kendall

Quite honestly, that is not the result of PLing... but the result of a bad decision made by your team captain. They should have known better than to place the rest of the team at risk. The team captain knew what level they were when they were invited. Captains fault... not that of PLing.

If the game mechanics were correct, there would not be a need to PL in the first place. We all would be content with the leveling rate. however, there are the exceptions that GS brought up in the privious post. Things like trying out new powers, etc.

ALL HAIL THE GREAT SCOTT!!

Thank you for putting so elloquently what I have failed to do my last few posts... plus some. Everything that you have said makes perfect sence...

And I would love to hear your views on your latter mentioned subject matter :wasted Dev time, and why altering XP gains "tell people how to play"

Thanks again GS!

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But I'm not going to pay to play a "grind-fest" anymore, and that's precisely what this "game" with the release of I4 has become.
YMMV.

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A grind fest is right. At least after level 40 ish. Have I PLed? sure.. not often. None at all before level 44. Not really a need before level 40. You gain enough xp to level pretty regularly. After 40 though.... let the grind fest begin. This is where people get bored.. this is where people loose interest. People should be allowed to reach that goal of 50 in a reasonable amount of time. If the carrot is the level.. by the time you get close to 50, that carrot is old, dried up and rotten. I am not saying that players should level thier characters from level 1 however, if that is how they want to play .. cool.
If you think people will leave once they hit 50, i think that you are wrong. Reason being, with all of the epic AT out now and being released (kheldian, corlax, avian, etc...) people will remain for a long time. They will remain just so long as they can have FUN playing the game. Playing the game they way that they want. As long as no one is imposing anything upon anyone else, who cares what they do. Let the game be enjoyable for everyone. Keep it enjoyable and people will not only stay, but they will bring friends.. and THEY will bring friends! and that means money!

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[The attempt to nerf pling has to stop! Because it is actually nerfing the FUN for some!!!



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Yes, I agree..
It is nerfing the fun for SOME... PLing is hurting NONE! If you do not like it.. DO NOT DO IT!! Why try to alter part of the game if you take no part in it? People that are yelling to stop PLing take no part in it and therefore it does not effect them anyway. Why change something that does not effect you? If you answer "it does effect me because it will change the game contet" that is full of bunk! You know as well as I that the devs are constantly developing new game content for all level ranges. Flashbacks are coming and other things. Will people that PL miss out on content? well, with flash backs... no. It is again thier option if they want to take part in that portion of the content. Flash backs allow you to go back and do that.
Why do people constantly try to change things because in thier ideal it is wrong despite that a large number of people enjoy things as they are. Now, if PLing infringed on other players enjoyment of the game that would be one thing. It does not. If you say that you get asked all the time to PL someone... you should just ignore them and go on with your game playing. PLing is not hurting anyone or the game. It allows people to bypass content that they have already done many times before. If they want to go back and take part... they can exemplar down or flash back. If anything... it keeps players around longer because after doing the ginding levels to 50 people get bored doing it over and over. Those people would leave normally. But with the option of PLing they stay around. Paying money each month. That is the bottom line. Getting people to stay.

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Actually, someone else has suggested a better idea for eliminating pl'ing: eliminate levelling altogether.

The reason people want to level as quickly as possible isn't necesarily to skip lower level content (although after your first 50, levelling alts through The Hollows can be a tedious grind), but to get the powers that come with advanced levels.

Why not simply make all the powersets and power pools available at the character design screen, and let people outfit their toons there (including all the slots you would get for a lvl 50)? Damage and powers would be still be scaled to level, and missions would reward with enhancements, TF's with respecs for people to tweak their builds as they learn what works and what doesn't.

PL'ing exists to get powers and enhancements. Let people have them all up front, and you eliminate the need to PL, and the missions become worth doing again, just to get the enhancements you need to fill slots. At that point, SK'ing becomes more fun, too, because you have the powers to go with any advanced level you might play.

Furthermore, creating alts and trying new builds becomes more fun, too.

I've always thought the notion that you had to work through levels to earn powers is a stupid way to get them, and leads to a lot of the problems all these other workarounds are trying to solve.

Simply remove the incentive to level at all, and you make the content - not levelling - the reason for playing the game.

If the devs are as confident of their content as they claim to be, then make it the reason to play. At that point, we'd really see whether the content alone is really worth paying for to play.

Doing this, however, would require the devs to put up or shut up about content, and I'm not sure these people are up to that.

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Here Here! I like this idea!

To the person that said that PLers just take up space ...
PLers make the mobs larger in your missions and then add to your XP. Because of this they are contributing, even if indirectly. Everyone is benefiting from this if they take part of a PLing mission.

I do not think that it is necessarily the fact that PLing is being nerfed... I think that it more comes down to the fact that the players are being told how to play. The decision making has been taken away from the players. If they want to PL, let them. If they do not want to... that is fine too. If the biggest problem are the calls for PLs ... then ignore them. There will always be someone broadcasting something that is going to be irritating to someone. Let the people decide how they want to play! PLing should not be nerfed because a few voices have been heard saying that they find it annoying. Who cares? If you do not like it.. don't do it. Is it hurting anyone? No. Is it taking away from your game experiance? No. If the chatter in the box is bothering you, maybe the devs shouls create a PLing tab where PLers must shout out from there instead of bothering everyone. Then, if someone is looking to pick up someone to PL.. that is where you go. If you are a PLer looking to be PLed.. that is where you go. But to nerf it is not going to solve anything.. just create more tension.

Sure it does. SKing allows people to continue to play together socailly.. however, if PLing are continued to be nerfed.. then the experiance that is earned while SKed would be nearfed as well. The only thing then that SKing would provide is a prolonged in-game life. You would not die as quickly. Would you ever be on equal footing? nope.. not unless your friends decided not to play thier characters to allow you to catch up. Is that fair to ask someone to do that? Nope. Why would anyone want to go through a game being dependant on a SK in order to play with thier friends? Rediculious... it really is.

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MMO's are a community, or so I thought.

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Yes, I agree. I have often used the referance toa coffee house. I have made some very close friends that are spread all accross the country. We meet in the CoH "coffeehouse" near daily to talk and play. we have such a good time together. we are like family. Now, if PLing were to be taken away or even continued to be nerfed, when one or more of us level past others of our group... some of them will loose interest ( as was stated by an earlier post) and will quit the game.
The content is only PART of the reason that I continue to play! It is the friendships that i have made and continut to develop that have kept me here for many months. If my friends were to ever stop playing because of a frustration like the lack of PLing in order to catch up to thier friends, then I would have no problems with not playing. There are plenty of online communities out there and I believe that it is the people that you play with that makes up 75% of the online gamming fun! Right now CoH is the best game going (IMHO) but that will change if this continues. Please do not let it. Please allow it to be a choice per player.

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The only thing that this change does is making the game less fun for some players.
PLing is going to happen weather you like it or not, and its happening everywhere, after running through all the story arcs its fun to have the ability to skip to the parts of the game that one prefers.

This is an unnecessary restrictive change, if anything, then its going to make everyone less happy about the game, for the simple fact that the players who think that PLing is some sort of bad behaviour are going to still see it happening since there is no way to prevent it completely and they will still be unhappy about it, while the players who dont mind skipping a few levels where they feel like it are going to get disappointed and of course find another way.

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I tend to agree with this. Not only that but the majority of the players that PL are the ones that have already "been there done that". Normally, they already have a high level character and are looking for something new in a character. PLing should not be stopped, slowed down or touched. I think it is up to each individual player to decide how they want to play the game. Stopping PLing is dictating to the players how they need to play the game. CoH is a wonderful game and the best, IMHO. But if things like this continue... it will be just another MMORPG. None of us want to see that happen.

I do not know if this has already been touched on... But with the balance of hero vs. villain ( a minion = a third of a hero, a LT = three quarters and a boss 1.5) will the experiance rewarded reflect the new and greater risk involved? Or will the upper level grinds be even more of a grind?