Scholar

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An interesting straw man, here. It ISN'T the same three mininons. They're level 50 - not level 10 minions. Different art, different powers.

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Wow, gotta say that response really disappoints me, Jack. They really ARE the very same minions. They are just dressed up in different clothing and have a few different powers. You might see them as very very different. But, many of us see them as just the same minion.

Frankly, as you progress, the game should change. It should not be the same old stuff. Fighting 3 equal minions as balance my whole career as a crime fighter is not very comic book like. Minions tend to be less and less competative to the superhero as they progress along the power path in comics.

I guess what makes your stand the hardest sell with me is the design of the respec trials. They are absolutely anything but "3 equal" minions a hero. Heck, there are times they border on 3 red or purple BOSSES a hero.

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1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks.

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This should help. It has been suggested many times in the Tanker Forums as something that should help improve aggro control.

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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes.

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This one sounds great on paper. But, I have a definite concern that this might just end up as mere window dressing. At high levels, you can reach the damage cap with just the use of Build up. Will this new basic tanker ability raise the damage cap to match how much it adds to the Tanker? If it doesn't, then it will end up pretty much moot as having any real effect in high 40's game play.

Statesman, I think you really need to examine tightness of your damage cap at the high levels. It really puts a damper on team dynamics as buffs are often useless due to the cap. It is this point that again concerns me about this future change to Tankers. Will it really mean a thing with the present damage cap system?

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However, I am seeing a general trend in these posts, and reports from test server, that the ENTIRE GAME is about to become group-only in order to survive in the field.


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I haven't really seen that kind of effect on the two characters I copied over to test to try things out. In fact, they both perform better on Test then on Live due to some of the changes to powers they have made on test.

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I chose my primary character because his power-set combinations were capable of soloing on a casual level. I just don't have the time to locate 'good' groups who aren't there just to grief me, and take the proper time to devote my attention in support of those groups.


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Pretty hard for anyone to enlighten you as to whether you will be able to solo as well with your main when you are withholding the AT/Powersets.

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my only question, why do some people equate this with real life/world crime? its a video game. not your job/something a criminal does like robbing a bank or what have you. its just a game, get over it already.


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There is no reason to equate it to real life crime. There are, however, some real life examples that work well in this regards. I am now going to point out one that I think fits this case very well. In fact, it is also from a game as well. It is from the NFL roughly 2 decades ago...

Back around that time, play in the NFL had gotten very defensive and field goal oriented. Due to the rules at that time, there was little reason not to kick long field goals. Any time you crossed the 50, or even some times on your side of the field, it made sense to make a field goal attempt. If you missed, and no return attempt was made, the opponent got the ball at their 20 when possesion was changed.

The heads of the NFL decided that this style of play lead to boring play. They felt that more exciting play (ie attempts at touchdowns) would provide more fun for fans. Thus, providing more income for the NFL Owners. So, they changed the rules.

The Goal Posts were moved back to the back of the End Zone. This added a full 10 yards to all field goal attempts making them more difficult. If the field goal was attempted outside the 20, your opponent would now recieve possession of the ball at the point of possession instead of at the 20. Meaning that they would now get good field possession with a missed kick. Thus, making missed kicks more risky.

In this case, Statesman's view on idle play places him in the role of the NFL Owners at the time. They want to encourage fun and exciting viewing. Jack wants to encourage fun and exciting play. In both cases, it is legal to continue to perform the activities that they are trying to discourage. It isn't illegal to kick a field goal, nor is it illegal to powerlevel. But, in both cases, the game is changed to encourage the playstyle that those in charge are looking for.

Thanks Ninja. I have noticed exactly what you have posted and apprecitate the candid response to my post. You might have also noticed in all my posts that I have never said that I think you should be able to level as you presently can at train stations. I am not opposed to this being changed. I simply disagree with the statement that powerleveling is cheating.

Frankly, this thread would have gone very differently if the thread premise had been ... "Do you think players should continue to be able to stand around at train stations and be leveled by others in their group without doing any of the work?" I believe that would have been a very different thread. Of course, that would have also meant that the original poster wouldn't have gone around accusing everyone who disagreed with him of cheating.

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You asked him the wrong question. The topic here is "Is powerleveling cheating?" Ask him that and see what he says.

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He asked if it was considered acceptable behavior, and the answer was no.
How much more clearly does he have to spell it out? It's not that hard to read between the lines is it?

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Reading between the lines in this case means making up your own interpretation of question that was carefully worded to get a response he was looking for. You need to remember that he asked if it was intended behavior in the same sentence. There is no way to know which question Statesman actually answered. As I said, he asked a very carefully worded question. Why didn't he ask the real question which is "Is Powerleveling cheating?" I know why he didn't. Ninja knows why he didn't. He didn't ask it because Statesman would have had to have said, "no, it's not cheating." Now, he might well have said he didn't like it in addition. But, the term "powerleveling" entails a heck of a lot more then the specific instance that Ninja asked about.

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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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You asked him the wrong question. The topic here is "Is powerleveling cheating?" Ask him that and see what he says.

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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.

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Actually, I suspect the development team is split just like we are in this thread. I am certain there are some powermongering number-crunching developers on every team. Some that see this as ok for the most part. I am sure all teams do look to impose a certain level of limit. Even the pro-PL members of the Dev team would support some limits. But, I'd be certain that the degree of restrictions supported vary across the spectrum from those development team members.

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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.


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The "pure" roleplayer vs "pure" powergamer arguement which has been going on for decades.

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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?


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Actually, I think it is more akin to taping your favorite show and skipping the commercials. Or, watching one of your favorite movies and skipping the "slow" spots. Or, the parts you simply don't like. It's a viewer's choice on how they "like" to view things.

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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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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. It isn't that unusual a feature. The key that determines whether you can do this or not in these games is whether experience is based on group success or individual success. If it is group success, then you can usually just sit on your hands and let others in the group do all the work and earn experience. If it is individually based, then you have to do the work yourself and the experience split is based on how much of the work is done by you. SWG is an example of individually split experience. Trouble is that CoH can't really move towards an individual experience system without a complete redesign. Since this type of system is based on damage done, AT's would have to all be rebalanced to do near equal damage. Or, other power uses like healing would have to be rewarded.

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As for jealousy, being annoyed at freeloaders isn't jealously, it's annoyance.

Analogy: I work at a job. I enjoy it for the most part and for my work I get paid.

If the guy in the next cubicle can sit there and do nothing and get paid even more than me because a higher up in the company is looking out for him, damn straight I'm going to be upset about it.

No, I don't want what he has - that would be jealousy. I want him to work for his pay like everyone else.

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Poor analogy. The unstated presumption in your workplace scenario is that you don't have the right to do nothing and get ahead like the other guy. That doesn't compare to the game situation where you can be powerlevelled if you choose and there are no sanctions against you if you do.

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Actually, that isn't it at all. The point is that the guy in the cubicle next to him IS getting the work done that he is given. In fact, he is getting more work done in the same amount of time. It's just that he isn't the one doing it.

A better analogy would be to say the boss doesn't care how the work gets done as long as he has it in his hands the next day. Well, in this case, the cubicle neighbor takes all his work home and has his wife and older children get it all done for him. He brings it in to his boss each morning all completed. His boss is very happy with his work. In fact, he has noted that on many occasions, Mr Cubicle has actually taken on extra work assignments. These, of course, are also taken care of by his family when he takes the stuff home.

This is a very important point to understand. The actual "work" is getting done. In CoH terms, villians ARE getting arrested. That is the point that the analogy you were responding to completely misses. It really doesn't matter that he lounges around. Goes to sleep. Chats with the secretaries during "scheduled" off times. The key is that his work is getting done.

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My understanding is that if you are SK'd and are "in the same zone" or "in the mission" when the XP is given you receive it. If you "get too far away from your SK" I don't think that stops you from getting XP. It just means that you will probably not be able to kill anything that you come across.

Does anyone know?

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If you are too far away to be considered SK'd, and you are too low a level to earn experience off the mobs the group is facing without SK, then you earn NO experience. Being in a mission doesn't change this.

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The fact is, on most servers there are only a small handful of people who have actually earned a L50 character at this point.

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Well, I made 50th last Saturday. It took me over 530 hours to get there. So, just so I can tell if I actually "earned" my 50 levels or not, what are the magic qualifications? Is 530 hours too few? Do I have to put in another hundred or two? How many hours do you have in yours? Would help so that I can get an idea how far behind I am on qualifying?

Btw, just so you don't think I was playing one of the FOTM's, it was my Invulnerability Axe Tanker that I got to 50th. I have not yet seen another one of them myself that was over 40th level on Virtue. Maybe they are just hiding....

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

It seriously breaks the immersion of the game.


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What if the powerlevelers happen to be doing all of their powerleveling in portal missions. Never standing around in public areas. Never in sight of you. What then? How are they directly effecting you? The answer is that they aren't.

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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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You know, the Developers number crunch too. Yep, they most certainly do. Any level 40+ Invulnerability Tanker knows this clear as day as they start to see more and more encounters with psi-based villians. The highest of the three respec missions is filled with group after group of Ritki bosses with psi-based attacks. You think for one minute that the fact that they use psi wasn't considered when they were choosen. Or the fact that psi-based attacks are a FLAW of the Invulnerability powerset. Frankly, based on the approach of some of the posters in this thread, I could claim the Developers were exploiting my flaw as an Invulnerability Tanker and therefore they were cheating. Silly isn't it.

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Where did I say I opposed differently leveled folks fighting together?

Sidekicked or not, you should be required to be actively fighting the mob you are getting XP from.*

That is all I am saying.


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Sorry, misunderstood. When I saw range, I read it as "level range."

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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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Then you are opposed to the existance of sidekicking in any form. Afterall, the developers put it in so you could play with friends that were not in your level range. If they couldn't earn any of the normal benefits from defeating villians, what would be the point of even having sidekicking?