NinjaPirate

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Pfah! I can run with a level two through Founder's Falls and not die!
Ya'll are just wimps.

-np

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Really? One would have to wonder what your secret is for surviving the first sniper that spots you....

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Hey, I did it once while I was bored.

That counts.



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BTW, may I be the first to say... IMPOSTER!

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I was wondering who took the name "ninja pirate" in Test...

Tch, step off, homes, I been here since the second round o beta.

I'm famous, I am.



And now the world will explode for your pleasure and amusement, as two pirating ninjas is too much for reality to withstand.


-np

Pfah! I can run with a level two through Founder's Falls and not die!

Ya'll are just wimps.




-np

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We were? Wow. I had no idea!

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You really should try to keep up on that sort of thing, States. If you read the forums regularily, you can find out tons of stuff I bet you didn't know you were thinking.

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5 stars for joo!


-np

Re: Having two different versions of the game

Assuming this is done because Cryptic/NC Soft need to keep the code base for the European version of the game "officially" seperate from the North American version, it makes a certain amount of sense, really.

I know the UK at least has extremely protective privacy laws. Might require a different login system to meet the regulations there.

And if the Germany/Nazi thing is true, then it might be required that the offending content be absent from the software entirely, not just turned off in the game. The only way to make it so a client side hack can't easily turn that content back on is for it not to be there.

If there's complaints about the NA version being in European countries that ban it, NC Soft can then say, "Hey, we never approved the NA version to be sold in Europe, don't blame us."

Just some thoughts...


-np

Check out "Spare Parts".

"It's a man, baby!"




-np

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It is right because some poor sap, who has a high-level grind of his own to worry about, is giving up a portion of their xp to make it happen. If someone could just park alone and afk at the tram, and every hour gain a level ON THEIR OWN, that would indeed be a travesty to all the other people out there working for their levels. But because that is not what's happening, it couldn't be farther from being wrong.

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I personally have avoided labeling this AFK leveling as "right" or "wrong".

Undesirable on the part of the developers, yes, however. Which is why they will be attempting to make this behavior unrewarding to do. Fix the system, not punish the players for doing something allowed by the defective system.

I cannot think of a single valid reason as to why any game developer would ever want a player to stand around in one spot doing nothing, for ANY reason.


-np

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So far the only good post on here has been the one that talks about datamining being skewed.

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If you only want to consider reasons on "how others affect me", sure.

If you are looking from a point of view of problems in overall game design, there are plenty of reasons you would not want powerleveling.

Why does something have to affect me personally for me to comment on it?


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The tone of anti-powerlevelers in general is the same as the "game balance" garbage that pops up all over the place. Why can't my controller do this? What can't my blaster do that? Followed by the distant sound of nerf, nerf, nerf.

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Proper "balancing" is to ensure that no character build is significantly "better" or "worse" than any other. You should on average be able to blindly pick any archetype build and relatively have the same amount of effectiveness from 1-50 as any other.

This does NOT mean "all should be the same", just that every build should feel just as useful in the overall game. They should ALL feel "powerful", just in different ways. Nobody plays this game to feel like a gimp.


-np

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It's not fun if you level up by doing nothing.

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Mmmm, what are you smoking? How did you determine that everyone else automatically wants to grind out 30 levels? What basis did you use to judge that ALL of the player base is not interested in fast gains?

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Let me ask you a question. During the period where you are sitting around doing nothing while getting leveled up, are you having fun?

I don't mean afterwards when you can play that now higher level character, I mean the time you spent staring at a tram wall.


-np

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SO you have no friends and can't get powerleveled and your psychosis kicks into high gear and starts wispering to you that they are cheating. Does that actually make you feel better?

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You are assuming I or others WANT to be powerleveled.

I am a member of 4 different SGs that are all quite active. I wouldn't accept powerleveling from them if they ASKED me.

I see a rules deficiency and would like it fixed. That is all.


-np

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Really, Its an unethical exploit especially when you add in those people that make characters just to sell them and whatnot. The argument that most people are just leveling alts really does not meet with my experience and has softened the topic a bit too, as I don‘t really mind them doing that. My original complaint had to do with the ridiculousness and lack of reality of watching people level while doing nothing. Clearly the designers are trying to do something about this, so the subtext is that they think its wrong. A person does not have to say something directly for the meaning to be known.

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Unethical does not necessarily equal Cheat.

Cheating is a specific term. It requires rules to be broken. Cheating is a punishable offense.

And what is "obvious" to one person may be not so obvious to another. People are different and have different ways of looking at things. Therefore you cannot levy judgements or punishments on what is at best a nebulous subject - "what the Devs intended".

After all, would YOU like to be given a traffic ticket because "You were driving 65 in a 65 zone, but we meant to make it a 55 zone"?

If it's it's not specifically forbidden by the rules, it's a rules deficiency, and the rules need to be corrected, not the players.

Game design logic is a little wierd about players in that it usually dictates you treat players not as thinking breathing people, but a bit like rats in a maze. The rats will go everywhere that they can regardless of your intentions. If you want them to go a specific way, you either make it most desireable to go your way, or make it impossible/unenjoyable to go any other way. You cannot expect the rats to just know where you wanted them to go.


-np





-np

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Anyway, do you think that the Statesman would really have used the term "cheater" that would not be good for business.

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He didn't call it cheating because no rules are actually being broken.

He did indicate that it was undesirable player behavior. That's not necessarily cheating.

Steps will be taken so that AFK levelling will be an unattractive activity. That is all that really matters.

Personally, I am of the opinion that any problem arising from a design weakness should NEVER result in direct punishment of players. The design weakness should just be fixed.


-np

You'll note that I did not in fact call powerleveling "cheating" anywhere in this thread.

That is because Cheating implies breaking some rule. This isn't happening.

What is happening is that some folks are taking advantage of a flaw in the XP mechanics.

I am interested in whether the XP mechanic was indeed flawed as I thought it to be, resulting in the inevitable behavior of players exploiting it.

I am not interested in whether the players commited some wrongdoing. I could care less if they were punished in any way. I'd rather just see the problem in the mechanics fixed.

I look at it from a design point of view. Players will behave in fairly predictable ways in most cases to the way rules are set up. To ensure players behave in a manner you intended them to, you need to make sure the rules are set up to encourage them to do so. Abstractly, it's like running rats through a complex maze. If you want them to run in a particular direction, you alter the maze so that direction is what they want too.

I did call AFK powerleveling exploiting. I define exploiting as using loopholes in the rules to deliberately engage in behavior that is fairly obviously not what the game designers intended. Using the letter of the law to violate the spirit of the law, as it were. Again, I don't count this is necessarily cheating, as the rules of the game as laid out ARE being followed. Those rules are just flawed is all.

I got the answer I was looking for. AFK powerleveling is not an intended behavior, and steps are being taken to fix the rules, the game mechanics, to discourage that behavior.

I asked exactly what I intended to. No more or less.


-np

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Also, ethics and morale

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Okay, this has been bugging me.

It's "morals", not "Morale"!

Morale is an entirely different subject.

That is all.


-np

Okay, I PMed Statesman directly.

I asked:

"Is standing in a safe zone (like next to a police drone) while higher level teammates level you up considered an intended or acceptable form of behaviour on the part of players?"

His reply:

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Originally posted by Statesman:

No - it's a side consequence of the game being too easy at certain levels. I'm looking into it.

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So AFK Levelling, at least, is not an intended behaviour, and they intend to do something about it.

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


-np

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How is a mechanism that encourages players to NOT play the game ever anything but a bad thing?

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So, by your (still flawed) rationale, if I login to chat with my friends, that constitutes "bad game design." I guess they should take out the chat feature unless you're actively fighting, since it encourages people to "not participate int he game." Right? Makes sense to me, at least based on your "my opinion of gameplay design is the only right one," kind of logic.

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Eh, even chatting is participating to some degree.

While I will admit that any sort of reward without risk grates a bit on my design sense, I really am only bothered by the AFK levelers. When I see someone AFK next to a police drone for hours while leveling up over and over, something's very wrong with the system. And I see this quite a bit.


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How is your definition of "playing the game" more right than anyone else's?

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You know, this kind of statement puzzles me. Isn't the whole concept of discussion to express your opinion? I don't recall ever telling anyone to "shut up" or "You MUST accept my words". I've only posited my positions and my reasonings behind those positions.

Me, I base my reasonings on game design principles that are well established and accepted by most folks in such design fields. "Risk = Reward." "Always engage the player." "Idle time is bad." My thoughts are coming from not on what affects me personally, but on what would help or harm the long term quality of the game.


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If someone wants to "play the game" by getting PL'd to 20 before they start hitting the streets to fight some crime, why is your way better than theirs?

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You'll note I did suggest an ability to "unlock" higher level characters if you have already leveled another one to the top.


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They are having fun, they are in the game, they are interacting with people and accomplishing goals; granted, perhaps not in the way you "think they should," but what difference does it make to you?

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Why does anything have to affect me personally for me to be interested in it, or to want to discuss flaws I see in it?

This is another thing that puzzles me. Folks actually thinking that "leave them alone, they're not bothering you" is any sort of valid arguement. The ONLY time I EVER see that phrase used is in reference to something that everyone knows isn't proper anyway. It's the sort of defense I hear from punks spraypainting tags on fences. Or the guy smoking pot. It's tantamount to an admission of guilt.

I'd love it if anyone would come up with solid reasons why powerleveling, more specifically AFK leveling, is a POSITIVE contributor to the game. In any way.

But so far all I've heard is, "Hey, man, we got a good thing here, why can't you leave it alone?"


-np

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No, it's not illegal.
^^ Fact.

But it is poor game design.
^^ Opinion.

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How is a mechanism that encourages players to NOT play the game ever anything but a bad thing?

Every part of the game should ideally encourage folks to actively participate in the game.

Anything that discourages such is bad game design.


-np

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But no game should award you for just standing around doing nothing.

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The thing of it is that most online games DO allow rewards for just standing around in a team. For doing nothing. It doesn't make it right or wrong. It simply makes it the way it is. It may not be desirable behavior to some. But, it isn't illegal behavior. As such, it also isn't cheating.

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No, it's not illegal.

But it is poor game design.


-np

Yes, but is it heroic?


-np

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If Pling isn't cheating then it is the most unusual game feature that I have ever seen.


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I guess you never played EQ, E&B, or any of a number of other online games. You can powerlevel in many of them without doing a thing. Just sitting there in group.

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Thing of it is, I cannot for one minute believe that developers in ANY of these games actually like or condone powerleveling. I would strongly suspect it's a case of "we don't like it, it's a problem, but it would be too much of a hassle/we can't be bothered to properly deal with it". It's the sort of activity that skews way outside of intended design parameters and is generally a headache.

However, the devs here have repeatedly shown that they will in fact take the time and effort to correct even problematic design flaws like this. Therfore I have hope that it WILL be addressed in CoH.

Powerleveling is a pure case of meta-game thinking, of thinking as a player standing outside the game looking at rules and code, rather than a character operating within the given setting of the game. In some games you get folks that are particularly obsessive in this kind of thinking, going as far as to create formulas and spreadsheets to get that .01% more efficientcy out of their character.

These are folks that think of their character more as collections of numbers than a character.

To me it's like watching a movie by hitting fast forward to get to the end faster. Sure, you finish the movie in a fraction of the time, but what's the point?

At least in many other games the action is mostly concentrated at the end of the play time, somewhat justifying the fast-forwarding, but in CoH the action is fairly well spread out across the entire level range. Why fast forward past the good parts?

I do understand the wanting not to have to level through a second, third or later character AGAIN after the first time, and it's a valid concern. Perhaps you could have a level 20 or so character unlocked after you get one character to level 50? I dunno.

As I said earlier, my ire is mostly focused on those folks parked at the tram leveling up. As long as you are actively trying to contribute to your team and are taking the risks, I have no issues with you fighting with folks even 30 levels above you - more power to you if you can do this.

But no game should award you for just standing around doing nothing.


-np

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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.

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There is no reason for them to be in any danger. Park yourself at the entry to a mission. Or even progress through the mission but take no actions to draw aggro and hang back out of aggro range. There are plenty of ways to "be along" and be almost as safe as standing at the tram station while friends street grind.

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I make no distinction between parking yourself in a tram station, at a mission entrance, or just outside of the mob's ability to hit you. No risk is no risk. No risk should equal no reward.


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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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I'm not trying to do so. The issue is why they should raise to attempting to deal with it when it (a) doesn't affect you or anyone else and (b) someone has to be doing the work somewhere.

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I don't qualify these issues with whether they affect me personally or not - in fact, I am a bit infamous among my friends for bringing up overly powerful issues in games, of which correction would actually harm me as a player more than anyone.

I'm interested in the issue because in my eyes there is a flawed game mechanic that potentially needs fixing. As stated earlier, I am a RPG game designer myself and tend to think along the lines of "How would I balance X rule design". I guess that's why I get involved in so many beta tests - game design fascinates me.

Anything that rewards NOT playing the game has a potential for long term harm. The game should encourage getting in the bad guy's faces and slugging or blasting away, not standing around while the other heroes do all the work.


-np

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Again, if you want to park yourself at the tram station I see little difference than going along and hanging at the rear ready to run at the drop of a hat. Why the one should be villified and the other be acceptable is strange to me.

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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.

Risk mitigation, sure, using buffs and debuffs and other powers to lower your chances of taking a trip to the hospital while fighting, that's normal and fine.

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.


-np

FireNuke, so you are saying that nobody should ever talk about anything that dosen't directly impact them?

I have a concern about a flawed game mechanic. I am going to discuss it if I like.


-np

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Powerleveling is doing no work to gain the reward. You care to offer another definition?

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Erratic, this is the third time in this thread alone you have gotten hung up on arguing semantics and definitions rather than focusing on the main thrust of the arguements. Hopefully this is not your only tactic to argue your case?

Well, some folks apparantly consider just grouping with high levels powerleveling, no matter if the lower level person is fighting alongside the higher level or not.

Others define it as just when you team up thusly and leave the lower level parked in a safe place, going to hunt mobs that are no threat to the high level so the lower level gets scads of XP for just standing there.

Most folks are having issues with just the second category.


-np

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Powerlevelling is as simple as sidekicking the target and having them follow at whatever range is allowed. There is no way to prevent such other than to mandate something like requiring every person to do a point of damage to get the xp reward, and that won't work given support ATs exist that validly aren't dealing a lick of damage.

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Please note that the issue that most anti-PLing folks in this thread is NOT just higher level folks running around teamed with lower level folks.

It is parking the lower levels at a safe spot while the higher levels run around hitting mobs that are no risk to them. This is futzing with the rules to eliminate the risk while gaining the reward.


-np

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Game Theory requires at least two players who are in conflict. I didn't realize that CoH players were in conflict with each other.

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Two opponents.

A computer can be an opponent just as well as a player.


-np