be a guarantee.
I am a long time player, off and on throughout the years. I played in vanilla but didn’t reach end game. I am finally actually challenging myself in end game content.
My sentiment towards legendaries are like yours. I remember seeing players with those rare drops and being in awe. It was something to chase, a carrot on a stick. Something I likely would never personally get yet still something to strive for.
Nowadays it feels like people are entitled and legendaries are in an abundance which, to me, devalues them.
Yeah, sad but true that’s the new thinking of the community. If their entire guild doesn’t have it for the class they will spam posts in the forums until they boost the drop rates. Now I think they are even guaranteed after a certain amount of runs. Everyone wants to be “equal” now and have the same gear. I go to Val and see 10 players at any moment with the current legend. That’s why I play SoD and a “little” of retail sometimes.
Agreed, they are meant to be rare. Although that has changed in some ways, look at the Legion legendaries, MoP cloaks, Heart of Azeroth, etc.
IMO the acquisition was implemented well AFTER the changes; looking at the bad luck protection graph data mined on Wowhead, those that “need” and deserve the upgrade (have been consistently raiding Heroic and Mythic) are all but guaranteed the drop I believe?
And if you run LFR you have a small chance, but nothing too serious.
It incentivizes higher level gameplay as it should, and those that need that power upgrade are likely to have it.
That’ll be controversial of course, as there is a growing number of the player base that feels they deserve all rewards IMMEDIATELY, even if all they do is pet battle or go fishing.
Let’s not forget, and maybe it’s been mentioned, but some expansions iterations of legendaries were such that everyone got them. And multiples of them. In WoD there was a ring or trinket we all got, I don’t remember, and in Legion we all got two legendaries AND a special artifact weapon. In BfA there was a necklace so legendary it cannot be destroyed plus we got a cloak. In MoP there was the cloak too.
These examples are clearly not the same as say, Thunderfury or even Tarcegosa staff or rogue daggers from Cata.
But when you add a mechanic like tangible BLP it does become expected by most people that it is largely obtainable. There’s still an element of RNG to it. The BLP token is a visible reminder that you didn’t get the legendary. It’s supposed to make you feel optimistic about next week but really it just feels crappy.
Legendaries can occupy one of two zones. Everyone gets one in short order, or they are guild-wide efforts that almost nobody gets while they are content.
Vanilla had the second zone, and they had meaning. Today they are simply good raid drops with an expectation set by Blizzard’s handling of them where you will in fact get one if you down the boss regularly. But rather than make it a quest, they made it RNG with the BLP not sufficient to ensure acquisition before the tier is functionally over.
Some RNG to some extent is really the only way to make sure that not every one and their mother in that class is walking around with the best weapon in the game.
I think the biggest issue with the legendary is that Blizzard themselves don’t know what to do with it.
Blizzard claims legendary is supposed to a reward for “excellence” and yet it can drop in LFR.
They decided to implement bad luck protection (BLP). This was one of the main reasons that the player base “expected” to get the legendary eventually, and rightfully so. BLP implies that the devs believe everyone should eventually get the legendary as long as they keep grinding. But, their implementation of BLP turned out to be basically a placebo (until the hotfix). I am not sure why they even bothered with BLP if it was going to barely affect the drop rates. I believe having a crappy BLP actually made players more angry than having no BLP.
WOW now runs in seasons. Having a completely RNG legendary conflicts with such a model since some players may not get it until the end of season despite playing since the beginning of season.
They could have put upgrade tokens on the boss but have the initial form of the weapon or quest starter drop straight away on the first kill.
This is also why not being transparent about these things is bad. It shouldn’t take WoWhead sleuthing to find out that the BLP was nearly worthless. But they probably don’t want people to see it and complain.
But wouldn’t that still guarantee it? I think what some people are trying to say is why should a legendary weapon be guaranteed to anyone who feels entitled to it. Even if they are a higher skilled player, it shouldn’t be a 100% sure thing just because you have more time to play than some others.
I’m not saying a LFR hero should have a good chance at it, but at least an extremely low chance.
That’s why there should still be some sort of RNG aspect of some sort to it.
I’m not that interested either and have been kind of taken aback by the seemling entitlement vibe. I just remember them as something someone got lucky on the first try kinda thing.
Yes it would guarantee it, which is the point. An item this powerful is too strong to leave to chance since the expectation is that you will indeed have it, and I’m not sure if they’ve admitted it or not, but the classes that can equip it are balanced around the weapon.
I don’t disagree with you honestly. Legendaries used to mean something, but then they started just giving them away for LFR questing, and by legion they dropped from soloable rare mobs. Oh, and they hand you a weapon of legend at the very start of the expansion.
If it doesn’t already, wouldn’t it just make sense to scale the % drop chance based on difficulty? LFR 0.1%, normal 1%, herioc 5%, mythic 10% chance? And not tune classes around it, if you have it you get to be slightly OP for the rest of the season, but it’s also OK not to have it.
