Veteran Power Progression

[Papias]

What do you think about progressively increasing power depending on character veteran level? The idea is to reinvigor motivation for playing veteran level characters without breaking the current game.  Here are two possible examples:

 

- Decreasing recharge time for incarnate powers

- Increasing debuff resistance

 

Each increase should progressively require more levels (e.g. 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, ...)). Please include any other examples that you could think of.

[Rudra]

Uhm, no. Incarnate powers already make characters into overpowered gods in this game, so we don't need Veteran Levels enhancing incarnate powers any more than they already do. (They greatly help facilitate incarnate power creation for the character.) And debuffs are meant to keep us on our toes and prioritizing targets. Let's not make the game any easier than it already is please.

[Oklahoman]

I like the direction you are thinking in, but I think I would rather it not be an automatic increase. Instead, I think maybe having access to different inspirations and temps via Luna. This could create a way to spend those extra threads, emps, or even Transcendents on things. As an example (thought up on the spot here, so not necessarily advocating for these specifically):

• At vet level 100 you can buy an inspiration that reduces the recharge time of your incarnate powers by 25% for X number of seconds
• At vet level 200 you gain access to purchase PBAoE rez inspirations, which you can use even when not dead
• At vet level 300 you gain access to purchase a rechargeable temp power that... I don't know, does something that's cool but not overpowering. Maybe turns on your Destiny power for 5 minutes if you are playing sub-50 content?

Again, don't hold me to those specific examples, but that's the sort of thing I think I'd like to see.

[Laucianna]

I get why you would want this, but as @Rudra pointed out that incarnates are already powerful enough ❤️ So sadly I am against more power (In fact I normally ask for less power for non incarnate content)

[Ston]

Anything unlockable with veteran levels should be purely cosmetic. Wouldn't advocate for anything that increases your performance.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Papias said:

The idea is to reinvigor motivation for playing veteran level characters without breaking the current game. 

 

Or you can continue to play a character because you like it.  That's what's worked for me.

Edited May 16 by Luminara

[Greycat]

7 hours ago, Papias said:

What do you think about progressively increasing power depending on character veteran level? The idea is to reinvigor motivation for playing veteran level characters without breaking the current game.  Here are two possible examples:

 

- Decreasing recharge time for incarnate powers

- Increasing debuff resistance

 

Each increase should progressively require more levels (e.g. 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, ...)). Please include any other examples that you could think of.

 

I think "Hell no" sums that up fairly well. There's nothing that needs *yet more* progression of these already overpowered abilities. On top of that, that would penalize people who enjoy playing alts.

 

Besides, what's the upper limit? We have one person on Everlasting (Veracor) who's in ... hell, I don't know WHAT his vet levels are now, but given he was consistently leading Incarnate trials, raids, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if he's manage to hit six digit VL by now. He was in the five digits (I think the last I checked he'd hit 35000+. And that was many, many months ago.) Yes, he's an outlier, but the point is it's perfectly *reachable* with someone focusing on one character. I'm sure there are farmers with similar numbers.

 

Going with your sort of progression, should they be firing off maxed-out Judgement every second with increased damage, super-powerful lore pets, etc?

 

Let's go with "keep playing characters because you like them."

[megaericzero]

8 hours ago, Papias said:

The idea is to reinvigor motivation for playing veteran level characters without breaking the current game.

Weren't veteran levels already a reward for continuing to play the characters? Back on live, 50 was it. Veteran Levels come with both bragging rights and rewards up to 100 - badges, costume tokens, respec tokens, empyrians, and threads.

[Akisan]

@Snarky had a similar thread recently for veteran badges granting (minor) perks.  There's a few ideas in both threads that would be fun to have, but I don't think veteran levels buffing Incarnate powers is the way to go (unless we first nerf Incarnates, and gaining vet levels slowly restores them to their current state).

[Snarky]

I would love to see rewards for players on the same toon.  Two things stand right out.  Farmers can gain huge veteran levels.  So this would need to be acknowledged and managed.  Also, i just saw a non farm tank 1500 badges and TWELVE HUNDRED vet levels.  Yeah, it is like that.  
 

Interestingly what I want to see is to encourage players to stay on a character for 100-300-1200? Vet levels.  But you have to balance the incentive with non unbalancing the game.  

[OverkillEngine]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

There's nothing that needs *yet more* progression of these already overpowered abilities. On top of that, that would penalize people who enjoy playing alts.

 

 

Agreed. We already arguably have a problem with content balancing and just the IO system alone bleeding into it over time as an assumed baseline even though that wasn't supposed to happen. Granted, different Dev team now, but yeah. People ask for more power and then eventually ask that content requires that power, and then it gets set (consciously or intentionally or not) as the baseline assumption for content balancing and effectively punishes anyone new.

Edited May 17 by OverkillEngine

[Uun]

7 hours ago, megaericzero said:

Weren't veteran levels already a reward for continuing to play the characters? Back on live, 50 was it. Veteran Levels come with both bragging rights and rewards up to 100 - badges, costume tokens, respec tokens, empyrians, and threads.

The Veteran Rewards program on live was based on how long your account was active and the rewards were account wide. (It was replaced with Paragon Rewards, which was token based, when CoH Freedom was released.) All the costumes that used to be rewards are now available in HC for free. All the powers that used to be rewards are available as Prestige Powers from the START vendor.

[Videra]

As much as I love Veracor, let's not massively power him up, yeah?

[Saiyajinzoningen]

may as well rename it Farmer rewards instead of veteran rewards

[Doc_Scorpion]

9 hours ago, Snarky said:

what I want to see is to encourage players to stay on a character for 100-300-1200? Vet levels.

Just curious, why?

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Just curious, why?

I think if a person develops a real attachment to a character. (the concept/story/fictional individual....not just the AT Power on whatever alt) they will have a deeper relationship with the game, and the community.  They will be deeper invested, with stronger roots.  This will, in turn, make the game stronger as the community is more stable.

[Greycat]

13 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I think if a person develops a real attachment to a character. (the concept/story/fictional individual....not just the AT Power on whatever alt) they will have a deeper relationship with the game, and the community.  They will be deeper invested, with stronger roots.  This will, in turn, make the game stronger as the community is more stable.

 

See, that happens *now* without - I was going to say rewards, but I really want to say "bribes" - already. And in ways that vet levels don't really reflect.

 

F'rinstance....

 

I have multiple accounts. There are some characters I have on all accounts - specifically to have them available. Some are 50+VLs, some aren't 50. Mostly to facilitate having them available for RP - storytelling - regardless of who else/what else is needed.

 

Or, I have characters who have spawned entire sets of characters, *just* to keep telling or exploring where a story can go. Especially if Incarnates don't really "fit" them. They end up getting Incarnate stuff unlocked, VLs, tons of salvage, etc. anyway, but that doesn't help my attachment to them. The Kheldian alt that I created to extend their story does. The "What-if" redside variant does. The variant made because a more appropriate powerset or customization came out does. The "Tell you about my character? How much time do you have? Are you in a comfortable chair, have water - this will take a while..." does.

 

And it's not really reflected in VLs. Especially when it comes to characters remade from live, where even *if* we could import them from a live character DB, they wouldn't have VLs to reflect it.

 

And of course, all the time spent writing, or hanging out RPing, that doesn't generate any XP to reflect in VLs either.

 

It's sort of like my thing with prestige. Big number does not really translate to quality.

[FrostedHarbor]

I agree with what others have said about not needing additional buffs to powers, as cool as it might seem.

 

Going the other direction almost, it might be neat to explore something like "prestige levels" that some games have done where you reset to level 1 and go again. Prestige Level could display next to Veteran Level in a character's info screen, for example.

 

Currently, leveling is super easy, though, so I think resetting would need to increase the challenge of getting back to 50. Just some ideas:

• 1st Prestige Reset: No XP buffs (so no patrol XP, Experienced power, event/server XP boosts, or P2W/S.T.A.R.T. XP bonuses)
• 2nd Prestige Reset: Above + No XP from AE
• 3rd Prestige Reset: Above + Twice the amount of XP required to go from 1-50
• Etc.

The clout alone would be cool, but with the Prismatic Aether system in place, having those as rewards for each time hitting 50 again might be enough incentive for folks to give it a try.

 

I recognize doing something like that would likely require a feat of engineering to put into place, but hey, we're all dreaming here, aren't we?

[Doc_Scorpion]

27 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I think if a person develops a real attachment to a character. (the concept/story/fictional individual....not just the AT Power on whatever alt) they will have a deeper relationship with the game, and the community.  They will be deeper invested, with stronger roots.  This will, in turn, make the game stronger as the community is more stable.

Interesting point.  But I'm not sure "has played a single character a lot of hours" actually equates to caring and connection to the community.  My signature character is my least often played. (But also has the deepest and most worked out backstory.)  My various level-locked alts (mild alt-itus) collectively have probably at least an order of magnitude more playtime - but here I am and here I remain.

I should think that encouraging the individual player to keep coming back would be the key to that stability.  But, as always, YMMV.

Edit: @greycat said it better while I was writing...  "Big number does not really translate to quality."

/derail

Edited May 17 by Doc_Scorpion

[Akisan]

Farming/farmers aside (whole 'nother can of worms there), I've found seeing toons with high vet levels on a team tends to mean that a team can get away with a lot more crazy stuff - at least partly because spending that much time on a character means that the player generally knows how to act when things go south or the team isn't well organized.  (Not that it doesn't happen without - some players are really good on newer alts, simply because they have amazing game sense, and new/different AT/powersets doesn't change that.) 

 

And, I kinda get where @Snarky's coming from - if I see someone on a toon a lot, and have teamed with them, I generally know how they'll act/play.  If I see someone on a bunch of different alts all the time, I may not know what I'll be getting on any given day.  (Not that either is better than the other - lots of alts has its own advantages, like being able to swap to the perfect thing for a very unbalanced team, or knowing what enemies will mess up your teammates (and how) because the enemies were a problem when you were in the other roles...)  And while I prefer the stability of seeing people on mostly the same toons, that's just my preference - alt away, if it makes you guys happy (just don't be mad if I don't recognize you, as it's much easier for me to remember characters, not globals).

 

Back on track, though, having minor account-wide rewards (like @Oklahoman's inspiration unlocks, or faster accrual of day-job powers) for earned vet levels (again, account-wide, but starts counting at V.L 100 because there's other rewards for getting through 99) would be a nice perk for getting xp on characters where it would normally no longer matter.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

I think if a person develops a real attachment to a character. (the concept/story/fictional individual....not just the AT Power on whatever alt) they will have a deeper relationship with the game, and the community.  They will be deeper invested, with stronger roots.  This will, in turn, make the game stronger as the community is more stable.

Like others have stated, the number of vet levels a character has does not equate to a real attachment to a character or a deeper relationship with the game or a deeper relationship with the community or make the community more stable. I have lots of alts, and lots more I want to make but am not yet because of lack of resources and time. I have a strong attachment to all my characters except for the 2 base builder ones, and that is because the 2 base builders aren't characters I made for playing, but to have available to move to random SGs and help those that ask make their bases. I invest a lot of time and effort in my characters. From figuring out how they are supposed to look, to figuring out how they actually look in game given available resources, to figuring out their back story, to figuring out what powers they will take from their sets and why. So from the character I play most often to the character I play least often, even seemingly not at all, I have a real attachment to my characters. And no number of Veteran Levels is ever going to show that. I have a feeling that holds true for a lot of players as well. So I get what you want, I'm just saying that what you are saying doesn't make any sense. At least not to me.

 

Edited May 17 by Rudra
Edited to correct "every" to "ever".

[Greycat]

41 minutes ago, Akisan said:

 as it's much easier for me to remember characters, not globals).

 

And this is what player notes and the stars that go with them are for. 😉

[Grouchybeast]

17 hours ago, FrostedHarbor said:

Going the other direction almost, it might be neat to explore something like "prestige levels" that some games have done where you reset to level 1 and go again. Prestige Level could display next to Veteran Level in a character's info screen, for example.

 

Currently, leveling is super easy, though, so I think resetting would need to increase the challenge of getting back to 50. Just some ideas:

• 1st Prestige Reset: No XP buffs (so no patrol XP, Experienced power, event/server XP boosts, or P2W/S.T.A.R.T. XP bonuses)
• 2nd Prestige Reset: Above + No XP from AE
• 3rd Prestige Reset: Above + Twice the amount of XP required to go from 1-50
• Etc.

The clout alone would be cool, but with the Prismatic Aether system in place, having those as rewards for each time hitting 50 again might be enough incentive for folks to give it a try.

 

I think this is a really neat idea!  Throw in a badge for every prestige level and I'm sold.

[Triumphant]

Badge Title:  Lord of the Grind  😝

[Videra]

6 hours ago, Triumphant said:

Badge Title:  Lord of the Grind  😝

 

Real talk, I know I mentioned him already in this thread, but I'd like to make what I think is a great suggestion:

Let's make Veracor (A person with 39800-ish - possibly over 40k since I last checked - Veteran Levels) a canon character. Put the funny TW/Bio Dragon in Atlas Park!