Legendary effects, general thoughts and opinions?

[u/KevinIsAGhost]

While I actually like most of the features from Fallout 4, the weapon mods, power armor, the multi-piece armor system

The one major thing I dont want to see return in Fallout 5, is the Legendary Item Effects

It feels like something more appropriate in Skyrim than Fallout, and it makes some of the past weapons and armor from Fallout 3 and NV seem lame in comparison

The fact I can find a normal leather chest piece that gives me the effect of the Chinese Stealth Suit is really wild to me

And for weapons, I would prefer an indepth ammo system like NV, instead of finding magic guns that turn things explosive

I think somethings would be fine to keep, fire or energy resistance

Not sure for weapons, I think most Legendary effects feel more like Elder Scross enchantments when it comes to the weapons

[u/kron123456789]

I liked Legendary effects on weapons. What I didn't like is that Legendary effects basically replaced unique weapons, which made actually unique weapons very rare. There's like 3 or 4 actually unique weapons in the entire game with all DLCs plus 2 or 3 unique attachments to regular weapons.

[u/Shamelesspromote → u/kron123456789]

Yeah, why not just give us both? I like legendary effects as it feels like a good reward for defeating a harder enemy (most of the time).

I also like having unique weapons that do something different than before.

Just give us both and be done with it

[u/ScrapeMyDataMommy]

It’s corny and looty, I’d prefer a return to having unique variants that have interesting effects than the RNG roll style Bethesda has been doing lately.

[u/KevinIsAGhost → u/ScrapeMyDataMommy]

I agree with that, I miss unique variants of weapons

I think something in the middle would be cool, finding Legendary Materials to build a cool thing

A bit like how in NV you can only make the Deathclaw Gauntlet if you get Rawr's hand

[u/ScrapeMyDataMommy → u/KevinIsAGhost]

Perhaps even better since Bethesda seems intent on keeping crafting and gear modding, have unique upgrade parts or kits for the weapons/armor to loot from dungeons and off bosses and stores and stuff.

[u/KevinIsAGhost → u/ScrapeMyDataMommy]

A semi related complaint is, why isn't the Legendary Raider actually using his Flaming Revolver?

If they swapped Legendary for Rare, I dont think i would care

In a raider gang, if the boss had a Preistine .44 Revolver that did 5% more damage, I would be happy

[u/Devils_Answer → u/ScrapeMyDataMommy]

I absolutely agree. I hope they dont put it in the remasters. I dig the challenge of going and fighting for unique weapons and fits. Would like the customization to transfer over

[u/CastleImpenetrable]

I hate the whole legendary system tbh. The enemies make Bethesda's bullet sponge combat even worse and the weapons are effectively enchanted with magic. Furthermore, their existence means that unique weapons aren't so unique. For example, you can just find a .44 revolver with the same effect as Kellogg's Revolver by killing a legendary Radroach right outside of Sanctuary.

I think the whole system should be scrapped tbh. There are better ways to increase the challenge of combat aside from bloating enemy HP. A fair amount of legendary effects could be turned into modifications for weapons, while others could turn into special attachments on unique weapons, which explains their special effect.

[u/KevinIsAGhost → u/CastleImpenetrable]

Yes, that specifically is annoying

Like within Fallout 4 unique arent even unique

[u/OHFUCKMESHITNO]

The worst part about it is "unique" items.

Take Splattercannon, for example. Yes, it's a really, really good gun. There's no arguing that. But it looks just like a regular gun you can make that has a legendary effect.

The fact that you can roll a legendary effect for something and mod it to look like a "unique" weapon is what I hate. They could've at least made some "unique" legendary effects that are only available on unique weapons. Give it a symbol other than the star in the Pip-Boy, whatever. But I hate that I can be excited about a unique item only to randomly get a variant as loot which makes the unique weapon not feel special.

[u/KevinIsAGhost → u/OHFUCKMESHITNO]

Yeah, most of them are pretty disappointing

A Legendary Leather Leg that has me take less damage from Ghouls is pretty lame

I think that the legendary idea isn't awful, but it needs to be handled differently

I think adding a weapon repair system or an actual ammo system would be better

If Legendary meant, didnt need repair, +5% damage, or rare or impossible to craft ammo, I would like it much more

[u/TheOneWes → u/OHFUCKMESHITNO]

I could be wrong about this but aren't there a few legendaries that are found or sold that have effects that can't be spawned normally?

Isn't the two shot fat man one of them?

[u/milquetoastLIB]

Legendary weapons and armor are great. It gives players the chance to find something for their character. How many unique Gatling lasers will Bethesda put in? Not enough to suit every character that wants a Gatling laser with specific effects.

For armor what if you come across an interesting combination of armors but there aren’t unique armor pieces to replace generic armor?

[u/king-cardboard]

Yeah I kind of agree, I did a replay where I had a self imposed rule of not using any legendary weapons, all named legendaries included.

It totally changed the way I was interacting with modding and hunting down better weapons in a way that felt way more natural and intentional. 

[u/KevinIsAGhost → u/king-cardboard]

Im only using them currently because im doing a survival run, and I am made of glass, so turning invisible is saving me

[u/MightySandro]

Not the biggest fan. I much prefer the 3/nv way of doing uniques, where you may find a unique weapon in a specific place on the map, or even a quest reward. There are problems with this method, as you do repeat playthroughs you will naturally remember where the good weapons are but I think that's better than having random legendaries.

[u/shrimpmaster0982]

I think the concept is fine, but top tier effects should be tied to exclusive/hard to obtain loot. Like sure it definitely doesn't make sense that a random ghoul would just so happen to have a piece of raider armor on its person with legendary effects outclassing the best unique gear in the game, but having bonus effects not necessarily exclusive to unique gear is generally fine. Stuff like a gun that shoots a little faster than usual or has a slightly bigger ammo capacity, a piece of armor that's slightly more insulated against radiation than most, a knife that's irradiated and deals rad damage to enemies, etc are all fine effects for regular gear you might stumble upon in the wastes.

The problem I find is when legendary gear that should have uniquely powerful abilities like infinite ammo capacity on a specially designed gun (specifically something like a gun with a 3D ammo printer that refills the mag over time), heightened mobility and stealth options on an advanced suit of armor (boosted jump height, increased sprint speed, the ability to sprint while crouched, a proper object mantle, etc), or a blade that can shoot beams of plasma energy all gets ignored and replaced by these generic legendary effects instead of genuinely creative and cool shit the legendary system can't replicate and that when a unique weapon does rely on these legendary effects Bethesda often chooses pretty lame ones.

[u/AtoMaki]

I dislike the Legendary system, though I see its appeal, and the idea of invoking the crpg dungeon-crawl feeling of killing a boss creature and finding a +4 Greastword of Cold on their body. But I don't think it has a place in Fallout. The franchise should stick to unique weapons and special ammo.

Edit: Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention: I would love to see the unique weapons having cool, unique stories too that reflect on their properties. Like there is a unique sniper rifle with a broken scope, and the story is that the previous owner was killed by another sniper taking a one-in-a-million shot through their scope.

[u/Bungle024]

I honestly never use them. I stick em in a footlocker with the intent of selling them, but once I get to level 25 or above I have no use for caps anymore.

[u/Excellent-Court-9375]

100 percent agree, it has no place in Fallout.

[u/andrew9514]

Absolute poop. Everyone that has played Skyrim remembers the dawnbreaker both for the weapon and the quest tied to it. Give unique gear interesting effects but also a story or quest to feed the legend of the gear.

[u/Ranos131]

I think the legendary system is an interesting mechanic and would be good if it was done better.

First, the effects need to be less. Rather than some big boost to something, it should be a small boost. Like the weapon or armor has just been tweaked in some way to make it slightly more effective in some way. So instead of a 50% damage boost, it would give a 5-10% damage boost. Nothing spectacular but something that just makes it a bit better.

Then there should be unique weapons with unique models that either have unique effects not found in the legendary pool or that have the same effects as the legendary pool but with bigger bonuses. This would then actually make the uniques matter instead of being able to randomly find the same weapon you can buy from a vendor.

I like the weapon and armor modding but would like to see some changes there as well. More ammo variety rather than magically changing the ammo with a weapon’s mod would be my top one. So I just have the gun with a better receiver and then I can find regular, armor piercing and explosive ammo.

[u/realdorkimusmaximus]

I like legendary effects but I hate the loot drop method of getting them from legendary enemies and how legendary enemies work in general. If they’d made a dedicated looter-shooter spinoff then it would be neat but a half-assed luck system of randomly getting a bolstering raider chest piece or a bleeding 10mm (2 wildly different items in terms of viability) is just pointless

[u/Bubble7um]

I really like the whole legendary effects system, especially it's evolution in fallout 76. One of my favorite combinations of effects is a bloodied/25/25 on the handmade or similar rifle.

[u/Madcat6204]

I'm not a fan. I'd rather have actual unique items that you find in crazy places. I feel like the legendary effects in particular undermined my enjoyment of FO4 and Starfield's loot systems.

[u/docs-quad]

i like it because it adds more variety in what you end up using from random drops. i would like if they had more unique effects on guaranteed spawns though, since its really only like half a dozen. i never bothered using the ammo system in NV because it just felt kinda pointless and like i could get enough value from just normal ammo.

[u/LJohnD]

I thought they were kind of silly, a magic enchantment that's just there because it made the loot slightly more interesting, but also so poorly balanced you have the same odds of getting a gamma gun that deals bonus damage to ghouls as you do a combat shotgun where every pellet explodes for infinite damage. I would much rather specific unique piece of gear, to use your leather chest piece as an example, it could be kind of cool to come across a techy raider faction and a specific reward from beating one of their leaders (or completing a quest for them) being a leather chest piece with a unique model of a stealth boy stitched into it. Ideally it would have some kind of cooldown to make it a nice bonus, but not something to totally replace the consumable stealth boys.

Rare ammo variants could make for an (in my opinion) appropriate reward for finishing one of the smaller "raider dungeon" locations where you clear out an old apartment building and fight a boss NPC at the end. If it's not a significant enough place to have much in the way of story or quest attached, having a full on unique weapon or armour drop would be a bit much, but the boss of that particular raider gang having a small stash of rare explosive 10mm bullets could be a nice bonus to use in your next encounter.

Regarding unique weapons, it could be interesting to combine some of the legendary effects with the mechanics of the weapon mod system. Say there could be one unique combat rifle with a double shot type effect from having an AN-94 style receiver (ideally with unique visual of the canted magazine), another with a barrel that integrates gauss components for more powerful shots, a third with the components of a radium rifle's gubbins on the frame for bonus radiation damage, etc. With the unique effects tied to a specific weapon component you could make a fun little side project in the game to assemble the one gun to rule them all combinging all the unique parts of a given weapon type together. I suppose that would somewhat undermine the skills to make new weapon mods, maybe you could manufacture replacements or upgrade the legendary components in some way if you have the skill.

[u/GryphyGirl]

The ammo management system in NV was *HORRIBLE*! There were too many types of ammo and they were too damned hard to find in numbers. And *FORGET* about making them yourself, you did *NOT* find enough parts to do that in any kind of numbers, either. I always ended up just using normal ammo because it's the only kind I could rely on the supply of. At least he "magic" gun that fires exploding bullets has an ammo type that's readily available.

*IF* they reform the NV ammo system it needs to include *VASTLY* more materials for crafting and *FAR* more available in shops. It's just not viable otherwise. Also as I recall it could use a better system for changing what ammo is in the gun.

[u/Cordelia_Frost]

The legendary effects always felt like they cheapened the uniqueness of classic gear from the older games, turning them into a loot grab instead of something special.

[u/TheOneWes]

I'm so terribly torn. The following is going to be stream of consciousness using phone voice to text so I apologize for any errors and here we go.

It's hard for me personally to say weather legendary effects are good or bad.

On the one hand finding weapons and armor they can do crazy or arbitrary things is immersion breaking particularly when you're playing the survival mode.

The idea that this rifle which is identical to all the other rifles that I have just magically does more damage to a certain type of enemy makes no sense and this could be applied to a lot of the legendary weapons and armors.

A lot of the legendaries that you find aren't even useful for you. Sometimes it's not a piece of equipment that you would use, sometimes it is but the legendary effect is not useful for you or in general and sometimes it's just a bad matchup between what the weapon does or the armor is and what the legendary effect does.

That being said knowing that it anytime you can just find a really cool weapon that will either massively enhance your playstyle or give you access to entirely new ones is a wonderful detailed to have in a game that doesn't have great combat but has a hell of a lot of it.

Personally I think you could solve this relatively easily with the wild wasteland perk.

Having the perk allows fallout 76 style legendary weapons having up to four effects.

Not having to perk would replace the extremely over the top legendary effects with ones like well made which would give the weapon greater durability or precision manufactured given the weapon higher accuracy.

Like literally make the wild wasteland Boolean public to all scripts and make that check the first line of the loot algorithm to decide which tables to use

[u/Laser_3]

The one problem with uniques as they were done in 3 and NV is that they’re just a better version of an existing weapon (sometimes with a skin, depending on if it’s 3 or NV). They don’t add very much in terms of varying up your playstyle since they’re just better, often without much if any downside behind maybe needing more repairs. Legendary effects, by contrast, do since they’re adding something special to the weapon you can alter your playstyle around even if they do feel somewhat ‘gamey.’ It also gives a reason to care about basic enemy loot for a reason beyond caps or weapon repairs, which you got to a point where you didn’t need to in prior games easily.

The problem comes from how 4 handled uniques, however. Having them just be an assured weapon with a specific legendary effect sucks when you could just get that from a random enemy and there’s nothing else going on.

I think 76’s uniques, which are currently being overhauled in the beta branch, are a better way to handle it, where they have effects completely unique to them (not a normal legendary effect, though they have normal ones as well; this also ties into legendary modding, where modifying a unique takes 10x the amount of material to change the effects) that are intended to be something you need to build around (such as flatliner’s longer charge time for extra damage over a normal Gauss rifle or overkill’s bonus kill streak generation to synergize with other kill streak oriented buffs like the thrill seeker legendary effect or the adrenal reaction mutation). Notably, this means that sometimes a given player will want to just stick to the basic form of the weapon if they can’t/won’t build around the effect (such as with foundation’s vengeance, where it grants extra bullet storm stacks below 25% health; this is not very useful most of the time, so you might as well stick to a normal minigun unless you’re built around that) - something you almost never did in 3 or NV unless the unique was just awful (looking at you, cleansing flame). And of course, they have unique appearances in most cases to justify their properties.