TheAncientOne

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If there was a way to get more experience and difficulty out of a mission (in other words, higher settings) would you do fewer missions if the total yield per mission was higher?

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I'm guessing you mean if I could just herd it once and skip the farming? I'm going to herd regardless, until it is impossible to do it, because it is fun and is a challenge I can control dynamically by how many I try to herd. I could easily do without the farming if mission bonuses were astronomical, but... Well, it's kind of hard to determine... I am usually farming to get to my next set of contacts *without* streetsweeping. I get alot of lag on the street and none in missions, 'Nuff said. Unless the 2-3 level gap left open by missions could be made up in the mission bonuses, it's unlikely it would be sufficient. Here's a few numbers...

"Protect the artifact" Warriors mission set to Unyielding:
All mobs combined are worth 10,832 xp + 1,024 xp completion bonus if I'm alone. That's 11,856 xp for running it normally, and it takes 10 minutes to gather and kill them all once. 5 to gather, 5 to kill. Do I stop at 10,832 xp or do I need alot more to level? If I herd the mobs only 3 times then finish it, thats 33,520 xp from it. 11,856 or 33,520, which is greater? Now I may run that mission until I level, however many times that is. Herding a mission allows the mobs to become a threat once again and at the same time I have less xp-earning downtime due to endurance. No matter what the bonuses, I will probably always want to herd for the challenge it provides.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm not just letting a buddy PL me to those next contacts, but it really comes down to me having fun and being personally rewarded. By being personally rewarded, I mean having a feeling that you did something not everyone can do, a feeling of success that completing missions like anyone can, does not offer. If it were alot easier to fail missions and players got bars of xp for completing them, this would not be as much of an issue. Instead, everyone can complete almost every mission, and the bonuses are setup to coincide with that. It's nothing special to complete all your missions. Even I cannot herd all of them, some mobs are tricky buggers, but the ones I can use to farm take the place of any streetsweeping the devs calculated into the xp needed for each level. If you want to streetsweep for me, go right ahead, I'll be over there farming instead.

I like to believe the devs are in control of what is rewarding and what is challenging, and that they are aware even of what is going on in my missions. I don't believe for one minute that no one at Cryptic has tried herding mobs. People have been doing it to level fast, it has been complained about, yet it's still here. Why? Maybe the dev team thought it was just great that a tanker can herd up a whole mission and a blaster/scrapper can kill the whole herd. I can't say, but it's not on par with Curbherding, abusing smoke grenade, or any of the other bigtime bugs that rewarded players for a no-risk battle. My experience with this game has been that if something produces xp, it must in turn produce the risk of death. Every fix the devs have scrambled to put together was because someone found a way around the risk and still got the rewards. Herding fits the plan, why not do it?

I am the type of player who'll try and finish a TF by myself after the rest of the team has deserted, only because it shouldn't be possible. I want to be the "Hero among Heroes", Superman's superior, etc., and the closest I have come is either being the herder or being the herdkiller. Everything else is just felt like "meh" to me. I'll bet it isn't too bad for a defender backing up a herding tank, but I haven't tried it yet.

For me, my way is fun and is personally rewarding, PLing is not. Completing the goals normally and finding out you're way short on xp sucks the big one though too. Most importantly, I am able to do what I want to do(avoid street hunting), and am still getting a fair shake both ways on the risk=reward ideal. The only thing I could even imagine someone disliking about it is that I am netting roughly 3x xp for the time invested. Time shouldn't be an issue at all. Good players should be enveloped by fast leveling. Bad players should feel the immense pain and grind of slow leveling. I kinda hoped that I was just reaping the benefits of being a long-time, experienced player and a badass who fears not death.

My stance on missions is this:
Missions, as they currently exist, are far from what I expect. Cookie-cut missions cannot be expected to entertain 5 completely different classes of character. Kelds get their own missions, and I commend the devs on that.

I would like to see all non-badge missions be custom tailored by AT. There should be tanker missions, defender missions, controller missions, etc. Each type offering a different type of challenge, exclusive to that character's team role, instead of producing a "solo or team" way of doing them all. "Why the hell is my contact sending me on a controller's mission? I'm a tank! Doesn't that idiot know any controllers he can send?"

I think that the mission bonuses and AV rewards are very skimpy, and could be alot better, but then again getting the same amount of xp I get from a herd as a bonus would be alot of riskless xp. When I herd them, I am at least at substantial risk, it takes time to do it, and the xp doesn't have to end when the herd does, I can just do it again if that's what it takes to level. Mission bonuses picking up the slack is still limited, while my capacity to herd and the amount of potential xp I could get is only limtied to the amount of time I am willing to put into play.

I would like to see other more dynamic ways of getting xp besides just arresting mobs. Is it so much to ask?

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Yes, you're a tank. You handle hits well. Being able to deliver enough damage on top of that to destroy the entire mission in 10 minutes at that difficulty level is well....kinda impressive.

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Well, we can thank I3 for that... I think alot of that is due to careful aviodance of low-damage powers early on. I suck really bad though if I exemplar down very far, because I only had primaries and Taunt back then. The BA secondary has the highest S/L damage a tank can wield, but has a lack of any type of unique damage. Any mobs that are resistant to S/L, are resistant to my damage. I have to just clear missions containing those types of mobs, because I can't kill them effectively. I never hesitate to invite friends in to help me kill if I think they are up to it.

I burn alot of the useless(to me, anyway) inps to make room for more purps and reds, and I'm not afraid to drop a few mobs to get more when they are needed. A big portion of the reason to herd them is that I can use 8 reds to kill them all quickly at the same time. Those same 8 just aren't getting me the same milage if the darn mobs are all over the place.

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Everyone is useful- but none of them seem to be needed. And by herding, it means a single tank becomes a catalyst no other AT could be for anyone whose abilities cover more than single targets. I've been on missions where the tank herded- the simple fact that I could hit a dozen, or two dozen targets at once with Frost Breath means my normal effectiveness went up about 400-800% at the least. And I'm an Ice Blaster- my AE ability is minor at best compared to most Blasters, or even Defenders in some cases. If those mobs scattered even a bit, it'd make that multiplier lower considerably. Should herding really be that powerful?

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Until there is a "Herd" button, yes. I don't think you realized just how deadly that herd could have been to you, i.e. very risky. If the tank fails, everyone else will likely fail too. It takes alot of skill to handle masses of mobs, even moreso if someone else dares to attack them or heal the tank they are aggro'd on. It would be completely asinine if you could be at risk from those mobs yet not get xp for killing them. It doesn't matter how many there are because more of them just means more risk. Eventually, players will wise up and realize that a death is a death whether it took 1 mob or 500 to kill you. Herding mobs puts everyone at exponential amounts of risk, why shouldn't there be exponential amounts of xp rolling in if you do succeed at it?

If you as a blaster could herd them all, then still kill them with a few applications of breath, it would be a bit unbalanced. Most herders other than Fire tanks will need an AoE damage dealer to help them kill their herds. Luckily, I manage to get by most of the time without absolutely needing one. Don't think I wouldn't love to have you standing by ready with breath though. Teaming really speeds things up for everyone, as long as everyone on the team *is* useful.

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Would you have fun if you were doing smaller herds that still involved risk? Would they have to have significantly higher exp value to do it?

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I think I would and have. That is more or less what the early levels were like, I just couldn't herd like I can now with SOs 6ed in most of my powers, and I couldn't kill at all back then. I won't kid you, everytime I do something I am watching what kind of xp it is netting for me. If I think something isn't worth the time, I try to skip it altogether.

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Logically then, when large numbers of status-inducing mobs are involved, you're not herding the map- you're taking smaller groups...and I'm guessing the rewards are lower, too. Not quite as bad as Vahziloks or Banished Pantheon, but bad?

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You're logic is sound. I have yet to face any status-heavy mobs though other than Rikti and The Council, which I have just started facing alot at lvl30. I can still herd both, but in more limited numbers than other villain groups.

No matter what I do I will never have damres or def to psi, and I have to avoid psi mobs unless we're just fighting them a group at a time. They aren't herdable by me at all from what I've seen so far. The vahz and BPs just really take longer to herd than to kill group-by-group. They are so slow to gather, that you can't speed herdkilling them up by very much.

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Just out of curiousity- how much playtime did it take you going from say, 22-28 with your Tanker? How was your exp/hour? It strikes me as being about as high as the bar would need to be, considering it does sound like the highest reward-for-risk that's "clean" in the game.

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Hrm... I knew I should have been writing all that down!

Ok... Getting from 22-28 took 5 days of RL time. Got 22 sunday night, got 28 the following friday night. I play from 4pm-1am on weekdays and as much as I can spare on the weekends. Of that 5 days, I played my other characters a small amount, but my tank got almost all of my gameplay this past week. The xp/hour rates changed drastically with my level, but at lvl 28 I would say a good estimate is about half a bar per reset, or 20 resets per level. Resets run between 10-15 mins, depending on the layout of the map. Anytime more people joined the adventure, the xp went up a little bit for the extra mobs they help spawn, maybe to around two thirds of a bar per reset with two people. Solo is definitely not the best way to herd.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily the fastest way to level, "clean" or otherwise. I've gotten better xp/hour from well-oiled teams running missions, but that isn't an everyday event, more like once a weekend if that. Those teams are including people I've been playing with for a long time, and we know each other well. I know how few and far between players of our caliber are, but when we all manage to team it adds up to fantastic xp for everyone. Often we're just herding maps, but we're doing it in force with enough mobs to make gameplay choppy. Not PLing good, but way better xp than I can produce alone.

My main comparision is between running missions alone, including travel times and streetsweeping alone to make up for the missing xp, and farming the farmables alone until they are outleveled. Compared to soloing without farming, it *is* better xp for your time. Just the time I save on traveling to and from contacts/missions adds up quick. Running around to contacts is not challenging, and does not reward. Instead of running around doing 15 missions and streetsweeping, I do 5 or more until I find the farmable, and then farm it until I outlevel it. Then I go back to clearing missions looking for more farmables. When I recognize an arc, I do it just because it's an arc. Most of the arcs contain the more challenging, highly farmable missions. Again, I have to stress that most of my goal is to challenge myself while I'm alone, with the small number of mobs that spawn for one person on Invincible. Unyielding offers better xp(more mobs), but less challenge.

I like teaming. I like the "regular" game. My only problem with any of it is that alot of the time(pickups in particular) it feels like I'm taking time off from leveling to be a part of it.

I am on the hunt for my next farmable tonight, and I will keep track of my sustained xp/hour once I find a keeper. Cheers and good day.

Time to go home and play...

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There's the problem. You can do that with the entire mission's worth. You can lock an entire mission's worth of mobs on you at once. You can then Burn Patch/AE them to death in one easy application. Zero risk. Maximum reward.

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I have died many times using this tactic though, so there is definitely risk involved. The "No Risk." part of it is up until about 1/2 to 3/4s of the map are on me, then I start getting rocked constantly. Sometimes, I will have to kill off some of the herd at the 3/4s point, either to lessen the damage coming in or to acquire more insps for the final battle. I still regularly pop greens and purps like a madman. I *have* to use reds if I am doing the killing myself. I don't have any way to kill the herd in one shot, but I am not really limited on how long it takes to kill them like a squishy would be. I can take an hour to kill them if need be, but that would only slow me down. The risk involved only serves to make it more rewarding to me on a personal level, as the player, when I succeed. The risk is certainly not an effective deterrent.

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"Let's pump it up to max and see if I can wipe the whole map clear in one shot."

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The problem is that of course we, as human beings, would always do that when it's possible. Everytime. Guaranteed. It would take a good bit of ignorance or alot of willpower to not see the advantages and utilize them to accel. And it *is* possible, so here I am doing it.

I originally hated the boredom of farming, but as a player who has been here since beta, there became a higher level of boredom associated with not doing it, mostly a feeling of nearly endless timesink and travel, with a pittance of a reward coming in for your troubles. I am limited to the amount of time I have to play, and because I am stubborn, I am also self-limited to doing whatever I believe is the most valuable action for my time. Whether it's Taunting old ladies to death, killing Paragon's policemen, etc. I'm all for it, if I can get my pink bar chuggin' along a little faster. Not heroic at all, but neither is blazing past the old ladies and cops in trouble, only because they are being troubled by greys. I'm not a hero, I just play one in a game.

I don't have enough interest in the story I already read or the TFs I've already done, to read/do them over again and pretend they're something new and great. They're not. Not for the umpteenth time. The only new and great thing left for me to do is play with different characters, and I'm not just blindly leveling them, I am playing with them. I am learning the limits of my own builds and also leveling at a speed I feel is more on par with what the game should offer to all players all the time. I cannot see how I could possibly be hurting or offending other players who don't even know I'm there. I'm in my missions, and I *do not* send tells looking for other people to farm them with me. Most people aren't interested anyway, for whatever reason, so why should I even bother them with the offer.

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This tells me something's wrong on the mob side of things.

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No. I am a tank. I am doing what a well-built tank *should* be able to do. I am sure as I get into the higher-level missions, this will become harder and harder to pull off. Perhaps some reworking of the combat AI could help, but changing the basics, like the damage/acc/HP/power tables for mobs, would hurt everyone else to the extreme just to make it slightly more challenging for herders. The mobs are balanced so that all the ATs can still manage to do their most of their missions solo, at least on heroic. Changing the mobs around to make me less effective at my only role, and making it stunningly difficult for others is not, IMHO, a good idea. Combat AI improvements maybe, but...

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I'm not for the leash either. Frankly, it's ineffective and annoying, and that's about all it seems to be good at.

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/agree

There are a plethora of ways around it if you're PLing an alt, and it is a kick in the jimmy to the way I *used* to normally streetsweep.

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No offense, but if that isn't a shining example of something being -wrong- with an AT vs. Environment...when the -entire population- of an Invincible-level mission at ONCE isn't a threat...that means there isn't any risk to the Tanker in question. Not that the Tanker needs to be nerfed- but the mobs need better attacks to deal with the tank. I'm guessing from the level, we're talking Fire tanking here?

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None taken. The same can be said about any AT though, depending on their gameplay methods. I am a tank, taking hits effectively is what I have been gifted with and when I am doing my job the rest of the team should be relatively safe. I am not the only one who is useful to a farming team, but a good tanker is definitely the base requirement. A controller can hold my herd all at once, negating the damage for a good portion of the time, and they might just have some buffs too. A blaster can AoE them in a few shots. A scrapper can effectively herd a smaller area of the map and bring them to me and "hand" them off, and then also help out alot in the final battle and most have a few AoEs as well. A defender can help me herd without using insps, and might bring some blaster-like AoEs to the table. Everyone is useful in a herding session to some degree, does that make everyone too powerful? Or is it just herding in and of itself that you don't like?

I'm not a firetank, too trendy for me. I am an Invuln/Axe tanker. Invuln lends itself well to herding, because the more mobs that are nearby, the greater protection you have from the herd. I also might add that I use *all* my available primaries to be that effective, and they are properly slotted with SOs, so I have very few attacks, all of which have their default slot.

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Add in a loss of control. If you've got that many mobs targeting you, your ability to taunt them ALL should be impaired. They (of these, some or all at once) should scatter, back off and LOSE aggro, target other heroes in range- basically, if you're covered in too many bad guys, the other bad guys should be doing something else BUT trying to hump your leg with ranged attacks.

As it stands, you have the unlimited capacity to hold mobs on you until they are capable of overloading your defenses- and as you stated, you are capable of taking an entire Invincible mission's worth of mobs on those defenses and not blinking twice.

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The loss of control comes into play if and when I die. The herd then turns on the team, and everyone nearby dies almost instantly. When that does happen, I like it to be obvious to everyone that it was my fault that it happened. "Just blame me!" I can forgive myself, but often I do not extend that courtesy to others as freely. Luckily, the xp is always enough to keep the team at it even after a catastrophic failure on my part.

I don't usually allow people to follow me and the herd around, becuase they *could* die. Instead, most people will wait at the entrance until the "all clear", then they come back to where I'm at with the herd for the action. They're gonna be plenty at risk when I call them back to do their part. Healers and damage dealers are difficult to get aggro back from, especially with many mobs. As you add teammates, you add to the number of mobs. If someone is on team but is not helping in some way, they are making my job that much tougher. But if they do help, it becomes alot easier to handle more mobs than I could alone.

If there were a finite limit to how many I can keep aggro'd at once, I would most likely not be able to challenge myself at that limit, and would continue on doing two, three, or more herds instead of one big one, but at no risk to my tank. I'm pretty flexible, and as long as I'm still herding I'm still having fun.

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Actually, making mob responses to taunting more unpredicatable once the number aggroed gets too high would be wonderful. Making hordes of mobs a threat over time to a Tanker like yourself would be better.

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Some mobs are indeed a threat, any with stun/hold/disorent effects often drop your toggles after a bombardment of such attacks. Once my toggles drop, I might as well be a squishy, because I go down like one. A defender with CM can rid me of that fear of toggledrop though. There is always risk involved in herding, it just takes a huge number of mobs to put me beyond what I can safely handle.

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Heck no. But if you're farming Invincible missions with zero challenge for exp, where's the fun in that? Heck, what do you do for a challenge short of AV's? Giant Monsters solo? Heck, you've played a Fire/Fire blaster to the high 40's. Would an Invincible-set mission be a challenge to him?

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Heroic and Rugged present zero challenge, even with a full map's worth at once. Killing them is easy as well. Herding Tenacious+ is where I feel I am putting my tank at risk, invinc being the greatest risk. It gets alot harder to drop them at these levels too. As far as fun goes... I do have alot of fun herding, I enjoy doing it, it gets me alot of /em praise's from teammates in-game, and the xp is nothing to scoff at. Most people who haven't seen a herd before are either flatout disgusted or totally enthralled by the fact it is even possible. I have fun doing alot of the "mainstream" things too, because I have an almost god-like capacity to tank during those "normal" gameplay circumstances. The xp for doing it is where I have an issue. It is less reward for less risk, so it is not out of line, and I think it should be that way. That is why I like to aim for the highest-risk/highest-reward behavior all the time. Usually that amounts to herding masses like I do.

I cannot do anymore than tank an AV because it takes at least 2 damage dealers to compete with their insane regen rates. I would assume the same for any giant monsters as well. I tanked an AV this weekend for my SG. L49 Dominique. It was really fun, especially since my tank is only 27 and I have a way to go before I would get to fight one otherwise. We even herded up her minions twice before we completed it the third time. Fun for me. XP from the minion farming. It offered all that I could want from a team. Now if only we could get that xp without the farming, but by just doing the mission the normal way, there would essentially be no reason for most of us to farm at all. Some people would still farm it to milk every last drop of xp out of it, but so what.

My blaster is built to have every AoE available, all of them 6ed. I do his missions set to Unyielding to provide more mobs per group. I have successfully tried Invincible, but it offers substantially less xp/min than Unyielding, so I stick with that. He is mainly a herdkiller though, because his damage is overkill on the one or two mobs at a time found in missions. Missions offer a challenge to him, but because of the lack of xp from it, I usually employ a tank a few levels beneath him to herd stuff for my AoEs. If herding is not an option, hunting L50 Nemesis in PI is how I utilize my AoEs. It takes him a laughable amount of time to clear a mission solo, so I just stick to large minion groups of nems and kill herds when I can.

Notice he still isn't 50? Getting to 50 is not my goal with any of my toons, having fun playing them is. That goal is virtually unattainable if I just solo all my missions and disregard farming and herding altogether. That is simply not good enough after what I have witnessed in this game. The most challenging things I have done are arguably undesirable. Being PLed isn't the answer for me either, as my ego doesn't really allow me to just sit there for very long. I wouldn't mind a boost up to 22 on most of them, but after that I wouldn't dream of PLing them any further. I like to be the one doing the PLing, if involved in PLing at all.

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Personally, I think the ability to dump 60+ mobs in a dumpster is a problem.

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I constantly use that tactic when teaming, specifically to get all the mobs within a tightly-packed area so I can keep them all aggro'd with Taunt. Once aggro'd in that area, the team may open fire, but until then I really can't be a proper meatshield nor can I guarantee anyone's safety. I do this with a few mobs or many, depending on the team's overall level of competence, sometimes the whole mission's worth. It's just a yummy side effect that afterwards all you need is AoEs to kill the now completely aggro'd(on me) mobs too. I absolutely hate it when someone who is not a tank, aggro's the mobs in a mission before aggro has been properly acquired, and then expects the tank to save their hide. I will /kick or suggest it to the leader if the person does that *and* complains when they die. One or the other, but doing both is beligerance, and is behavior worthy of kickage, not our pity for them being so dumb. It is not safe to attack/hold/debuff until the tank has the mobs where he feels he can hold enough of them to save lives after the attacks/holds/debuffs commence. It is always better for all the mobs to be in one spot when trying to hold aggro throughout a battle, at least until Taunt works differently that is.

This is also as valid a tactic for a solo powergamer as it is for a blatant SK/Bridge powerleveler as it is for teams running missions. This is how people used to(in the "old days") get to 50 by doing only missions, and in good time, despite the fact you come up millions of xp short without some farming in your career. I believe if you're solo, you can't be powerleveling someone else and your gameplay should not be the target of any half-cocked fixes. Just because it is valid tactic for both PLers and PGers alike, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

I regularly farm my missions with my tank(L27) when no one else is around. For the 1-out-of-5 farmables I get, I herd the entire map into one spot and crush them, wash, rinse, repeat usually until I outlevel the mission. Cheating myself? No. I am covering all my streetsweeping, on my own, inside my own missions, and still do not miss out on arcs/contacts/mishes. I am closing the xp gap left open if I'd chose to do each and every mission only for the completion bonuses.

The new leash gives me even more reason to stick to soloing inside missions, and farming missions when possible. QuadSoloing, or Scooby Dooing, *was* the only type of streetsweeping that was up to my rather high xp/hour standards. I never just get on a team and hunt "whatever", it's just not fun for me, rather frustrating, especially when I know there's something better I could be doing.

I have tried killing one or two mobs at a time, and besides being boring and worth 0% challenge value to a tank, it is incredibly slow to boot. My way = 10 minutes. Not my way = 30 minutes. My way only offers the xp bonus once, but I get a 3-for-1 xp:time ratio on any mobs inside the mission. The way missions are spawned presents nothing more than timesink for a solo tank. If I can handle the entire Invincible-difficulty mission's mobs in one herd, how could 2-3 ever be a challenge? The biggest challenge for me is dealing with the endurance downtime, which is a challenge of one's patience, not one's skill nor experience. In fact, I would go as far as to say the latter is a total and utter waste of *any* skill or experience one might have.

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If too many targets aggro on a single target, after X number of mobs, the rest should stick to a "stand and shoot at range" tactic instead of mindlessly attempting to melee (though they should still have aggro, as long as something doesn't distract them).

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Mobs already have this mechanism built into their combat AI. It doesn't matter in the least, and here's why:

Line of Sight. LoS is the reason why this doesn't work. I herd frequently, and there are always a good third of the mobs that *will* "stand and shoot at range", but if you just run around a corner or jump into a dumpster, etc., the mobs will come to you and pile up to regain their LoS. They will jump up onto the edge of the dumpster, and then proceed to attack with ranged weapons despite the fact they are 2ft. away.

Are you sure you've ever actually seen someone herding? I mean, it's obvious that it already works that way if you have. Tanks always "run and hide" while herding, not because they are in danger but because they are trying to get the mobs to gather for the AoEs. Mobs in melee mode will always close to attack, but ranged buggers need to be unable to see you for you to get them to follow. The way a tank will aggro, run and hide, aggro, run and hide pretty much negates any type of response from the mobs, save for them just all dropping their aggro at once. Even then, it would be easy enough to reacquire sufficient aggro in a few seconds, if they're already grouped in a herd.

Sometimes, certain mobs will always use their ranged instead of melee, you just have to be smarter than what you're dealing with if you want to herd them. Some mobs, like Vahz Cadavres, and any of the BP husks, are notoriously horrible for herding because they can't keep up like other mobs can and you lose aggro alot easier because it takes them twice as long to get to the "spot". I call them unfarmable and missions with those mobs inside are only worth their completion bonus to me. I always let out a "doh" when I get a Banished Pantheon mission-bearing contact. Maybe all mobs should be fixed so they're just like cadavres and husks to crush my buzz altogether.

"Bad! Bad gamer! You're affecting everyone else's gameplay by making them look like slackers! How many times do I have to tell you? Play like they do or be nerfed into submission!"

IMO, you are right FrostyBot. Cheers to you.

Having a level 50 on an account in no way assures you someone knows their way around, and it shouldn't have been made into a goal for people to attain. I don't think people getting to 50 should've become all important. More reasons to blindly PL to the end.

With the new changes from each Issue, I like to take a deep breath and build a new alt on the chance the early levels are somewhat different or improved. I can't complain if I don't at least try it, right? I will do it again when I4 goes live and hopefully, some of the things I previously loved to hate early on will have improved since I3. Here's to Galaxy City and temp travel powers!

I think brute force leveling is something *some* people will at least attempt to do no matter what, and I don't think it can be stopped. Some people are just like that. A greater majority of people I know that play alot would rather PL their friends than play their new alt, often hoping someone else will get their own alt through some dread in exchange. Their experience leads them to believe it will take a significant amount of time otherwise. If there is dread involved, we don't want it. So you understand what I mean by dread, I mean tutorial, timesink, and travel. The three Ts. The first time it was all just part of the show, but over and over it's enough to drive a person to feel like they're done with the game, even though they haven't seen half of it yet. Enter powerleveling.

There have been some great ideas tossed around, it's sad to see the leash got implimented first, rather than some of the other, much better ones. I like the idea of XP absorbtion myself, but still I have to wonder... What is normal leveling? Some people play 8-16 hours a day, some maybe more, some only 2-3, who knows?. I've played an entire weekend on a few hours of sleep. If you go by the average powergamer's daily xp rate+, which is the minimum you could go by without stepping on honest feet, you're still giving folks quite a bit of headroom to continue PLing, just a bit slower and more structured. This idea is much less intrusive than the leash by far, but I don't like it at all that at some point "normal leveling" will have to be defined and hardcapped. No sir, can't say that sits too well with me at all. If you take the xp averages for today from any one server, the data will be skewed horribly because a good chunk of the population are PLing or being PLed. The skewing of the data will either work against PLers, in that the devs could take the average and truncate it to account for the PLing, leaving a very painful and narrow cap, or it could work for the PLers if they base the caps on the current xp/day/server average.

A quick idea I'll run past you that I thought could help lessen some of the disparity between high and low level SG mates who want to team up. I've found that problem to be very common.

===

An SK getting SO or DO % boosts regardless of what is slotted, if they are with SO or DO-capable mentors, would help to narrow the very wide gap between a mentor and his SK alot. Not entirely, but a good bit. I know of several SGmates that would *not* have PLed their characters had this been the case. They would rather be useless for two nights watching herds, than useless for a month. Once I hit 22 and slot my SOs, I can go hang in PI SK'd a 50 and actually help to some degree, even tank for them. SOs make all the difference. In any commonplace PL session, SKs don't do anything, so it wouldn't be helping them out any. It's already bad enough we have few powers and slots, do our enhancements really *have* to be 1/2 or 1/4 as effective as our mentor's?

===

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You just described CoH to me there, and essentially said you played it to death. That's sorta scary.

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I meant the oughts and teens, actually... And I really did that to myself. I played then deleted so many characters prior to I2 in an attempt to figure out what I liked best, I over-experienced the early levels, well... early. I'm not asking for special concessions from anyone to make up for it. It's my own fault. I got burnt on the early level game because it was all I played for 4 months before settling on my main. I still try new characters and I don't always just rush off to PI immediately with them. I liked The Hollows, it gave me that one reason I needed to stay out of PI, and give the early levels a chance again.

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If it's optional for you, why isn't it optional for everyone?

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Is it not? I thought we were all able to do it whenever we wanted and that slowly but surely, equally eliminating the option to PL for everyone was the ultimate goal. It is very much an option for everyone I play with except people who beg, beggars do not usually get the option thrown their way as frequently as people who are not annoying.

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Should I be able to start at 14th? 20th?

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Yes, I believe you should. It should be up to you, if you do not enjoy a part of the game, to find a way past it. That is what I have done to keep a continued interest in playing CoH with several toons. /sarcasm I thought PLing was just an easter egg the devs put in there to make up for the 300+ hours you have to put in to get to 50 the first time. /end sarcasm

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The ability to skip parts of the game would just be another carrot to leveling as fast as possible- a cure could be as bad as the disease.

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Are you suggesting that would be a worse or more intrusive cure than the ill-concieved leash? Many people who openly admit to PLing are usually willing to give some reason why. My reason is: I liked the gameplay the first time but I felt alot of it was a drag each time after that. A drag that is there to slowly and drudgingly teach someone new to the game how to play over the course of a month or so, something I feel I have already accomplished. It was a drag = Not fun. Anything that a large portion of people do not enjoy should be deemed optional. This is a game and everything should be enjoyable, but a third of the game is spent getting to the enjoyment. If you like that part of the game and have found nothing wrong with it, then you have no need to skip it. If you don't like it, you should be able to go right past it, just like Outbreak. I don't think I'm the only well-seasoned player to complain about this. Those not complaining are likely gone already or have gotten used to having friends that will get you where you want to be.

I'm not gonna try to convince you that free L20s is a good idea though, because I don't think it is. My opinion is that I like things just the way they are. I like that I can get PLed to where I want to be and go off and play at the level I already know I enjoy. I'd always like to be able to trust in my own judgement regarding for how long and when it ends. I do see your point and it has been well recieved here. Who's to say if I can start at 20 I won't PL to 45 to get past the next "bad" part I chose to skip? I start with max debt? A few hours at Portal Corp ought to solve that. Woohoo, free L20s and a decent reason(debt) to start getting 'em PLed right away. Where does it end, if at all? 50 obviously, which is where alot of people want PLed to anyway. PLing exists comprehensively throughout CoH, as do ways to achieve it. There is not one way to do it but many. PLing is widespread enough that I think there are some glaring gameplay issues that the desire for PLing stems from.

All your levels are belong to us. -CoH EULA

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And seeing people monsterbate their way into the top of the level chart only means the next step of those people demanding nothing but top level content (because all the good stuff should be uber!) and disrupting the development of the game as a whole, living thing.

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I have yet to monsterbate, but thanks anyway! I simply dread a hero's life before SOs, and I am not willing to play most ATs prior to their availability. I have deleted more toons in their teens than I would care to admit. Before the respec trials came along, that was how you fixed bad power/slot choices, you just rerolled 'em as soon as you figured out you f'd up. I have seen most if not all of it before, and I am not interested in seeing it again. Really though, someone shouldn't need to give a reason why they are in favor of keeping the option to PL in CoH. They're doing whatever it takes to keep themselves interested enough to pay for one or more accounts every month, isn't it bad enough they had to resort to an "undesirable" method of gameplay to accomplish it. Where you see an "evil player", I see "design flaws". Human beings by nature will gravitate to the most rewarding behavior.

The way I see it, CoH has already begun on it's path down that dark, lonley road that you mentioned. The further into developing high-level content the dev team goes, the more people there are that would rather be doing "the good stuff". Khelds, APPs, and Hami raids are the types of content that become a HUGE factor as to why even folks that dislike the notion of PLing would succumb to it's temptation. What you have stated as happening as a result of PLing, is in fact what is causing a great deal of the demand for it. Ham-handed attempts to remove PLing and victimize it's advocates will not remove the demand for it's presence, it will only serve to alienate the folks that figured out that there is a need for it.

Slight increases to leveling speed(read: major overhaul) in the L30-50 range, increased xp rewards for TFs and AV battles, temporary travel power rewards being mixed into the early missions... These and many other good ideas have been shot down or pushed aside despite the reality that they would strike an impressive blow to PLing, by removing the very reasons why people do it. I feel that when these and several other timesink-based issues are addressed, the now existent masses who PL every day will fade into a minority, and most importantly, they will do so of their own free will and not because it was imposed on them. Until I am paying less than $14.95/mo per account, then the game has *not* been devalued in the least on my end.

/sarcasm
If PLing is going to eventually result in subscription prices dropping, then I'm all for it! /sign
/end sarcasm

I am quite fond of PLing, because as the game is now, I feel it is a necessary evil in Paragon. As is avoiding it if you feel it is not for you, because once you've seen the dark side, you'll not soon be heading back towards the light. If PLing your alts is all that keeps you playing, then so frickin' be it. Why should you be unwelcome? I don't agree with it, as I PL to get past the dread, not to bypass the entire game.

I don't personally think anyone should engage in PLing activities until *after* the honeymoon with CoH, so to speak, is over for them. I see no reason a fresh player should get PLed, there really is too much out there to be experienced and learnt to just bypass it all. But I believe it should be a choice left up to the individual, not (*gulp*, I know I'll get hell for this) the Lead Designer. The Lead Designer should be figuring out what makes us tick, and why we are doing this instead of enjoying what he has made for us to enjoy.

Friends to be made. Missions and TFs to complete. Badges to earn. Plenty of locations, travel routes, and villain groups to learn about. When you know nothing else, the early levels really are downright fun. Sadly, I've already played that part of CoH to death, and feel it should be left up to me whether I need to bypass it. I am paying. I should decide how I play.

There are alot of wonderful times to be had playing CoH the "right" way. The same can be said about PLing though, when leveling up and playing with different builds becomes the only new content left unexplored. Doing Sister Psyche's TF for the 4th time, I took notice that it was no different than the first time, and I was only in it for the badge and the social value I place on teaming with other people for several hours. Did I PL past it? No. It still holds some gameplay value to me, it is still a fraction of the *only* game I have found worthy of my time. It was just not fun, exciting, or rewarding after already doing it.

No game developer will likely impress veteran players by forcing them down a narrow and time consuming path, when those players have already seen the faster, more enjoyable side of things. Yeah, yeah... I already got it. It sucks to be a hero-in-training. I don't need to play through it all again to reaffirm my belief that it lacks any real thrill, challenge, or fun the 30th time through. I have adopted the belief that levels 3-21 are just an extended tutorial like Outbreak, and like Outbreak is now, should be optional. A level 1 sprinting to Portal Court without dying, now that's a challenge even for a long-time CoH player.

There are plenty of bad elements involved no matter which way you play, but they can heavily outweigh the good in the normal course of the game, especially early on. No travel or Fitness pools. Lack of powers to use. Lousy pickups involving other people with a lack of powers to use. Annoying tells. Blind invites. Kill stealing. I am not here to say PLing is better, but it's at least a partial solution to the issues some people obviously have with the game's advancement rate and early levels which are simply rank with unknowledgable/unteachable people. PLing has it's ups and downs just like playing the early levels outright does. It takes a healthy bit of "good" to balance out the "bad", and for me, the early levels contained at least twice as much hassle, timesink, and annoyance as 22-48 has, without any of the upside, so it's no wonder I will avoid it if I can. It's not my fault that it feels like punishment to go through AP again, I place that responsibility on Statesman and his team. I can move on, or I can continue to pay and play to my tastes. Paying to play through King's Row a few more times? Well... no thanks. I have a love-hate relationship with CoH. I love it in a general way, it is like a second home and is the most immersive RPG experience that I have been a part of, but I very much despise the tutorial-like feel of the early level gameplay once you've already drudged through it.

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On a mission (mission slider set to unyielding) 5 groups of 10 - 15 yellow and orange Nemesis mobs standing around. Cast PA to gather aggro, cast the ST on the edge of first group (away from 2nd so as not to aggro) and everything in the 1st group turned fired at me all of them must have landed a hit because death followed.

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So lemme get this straight... The aggro an ST draws doesn't get directed at the ST, but at the player whose ST it is? Wth good is an invincible pet that doesn't at least draw aggro for it's own attacks?

Two words...

Respec. Fodder.

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If anyone else knows how to get from lvl 16 to lvl 32 in four days using any other strategy besides PLing, please turn us all on to it. We'll all do that instead, and gone forever will be the days of the dreaded PL. Until then though, I'll be leveling however I can.

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Yeah because like...heaven forbid that you actually play the game. That would just be plain wrong...

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It's not like I'm trying to dodge gameplay, I really enjoy CoH. But anytime there is has been a big lull in xp(level 30-31 was an awkward level and is a good example), my SG friends have been there to pull me through, and THAT is what kept the grind bearable and the game interesting.

I originally thought my first time into the game, that being SK'd would have an effect similar to powerleveling, as if though the higher-level hero were actually helping me beyond just raising my clvl. I still think it should be that way, again because being SK'd and fighting should *always* yield better results than being the right level and just sitting around while someone else fights. It's not like that at all, so the xp is better for them if you are willing to let them "sit this one out" rather than SKing them and having them help you. The few times I was PLed I got a quick level, another power, and went on doing my own thing. It only opened my eyes to what is possible. Currently, I am almost always the one PLing someone else.

I don't think anyone should just sit and get PLed through their whole career, nor with their main, but it's not my place to decide, it's theirs. Some people want to skip to the end and move on to the next game. But then, why play at all? It's their $15, and they can do whatever they want as long as it's ok with Statesman and crew. If it's not cool with the devs, it will stop. I don't know why it is assumed that if someone is pro-PL, that they don't want to play the game.

The main point of my post was this:

There should always be an option to bypass the grind. It should never be available to a solo hero. Choosing whether or not to do it is a personal decision, as is whether or not you do it a few times or everyday. If the dev team ever considered powerleveling to be a cheat, hack, exploit, or undesired gameplay element, it would not be possible. Like I said in my last post, reward is everything. If the design team wants people doing something, all they need to do is make it rewarding. Apparently, they wanted alot of us sitting at the tram, because that is what is most rewarding.

I think issue #2 has given players a few other opportunities to get great xp and still participate, without having to resort to PLing at the tram. It was a needed change. It's a heroic step in the right direction, and I hope CS keeps it up.

Maybe they will consider adding some extra enahncement slots as a reward for completing a TF for the first time, along with the badges. TFs still leave me feeling like it was too much timesink/work to only recieve xp, inf, and SOs, which can be obtained quicker and in greater quantities street sweeping. Something along those lines would definitely coax more powergamers into believing TFs are always worth the trouble(they should be, right?), and would be a reward that you can't ever score while being PLed.

Come on Statesman... I'll play however you want us to, just keep the xp comin'!

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I think that PLing is a kind of bug in the game. How is it right that a person can just stand there at the train station and level. I know a guy that went from 16 to 32 in four days by PLing. This is not right.

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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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A feature should be added that cuts ex if the character is not moving for a certain time period. I believe that PLing is a form of cheating as it takes advantage of a game feature in a way that was not meant to be.

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I believe that enabling people to PL their friends adds an infinite amount of replay value to CoH. Along with that replay value comes a certain amount of security for most players. If they get just one character with a good build into the 30's, they can rest assured knowing that they can arrange to have their alts leveled. It adds another commodity for players to trade, levels.

Seems to me, you may just be too short-sighted to realize that what you think should happen and what the devs "meant" to happen may never overlap. If there was no possible way to ever get out of having to start over, most people would play one character to 50 and be completely and utterly done with the game. That's awful. Especially for a subscription game. Hence, the unspoken requirement that all MMORPGs have some loophole in the system to allow for PLing, usually requiring a high-level character to pull off. Try for a moment to fathom what would happen if all the people(not just the ones being PLed, but the actual workhorses out there too) drop their subscription because for them, being able to PL someone else was the only surefire way that they can get one of their alts PLed in trade. Nothing else in the game is as valuable as levels. PLing has been very common(and often the hottest topic) in every MMORPG that has hit the market, to expect any different in CoH is a bit childish.

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I have had two amusing encounters with people PLing. The first one was when I encountered some people doing it (they were sitting on the Brick station) and they denied that they were. Then, the one guy suddenly levels! He didn't know what to say! The second was after a week of working to get to 29 I finally made it! I then went to the trainer in Brick and two people leveled while just standing there. It appeared that they weren't even using their character and where afk.

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I have thoroughly searched through the ToA that everyone must accept to even start the game, and nowhere in it resides any conduct rule regarding "...leveling faster than someone else..." or "...being afk while leveling faster than someone else...". To be honest, I think PLing is just another of the "group-only" features of the game, put in place to allow SOMEONE ELSE to help you out and farther your character. My first PL experience ever involved someone from my SG helping me get rid of my max debt from a TF, once I was done I just couldn't even think of doing another timesink mission or TF when I knew that this level of xp gain was possible. Since you can only do it with another willing person, I think it is just another of the many ways to get where you're going, albeit 2-3 times faster.

Tons of the content in the game hinges on you leveling, when you level you get new powers(content), access to higher level areas, mobs, and TFs(more content), and contacts(content scores once again!). If you want to see alot of that content before CoV, much less with many characters, PLing will be neccessary at some point. Most importantly, it *is* a successful xp/inf/drop drag on the workhorse(certainly not a something for nothing situation), and that means no one is just going to do it for some idiot they don't know.

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Frankly, this took a little out of the game for me. What is the meaning of planning and spending months on a character and facing death and debt when others don't have to.

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If something I have done through my course of actions has in any way taken away from your gaming experience, I apologize. If it is just your own jealousy, envy, etc. that is bothering you, I retract my apology because I think you are a fool. You should keep in mind that what may ruin the game for you could be the one reason why another(many) person(people) would stay. Balance. Good vs Evil. Black vs White. PL vs Grind.

What is it that makes the "others" not have to work(it's alot more work setting up and planning a good PL session than the petty challenges in missions), but forces you to act otherwise? Did the game pop-up a little window forbidding ONLY you from being PLed, OR ELSE!? You have almost answered your own question here... If you spend those months planning and working with a single character with an optimal build, you are almost guaranteed to find someone who will level your alts if you'll level theirs. Period. That is what PLing is all about.

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Remember games are supposed to have some code of conduct and instant advancement is not usually one of them.

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Oh remember I do. That code of conduct is flashed in front of every player each time they start the game, must be accepted to continue, and is referred to as the Terms of Agreement. Read it sometime, it does wonders for the average person's understanding of "the rules".

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...and instant advancement is not usually one of them.

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You aren't talking about instant advancement, you are talking about PLing another character at the cost of your own leveling speed...

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I know a guy that went from 16 to 32 in four days by PLing.

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Since when is four days even distinctly instant in any way? If you had said "I know a guy who made a macro that gives him a full bar of xp each time he presses it!", then you would be onto something really wrong. You also forget that those four days cost approx. $2 in subscription time for that guy, plus four-days worth of the cost of the game in the first place. If that money he spent doesn't give him the right to do ANYTHING the game's mechanics and ToA will allow, then I don't know what would.

If he's paying his money, not griefing anyone, and not harrassing anyone, why should he care about your ethics or morals, or do anything besides what HE wants to do? Did he tell you that he used a technique that only he has access to? Did other people's nearby characters suddenly lose 5 levels and their enhancements or influence when he leveled? If so, it was definitely a bug and was very wrong, otherwise you are just being a snotty little [censored] because he is benefiting from something anyone can offer to do for someone else.

You must realize that the majority of people who would even consider getting involved in and paying for an MMORPG, are also the same people who are going to gravitate to the most rewarding actions in-game. Often, the most rewarding thing you can do may not exactly be in the spirit of the game, but most people will do it day and night anyway. If that means beating up old ladies(villainous, rather than heroic), you can bet that there won't be a safe old lady anywhere in Paragon.

If the devs truly want to control what paths people will take in the course of the game, reward is everything, and they know it. Enormous mission rewards, higher mob xp, allowing us to hit/damage deep purples, those would all be great ways to fizzle out PLing as we know it. If every form of "official" reward in the game is raised to an adequate level, PLing wouldn't even be worth the time it takes to arrange it. But then, instead of a small minority of people PLing their alts to their favorite part of the game, everyone would just be leveling like crazy, no matter what they did(dirtnaps and dancing excluded). That's not good for subscriptions, either.

But as it stands, NONE of the "official" ways to level can even come close to being PLed here and there. It takes me an average of 4-6 hours to get an alt to level 10. Being SKed and PLed you can get there in a little over an hour. Even if it takes some chump 3 hours to charm someone into PLing them, they're still doing better than if they'd ran around KR for those 3 hours. Why would an intelligent person choose to do anything else?

If anyone else knows how to get from lvl 16 to lvl 32 in four days using any other strategy besides PLing, please turn us all on to it. We'll all do that instead, and gone forever will be the days of the dreaded PL. Until then though, I'll be leveling however I can.