Miir_

This thread became much more enjoyable after I put Alderian on ignore.

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THAT tells me, should tell us all, that AFK powerleveling, aka reward without risk (and he's stated in the past that he considers any event of reward without risk to be an exploit) is not considered to be acceptable play.

So, it's being looked at. How can they fix the problem? Make the game a little harder... and voila, there's the answer to all of the people who asked "How does my afk-PL'ing affect you?"


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That's faulty logic.

COH would still be too easy even without powerleveling.

Yeah, but my dad can beat up your dad!


And you're still a bigot.

I like how you claim to be a 'psychologist', call us 'boys' in a transparanet attempt to sound superior and scream childish names like 'cheater'.
I'm guessing that you're, more accurately, a call center phone jockey who did a few years at community college and took a couple of psych courses.

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Also, being gay is considered immoral rather than unethical. Morality tends to be more in the religious realm and ethics to be in the secular. So, two gay people having sex does not both me but it might both a religious person because its against the rules.

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Morals and ethics go hand in hand.
The two are essentially synonymous.

Using your personal morals and ethics to judge someones actions and completely ignoring the accepted code of conduct makes you a bigot, sir.

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They would constantly use they "how does my behavior affect you" line of reasoning. How did my stealing a car affect you! One does not have to be affected directly by a behavior to not like it.

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Like 2 homosexuals engaging in sex in the privacy of their own home.
Some people do not like it and think that it should be illegal.

Since it does not affect you (or anyone else) in any way, shape or form, nor does it contravene any laws... you can feel free to comment on it but you have no right to call them criminals/cheaters/liars/etc.

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His comment on "too easy" is curious, though.

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Curious? Not really.
For some AT/Builds the game game ridiculously easy at 30+

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This is not true because the designers have rules against cheating. A player can't do what they want in the game. The designers say they will take action against cheaters.

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I gave you a typical powerleveling sceanrio.
Please answer my question.
What, in that scenario, could be considered cheating?


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Player A is level 40
He groups with Player B who is level 35 and Player C who is level 5
Player B sidekicks player C

Player A proceeds to fight level 40 mobs while B and C are elsewhere in the zone.
Player A shares his XP with B and C who gain XP at level 35 and level 10 respectively.


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Frankly, I am a psychologist, and the arguments here remind me of the prison inmates that I used to work with.

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ROFL!

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The designers have done this in many ways. A players gets a warning if their sk is too far away. You do not get points if you are in a different zone, etc.

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None of those quantify a players contribution to a team.
They simply put physical/distance limits on principal game mechanics.


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Also, the designers warn you against using bugs, so that implies that they desire fair leveling.

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Since nobody has gotten warned, suspended or banned for powerleveling, we can positively state that powerleveling (or gaining XP while AFK) is neither a bug nor an exploit.

Here's a scenario:

Player A is level 40
He groups with Player B who is level 35 and Player C who is level 5
Player B sidekicks player C

Player A proceeds to fight level 40 mobs while B and C are elsewhere in the zone.
Player A shares his XP with B and C who gain XP at level 35 and level 10 respectively.


This is the standard scenario for powerleveling.
Please indicate where cheating or the exploiting of bugs occurs in that scenario.

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To Icarus and the bunch please tell me what is cheating?

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Cheating is exploiting a bug to gain an unfair advantage over another player(s).

Powerleveling uses game mechanics to maximise XP gain.

1) Shared team experience
2) Defeating mobs
3) Sidekicking
4) Maximum level range for XP gain


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If a person is Pling at the station it would be possible for them to be at the supermarket shopping. How is this playing a game?
Its cheating.

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The crux of your argument is based on your opinion that players who do not contribute to the team should not receive experience.
I can accept and respect that.


What ruins any credibility you might have is your crying that powerlevelers are cheaters.

If the developers see fit to change game mechanics so that non-contributors receive no XP, then I will accept that.
But the fact of the matter is that it is not possible, given the restraints of the game engine, to accurately quantify someones contribution to a team.

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It is my opinion to gain experience without risk is unnatural and is therefore a bug in the game mechanics

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The mobs aren't killing themselves.
Someone on your team is taking a risk to defeat them.

As for your selective definitions of 'Team', try these:

To form a team or an association. Often used with up.

To harness or join together so as to form a team.

Group

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Simply being on a team does merit the reward.

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So you're essentially saying thet every member of a team must contribute to the defeat of every villian, otherwise they should not receive any experience?


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As long as the person hanging in the back is in some danger from the mobs being fought I have no issue with it. You are taking the risk so should reap the rewards.
I only have an issue where the risk part is non-existant.

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When I do solo missions on my scrappers, there is zero risk.
I can herd up every single mob in my mission and afk forever hours while they try to beat me up.
I have no risk of dying... zero, zilch, nada... absolutely none.

By your rules, I should not receive any experience from defeating those mobs.
Is this accurate?


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But you are never going to convince me that the devs EVER intended for a player to deliberately be able to level up while AFK or otherwise taking zero risk to himself.

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So what really bothers you is that they are afk... flaunting their powerlevelage... rubbing your nose in it... mocking you...
What if they were moving around... or sitting on the top of the Zig... or sitting under a bridge somewhere?
Out of sight, out of mind maybe?


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.) PLing just cheats you out of gameplay fun. City of Heroes is not about just being level 50.

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I totally agree.
But I think most powerlevelers are really just leveling up alts so they don't have to go through the lower level content that they have probably been through 5-6 times already.


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Well you know, I have to put up with ugly costumes and stupid names too. Guess we should ban those too.

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While you're at it, ban the idiots who think 'ne' is an acceptable spelling for 'any'


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No risk is no risk. No risk should equal no reward.

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So giving a newbie 10k influence is an exploit/cheating in your opinion?
Since they took no risk to gain the influence they are not entitled to it.


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Have you teamed with a level 32 controller that did not do any CC and only was trying to deal dmg and letting the pet running around? I have. This guy didn't even use blind or flash. The way he was play was so weird and he kept on kissing the dirt and take group memeber with him.

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Crappy players affect everyone.
Powerleveling != Bad Players

Playing COH badly is not against the rules.


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Gaining experience (knowledge or skill resulting from observing or acquaintance with facts or events) through inactivity is unnatural and thus the definition is achieved.

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The way in which the experience is gained is via normal game mechanics... defeating mobs.
The mobs are not defeating themselves.
There is nothing in the rules stating that a player must actively partake in defeating mobs in order to gain experience.
Shared team experience is an existing game mechanic.

Powerleveling uses 2 basic game mechanics (defeting mobs, shared team XP).
If the developers did not intend for teammates to share XP, they would not have incorporated that mechanic.


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And I'm tired of people on the Broadcast channel spamming "PL me, Plz". If everyone is trading work with their Supergroups, no one would be doing this. Looks like an existence proof that at least *someone* or many someones are not using the method you're describing.

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Those people aren't powerlevelers, they are losers.
They see other people powerlevelign thier alts or friends and think that they should be entitled to powerleveling.
In actuality, the powerlevel beggars are usually stupid kids with no friends or Supergroup. They are most often really terrible players who have minimal understanding of game mechanics.
They annoy powerlevelers and non-powerlevelers alike.

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Pling allows for an incompetent approach to the game. If there was no Pling you would still have bad players but it wouldn't be because they are cheaters.

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This might be true if powerleveling was considered to be cheating.


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I don't get it. Why hide behind something so silly. As stated previously, the Devs have given no yes or no on the train station exploit. Notice I don't call this powerleveling. Gaining advancement while taking NO action from a safe haven in the train station is not powerleveling. It's simply an exploit of game mechanics that the devs have not addressed. I do not know if they WILL address it. They may have a heap of other things to fix or the code may be tricky to manipulate without putting other game mechanics at risk. No one here really knows.

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How is it an exploit?
What game mechanic is it exploiting?

You pose that there is a chance that the developers may or may not consider it an exploit... since they are aware of the situation and have not made any official statement regarding the 'legality' of it, it is safe to assume that partaking in such actions is neither cheating or exploiting.

Snce this is not your game and you do not make the rules, your claim this is an exploit is simply trying to place your own personal standards on other people who play the game. My $15 a month does not give me the right to tell you how to play COH, nor does it give me the power to label someone elses actions an exploit.



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Stop mixing up powerleveling with an obvious exploit. The game is there to be played. Not to be breezed through. Regardless

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Obvious exploit?
There is one loophole that has been addressed in Issue 2 (Sidekicks have to be in the same group) but aside from that, grouping with someone at max XP level range -1 and then sidekicking someone is not an exploit.

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Clearly power leveling falls under the second category and if you have any doubts about how they feel about it (it is their game and they ultimately make all the rules) consider the suspension to the person who posted about the “anchor” bug that many power levelers exploited several months ago.


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Was that player suspended for powerleveling?
Has any player been reprimanded, warned, suspended or banned for powerleveling?
Has any developer made any statement regarding powerleveling?

Using an exploit or a bug to advance your character at an accelerated rate is against the rules.
Maximising your character advancement using established game mechanics is not.

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or were you going to attack the way I said it instead of what I said. I said it before, and I'll say it again, people on these boards need to seriously brush up on their interpetitive skills

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Perhaps you need to brush up on your communications skills.
When drawing an analogy you're best served to use two examples that have an easily recognizable connection or similarity.


Comparing a crime, punishable by law, to someone powerleveling in a video game is outrageous.
There is no apparent correlation between the two.

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Playing both empathy and FF defenders I suffer random attacks often even though I do not attack in combat.

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It's easy to avoid area/cone attacks.


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This argument also ignores the fact that you are subject to random and range based attacks.

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Threat level (aggro) is not random.
Proximity, damage, status effects and taunt all effect your threat level on a mob... healing does not.
In COH, you can heal without fear of your heals ever drawing aggro.
The same goes for bubbles and buffs.


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It has been stated previously. The rate that players level and total character levels are data points that the devs use for analyzing game content and mechanics. If the developers make changes to the the content to limit the rate of advancement or skew zone developement to favor one caste of player over another it holds the potential to negatively effect others.

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And you have yet to produce any examples or proof that would indicate that the developers (or any MMOG) are so ignorant of powerlevers thet they would make changes to game mechanics or content based on an accelerated rate of advancement.

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For those who do not think power leveling hurts everyone else consider this. More then half the current L50 hero’s were power leveled at least part of the way. A great many were PL’d most of the way. (And, a great many of those that were not power leveled made extensive use of some form of exploit or overpowered power like burn, caltrops, smoke grenade or some undesirable technique like AoE blast and run or herding. )

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95% of all statistics are made up.







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How about if you are not in SK range it drops the XP. Once it says "you can are no longer being SK'd" kiss the XP good bye.

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This mechanic already esists in game.

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There is something odd about going from 16-32 in a few days.

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Actually, I took one of my scrappers from 17 to 28 in about 2 and a half days without powerleveling.



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I don't have to be hurt by something to oppose it. Cheating on taxes, lying about disability or welfare fraud doesn't hurt me, but I oppose them.

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The difference is that those things are against the law... they are illegal.
Powerleveling is not agaisnt the rules and it is not cheating.
Complianing about powerleveling is akin to complaining about someone else being able to drive to and from work while you're stuck taking the bus.


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Actually, how's this: If you are not in aggro range (or some other close range) of a mob, you cannot gain XP from that mob.

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Not a bad idea but it will in no way curb powerleveling.

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To me, no. Then again I define powerleveling as the gain of XP with little or no risk to yourself.
You are in the thick of the fight and are risking as much as the rest of your group.
My main point in this thread has been that you should never get a reward if you are not taking a risk.
Standing around in a tram while someone else earns XP for you is not a risk at all.


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How do you propose to implement a change like that?
COH in it's current state cannot objectively determine the risk a player is placing themselves in for each and every fight.
Using your criteria, risk is purely subjective and since computers cannot be subjective, your suggestion is unrealistic.


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Should I feel this way? No. However, I am a person that enjoys getting in to the game and using strategy to win, so I simply do feel this way.
My feelings or anyone else's are not important because objectively Pling is a cheat or exploit (whatever!) hands down.

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Objectively, it is not.
Subjectively, in your mind it is.

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It can affect the long term development of the game by artificially skewing the numbers the devs use to plan future content

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How about an example (from any game) of how powerleveling has influenced game balance or content.


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It's annoying in the same way seeing anyone freeload is annoying.

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Kids who use AOL-speak annoy me.
Crappy players annoy me.
People with unoriginal names annoy me.
Players who talk IN ALL CAPS ANNOY ME.

Can I advocate making all of these annoyances against the rules?


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It seriously breaks the immersion of the game.

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How exactly does someone standing afk in a certain location ruin your immersion?
I could see how powerlevel beggars could ruin your immersion, but the people who are actually doing the powerleveling are usually completely innocuous.


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It encourages an environment of number-crunchers and those only concerned with the maximum efficiency, which if you pay attention to forums and areas which cater to these types is almost always a relentlessly negative and argumentative bunch.


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And how does that affect you personally?
Nobody is forcing you to min/max.



Your first point may have some merit but the other 3 are just grasping at straws.

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You are taking advantage of a flaw int he game mechanics(exploiting).

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Powerleveling involves min/maxing 2 game mechanics.
Sidekicking and defeating the minimum number of mobs for maximum XP gain.

Where is the flaw and how is it being taken advantage of?


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The fact that this is a mutliplayer game means most actions will affect another players. That's just pure logic. If 20 heroes are waiting at the tram in bricks and it slows down someone's game even a fraction, then it's affected your game. There are so many other ways it can affect one's game, but we only need one to refute the "it doesn't hurt you" argument.

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The crackpot logic in this thread is simply astounding.

In your example, the act of a player being in a location is the issue, not what said player is doing in that location.

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The person fighting the mobs is not the one gaining the benefit.

How's this? You go do my job while I go watch TV, and I'll take the paycheck. That sound good to you?


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The person fighting the mobs is getting benefit/XP/Influence/Inspirations/Enhancements.

Using your logic, if I do not need any help defeating mobs, I would be exploiting by inviting someone else to my team?
My Regen scrapper needs no heals unless shes fighting +5 or higher. If I invited a non blasting empath defender to my team, they would be exploiting since they have no risk. If I want to invite and sidekick a lower level defender/controller to 'duo' one of my missions, they should forefeit all their XP because they have no risk?
My missions on a 2 person team are zero risk as it stands... am I an exploiter because my missions pose no risk?


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If you can come up with a legitimate solid reason why a person should be getting more skilled and powerful while standing around in a tram station staring at a wall, then I will revise my opinion.

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The crux of your argument is based on someone not playing the game the way you think they should be playing it.

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It is manipulation of the internal game mechanics to artificially boost the XP gained. That is all.


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So anyone that gains XP faster than you persoanlly think they should, must be exploiting or cheating?


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Unless you are right there fighting the mob and taking the risk, you shouldn't be able to reap any of the reward.

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How can you objectively define risk in COH?

A provoke spamming tanker removes essentially all the risk from the rest of the team. When I duo with my tanker buddy, I never get hit or draw aggro. Should the tank be the only one who gains reward?
A non blasting Empath defender draws no aggro from heals.. they can heal from range thus putting themselves in no risk.
A bubble defenders bubbles do not draw aggro and do not create any risk.
Once a controller has a group locked down, the risk threat sinks to zero.
1-shot sniping mobs out of attack range is zero risk... should there be no XP awarded for that?

What if your friend or teammate has to go AFK for 5 minutes? Do you advocate punishing them by taking away their reward while they are afk?



Once again, I'll ask how does powerleveling negatively affect yours, or anyone elses enjoyment in playing City of Heroes?

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Powerleveling is pure manipulation of loopholes in the game experience mechanics to get large amounts of XP for little or no risk.


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There is 'risk' (no matter how small)for the person/people that are fighting the mobs.

How is it different than teaming with a -9 level hero on my scrapper and fighting blues?
The risk is minimal to nil for my scrapper and my teammate is racking in truckloads of XP.


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There is no denying this. It is an exploit, pure and simple.

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By definition, an exploit in a MMOG is the act of taking advatage of a flaw in existing game mechanics to gain an unfair advantage over other players.
Powerleveling does not fit that definition.

Players still have to defeat mobs to gain XP.
They are simply using the existing XP level range to maximise their XP per mob.



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Personally, I would alter the mechanics so you do NOT earn ANY XP unless you are in a minimum range of the bad guy you are getting XP from, and thus risk getting defeated by them.

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You see, that is you personal opinion.
If the developers shared that opinion, I'm sure they would implement a change like that.
Since they haven't, and since no developer has stated that 'afk powerleveling' is cheating or exploiting, this whole discussion is moot.

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But I'll bet a lot of PLs are just honest casual players trying to keep up with their powergamer friends.

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More accurately, powerlevelers seem to mostly be players with high level heroes who are throughly bored with the lower level content (1-25).
Personally, I've taken 10+ Heroes over level 20 and low level missions and teams just frustrate me.

I'd love to be able to start a new hero at level 20 (or at least level 14).


I seriously doubt the devs mine 'powerset popularity' and 'played time vs level' data.

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If PLing was ok, the devs would not go out of their way to write in code that makes it hard (or at times impossible) to do. If PLing was ok, then a SK would earn the same XP and the master. If PLing was ok there would be no level difference required for a team to earn xp.


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Once again, you are using faulty logic and reasoning.
Nowhere has any dev stated that they disprove of powerleveling.

If the developers wanted to stop the type of powerleveling that you personally disprove of, they would implement a distance range for XP that would require players to be within a pre-defined physical range from where the mobs are being defeated.

The powerleveling that you personally disprove of is players simply using the current ruleset for maximum XP gain.
There is no exploit, it is not difficult, it harms nobody and does not infringe on anyone elses fun.


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To me PLing occurs outside of the rules of the game. It looks for loopholes, exploits and bugs in order for a high level to earn xp for a much lower level hero.

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The powerleveling that you disprove of uses the existing 'xp level range' and 'sidekick' rules to gain maximum XP.
What loophole, exploit or bug is being used to do this?

If a level 36 player teams with a level 31 who has a level 5 sidekicked to level 30, the level 5 hero will gain equal XP to defeating level 10 mobs.
The XP gain will be no different than if they teamed with a level 10.

How is that cheating?

By definition, powerleveling is not cheating or exploiting.

There is nothing fradulent or dishonest about it.
There are no rules that say a player must actually 'assist' in defeating mobs to gain XP from them.

If I team with an equal level empathy defender on my regen scrapper and that defender doesn't use thier blasts yet still gets XP, is that cheating?
If a teammate has to go AFK for 5 minutes, would it be cheating if they got XP while they were afk?
If one of my SG mates is depressed with thier Mind Controller and wants to play a hero that doesn't suck, am I cheating if I help them powerlevel a scrapper up where they can team with us without a SK?


Comparing powerleveling to commiting a crime in real life is crackpot logic.


I have yet to see anyone come up with any logical argument against powerleveling.
Envy is not a valid argument.