Legacy items are bullshit

So a man drives into an automobile dealership and steps out.
"I'd like to return this car."
"It drove in fine enough. Doesn't look broke to me."
"I just bought it an hour ago and it will not go in reverse."
"You're right, it doesn't do that. Particular kink in the engine."
"Well how the hell am I supposed to drive a car I can't reverse?"
"Just don't make any mistakes."
"Well I already did. Look at this side here. Scratched it all up trying to get out of a parking spot."
"Well, I guess it was the best you could do."
"Huh?"
"In any case, you got out, so the car doesn't need reverse."
"Uh, yes it does."
"Noop. Good day sir."

Now if this sounds like the person buying the engine is getting utterly fucked over, you are right. Just as GGG was getting screwed when they somehow bought an engine which wouldn't allow them to make mistakes.

This is astonishing enough, but it's not even like GGG has replaced the original after a few days. No sir. This is an issue which has been around for years, yet continually expressed as a dichotomy between short-term options... and that is bullshit.

-----

Recently I conducted a little experiment. I wanted to see what people felt about the "legacy item" policy in regards to something which isn't as directly tied to gameplay. So I made this thread regarding legacy flavour text.

The results, as of this writing, are: if a piece of politically incorrect, potentially offensive poem made its way onto an item, 42% would want it to remain, 45% would want it struck from ALL copies of the item, and only 13% would want to "legacy" the non-PC flavour text.

The results don't surprise me too much. If you don't think something is broke, you don't want it fixed; if you think it is broke, you want it fixed everywhere.

Furthermore, the legacy option sends a very strange message. On the one hand it seems to pay lip service to the political correctness element, while on the other it seems to tell them the text is okay for others to enjoy. It's like if a workplace had a policy of "hey guys, I'm not saying you can't tell racist jokes, but for Pete's sake don't tell them where any non-white folk can hear you." It oozes a hypocrisy the other two options lack.

Now the linked thread was closed for getting out of control, and I don't intend this thread to be on that topic specifically. Instead I ask: as a game developer, shouldn't GGG have even more passion for its gameplay and mechanics than it has for political correctness? And if so, and half-measures like the "legacy item" policy make no sense for flavour text, don't they make even less sense for actual gameplay factors?

If it doesn't need fixing, don't fix it. But if it does, don't halfass the fix.

-----

Legacy items change in viability almost every major patch. Naturally, the legacies themselves don't change, because that might make too much sense and we couldn't have that. But like all uniques, everything else changes around them.

Upcoming potential aura changes have Shavronne's Wrappings users scrambling for Enlightens. Cloak of Defiance becomes a new animal with the beta EB change. The death of spell shotgunning has us wondering how Taryn's Shiver and Freezing Pulse will get along. A Flameblast nerf effects Infernal Mantle builds. Bringer of Rain got its block chance reduce both on- and off-item. As base life and life nodes have changed over the years, Kaom's Heart has lost power (as I predicted years ago).

And so on, ad infinitum.

So if so much balancing is done dancing around the institutionalized immutability of legacy items, couldn't we just always change the passive tree and/or support gems and leave the uniques themselves alone?

Almost, perhaps. But certainly not, due to one stopper: legacy items themselves. You can't balance block chance in Standard around both legacy and non-legacy Bringer of Rain. Or ES around both legacy and non Shavronne's Wrappings. If one is balanced, the other is either under- or overpwered.

So essentially, if you're in Standard, you are either in the Old Player Club with access, or you're not. You might be able to buy your way in if you're new, but it's definitely not something you'll be able to do on your own. Only old members can sponsor new members.

And perhaps that - leaving your maximum gearing potential solely and squarely to the whim of another player - is the most bullshit of all.

You forgot the tldr: i don't like legacy items.

You didn't convince me. I think they are fine. They don't exist in temp leagues, and that's where I spend most of my time.

"

mark1030 wrote:

You forgot the tldr: i don't like legacy items.

You didn't convince me. I think they are fine. They don't exist in temp leagues, and that's where I spend most of my time.

If you don't care, why bother posting?

If you do care, why point out how you avoid their influence?

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

mark1030 wrote:

You forgot the tldr: i don't like legacy items.

You didn't convince me. I think they are fine. They don't exist in temp leagues, and that's where I spend most of my time.

If you don't care, why bother posting?

If you do care, why point out how you avoid their influence?

So you only want opinions that agree with you to reply? If you only want +1 replies, why did you bother posting?

All of this is true, but legacies are only a symptom: Standard is the core bullshit.

An ever-changing world (and passive trees and items and skills and enemies) doesn't mesh with the concept of a character lasting forever.

---

I'm pretty sure we all know why GGG isn't ever going to change this.

Some people really get off on being Mr. Monopoly with their legacies, and these are some long time players and big supporters. New players are shepherded to the temp leagues time and again -- Standard isn't for them. It's an Old Boys club... filled with Old Boys. In a year, the 3 people that still care about a perfect legacy whatever can continue to trade it between themselves while sipping on mint juleps and adjusting their monocles.

Secondarily, "fixing everything" involves a database migration. It involves rewriting how the items are stored (no longer stored with a raw number like "50"% reduced whatever, but stored with a pointer to X for X% reduced whatever) and likewise how they're retrieved and calculated on the server (and displayed on the client).

It involves actively rewriting the data itself of all the existing items, which in even minor failure scenarios, can look like Kiwihalt all over again or bricking entire stashes. That's a major risk to take, and a failure there would put the entire company on its back.

Lastly, it would be downtime, even in the success case. Nobody would be playing the game -- GGG wouldn't be making money. Does the differential enjoyment that comes out of "fixing legacies" even amount to a single day of revenue?

---

I don't want to demean your position, but I honestly see no route to victory here. It's a wrong thing to have happened and it's something that was vehemently discussed and opposed ever since the early days.

It was possible to change things then; not now.

Scrotie, this is a very well thought out and written post concerning legacy items. I never quite understood why all nerfs weren't made globally and retroactively. I've played this game since closed beta and have had the opportunity to acquire a good number of legacies and yeah they are neat to have for the bragging rights but deep down it just doesn't seem right.

Another side to this that some may forget is that nerfs don't always make the items weaker, there are instances where the new unique is actually better. Not a huge deal for some I suppose unless you went out of your way to seek out that perfect rolled build enabling unique for it to become more or less worthless because even with its perfect rolls it pales in comparison to the new version. Yeah in most cases you can invest a divine into the old one to get the new version but then the rolls are random.

I don't know it just seems like a slippery slope. "Well were gonna keep this, this and that legacy in the game but were gonna globally nerf this and that". And you're right, how do they properly balance around multiple versions of the same item?

"

mark1030 wrote:

You didn't convince me.

It's not you that needs convincing champ.

"

mark1030 wrote:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

mark1030 wrote:

You forgot the tldr: i don't like legacy items.

You didn't convince me. I think they are fine. They don't exist in temp leagues, and that's where I spend most of my time.

If you don't care, why bother posting?

If you do care, why point out how you avoid their influence?

So you only want opinions that agree with you to reply? If you only want +1 replies, why did you bother posting?

I cannot imagine the thoughtprocess required to draw this conclusion. It seems very, very off.

"

DigitalDreams wrote:

Another side to this that some may forget is that nerfs don't always make the items weaker, there are instances where the new unique is actually better.

I think those are called 'buffs'.

"

almostdead wrote:

"

DigitalDreams wrote:

Another side to this that some may forget is that nerfs don't always make the items weaker, there are instances where the new unique is actually better.

I think those are called 'buffs'.

Haha good catch almost, thx.

"

pneuma wrote:

It was possible to change things then; not now.

They could stop making legacy items going forward if they get support, but the ones that exists now will always remain that way.

"

And perhaps that - leaving your maximum gearing potential solely and squarely to the whim of another player - is the most bullshit of all.

Then don't look at legacy items as maximum gearing potential, in temp leagues they aren't in solo self found they aren't its only when you look at the trading aspect in standard that someone else has something better then you can find (or make).

I believe GGG fully balances for the non-legacy versions, which means if you do have a legacy item or roll it will give you more power then they want, but thats the nature of the beast when you play in standard.

"

Scrotie, this is a very well thought out and written post concerning legacy items. I never quite understood why all nerfs weren't made globally and retroactively. I've played this game since closed beta and have had the opportunity to acquire a good number of legacies and yeah they are neat to have for the bragging rights but deep down it just doesn't seem right.

It was a good post, the reason for legacy items can best be pointed at D3's global reduction of attackspeed on existing item, I feel like the outrage of finding an item only later to discover its been reduced is a terrible feeling in an ARPG which is heavily loot based.

Its quite simple they don't balance around the legacy versions of the items or rolls, they can't and keep the temp leagues as balanced as possible. You can view the temp leagues as the game GGG wants us to play and standard\hc as the leagues that have items we shouldn't have.

Someone mentioned in the past they believe life % was reduced and base life per level was increased to make legacy kaoms worst, while it does do that I think it was to make life on gear less important, the side effect of course did nerf this legacy item. I don't think in any other case I can recall that GGG has balanced the game to nerf anything in standard specifically.