VEATs and HEATs

I don't really know where else to put this but is anyone else rather pissed that just about anyone can get a EAT now?
There are called Epic or Prestige because it is a badge of honor just having one. I know when I was a newb I used to think it was so cool when someone had HEAT you had to earn it, you had to know what you are doing, you had to work to get it. Now just some dumb *** newb who spend a week getting to 20 can get one. It took me 8 months to get my 1st 50 blueside and I had been playing almost 2 years before I got a 50 redside.

Of course, as I type this I kind of feel bad for people who don’t get to feel the joy of getting their 1st 50 after putting in all that work and now getting to experience this cool new AT they just unlocked (if you are like me you would have been looking forward to it forever). So I guess they have been deprived of something.

I know this is just a rant but WTF? Why did they make this change?

The devs have said that making an AT unlock at 50 was a mistake.

They are not epic like a badge or prestige. Epic means "tied into lore." Nothing more than that.

Unlocking at 50 created this air of "epic means uber" when it doesn't. I'm glad for the change.

Also, it's not like getting a 50 is all that difficult anyway.

Honestly don't mind-and yes, I've gotten a VEAT and HEAT up to 50 well before yesterday.

For me, the joy of getting to the 50-ish range was the ability to participate in TFs like Stateman's, Lady Grey, Kahn....

No one but the devs know why they made this change.

We do know that many of them thought that unlocking archetypes at 50 was always a bad idea.

We also know that lots of folks weren't playing them. Some say that was because you had to have a level 50 to unlock them, but with how easy it is to get to 50, I don't accept that opinion. My main hit 50 before Khels went live. My PB hit 50 a few short months later. That was a frelling nightmare by the way. Back before all the buffs, when Q/Vs actually hurt, hell.. on day one Khels were running around with a dam-res debuff that was only corrected by teaming.

In my opinion, and it's only that, an opinion, I think they dropped the level requirement for no other reason than "what the hell? What's the point in leaving the unlockable at 50?"

Am I bothered by it? Not in the least. Maybe they'll see some tweaks a few issues down the road due to this change.

Getting to 20 is so easy nowadays, I wish they had set it to level 30 so it at least would feel like an accomplishment.
But no, it doesn't anger me, just disappoints me a bit.

As far as Kheldians are concerned (Not having played the Villain-side EATs) they could make them un-lockable at level ONE and I still will not play them. I just don't like them.

My guess is that they are making them more available to encourage more people to play them. As it stands now, only a small fraction of the player base even plays them, and that must be kind of a "slap in the face" considering how hard they had to work to create them.

So overall, this was probably a good change. Just don't know if it will have the desired effect.

Speaking as a Newb (playing for a bit over 9 months), I have to say it's a mixed blessing. My main character is level 46, and part (a small part, but a part nonetheless) of the incentive for not playing alts was the desire to get EATS (i.e. more alts). So when the lowered requirement was announced it kinda took some of the wind out of my sails. But it's not really what I'd consider a "slap in the face," as we used to call every change the Everquest developers instituted. It'll just take a bit longer for my 46 to get to 50, since I'm gonna start a Peacebringer tonight. I'm not all that into rewards-as-gloating-rights aspect of things. More concerned with having fun in the moment.

LOL, Biospark for the "slap in the face" comment you posted while I was composing mine!

As a casual player with severe Altitis it took me a total of 4 years to get my 1st 50! On the 1st toon I created.

I was in no rush to 50, obviously, for me the adventure ends at 50. My Hero is in semi retirement. So it took me forever to reach that milestone.

It helped that I had no interest in Kheldians this whole time.
Once I did unlock them I rolled one up just cause I could and was not impressed.

My highest level villain is still only 41. So I might take a look at VEAT's now.

I used to have the mistaken notion that having a Kheld meant you were uber/skilled. I looked at it as an achievement. Of course, this was back in the day when getting to 50 actually took some effort.

It doesn't really bother me that new players can get them at 20 now. I still see them as being niche AT's that aren't for everyone. More options is seldom a bad thing afterall.

As someone who only gets to play an average of three nights a week for about 2-3 hours, I'm all for it. It took me a while to get a 50 hero-side and since I rarely play Villains, it'll be nice to be able to test out a VEAT finally.

I thought this sounded familiar - previous post.

For me, it is no big deal. You will ding whatever over time. The "epic" in EATs is the story, not the AT or unlocking them.

I don't mind them lowering the requirement to 20. I theorize it has more to do with how Going Rogue is getting setup than anything else.

The epic is not powerful.

The epic is not accomplishment.

The epic is (supposed to be) the story.

I welcome all the people new to having Khelds and Arachnos characters.

Been playing since I4, just recently got my 63 months Vet Reward... No Lvl 50's.

I'm an altaholic, a badger, a base-builder, and a completionist! (And getting Powerseller and Field Crafter can tend to be serious time-sinks...)

I've got 7 servers full = with at least 12 characters, 3 servers with 1-3 toons each, and I've managed to stop myself from creating any toons on my last 'empty' server "just in case... of ?"

On a decent majority of those alts - I've got their XP switched off at either 14, 19, or 24-ish = the levels where you can no longer do mission for a level-range of Contacts and/or open up unlockable contacts. And, some of them spent long stretches of time at 10, 15, or 20 = Due to the cut-off level for Mayhem/Safeguard Missions.

I have a bunch of bases, a few of them are "themed SG's", and a some are tiny personal bases for the 1-3 toons on those servers, or it's 1 Alt in a Coalition-ed SG base - From back when you could still drop/store stuff in a Coalition's base storage.

And of course, I was also playing AA and then TR for a decent portion of those 63 months. FWIW, my "Main" Hero & Villain are each parked at 33 or 34, and good number of them sitting somewhere between 24 and 32.

And then there's RL... Seriously though since they changed it (about a year ago) so we don't have to obsess over logging into every character & going to the market - at least once every 60 days (or risk losing everything there) it's been more fun and easier to keep track of in my head.
I suppose I should consider doing the spreadsheet thing - but that doesn't seem very game-like to me. I never used Mid's or been unto PVP, which I'm sure has something to do with it.

Anywho, I'm psyched about being to play HEAT's & VEAT's on the Live Servers - Playing them on Test isn't nearly as much fun, but it was enough to keep me from feeling like I "needed" waste a character slot on each server & grind up to Level 50.

No need to blow-by all the nifty unlockable stuff - contacts, badges, accolades, mayhem/safeguards, etc.
AND what's probably as big (if not bigger) factor is - I'm not stuck with a bunch of toons that can only get level 50 Recipes as drops... Did I mention 'roughly' planning out dual-builds on some toons for Exemp'ing down "later" (whenever/if that actually happens) *shrug*

I think it's gonna be cool to choose the Epic AT's - example in a couple of my theme'd SG's and whatnot, and choose to do those low-level arcs instead of Kalinda/Burke for Villains or the Origin-based Contacts for Hero's (Finally, Azuria can go trackdown all of her own damn "lost" stuff on her own! )

Oh, one more thing - Since they put in server transfers you really only needed 1 50 Hero & 1 50 Villain = you can just send them around to various servers, log them in create the Epic toons you want and then transfer again... So, this just means people like myself get more "content", minus the hassle. And up until recently lvl 50 has pretty much equaled a shelved toon, GR may change that somewhat.

Unless the "endgame" stuff is 'PVP-centric', in which case I suspect a fair chunk of players will/may take the Incarnate stuff and politely hand it back to the Devs so they can "shove-it" (so to speak), no offense... just being honest!

Oh, I nearly forgot - having the "Reveal" Power is going a long way to clearing out the "fog o' dark" on zone maps, Yep that bugged me too - but no longer - Huzzah!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville City of Heroes didn't fail, City of Heroes was killed. If a 747 dropped on your house, you'd say you were killed, not you failed to find a safer dwelling.

Dear OP,

Sorry you don't feel special any more.

Love,
Rush

Still waiting for his Official BackAlleyBrawler No-Prize

I only skimmed the thread, so I am sorry if this was answered already, but there seems to be some problem with how this works, or maybe I am misunderstanding it.

I have two accounts. One one, I have level 50s on both red and blue sides. The other account only has heroes at level 50. I went on this account to checki it out, but the VEATS are locked. I am not sure why. I have 2 villains over level 20 on that account, but the VEATS just didn't unlock for some reason.