Vet Costume Unlocks

[QUOTE=Noyjitat;2329334]Im up to 2 years now. But this is one of the many reasons I'd like to see the vet reward system get a complete overhaul.QUOTE]

whoa, not until I get MY boxing shorts, I have a Tony Danza Boxing character in the making here. (patent pending)

Well I think they can may be reshuffle the order of Vet powers, toss all costume related powers to earlier slots. I'm about hit 60 months so no biggie me how it all goes down long as I get everything I was due.

I dont think it's a bad system, as I think was a cool idea. I have also bought every single extra pack as I want all the bells and whistles that go with the game. I can understand people waiting certain pieces sooner, as I remember when it first came out my partner I game with wanted the wings ans samurai armor really bad.

May be just add some shorts same way they added extra wings and boots besides the vet ones. Which brings me to another point. I'd like see all costume unlocks become account based. Whether its by missions or inventions, etc. I'd like be able start a new character with all stuff I've unlocked rather have wait. (besides the obivous cape/aura missions.)

I don't think the 60 month badge is game breaking at all. Sure, I can skip hover go straight to fly at level 6 and then pickup a power from my primary/secondary that I might not otherwise have taken if I had to take hover first. But that's not granting me a 5th power pool, a second Epic, or any power I could not have taken had I not taken that flight power pool to begin with. By that logic the Ghost Slaying Axe, the Black Wand, the Nemisis Staff, the Sands of Mu, and the Buff Pet vet rewards would all be game breaking as those are powers above and beyond what you normally could get in game, especially for non Veterans.

As for clueless Veterans, sure there are plenty. I'm not going to say I know everything about the game, heck I don't think I have a single character with access to ITF. But in general higher vets should be people new players could turn to for general advice on the game. Are they the best to group with or to get build advice, no. But could they direct you on how to find things on the map, find a store, answer general questions, you would hope so.

All in all I'm for the veteran reward system and I'm constantly looking forward to the next reward level that I'm about to hit. Is having custom pieces in there any worse than making you pay for them like the booster packs, or giving them away for Hero Con only participants, PAX events, etc, I say no. It's just another way for you to stick out and show some individuality and some form of accomplishment beyond the standard in game options. As for the custom unlocks being account based, I'd be okay with that as long as the capes, auras, additional costumes stay mission based as they are, as mentioned above. Just my two cents.

I think that's the point of the vet reward system. Not everyone is going to get them, just like not everyone can go to HeroCon and get those perks, just like not everyone gets gold names for winning specific contests. Not everyone is going to get everything, that's just the way it is. This isn't some console based game with a very finite system of achievements that can fit on the disk. MMOs are very open, ever changing, ever evolving and not everyone can be there for every evolution. I know I certainly haven't seen or done everything in the game and that's okay with me.

I'll never understand the need of some people to make sure no one else gets what they have.

I could care less if people have what I have in the game. My first post in this thread said as much, if the devs decided to do away with vet rewards and open them to everyone I wouldn't mind, more power to them. However, if they didn't I'm fine with is as well as I like the idea of vet rewards. The costumes are fluff, yes, but so is everything in the veteran rewards system. In my opinion nothing is game breaking and people complaining about not having "fluff" seems awkward.

What I don't understand is if people complain about not having the costume pieces that are in the vet rewards system then why aren't they also complaining about not having the costume pieces that are given out at HeroCon, PAX, ComiCon, beta and pre-order customers, etc? Why don't they complain about perks that players who have won contests have received? It's the same thing and yet the only target here is the vet reward system. Personally I'm fine with there being things I don't have access too.

I didn't know of the original game back when to preorder or be one of the first on, I can't go to HeroCon, I'm not creative enough to win contests, so why should I have those things? If they were given to me cool, if not then that's the way it is and it's only "fluff" so it's not hurting my game experience. If the devs want to share, then share, I'm happy to share. If they don't and decide to continue this "exclusive" club until the day Armageddon behalfs Paragon City then fine by me either way. Yes the game will end some day and people probably won't get "all" the content, but why should those those of us that have been here for most of the ride not get a little more out of it than those that signed up to watch the world burn?

The more I think about it...

Vet rewards should not give you a game advantage over a player that is simply newer to the game, in a way that could actually "turn-off" potential players from joining CoX.

To be honest, vet awards should be limited to free ICON sessions, and character respecs.

While I love some of the abilities such as the Mu punch thingy and the black wand, they should be available to all, and not to old timers, they do make a big difference in play.

Costumes should not be restricted based on time, while I do agree with restricted costumes acquired through booster packs. I also believe costumes should not be something you have to unlock as well, many of us are role players and make characters based on a concept, often their power set combinations are much less than ideal but they fit a story line or feel, thus the appropriate costume pieces should be initially available from the get go. I understand that earning a costume is a nice concept, but developers could let you earn something else, like a badge, a title, etc.

Hugs

Stormy

I'm firmly against the idea of earning things simply by racking up time.

I think we just need some regular old shorts added to the costume list for guys.

Not really. Every passenger has the right to pay additional money for a first class flight. With many airlines if you check baggage you have to pay for them. On many flights you can option to pay for food services, alcoholic beverages, etc. These are fees above and beyond the normal airfare you can pay for those additional services/options. That's what the addon packs, extra slots, etc are like. Veteran Rewards reward you for paid time playing, Frequent Flier miles reward you for number of times you've flown with an airline. The more you fly an airline the more perks you get as you go from Premier to Premier Exec to 1K flier status. The longer you play CoX the more perks you get as you go from 3 month vet to 66 month vet, etc.

Okay, what is with all the talk of doom and the game not lasting that long and it's going to end soon? I don't get it. The game has been around for 5+ years, they've been adding head count recently since NCSoft took over, they've been bringing us content we've asked for years that they never had the resources to devote to, they've got a new expansion pack coming out, they have thier own Con in HeroCon. Will the game end some day, sure, all games do. But why this sudden doom cry from people like it's going to end before the world in 2012 is beyond me. Heck there are people out there still playing Diablo 2 and that games pushing 10 years. Will CoX make it that long, who knows, but I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. It's that kind of negativity that drives people away before they can get up the vet reward ranks to get their shorts, boxing gloves, whatever it is they seek.

As for taking out the costumes and replacing it with something else shiney if the devs did that I doubt it would be something too shiney. They would probably just make it a costume token to replace the costume. And if they did that, how long do you think it would be before people complained of the powers. "Oh my god, doom, a 60 month vet can fly at level 6 and I have to wait to 14, the game's broke and I won't play that long change it." "OMG, a lvl 2 is running around with sands of mu, nemesis staff, and ghost slaying axe killing stuff while my level 2 is getting knocked around in between my two early powers, that's breaking the game and I can't wait that long to get starting powers to play the game." "OMG why do vets get extra AE slots and I don't? I play AE a ton and could use them, that's doom." Changing it would just start an eventual snowball of doom.

You want the vet rewards, pay to play the game. If the game goes doom and dies, then it goes doom and dies and you didn't get them. When it does go doom odds will be that you didn't experience all the game content and get everything there is to get anyway so what's a boxing glove missed really in the scope of things. But if the game does last that long, and you actually do make it to the 30+ month whatever to get the piece your looking for then feel the sense of accomplishment to know you lasted that long, that you stuck with it, the game made it, and the devs said thank you and gave you a little something something for it. A little something something that's all fluff, nothing game changing, and has zero impact in the game.

I don't understand all the people that are for this. You should have been here 5 years ago when things like capes didn't exist, no auras, no booster packs, no trench coats, limited number of faces, no monsterous costume pieces, etc. JLove and the others have given us a ton over the years. Sure back then we wanted capes and other costume pieces and such, and I'm sure there were people feverishly asking for them, but I don't remember the cries of doom and people swearing it was very disrupting to their game experience that those things weren't there. It was a wish list and if they got them cool, if not, oh well it was a nice thought.

The difference, Energyman, is back before they added capes, no one had capes. Now, only veterans can have boxing gloves, or angel wings, or samurai armour. They're in the game, but for some inexplicible reason, large swaths of the player base are prohibited from accessing them. There is nothing we can do to earn them on our own schedule.

Veteran's Rewards are the only thing in this game (of significance - yellow titles, Con costumes and the like are insignificant compared to the very real in-game effect of Veteran's Rewards) that a player has no power over when, how, and what they earn. Veteran's Rewards literally reward nothing - not in-game effort, not providing income, not out-of-game behaviour. They are unique in the reward structure of the game - not only do they provide obvious and immediate benefits to players and characters, but they are also arbitrarily and inexorably denied to players that started playing the game later.

Veteran's Rewards are unfair. It is unfair to grant a section of players visible and meaningful benefits (which is how they are separated from any other benefits that have been brought up) that another section of players can do nothing to earn.

And please, refrain from the "but you can earn them, just keep subscribing" trite. That's not an answer - and you know it.