Veteran Rewards - Why don't they auto-apply to all characters on the account?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Skewert, Jul 18, 2019.

  1. Skewert Lorekeeper

    What's the rationale behind this? If you have access to veteran rewards, why such a wonky system where there's no way to know for sure how many 'slots' you have remaining on your account. Why are there slots anyway? What would be the harm in simply auto-applying whatever veteran rewards you have access to on an account to any character created on that account? That would encourage people to create more characters, and to play more EQ, which is better for Daybreak's bottom line. How is that not a win-win?

    Edit: I stopped playing around this time in 2019. Very happy to see that when I came back, in late 2022, Veteran Rewards are now awarded to everybody pretty much. No more wavering over whether or not to claim rewards on a character.
    Aanuvane and Balthozzar like this.
  2. northstar Augur



    Good question, I never liked singling out any of my characters and if they happen I don't want to roll them later and delete them poof there goes those vet rewards... it is silly
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  3. Teylana Elder

    Making them automatic and account wide does make more sense.
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  4. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Because if you delete a character you lose that use of veteran rewards. If you have 5 years of vet rewards you can have them on 5 toons. Delete one of those toons you don't get the vet point back. Now for some of us no big deal but some peeps delete and make new toons over and over.

    Plus it is supposed to be a "reward" not given to everyone from day one. You earn them based on entitled years.

    Sure would be great to just automatically get them all but that wasn't why they were made. *shrugs*
  5. Aurastrider Augur

    I think the arguement is why have only a set number of toons? I really don't understand it either. I does discourage making new toons and potentially spending more money. I know I have toons I have kept but would have deleted years ago and made new toons except I didn't want to lose the reward on that toon. Here they sit years later doing nothing.
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  6. svann Augur

    Personally, I feel that the vet reward I got before I did a character transfer I should have been allowed to keep. But it wasnt coded that way so Im SOL until I can re-earn it. If its per character then the character that has it should keep it.
    Balthozzar likes this.
  7. Skewert Lorekeeper

    I understand all that, and I think it's a tad confusing why it's like that. What I'm proposing is that 5 character/toon limit shouldn't exist. If you create any character, on any server, using that example account, each character should get those 5 years of vet rewards automatically upon creation. It should be an account-wide thing, not a limited number of characters thing.
    northstar likes this.
  8. smash Augur

    I disagree, it is good that people consider how to use their veteran rewards instead that all chars on an account gets it.

    This is how it was made, and no reason to change it.
    Duder likes this.
  9. Beergoggles Elder

    On eq2 veteran rewards are account wide, would be nice if they did the same here. I played eq2 for a few years then came back to eq1 and deleted some chars that had veteran rewards without knowing the rewards would be lost because I was used to eq2's veteran reward system being account wide. You'd think a company that had veteran rewards in their games would have some sort of cohesiveness in how the rewards are applied.
  10. Cragzop Cranky Wizard

    Guides.

    DBG pays guides (or at least paid guides) in increased years of entitled time on accounts. Which would mean absolutely nothing if time entitled did not mean something over 14 years. There are some current/former guides walking around with 100+ years on accounts. I don't know about now, but I do know that some folks would not have been guides if not for the small token of increased time.

    Current DBG devs have stated at one point or another that several of the veteran rewards (6th, 7th especially) are too powerful and they would love to change them … but do not because of the limited nature of access and ability to use … and probably not wanting to encounter the uproar changes would incur.

    Accounts that may have never been paid for at any point in their existence have just received the 7th vet reward (assuming started when FTP came into being). As someone who has had multiple accounts paid for over 15 years, I find that a little sad … but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

    I do think there would be something in granting folks that spend subscription dollars an extra character for veteran reward per year subscribed (so a 1 year old account would still only have access to 1 rewards, but the ability to unlock with 2 toons … something like that). But honestly I'm not sure it is worth the programming time to implement such a system.
  11. Balthozzar Elder

    Too powerful? Hardly.

    6th vet reward = Staunch Recovery - heal to full hp/mana/endurance with a 4 sec cast time. No one getting hit is going to be able to use that to save themselves with that cast time. I've only ever used it after a fight to get endurance back quickly instead of sitting. Maybe it's a bit more useful in a raid where it takes longer to get ooc regen going, but it's also a once every couple of days thing.

    7th vet reward = Intensity of the Resolute - greatly increases a character's melee/spells/heals for 1 minute. (Crit chance +50%, regen +50, melee damage +55%) Useable every 4 hours. Doesn't sound more powerful than all kinds of self and group spells or abilities that are useable much more often as normal spells and AAs.

    A couple of the other ones I use regularly that are nice, but hardly game breaking:

    9th vet reward = Armor of Experience - Grants you protection for damage for 90 secs or 10 hits (each level) Has 4 levels of protection, starting at 100% and then dropping by 25% with each 90 secs or 10 hits, whichever comes first. Useable every 20 hours. It's a nice save your butt ability, but it is once a day, basically.

    4th vet reward = Expedient Recovery - Corpse summon (all of them) with 100% rez, no rez effects (iirc). Once a week. Basically saves you a trip to the guild lobby to summon your corpses.

    Of course, 1st vet reward = Lesson (+50% xp for 30 min., persists with death). Great, but it's basically like a free version of potions you can buy with DBC.

    Oh, and Steadfast Servants (5th) have been broken for at least a couple years from posts I've been able to find. Not that it does anything you can't do with a potion or spell. (I started a new one a couple of days ago in Player Support about it to remind people and see if there is an answer to be had about it.) It's just a little buff bot for 30 min that goes away early if you zone or die.

    As for guide rewards, well, they can always come up with something different to give them.

    Bottom line, they are very nice as extras, but none add anything that doesn't already exist in other forms. They sometimes save time, sometimes they add a little bit on top of what spells and AAs already do, but they have long refreshes compared to anything else that they compare to.
  12. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    For many who did not know vet rewards started in 2005. This is 2019. Hmm. 14 years ago, 14 characters per all access account and 14 veteran rewards:rolleyes:

    From the old news:

    Good News for Veteran EQ players! March 8 2005.

    As part of EverQuest's 6th Anniversary celebration, the game team is giving current EQ players (based on your total subscription length) one special Veteran Reward for every year that you've been an active EverQuest subscriber! (that means only if you kept your account paid and did not take any unpaid breaks) This is very good news for six year vets! It means that you'll be getting six Veteran Rewards!

    Please note that the veteran rewards program is scheduled to commence on May 13, 2005

    Next change was that Devs gave free accounts the ability to also earn vet rewards based on time played instead of time paid. (march 2012)

    So they have upped the feature once already. But people still want more?

    What would be the point of even having veteran rewards if you didn't have to actually be a veteran to get them?

    I can just see what we would get as the 15th reward - a murbun - its a cross between those murkgliders and bunnies we got last month. oh wait the murks were given out twice. So a murbunglider? It would have the ability to squirt more bunnies out that would run around and annoy people just like the jester does but one bunny would be special and give someone a bunny bomb which looks just like a rabbit pellet but it explodes and showers you with luck for a brief time.

    Seriously though I would really like a parcel merchant for a vet reward.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  13. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    I agree with the OP, it is silly to have restrictions on how many toons you can claim the vet rewards with. And it is extra silly that you can't even see how many you have left.

    Two other complaints about Vet Rewards:
    Not being able to use them on new toons on any of the newest servers at release.
    The fact that most people "in the know" are going to create new toons on a new account, which basically limits Vet Rewards to 1 (maybe 2?) actually played characters per player.

    I also think most of the rewards shouldn't be locked behind 15 years of gameplay. The Lesson is a perfect example of something that benefits new players and could be used to help draw new people to the game. The Vet rewards should have been vanity items like titles or some other BS. Putting 15-year walls on things that 90% of the players rely on for regular day-to-day play only helps to turn off any potential new players.

    EDIT: Since there is a limited number of vet rewards that can be claimed on an account already, why not make the vet rewards tradeable?
  14. Syylke_EMarr Augur

    The character limit is silly. Especially when it bugs out and an account with 8 years of veteran rewards and active paid time can only claim veteran rewards on a single character.

    It's an antiquated system that doesn't make sense anymore.
    Skewert likes this.
  15. Sokki Still Won't Buff You!!

    If you know how many Chars you've flagged with Vet rewards you can easily find out how many you have left. You can flag 1 char per year entitled on your account, pick a char and stick with it for a year if they are that important to have.

    There are no rewards that are locked behind 15 years of gameplay, the final reward is the 14th. As for ones that the majority use on a daily basis, the only one I can think of is Lesson which is the FIRST reward.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  16. Skewert Lorekeeper

    Nowhere in the description does it say that you are limited to claiming your entitled veteran rewards (whether it be the first one only, Lesson of the Devoted, or all 14) for x number of individual characters when x is the number of veteran rewards (LotD, etc.) you're entitled to. It also doesn't say anything about the archaic/wonky mechanic of once claimed on a character, if you delete that character, you also permanently delete one of your veteran rewards slots.

    Regarding being a veteran to get them - I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The human is the veteran, not the class/character. In that regard, if you never leveled up your single toon past level 10, but maintained an active account for 20 years, you'd still be entitled to 20 individual character slots who could receive veteran rewards, but you'd clearly not be a veteran on any class, much less those other 19 characters you've never created/played at all.

    I'd like to see a good argument why it shouldn't be auto-allowed for every character created on a specific account. Just to clarify, I don't think anyone should be entitled to all 14 veteran rewards if their /played time is only 3 years, but they should get the first 3 veteran rewards on any character they create.
    Teylana likes this.
  17. Skewert Lorekeeper

    I think most of us are aware of that. I created a Bard once on my original 'main' server, claimed veteran rewards on him either at level 1, or very early on anyway. I got him into the 30s or 40s, and there he sat, for years. There are 16 classes in Everquest, and for a while (I guess it's changed now?) there was a limit to 8 character slots per server. I had reached 8 of 8 on that 'main' server, and had to delete the Bard because I wanted to test out and play another class. That veteran reward is gone for good. I've also created characters on other servers for a change, and I've claimed veteran rewards on them as well (why wouldn't I want them? Because I had maintained a paid sub for many years, I was lead to believe I was entitled to them).

    Anyway, when you do things like the above, and especially if you've taken multi-year breaks from EQ throughout its 20 years (which I imagine many, if not most, people have), particularly when there's times where you thought you probably wouldn't ever play EQ again, it's hard to keep track of all those things. As a returning veteran player, that's just one more thing to stress about - "Do I really want to claim veteran rewards on this (insert class I want to test out, but am not certain I intend to play til endgame) and risk wasting them?". That shouldn't be something we have to fret over, and it wouldn't be if the sensible thing of having any character created on an account automatically gets whatever number of veteran rewards you've earned on that account (1 to 14) was a thing, like EQ2 does it (apparently).
    svann likes this.
  18. Gherig Addicted since Aug 1st, 1998

    At this point, years after the program was discontinued and the game has lasted eons past what they could have ever hoped ... its long overdue to make them just account wide every character. There really isn't any game breaking reason to not do this. I mean EQ2 allows rewards for the entire account already.
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  19. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Please read the full article https://www.everquest.com/news/imported-eq-enus-50003


    specifically the part that says about one reward for one character and that the reward stays with the char as long as it exists:

    A special note: An EverQuest player can claim their applicable reward(s) for one additional character (up to a total of six characters) for every full year they have been actively subscribed with a fully-paid account in good standing and qualifies for the veteran reward. In addition, Veteran Rewards remain with each character for as long as that character exists. For every year that a player has been subscribed, they will be able to claim the Rewards on one character.

    Perhaps this one: http://www.zlizeq.com/Game_Mechanics-Veteran_Rewards (If you as per this example have 8 years of eligibility and "spend" a set of veteran rewards on a character, you can claim 8 veteran rewards again on 7 further characters.)

    Or here http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Veteran_Rewards " Each subsequent year paid will allow new rewards as well as additional characters allowed to claim these rewards (you can flag 1 character for each year worth of Veteran time you have. So the maximum number of characters you can have flagged is equal to the number of Veteran Rewards you have!).

    Although in all these articles it is speaking of paid time which was later upgraded to plain active time be it paid or not the bottom line is per year = per character.

    I don't know why there is this it disputed every time Vet rewards come up when it clearly states in every article about them that you get one per year etc.

    So moving on......................
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  20. Syylke_EMarr Augur


    Regardless of that being the current method, it's still an outdated method (especially with the advent of TLP servers)
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