Legacy items are bullshit

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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.

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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.

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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.

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Consider this: If all legacy items were reverted to their nonlegacy versions this very instant, how much would it hurt the players holding the legacy items?

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I don't mean this as a cheap jab. I'm serious. Let's consider the situation in earnest.

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You cannot really make the argument that being denied access to legacy items has no significant effect on newer entrants to permanent leagues

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Dark_Chicken wrote:

If you're suggesting changing existing kaoms to legacy no way it's going to happen, it would destroy the current and rising leg kaom price.

No item has increased as much as leg kaom in the past several months, making all kaoms leg would wipe out alot of wealth, i dont think GGG would even do that... it would make the acuity crash a cakewalk.

if you mean having leg kaoms drop again, then that would be OK (still never going to happen)

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Now invert that, and what you have is the net hurt (or help) which newer players experience by having legacy items cut off from them.

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mark1030 wrote:

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Now invert that, and what you have is the net hurt (or help) which newer players experience by having legacy items cut off from them.

In that case, I would say that the net hurt felt by newer players being cut off from legacy items is 100% psychological. If they didn't know such items existed, they would 100% not feel hurt by not having them.

But taking something away from somebody who already has it is not a 100% psychological hurt. It includes a tangible loss. You had something that somebody took away. If somebody is born with 6 fingers and you Lopped one off against their will, they would feel a real loss even though now they have the same 5 fingers as everybody else.