Probably Suggested Before: Vet Reward

Okay, my search-fu is weak before my coffee... so bear with me.

I'm not usually one to make suggestions regarding... well, anything. The devs have much more experience than I, so I humbly bow to their wisdom. There's one "perk", however, that I'd love to see added to the vet reward pipeline.

IMHO, it'd be great if veteran players could use all available capes and auras at level 1. There have been many times where I've had a character concept that doesn't work without auras, so I've had to grind up to 30 (okay, not that hard to do) before I can really "play" the concept. I totally understand the intent of having capes and auras be earned as a hero progresses, but for someone who's done the missions 30 or so times over the span of 5 or more years, it might be a nice reward to skip it and get these costume options early.

Anyway, just a thought.

Overall, as a 72+ month vet, I wouldn't mind this added. I have heard that costumes are an important factor to some in this game or that they have concepts they want to try out but have to wait for cape/aura.

My concern now with GR out and new players are around (or old ones are back) is that "us vs. them" issue.

I hate running around Praet now using my Nem staff or blackwand. Or getting a travel power at lvl6. Kinda funny in timing since I was chatting with a friend who was with new players and he was trying to answer all these questions as a "crusty old vet". Just not sure how to deal with this.

Since there are already a couple of type of capes available to level 1 characters in the game today (via other vet awards and booster packs) I don't see it as totally unrealistic to think that a future vet award may allow a character to have any kind of cape at level 1 as well. The Devs already gave us the ability to have travel powers at level 6 as a vet award so getting capes and/or auras earlier seems to be in the same ballpark perk-wise.

The real problem (that PennyPA alluded to) with any future vet award is that the chances of any new player starting today being able to get even the 75th month vet award is pretty small. Frankly it'd be amazing to think this game is going to be live for yet another 6+ years. So any future vet awards are very much going to be things which will be that much more exclusive and provide potential for playerbase angst if not handled well. A new player will be forced to ask more and more questions like, "Why do I have to be an 84 month vet just to be able to have a cape at level 1?" and as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer reasonable answers for those kinds of questions.

Valid points! Honestly, I'm at the 5-year mark myself. I really couldn't care less about the exclusivity of content... make it available to everyone for all I care. I'd be just as happy with having the cape and aura missions available earlier. Of the two options, though - vet reward or those missions available by level 10 to all - I figured vet reward was more likely.

Well there is one possibility, start with a fresh vet reward chart. For instance, Give all current vetran rewards (except the truly spectacular ones: ie. City Traveler) to all players. (or possibly all players over the three month mark. For instance, the first reward on the new veteran reward chart would/could be NewVetran Reward: 3 Months: VetPack. That way, if a player wanted X item for their character (assuming they liked the game) Paragon Studios would gain at least $45 worth of revenue while said player waited for the VetPack.)

Also for existing veterans, so they don't get shafted for this set of 3 months, (unless you wouldn't mind...but I'm watching where I step with that) the NewVetran Reward system (at least on the VetPack reward) would check for an old vet badge, say 4-6 years, and give the first NewVetran reward to them. Whereas players who were not past that mark get the VetPack, so any true vetrans (4-6+ years) would have any NewVetran Reward for three months before any other (3 or less years) player. (if this happened, all existing players would be set on the exact same vet reward schedule, meaning all players would have to be given their next vet reward if they earned any time towards it.)

And If just giving the vet rewards would not be appropriate, they could be set as rewards for a multitude of/one or two solo-able story arcs or trials.

What do you all think?

I'd rather see them remove the level restriction on capes and auras for everyone. Lets not even bring vet rewards into it.

Agreed, but it seems less likely.

As a random aside, I don't recall who came up with it, but the best solution I've heard to the whole "new members will never earn the later vet rewards" issue is to earn veteran merits, and we PICK which bonuses we want. Honestly? I love that option. The older vets get everything still and the newer members get the bits that interest them the most.

Yeah people have been suggesting what you've called "vet merits" for pretty much as long as the current vet system has been around. I kind of almost understand why the Devs DIDN'T make vet awards work that way at first, but again as time goes on a vet system reworked like that only becomes that much more appealing and fair to all involved. To me a change to a vet merit system would be transparent because I already have all the current vet awards possible. But I can see how it would allow newer people to get access to vet awards they would otherwise probably never realistically have access to.

The true benefit for everyone of a vet merit system like that would be that any future vet awards could legitimately be very cool and useful without the backlash of "How could the Devs give 90 month vets THAT super-cool thing?!?! We'll never have that!" With vet merits anyone could have the super-cool thing in a reasonably short time. Under the current system the Devs hands are tied by having to temper "super-cool" vet award ideas with the increasing "have vs. have-not" dilemma.

1 Costume Token per Vet level (1 every 3 months)
+
3 "Vet Merits" per Vet level (3 every 3 months)
+
1 Respec Token per 3 Vet levels (1 every 9 months)
+
1 Character Slot Token per 4 Vet levels (1 every 12 months)

Then make all "vet item goodies" available for purchasable via Vet Merits

If my counts are right, there are currently 28 different "vet item goodies" available,
and 72 months of vet time (24 Vet levels at 3 months per level)

So you could take those 72 "Vet Merits" and price the various goodies at different levels.

1 Vet Merit for the each of the various costume parts rewards
1 Vet Merit for the each of the various "base item" rewards
3 Vet Merits for a choice from the temp powers rewards
6 Vet Merits for the "really good" stuff (city traveler, inventory slots, inspiration bonus, etc)

If you allow for the purchase of all the temp weapons (Nem Staff, Blackwand, Sands, GSA) instead of just 3 of 4, and seperate a couple of the combined costume parts that puts it right at 72 Vet Merits to get everything...or just leave everything combined and "real" vets will have a couple of extra Vet Merits (combined costume parts puts it at 69 Vet Merits).

You could even potentially make the Respec Tokens and Server Slots buyable by Vet Merits,
but since that slices into the currently real-money purchases, it would probably be best to leave those tied to "real" vet reward levels as they are now.

The Complete Collection of Going Rogue has the Alpha and Omega auras. And there are the shoulder capes.