Veteran Reward changes - Big slap in the face for long time vets?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Well when I started the game they already had things that needed 720 days to get, yet I never thought about it in a bad way. I was happy which each reward that I got and I was looking forward to getting specific rewards too. So I saw it simply as a long time goal which I could reach somewhere in the future. It was not limited and everyone had the same chance to get it. Yes I also agree that the last few ones are way too much and thus a cut was necessary.

That may have been your outlook, however I know plenty who simply forgot the rewards even existed or resigned themselves to the fact they'll never have them. That defeats the entire purpose behind a system primarily intended to incentivize continual subscriptions. The Centurio Tiger and Hellhound mounts weren't meant to keep people subbed, but to reward players who participated in the respectively content they are rewarded from. Now I have my misgivings towards the sheer time investment required, especially with the devs refusal to scale ARR and HW mounts. That doesn't change it isn't meant to incentivize. Keep in mind, until its release hunts offered nothing except achievements and catch up tokens. And therein lies the issue. Some people viewed Veteran Rewards as a "thank you" for their subscription. While that may have been their nice PR spin, Square Enix thought differently. Hence why they used popular mainline Final Fantasy characters.

How isn't acquiring points fair? In lieu of getting rewarded for essentially doing nothing, you're rewarded for actively participating in content. My hope is Yoshida makes good on his excitement to add more interesting achievements like speed killing dungeons or beating V3S without caster LB. If you've played longer, you'll have more achievement points, thus your time played remains valued. Say they release Tifa's outfit at 10,000 achievement points. Long term players can get it immediately while newer players have an obtainable goal they can influence by simply playing the game itself. I much prefer a system like that over "wait 2-4 years."

[MistakeNot]

That may have been your outlook, however I know plenty who simply forgot the rewards even existed or resigned themselves to the fact they'll never have them. That defeats the entire purpose behind a system primarily intended to incentivize continual subscriptions.

Did the system work as an incentive though? For a few people it seems it did, but for others (including yours truly) the higher tier rewards were simply uninteresting and thus offered no incentive at all for a continued subscription.
I suspect SE saw that of the people who played since the beginning of ARR, very few had kept up their subscriptions continously for long enough to be eligible for the highest tiers. I.e. that it wasn't working as incentive to keep people subscribed.