Rollback before the Legendary essence/dust

[Leques]

i agree with most of the opinions being stated here, also to mention to you reapsot the point of yellow legendaries were to level up characters i guess or being low tier low cost for new players

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I don't fully agree with you. But I think there should have been a period of at least two weeks where both sets of upgrade recipes existed. This would have allowed people to complete their upgrade projects from the previous system before the new system completely replaced it.

well, you dont see the problem for new players where, items are 5x base cost + legendary upgrade is like 2x/3x the cost it was, how does this motivate you to play, if you dont loot and have to play even more then you used too

Edit: i noticed you said i dont fully agree so i dont know wich part you dont agree too.

I don't fully agree witth you that I think it's a bad thing that "cheap crap" becomes a "shitton [sic]." I think it's good to give a reason for people to be happy to loot Steel Stingers and such. A few weeks before Legendary Essences existed, someone groaned for looting Steel Stinger from Odin. People shouldn't have that kind of reaction when they loot something from Odin.

Anyway: no, I don't see the problem for new players. This mod was always built on delayed gratification. It took people years and combining shops to get to where they are now. People used to spend months to craft a Tome or Barrel, even after getting donations and/or pooling shop and house resources to get it done. And the number of people that had Master Surgeon Kits and Wall Barricades was in the single digits until maybe 2014 or 2015. Not to mention the multiple (four?) years we had 50% bonus experience and gold turned on for a seasonal event that just never turned off.

And the issue isn't directly related to Legendary Essences anyway. Before legendary upgrades, gold was only used for training hero classes and house crafted items, and best-in-slot items sold for tens of millions of gold (NKA bought an Imperial for 30 million). We're back towards the game state where gold isn't as useful anymore, probably exacerbated by the fact that Orichalcum, Relic Fragments, and Phoenix Feathers drop a lot more often from bosses. This isn't new.

In the end, I think this system is better than a saturated market where someone loots something best-in-slot, but then flips it for a few million gold.

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I agree with Malong’s point regarding the need for a transition period. Sudden changes to core systems especially those involving legendary crafting can disrupt long-standing upgrade plans and catch players off guard.

A two-week grace period before fully committing to the new materials would have helped ease the community into the changes, allowing players to adjust their strategies and use up existing resources accordingly. Abrupt shifts like this tend to frustrate both veterans and newer players alike.

I’m not against new systems being introduced, but more thoughtful implementation would definitely help maintain player trust.

Yeah G. Anatolian side.

i see your point, i actually agree with most of this, but i still feel like the ammount of grinding needed to be done in order to buy something if you dont loot any legendaries is insanely more compared to before the essences cause the base value of every legendary is way more, you have the value of the item itself + the essences and that makes it in some cases toomuch and not worth, i still would not buy an steel stinger cause it was useless that was the reason it was worthless in the first place.

[Hamsterino]

I personally like this system. With amount of players that we have now, it helps to keep economy alive. Also before the update looting some legendaries were meaningless. You would play normal more for fun, now every legendary could be used.

I wonder how many new players joins the game. But if you are new and you get loot now, you can build your character easier by destilling item if needed.

I would agree to that some recipes might need to updated. For instance, eastern blade is 4 essences, I would believe 2-3 would be enough.

The amount of players seems to be decreasing every day, which will result in less overall loots, which in return will make essences even more expensive, since they're rarer.
Looting a dragon axe from a normal run as a rich person: After the update, it saves me one out of the nine essences I need (alongside a dark offering) to upgrade an elegy. Before the update, I couldn't use the dragon axe (it's like I didn't loot at all), but I could upgrade an elegy for just the dark offering. I don't think this one needs any explanation.
Looting a dragon axe from a normal run as a poor person: After the update, I can distill it into a single essence, which I can *maybe* trade for another legendary that distills into one essence, but maybe not even that. Also, the only items that are realistically available at essence value are: dragon sword (probably not), fang, fell edge and worm bane. The only real use you can make of it is sell the essence and buy a house crafted weapon with the gold. Before the update, I was stuck with the dragon axe as well, I could *maybe* trade it for like 500k. However, before the update, 500k got you a lot closer to a good (or usable, for that matter) weapon than the single essence does now (I'm talking about 500k steel stinger, 1mil dragon breath, 2mil legacy etc.).

[Venom]

I don't really see the current system as unbalanced. On the contrary, the introduction of Legendary Essence has finally given every item a purpose even those that previously gathered dust in our inventories.

Before this system, unused or unpopular legendaries were essentially worthless. Now, even if an item isn’t viable in combat or in demand on the market, it still holds value through essence conversion. That creates a more fluid and dynamic economy, where nothing is truly wasted.

Instead of creating instability, I believe this actually stabilizes the market by providing a fallback value for all gear.

[Cut-Me-Own-Throat-Dibbler]

Turning old (or "useless") legendaries into essences is, in my opinion, a good idea. What I'm not a fan of is making them mandatory for the same Legendary Upgrades that didn’t require them before. This change benefits older, experienced players and puts new players at a disadvantage. Personally, I’d keep the essences but find other ways to make them useful and desirable. What those ways could be — and what’s even technically possible given the mod’s current limitations — I’m not sure.

As for people leaving or coming back, I think many players feel the same way I do: if there’s something new (no matter how small), they return and play for a while. When things get stale or repetitive, they take a break.

[Jaxer]

As a relatively new player, the thing that seems unfair to me is the price of upgrading certain items. For example: distilling Typhoon gives you 6 essence, while upgrading it costs 9 essence + masterwork toolkit + huntress which makes upgrading this item cost more than twice its worth just for you to get +3dmg and +2 speed which is a joke. The upgrade price makes awakening certain items not worth it at all while pre-update upgrades were almost free compared to what the requirements are now. Also I dont't find statements such as: "oh you will loot something anyways" as a valid argument because there are players who have looted several items while having similar playtime as players who have looted NONE which often makes being able to upgrade a case of almost pure RNG. I am convinced the problem is the upgrade cost and distilling yield which needs to be reconsidered and reworked as it seems pretty much unbalanced at this point.

[Malong]

Before the update, I was stuck with the dragon axe as well, I could *maybe* trade it for like 500k. However, before the update, 500k got you a lot closer to a good (or usable, for that matter) weapon than the single essence does now (I'm talking about 500k steel stinger, 1mil dragon breath, 2mil legacy etc.).

This isn't solely due to essences:

And the issue isn't directly related to Legendary Essences anyway. Before legendary upgrades, gold was only used for training hero classes and house crafted items, and best-in-slot items sold for tens of millions of gold (NKA bought an Imperial for 30 million). We're back towards the game state where gold isn't as useful anymore, probably exacerbated by the fact that Orichalcum, Relic Fragments, and Phoenix Feathers drop a lot more often from bosses. This isn't new.

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As a relatively new player, the thing that seems unfair to me is the price of upgrading certain items. For example: distilling Typhoon gives you 6 essence, while upgrading it costs 9 essence + masterwork toolkit + huntress which makes upgrading this item cost more than twice its worth just for you to get +3dmg and +2 speed which is a joke. The upgrade price makes awakening certain items not worth it at all while pre-update upgrades were almost free compared to what the requirements are now.

I wouldn't classify you as new. Anyway, awakened legendaries are meant to have high costs for slight improvements. These types of diminishing returns are quite common in online games. See this post addressing that, and even the games he cited are quite new for online games:

Most games have a "fun" ramp up of resources required for the top tier - see Champion 160 gear in ESO that is literally 10 times as expensive as the previous tier.  As in it is exactly 10 times the materials to craft.  People that don't feel it is necessary for the +2p or +1% armor simply don't buy it, and there is definitely no shortage of that in ESO.  Don't even get me started on the grind in TERA.

[Chaos Laicosin]

Its good that "useless" legendaries have a use now. I can also get behind making upgrades more expensive in an effort to make them more rare and special. 
The big problem with the current system is that the ability to upgrade legendaries is directly tied to the random chance of loot drops. As legendaries get distilled and essence gets used, the price of essence goes up. As the community shrinks and loot drops become more rare, the price of essence goes up. Eventually, upgrades will become completely unaffordable for all but the richest of players

Some potential solutions:
-Make essence/dust purchasable in the market (it would stop the inflation of some legendaries, but its a boring solution)
-Add quests that reward essence/dust
-Increase the dust drop rate, or make dust craftable
-Rebalance the loots so that the "useless" legendaries drop more frequently than "useful" ones (should doubly add more essence to the market and bring prices down)

[Drayke]

I like the concept of legendary essences/dust and being added. I used to think it was a bad idea but giving it more thought over several days my opinion changed. Essences are definitely a greater store of value (as of now) compared to gold which I like. However I do find the concept of allowing essences to be transferred into 2 phoenix feathers as reasonable.

I am from the position the update helps newer players more and creates a higher ceiling for older players when it comes to creating top-tier sets. At this point in the game creating a higher cap is probably fine. Before the update (2024) I was able to buy a sun glaive off the auction hall for 800k-1.2m gold. I saw two opportunities for this and acquired one of them. I also bought a Fiendish for 2.7m~ gold on the auction hall. (Nowadays 4m-5m value.) Fast forward to 2025, I recently bought a sun glaive from CalRG for 4.2mil. He was able to stack his characters with hero classes and house craftable gear sets afterwards. The update definitely helped him. Bob_Tschgerillo is another example after looting 2 orange legendaries his entire set changed similarly. I hope these guys are ok with me using them as anecdotal examples from observation for this xd.

Definitely certain legendaries such as Steel Stinger should be reconsidered for the essence value as it is mentioned often. I am from the opinion the Steel Stinger should be added to legio as a larp sword. (High cut damage, highest speed, shortsword.) I would 100% try and obtain it if it was. Different topic though.

[Hamsterino]

Fast forward to 2025, I recently bought a sun glaive from CalRG for 4.2mil. He was able to stack his characters with hero classes and house craftable gear sets afterwards. The update definitely helped him. Bob_Tschgerillo is another example after looting 2 orange legendaries his entire set changed similarly.

First, they both looted something, which obviously results in some quick upgrades at that early stage of the game, that's not new after the update. Although, I agree that the upgrades to their sets they were able to make are better than they would've been before the update.
Second, the update most certainly didn't help them in the long run. They might have gotten house crafted gear early on due to the changes the update did to looting a sun glaive, but what's next? Let's say he's a zwei now, a legacy used to be 2mil, now it's at least 15mil. If they don't keep on looting, that next step to those best-in-slot (ignoring the upgrades) items is a much bigger one now than it used to be. And even though that might have been one of the reasons for the update (less legendaries, more house crafted gear), it doesn't help the players and definitely didn't make long-term progression easier.

[Malong]

Second, the update most certainly didn't help them in the long run. They might have gotten house crafted gear early on due to the changes the update did to looting a sun glaive, but what's next? Let's say he's a zwei now, a legacy used to be 2mil, now it's at least 15mil.

It goes the other way too though: they wouldn’t have been able to sell a Sun Glaive for 4 million either.

This also conveniently ignores that the amount of gold people are willing to spend is higher because Phoenix Feathers, Relic Fragments, and Orichalcum are dropping at a much higher rate than before. When you don’t have to spend as much for crafting, what do you think people will spend that money on instead?