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I like the option of grouping with friends and standing around and BSing while getting exp, it can be a social thing. Or maybe I want to get in the herding mission, stand in a safe place, and go throw a load of laundry in. Make dinner.
[/ QUOTE ] And get free xp for nothing in the process. I would like to do that too. Statesman, can you design the game so I can just log in and automatically get xp? That would make the game more fun, (right???) while eliminating all the hassle of forming a team and actually walking to the mission!
This part of your post doesn't help your argument. Plus, you berated the other poster for not having experienced higher-level content, and then you confirm his view of what wolf-herding is like, high reward for almost no risk. Last time I was a low level on a wolf-herding team, I died pretty much every mission (was sked to the healer and had to follow him as he followed the tanker). Didn't matter, the debt was gone before I even had time to check how much it was, because you get xp at such an insane rate. Risk, in that situation, definitely does not equal reward in comparison to any other activity in the game.
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choosing new powers AND THEN SEEING HOW THEY WORK is my fun
[/ QUOTE ] So how are you seeing how your powers work if you are standing in the corner of a mish or doing your laundry? Some people posting here seem to think that the fun in the game is only in levelling. The fun for me in the game is actually playing with my powers, which I don't do while sitting in a herding mish. This may be why Statesman classifies herding as "unfun". His classification is debateable, but it seems to me that the process of wolf herding is only fun after it's done and you have new powers, but is no fun during, when you are just standing around, and this may be at the root of him thinking it's not fun to herd.
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Maybe the next night *I* will be the one doing the herding/killing for other friends. We enjoy it.
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Yeah, I do the trade-off thing for my SG mates too. I don't see why you seem to think this helps your argument.
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And to whoever above was complaining about how the roles have reversed and the pl'ers are now the whiners. We are just trying to tell you we won't stop. Most of us have found better persons/places/things to herd anyway.
[/ QUOTE ] If you've found better stuff to herd, why are you so broken up about this?
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When all else fails, we will herd in the streets. You think a few tells and broadcasts bug you? haha. Don't [censored] in your own watering hole.
[/ QUOTE ] So you want others to mind their own business, but you have no qualms whatsoever about invading their business and hurting them? Very illuminating.
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Mind your own business people.
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I would argue that the speed at which other people can do things in the game that I also play is partially my business, because CoH is by nature a social and comparative environment. Every level someone gets powerlevelling does, in fact, devalue all of the effort and time others have put into getting that level naturally, since we all exist in the same world and must interact with each other and engage in social comparison with each other. My level 50 doesn't mean as much as it really should, because other people have gotten there using PL and wolf herding, and there's no way for me to prove that I got there naturally. In real life, no one would consider it "fair" if one person got $5000 a week to sit around doing nothing in the office one day a week while another person got paid the same to work very hard 6 days a week. This is the same concept, and this is why people PL anyway. Why would I bother with the harder job if the other guy gets the same reward for no work?
Yes, we pay our $15 a month. So does the guy who doesn't powerlevel. However, we, by PLing, devalue everything that other person does, and in effect reduce what he gets out of his investment. This doesn't prove that you shouldn't be able to PL, just that the "mind your own business" and "I pay my money" arguments don't hold water.
You might be saying "But I get less out of my $15 if PLing is eliminated". That's sort of true, but the other side of that is we will now be getting the exact same reward as everyone else of the same skill for the same investment, instead of an unfair excess of reward for no risk. The entire community gets more for their money comparatively if PLing is eliminated, because the game is more balanced and fair to every player, rewarding skill and time/effort investment instead of rewarding people for recruiting a tanker and resetting the same mission over and over.
Don't get me wrong, I got my lvl 50 all the way up with no PL, and now I powerlevel my alts. I don't blame anyone for powerlevelling and wolf herding, because I believe it's the fault of the game design for letting us do it. As has been said, if we were rewarded tangibly for anything but levelling (badges are cool, but not enough), these methods would not be so widespread, and people would not be insisting that they will find ways to keep doing it no matter how the rules change. I plan to keep powerlevelling my alts with my SG until the rules change.
What I don't get is people thinking this is a legitimate way of playing the game and that they DESERVE and DEMAND their opportunity to break or change the rules of the game to their liking.
Take this example: Say you were let loose in a candy store. Your desire is to eat as much candy as possible as quickly as possible. However, if you are allowed to eat as much as you would without restraints, you would become sick, fat, and become tired of eating candy.
It is in Statesman's (and every single players) best interest to make sure that everyone gets the same amount of candy for the same price (in time, effort, and skill) and that people don't get sick of candy.
If people get tired of the story content, Statesman can always rectify that by adding new content. However, if people get tired of the game because they've leveled up all the characters they care to try, it's harder for Statesman to rectify that.
Sure, we all love getting rewards really fast. That doesn't mean we DESERVE to get rewards quickly and for nothing, and it doesn't mean that getting instant rewards for free is good for us or for the society we all share. What do you think would happen in real life if we could all get millions of dollars for almost no effort? The economy would collapse and inflation would make that million bucks worth next to nothing. Since this is an MMO, the same thing will happen here, and has already begun to happen.
I think the game would be better without powerlevelling, and I think the devs should eliminate it. If you give people an opportunity to exploit a system, they are a sucker if they don't do it while most other people are. In turn, they need to give us the opportunity to earn other tangible rewards besides levels to compensate for the parts of the game that can sometimes drag on, and continue adding content that makes levelling an alt more interesting. I love the devs, but I blame them for the current state of the game, which I would consider broken.
