Ceraphim

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Why not just put a level limit on PI? 90 % of you power level occurs theres.

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That just treats a symptom, but it doesn't stop the underlying reasons. It'd keep the PLing out of PI, at which point it'd be moving to somewhere else...missions being farmed.

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It would also harm the MANY 'working' players who can and should have access there. Same with Portal Corp. Trading one bad idea for a worse one is not the answer.

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Stop crying about things that don’t affect you. You play the game your way and let other do the same.

Wow that would be so simple it just might work…….

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I don't understand your logic. The whole first part of your post was a legitimate complain about how its unfair for player B to not get xp and pay off debt, while his friend does get xp because he was rezzed in time, and within range. To me it sounded like you are wondering why the first player should get xp while the unlucky second one doesn't even tho he has probably contributed about as much.

But then, in your suggestions (which I think are ridiculously harsh btw), you seem to completely change your mind and ask for things like no xp or inf after dying, or getting rid of sidekicking (are you insane?!). This doesn't make any sense to me. What exactly are you trying to suggest or get accross?

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<whispers> It's sarcasm.

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Have a bar that drains down per "tic" and fills as you gain experience. Just like Stamina and Endurance, bonuses (teaming up,TF,etc.) would decrease the time between tics. The ability to gain exp would recover constantly- and as you leveled up, each "tic" would equal a larger gulp of experience points being absorbed.

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From a functional standpoint that might work. The fundamental problem (as I see it) is that I believe that by and large, powerleveling is bunk: that it is the Loch Ness Monster of CoH, and that we are all delivering Sasquatch's cybernetic babies, when we try to discuss 'powerleveling'. To that end, I need to develop some testing just to see if there really is any appreciable difference in the earning of PLing vs. Powergaming (i.e. legitimate, working players who are maximizing their XP earning by playing exceptionally smart/well) and then maybe compare those to less-idealized play. Powergamers will always outperform mediocre ones, but it will be interesting to see what kind of a gap there is between them and Average Joe Player versus the 'PowerLeveler.'

(I don't know that I've stated it here, but I assert that PLing is less a mechanical issue than one of human nature. Which is why any mechanical fix that doesn't impact exceptionally good teams/players will not show a demonstrable decrease in what people perceive as powerleveling, because the mechanics for both are very similar if not identical)

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OTOH, if someone's herding an entire mission repeatedly to -exceed- that rate...cause odds are, your 13th level guy even SKed isn't going to coldcock 60+ blue/white mobs in seconds- you'll grind to a halt faster. Higher level players are capable of killing X mobs more effectively than lower level ones. It's only in a situation where you're exceeding what you'd be able to normally do exp-wise in the first place that you're going to end up over the limit.

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Is this a rate per second? Rate per hour? Day? All the talk of 'natural' rates seems very highly subjective and fuzzy at this point. Sufficient for me to feel leery of your suggestion as it stands, anyway.

If you're trying to break herding (which is as much a powergamer's tactic as a powerleveler's) you need to either break aggro patterns or collision, while at the same time lowering AOE spheres. That way you would never GET 60+ whites/blues in one place, and couldn't drop them all at once even if you could.

Okay, first of all, as I understand it, a level 10 SKed up to 30 does not make the same amount of XP as a regular level 30. If a 30 makes, say... 200 XP off a kill, the 10 might only make 20. That XP in RELATION to their relative levels is roughly the same. Now what is different is that at low levels, the amount of XP needed to gain your next level is smaller. That's it. You will still make 1 - 5 as fast killing blue mobs your level as you would killing blue level-30 mobs. The key difference is that variety of tactics/enhancements one can employ at higher levels allows a party to be MORE EFFECTIVE overall. For instance, I would level just as crazily fast (and did) with my then level 12 FF defender and his spines-scrapper partner in Perez park with Hyrdas, as I did with my level 13 invuln Tanker who was the backbone of a level 43 Malta mission. So what are you proposing to protect that tanker who was all that was keeping that level 43 mission standing? It sounds an awful lot like you're scheming to make life harder for him just because he's 13 and not 33, and screw the SK concept overall (which is the A-1 thing I absolutely hate about most plans to 'conquer' powerleveling).

If I am misunderstanding how you intend for such a scenario to play out, by all means, correct me.

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Go ahead, try and PL him when he stops gaining exp at any appreciable rate after the first mission, if the differential between real and SK'ed level is too high.

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Okay, I thought I was starting to understand, but now I'm not... How does this idea protect legitimate, working SKs?

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And I think the only way to truly stop it is to figure out a point at which we say "OK, you're now advancing at a rate you could not sustain even on a top-of-the-line team. Too much, take a break." I think the dev team has the tools to measure this and define a limit...and needs to do so.

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The problem with this is that a truly 'top-of-the-line team' supposedly advances as fast or faster than PLers. I made about a level and a half -- from 45 to almost 47 -- on a Shadow Shard TF, even being defeated multiple times (very NASTY level 52 AV at the end... his footstomps pretty much one-shotted me if I ran in too close to heal, or didn't run away fast enough if he moved my way). So, honestly, unless you're willing to punish top-of-the-line teams and players, the line between them and PLers is mighty narrow. If the devs did their jobs and avoided punishing the legit players, I suspect you wouldn't see an appreciable difference. Then again, not having done wolf-herding or whatever other PLing tactics people scream about, I can only take other people's words that the way my some of my SG mates are known for tearing through mission after mission is as good or better than what PLing gets you. <shrug>

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How will this curb PL'ing?

The annoyance factor. PL'ing works becasue you can rack up multiple levels and then train them all at once and the higher level's don't have to go out of their way to let this happen. If you keep having to escort your SK back to atlas from tallos it will get annoying. I think this would provide a deterent.

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It'll be as annoying as having to escort your regular SK back for people who are NOT PLing. As usual, the idea will be as inconvenient for regular players as it is for PLers. Only I imagine that anyone who is planning to PL will have RF to make the effort much less of a hassle for THEM than for an average group who may or may not have that power.

I don't think it will have a huge impact on either group, thankfully, since it impacts the exact same mechanisms for both. It's just a question of whether sharing equal inconvenience with PLers will be worth it.

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That would be horrifically restrictive. Two 41s and a 44 couldn't team together without getting a 4th person that was level 44-45, even though MANY 41s could contribute quite effectively on a team with a 44.

Dwimble

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Don't bother Dwimble. ScaryJapan has been regurgitating this idea over and over and never listening to reasons why it is not a good one.

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Exactly. He wasn't nuts about it. In all games, there are ways to PL that aren't exploits. But they still encompass the basic principle. Trading items, for example, is not an exploit. MMOs encourage it for a prosperous economy. But giving away items to lowbies? Is that an exploit? No... but it is immoral. Just as giving items from a higher level character to one of your own lower level characters is not only immoral, it's a BANNABLE offense.

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DISCLAIMER: LordArkaine is here using a definition of "immoral" that is his and his alone. Ask your priest if you don't believe me!

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Glad to see that the strange relationships with reality haven't changed for some folks. < coughs>

(I think many of us are wondering in whose game giving items from a higher level character to a lower is 'BANNABLE'.... and by stating that "A" and "B" are immoral, you are either using the word to mean something other than what the common dictionary definition is, or you are applying it differently than most commonly would. Either way... you're uh... very... um... unique )

For my part I find it interesting that no one asks a male toon if he's a guy IRL.

As it stands, all but two of my characters on Virtue are male. I wouldn't say that I get treated any less nicely when playing those characters vs. my female ones. (Of course... one of them being Menopause, I wouldn't really expect nice treatment, but people seem to get a kick out of her nonetheless).

I fully expect people to refer to the gender of the character they see on the screen. When people ask what gender I am IRL, I usually tell them, "Guess. You have a 50/50 chance of being correct " Usually, it's a non-issue, as it should be. If you want to know ME as a PLAYER, that's a whole different relationship with a whole different set of rules. Even moreso if it's the sort of relationship that depends on genders to function. Til then, I am effectively a collection of pixels and a story.