Champions Online: Perks are worthless

Another thing that occurred to me as I started playing CO again is the fact that there is no real reward for being an explorer/completionist. The designers put a lot of thought into creating a perks system for the game, but after a bit of poking around, I found that the vendor who actually accepts these perk points was removed. I did a bit more research online and found that even when it was in use, the perks only unlocked certain things from the vendor. The perk points I have accumulated here are absolutely worthless.

LOTRO handles this a bit differently, and I think does a much better job at it. In LOTRO, the perks are called deeds, and you get them for all kinds of things in the game.  You get them for using abilities, like the Quick-Shot shown here. The reward is 5 Turbine Points, which is the currency of the Store.

You can also get them for solving puzzles in the game, like these riddle doors I found in an instance recently.  Here, you get points, medallions, a title, and faction reputation.

Turbine is even generous enough to hand out points for completing lots of quests, with multiple tiers and increasing rewards.  Note the (Advanced) tag on the deed and the reward of 10 Points.  The 3rd tier is called (Final) and the reward is 15 Points.

Finally, you get even more rewards for completing sets of deeds!  They even give you a lockbox and a key to open it.

Knowing there's a tangible reward for completing the deed makes a player more likely invest their time in completing it.  Especially if they are a F2P player, since it gives them the feeling that it's possible to unlock more content without actually paying for it.  It's entirely possible to do just that, but with single zone quest pack in the 595 - 795 Point price range and expansion packs in the thousands, it will take a long time spent completing deeds in order to afford it.  Removing the currency cap alone was 395, and required me to complete all of the low level quests in another race's starting zone.  It took a few days, and while I was doing it, I found myself learning more about the world's history and lore. The experience made me feel more connected to the world and by the time I finally reached my goal I was ready to fork over some money for VIP membership.

CO does have a way to earn store currency from playing in there somewhere or so I've been told.  But at Level 27, I've still yet to find it.