Is PLing a Form of Cheating?
By
Agrippa_CoH,
Posted on: 2004-09-09 12:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
This thread became much more enjoyable after I put Alderian on ignore.
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Really, Its an unethical exploit especially when you add in those people that make characters just to sell them and whatnot. The argument that most people are just leveling alts really does not meet with my experience and has softened the topic a bit too, as I dont really mind them doing that. My original complaint had to do with the ridiculousness and lack of reality of watching people level while doing nothing. Clearly the designers are trying to do something about this, so the subtext is that they think its wrong. A person does not have to say something directly for the meaning to be known.
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Unethical does not necessarily equal Cheat.
Cheating is a specific term. It requires rules to be broken. Cheating is a punishable offense.
And what is "obvious" to one person may be not so obvious to another. People are different and have different ways of looking at things. Therefore you cannot levy judgements or punishments on what is at best a nebulous subject - "what the Devs intended".
After all, would YOU like to be given a traffic ticket because "You were driving 65 in a 65 zone, but we meant to make it a 55 zone"?
If it's it's not specifically forbidden by the rules, it's a rules deficiency, and the rules need to be corrected, not the players.
Game design logic is a little wierd about players in that it usually dictates you treat players not as thinking breathing people, but a bit like rats in a maze. The rats will go everywhere that they can regardless of your intentions. If you want them to go a specific way, you either make it most desireable to go your way, or make it impossible/unenjoyable to go any other way. You cannot expect the rats to just know where you wanted them to go.
-np
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
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SO you have no friends and can't get powerleveled and your psychosis kicks into high gear and starts wispering to you that they are cheating. Does that actually make you feel better?
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You are assuming I or others WANT to be powerleveled.
I am a member of 4 different SGs that are all quite active. I wouldn't accept powerleveling from them if they ASKED me.
I see a rules deficiency and would like it fixed. That is all.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
Ninja,
I respect your opinion. However, as I said there has been quite a positive reaction to the topic in a variety of areas, so I believe that many agree with me. The word game though is a bit boring. I believe that PLing violates the simulation quality of the game. Clearly, this is not a rule, but as mentioned, PLing in the form that I dislike violates the spirit of the simulation. Frankly, that was a basis for my original post.
In a way kill stealing is much the same. Its legal but its almost like the person is cheating. It's different in that it does hurt the other player but that's not against the rules. I could kill steal my way to the top if I wanted but who wouldn't say that I was cheating.
Anyway, I believe that the majority of the public has weighed in one way or another. Personal attacks are all that is left. I would have stopped posting two days ago if the last word syndrome hadn't kicked in.
Note: how does Miir know that I haven't left days ago? See these are the trolls. They have nothing to add except personalized crap.
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The fact is that there are many group activities in the game and a lot of interaction, so it is not a simple game that you play by yourself.
Perhaps the analogy was not the best but I think that watching people cheat at the same activity that you are performing is annoying. Also, I don't believe that payment for the game entitles people to cheat. I'm sure that the developers didn't design a cheat system into the game. I would like to know what they think.
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What's amusing here is the self-referential argument. To answer the original question - "No, powerleveling is not cheating." Cheating, in an MMRPG can only be defined by the developers of a game. To the best of my knowledge, powerleveling is not in any way abusing either bugs in the game or violating any published rules. As such, much as you may not like it, it's not cheating.
That being said, I powerlevel my alts frequently. And, I pay the price for it. My high level characters are not nearly as high as they would be if I had simply leveled them. Powerleveling is not a freebie. SOMEONE is spending their time to gain experience for the character. Granted, the time they're spending is less than the character would've if played by itself.
I do it for a simple reason -- the purple patch. Grouping is broken in this game. More and more players are learning that and teams are forming less and less. Even when they do form, they are fun, but the exp flow is horrid. Few low level characters can soloing with any degree of efficiency. So I powerlevel my alts to the place where they can. Do I wish I'd played my characters all the way through? Yes. After having ground through the tedium several times, am I willing to do so again until grouping gets fixed? No.
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It's not fun if you level up by doing nothing.
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Mmmm, what are you smoking? How did you determine that everyone else automatically wants to grind out 30 levels? What basis did you use to judge that ALL of the player base is not interested in fast gains?
I ask this because I know the answers already, I know the truth, and I think you guys need to simply say "We don't like it, nanners nanners nanners" and be done with it.
Powerleveling is not cheating.
That being said, I think there is a distinction between two different types of "powerleveling" that many people make.
1) example: level 32 grouped with level 39, attacking 39+ mobs. Obviously the 32 is not making as large a contribution and is getting larger xp than he could himself or with a group of similar level. They are a team though, fighting together, and actively playing the game. This is great and I believe what Statesman has referred to in his comments where he says "Bravo" to powerlevling.
2) Example 2: level 5 sidekicked to a level 32, all teamed with a 39 who is doing the hunting while the other 2 take a croissant and coffee break at the tram for days. (and we have all seen people there off and on for days leveling). This is clearly to everybody, not the way the game was meant to be played (if you think it is you are deluding yourself). It is however not breaking any "rules" so is not cheating. This way is the form of Powerleveling that grates on many people and which Statesman has said will be addressed. Until it is I do not hate those who do it, but wish it to be done away with.
On a side not this powerleveling does affect me in this way. I have been in a supergroup with some friend, however all the 40-50 crowd in the group spend all their time powerleveling each other instead of wishing to sidekick and adventure with us 30's and below because of less xp. True this may require a change in super group, but after going through a few that have done the same thing, because powerleveling exists, it affects the community experience which we are supposed to be a part of.
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I'm still trying to figure out if you're just playing devil's advocate for the sake of a debate, or if you legitimately believe deep down that the game designers are glad to see this practice growing in popularity as it is.
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I used the terms "reading comprehension" and "religious crusade" previously for this exact reason. I don't think you could have proven my point any better. Some of you anti-pl'ers are so one track minded, that you fail to even see when someone agrees with you.
Let me quote myself, from the same post you just argued against:
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Actually, I agree with your statements (regarding Statesman's view on the game) completely. Powerleveling is not something a game designer wants to see his game turn into. It will happen though, as some players prefer it and the system allows it with the SK feature. This cannot be stopped, minimized perhaps, but not stopped.
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Until you can show me that you aren't being blinded by your crusade, and can understand posts completely, I don't think it's worth responding to you anymore. Hopefully, at some point, you will realize you are the proverbial dog chasing/bitting it's own tail.
I just felt compelled to add my 2 cents here, as I am currently (as I put it) PL'ing a healer (contr). HOWEVER...tactics I've used (NOTE: I have 2 top of the line pc's side by side and 2 accts, so I'm able to do this solo):
1. Teamed lvl 9 with lvl 32, SK'd. XP sucked (same as I would get at normal lvl 9, as my 32 blaster isn't a great AOE'r....YET (AR) =).
2. So, I had a fire blaster that I wanted to lvl. Blaster was 18, controller was still lvl 9 (gee...PL?). Had to SK again, but got lil more xp, as kills were faster. NOTE: In every instance my controller was active healing, stunning, etc.
3. FINALLY....had lvl 13 blaster (forgot bout her hehe)..fire again. So, I've been teaming the two of them for a WEEK (since last Sunday). Currently, the blaster is lvl 16, and the controller is 15.
That considered power lvl'ing....I think not. Nor did i EVER abuse the rules of conduct.
Cheers to those standing up for this.
Prissy =)
Can you Say "HATER"? I knew that you could! Why be jealous? Find a friend get a new hobby. My SG has low lvls that get help from high lvls and inturn they help the lower lvls when they need it. Dude, join a good SG or just play the game and shut the ........... UP! IT is a game. Honestly yoou sound like a little kid crying about having to eat all your food while your cousin is eating cake. PLAY THE GAME>
original post for this thread was 9/9/04, since then I started an alt who is now lvl24 and has never used a single power outside of outbreak.
Over the weekend I manage to spend quality time with my friends and family. Watch a ton of football. Live a normal life while my online friends helped me out.
I'll probably do a TF tonight with my new alt.
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Here's my stance...
It's the developers job to ensure that fun play equals a reward.
It's not fun if you level up by doing nothing. Now, there will always be an element of this - but in general, spawns are based on team size. Which means that an extra person on your team that is not contributing anything to the battle is a severe detriment. BUT our high level game is a little too easy - which means that high level characters can team up with low level characters - go out and do missions/street sweep - with a high degree of success.
But we are going to be ratcheting up the difficulty of higher levels, meaning that someone trying to "power level" someone will find it more challenging. If someone wants to do that, bravo, but I think we'll see the issue resolve itself....
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i don't know how this answers the question ..... or really even addresses it.
where is cryptic's policy of not rewarding people for not playing the game? perphaps we remmeber this repeated statement from exploits of the short history of coh, as well as some input player ideas , such as time released debt. i hope at least some of them remember that big ideal. not playing the game=no reward, type thing.
but i guess it makes everything ok, because we're going to tighten up the screws on the end game ....... which really is not the real problem here .... so i guess all the 35s and down will continue to abuse the system as it stands .... and that your toon sitting at the tram .. while you are making yourself a sandwich in some other room of your house .... while some guys PL you .. i guess that is suddenly playing the game and you should get the leveling reward for it.
not to mention ..... this sounds a whole lot like politician-eese (a bad habit that cryptic thinks they are good at, and are wrong in thinking that) saying "we're going to make another blanket change that will effect the people we say we are trying to effect very little but the rest o the population will be adversely effected in a much higher fashion.".
and that effect is little shock when you make decisions based on any powergamer in a system like COH's, even more so with coh's leveling method and the way powers and such open up.
persoanlly it has always made sense to me that the high end game is easier. it is the end of your super hero's developement. they have become .... super. the way tha the game's character developement works says that it will be easier in the higher game because tht's when EVERYONE gets to the most powerful powers in the game. they have the most powerful enhancers in the game. if cryptic didn't want this powerspike at the end game ... why'd they design a system that so obviously causes it?
but now it's time to "fix" it. and rather than make a fix for it and look at the problem ..... they're going to "tanks could be fixed if all the minions had more hitpoints" it.
how about first making it so that you can only team in much smaller increments stopping the +5 team PLing? the SK system is in place. there is no way anyone could complain about it. allow teaming for two levels down and then force the SK system. doesn't stop it, but it stops that + 5 crap. and there is a boig dofference between +3 and +5.
how about using the SK system that tracks distance and using it to make sure that you have to be within a cerain distance of the kill to get exp for it? how about within a certain distance to a team mate? how about a a check to see if you performed any type of activity (heal team/not self, damage, buff debuff, provoke) of an enemy mob?
or ... wait a second ... how about banning some of these tram monkeys?
it's kinda like herding. there's a real fix for herding. give the mobs a "mob mentality" power. maybe only the bosses and Lts need it. but the more people that are around them, the more powerful they become. to keep it fair on the normal player, the power doesn't kick in until a count of 10 are around them. so they go from "normal" to "buttwhooping" in one huge swoop the second that 10 other mobs are around them.
but no. it gets put on the hopper with a "fix" that was a plan that was going to be used anyway (without the reasoning of PLing) .... and frankly won't fix the problem in any form.
to those who are saying this is not a "cheat" or an "exploit" or whatever you want to call it .... because the game allows you to do it so it is not breaking the game's "rules" .... that's just sad. things like herding and sitting at the tram were never the intention of the game and everyone knows that.
this is cryptic's first game. first mmorpg. and it is evident that they have no expirience with mmorpgs from even a player angle. hence, these huge obvious pitfalls. so they left a lot of loops to jump through ... and people are jumping through them. just becaus the game does not keep you from doing something doesn't make it less cheap or less exploitive.
and then these people actualy have the gall to come on and act like the whole issue of offense is based on jealousy. to those people .... it is not an issue of jealousy ... it's an issue of having played mmorpgs for a long long time. this kind of behavior only hurts the game if the developers aren't the kind that crack right to the point of a problem. cryptic is about as far from that as you can get without falling off the edge of the world.
i can get "my friends" (chuckled when I saw that post) to Pl me if i want. or to pl them if they want. i even understand how much the linear game sucks as to why people PL to through the lower game. but when the "uh oh, i wet my pants" solution comes down .... oh ... what am i saying ..... that's right .... bad reactive mmorpg solutions never stop the people they are aimed at. they only screw everyone else and ruin the game as a whole.
screw it ... go ahead and lead the game down that path ... there's plenty others coming out with a little more expirience under their belt in terms of designing a game.
Adlerian:
You, and others, might have a misconception about what is going on with powerleveling. Just as powerleveling is a small minority of how people play the game, powerleveling a new player's toon from 2-50 is also an action taken by a very small minority of the powerleveling players. Since you are not involved, you may not understand this. You probably see the guy sitting at the tram ding, but you have no idea about that toon's player's background, experiences, or intent. Using the extreme example of the new player going from 2-50 may help make a point, but it is not the right point, and not close to the norm.
Regarding the whole "do nothing but gaining from it is a cheat", let me share something with you.
I play Texas Holdem and consider it a decent 3rd income at this point. I play a lot of sit and go tournaments (1 table of 10, last 3 are in the money). My starting strategy at times is to do the following: fold, fold, and fold again. Done correctly, I can outlast at least half the table. I may play a hand here and there, but if I don't, I am only down the blinds (occasional ante). When I see that the dead money is gone, I buckle down and start playing. Is this what the original game creator wanted? People to fold hand after hand just to get ahead? I doubt it, but it is a tactic supported by the game mechanics. Am I cheating? Certainly not. I choose when to start playing hands based on the situation and my goals. Usually, I end up in at least 3rd, picking up some of the pot... all from using fold as a tactic, a tactic where I am not really participating until late in the game. I just choose not to play early on because it is dangerous and usually boring.
Now, apply that to COH. Change hands to levels. Fold to powerlevel. Playing to "naturally playing". Money to xp.
I am sure someone is 1/2 inch from the reply button to tell me how this analogy is flawed, based on my tactic's impact on other players in the poker game. If so, you've missed the point completely.
In COH, I fold until I see a hand worth playing and then I buckle down and have some fun. It's still about the journey, but I choose when the journey starts.
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Well then its much like cheating. Its the whole cheating/exploit thing, I think this is splitting hairs. Also, as I have mentioned I see less people doing it and hear a lot of people talking about it. It is thought to be a cheap undesirable activity by many. Maybe we should invent a new word for the activity; something between cheating and exploit.
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This is a riot. I've already suggested this several pages ago and made referrence to it with another reply. The Silly AFK XP joke. SAX for short. And the REASON for it was that powerleveling is not cheating. The method of powerleveling you keep using involves an AFK toon and the tram. One can powerlevel with the exact same team makeup you use as your example and NOT be AFK and be following the team around. It is still PLing.
It is not cheating. Maybe you should be more concerned about the developers reaction to this "cheating" as you call it and realize that they don't classify it as cheating and are not taking drastic measures to remove it from the game. Wouldn't you be more concerned about a game that does not remove "cheating" from the game?
On Justice
Super Goober, Scrankster, Dusty McFluffy, SuperHappyFun and others
_____________________________________________
Daily affirmation: net helpmsg 4006
I'm going to need a hacksaw. -- Jack Bauer
I just lost my chicken - Bubbles
Aaawwk! I can feel it in my choadies - Hank Venture
this is just my 2 cent (or influences) I personally don't think PL is cheating... since it can be done with current game mechanics (why else have SK) The problem some people are seeing is it cheating or not?
well... think about this.. some people play this game cause it is fun (level to level) some people just want to play the "end game" and don't want to deal with leveling (thus power level) or sometimes they just don't have time to level to get to the "higher level stuff" whatever the reason... I still don't think it is wrong...
everyone should play their own way and see how it goes... I personally have some time to play, but once I get a project at work going.. I might not be able to level as I use to and get stuck at level 20 forever....
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*circular nature of your logic*
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I understand my argument is circular, but it is no less circular than the points you are also trying to make, the only reason you don't see them as such is because you feel your argument is correct and no other is ...
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Do I have to explain circular logic now? I feel like a school teacher. We have discussed ethics, logic, and ways to develop one's character. I should be getting paid by your parents or loved ones!
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As I said, I understand it, but if you want to get nasty and slightly insulting I can run with that as I'll be happy to take money from your parents or loved ones for instructing you on how to carry on a debate without getting defensive, argumentative or insulting =) ...
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The complaint that you can't play a game and not be at the game is not circular. It's just straight ahead logic.
Its a simple syllogism, which is one of the most basic forms of reasoning.
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I have never complained that I could not play a game and not be at the game itself, which makes your logic flawed, if you are going to relate it to a syllogism, you need to have major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion, because you major premise is an assumption on your part or an incorrect interpretation of my response, it makes your argument flawed ...
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Syllogism
argument involving three propositions: a formal deductive argument made up of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. An example is all birds have feathers, penguins are birds, therefore penguins have feathers.
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Yes, I know what 1 is, thank you =)
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all games must have players present
Plers arent present at the game
therefore Plers arent playing the game
Your ego makes you say silly things. Its almost funny and is very childish. Have you been to school? This is now getting boring you have given two posts and have not been able to answer my dare. Are you daring---tenacious and persistent-- yes, but ahh... ?
to the rest:
Its nice that some people can now see the point.
I suppose that any rules can be changed for any game. If you where playing chess with a friend you could start making up new moves if you want-- who cares! Would you still be playing chess though? No.
The cheat crowd just won't learn! However, over the last few days I have seen almost no one PLing at the train station on my server. That's great, so at least some people got it.
Now
Lets take a bet when Icarus will stop posting.
1. when hell freezes over.
2. when hell cools down.
3.when he stops cheating
Oh well, betting is illegal in my state so we better not.
How many more posts will we see before my questions are answered? This is like the world's most boring soup opera...
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Again, you become insulting as a form of defense, it is sad really but, as I said, your argument makes as much sense as mine does, even less really as I didn't engage in insults or becoming condescending ...
Also, to point out something you assumed in my response, I never said I PL friends not present at the game, but I do PL them, they usually follow me around while I kill and every now and then toss some power in they want to play with ..
Reading is fundemental and assuptions are just as bad as having flawed logic, logic in itself does not use assumptions ...
As for how many more posts you will see? Probably many as you do not agree with anyone that does not agree with you and your way for showing this is by responding the way you do with jibes, insults, being condescending (rather than using the logic you think you are throwing around) and the many other things your posts reflect that make you a poor choice to try and carry the torch in any debate muchless one about PLing ...
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It's not fun if you level up by doing nothing.
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Mmmm, what are you smoking? How did you determine that everyone else automatically wants to grind out 30 levels? What basis did you use to judge that ALL of the player base is not interested in fast gains?
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Let me ask you a question. During the period where you are sitting around doing nothing while getting leveled up, are you having fun?
I don't mean afterwards when you can play that now higher level character, I mean the time you spent staring at a tram wall.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
So far the only good post on here has been the one that talks about datamining being skewed. Frankly, the people who whine about powerleveling being a way around having to do the "work" is bunk. The reason some people powerlevel is because a majority of their day is spend doing REAL WORK at the WORKPLACE.
The tone of anti-powerlevelers in general is the same as the "game balance" garbage that pops up all over the place. Why can't my controller do this? What can't my blaster do that? Followed by the distant sound of nerf, nerf, nerf.
If you think your controller is weak, don't make a controller. If you *do* make a controller, accept the fact that he's weak (something I don't agree with, it's all in how you play the archetypes).
The parallel is: if grinding your way to level 50 is the way you choose to go, don't whine that it takes you forever. You chose that path. On the flip side, you'll be the one who knows the streets like the back of your hand and can field questions about task forces without breaking a sweat. It's all pros and cons and no one is changing anyone else's mind here.
I gotta say again, though, great post on the datamine skewing.
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So far the only good post on here has been the one that talks about datamining being skewed. Frankly, the people who whine about powerleveling being a way around having to do the "work" is bunk. The reason some people powerlevel is because a majority of their day is spend doing REAL WORK at the WORKPLACE.
The tone of anti-powerlevelers in general is the same as the "game balance" garbage that pops up all over the place. Why can't my controller do this? What can't my blaster do that? Followed by the distant sound of nerf, nerf, nerf.
If you think your controller is weak, don't make a controller. If you *do* make a controller, accept the fact that he's weak (something I don't agree with, it's all in how you play the archetypes).
The parallel is: if grinding your way to level 50 is the way you choose to go, don't whine that it takes you forever. You chose that path. On the flip side, you'll be the one who knows the streets like the back of your hand and can field questions about task forces without breaking a sweat. It's all pros and cons and no one is changing anyone else's mind here.
I gotta say again, though, great post on the datamine skewing.
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The datamine skewing has really been the only good and solid point for why PLing is bad and, as you say, the rest is pretty much garbage made by players that for some reason have something against others gaining levels faster than them at the keyboard or away from it =)
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So far the only good post on here has been the one that talks about datamining being skewed.
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If you only want to consider reasons on "how others affect me", sure.
If you are looking from a point of view of problems in overall game design, there are plenty of reasons you would not want powerleveling.
Why does something have to affect me personally for me to comment on it?
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The tone of anti-powerlevelers in general is the same as the "game balance" garbage that pops up all over the place. Why can't my controller do this? What can't my blaster do that? Followed by the distant sound of nerf, nerf, nerf.
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Proper "balancing" is to ensure that no character build is significantly "better" or "worse" than any other. You should on average be able to blindly pick any archetype build and relatively have the same amount of effectiveness from 1-50 as any other.
This does NOT mean "all should be the same", just that every build should feel just as useful in the overall game. They should ALL feel "powerful", just in different ways. Nobody plays this game to feel like a gimp.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
Virtue: Automatic Lenin | The Pink Guy | Superpowered | Guardia | Guardia Prime | Ultrapowered
TheAdlerian: In a way kill stealing is much the same. Its legal but its almost like the person is cheating. It's different in that it does hurt the other player but that's not against the rules. I could kill steal my way to the top if I wanted but who wouldn't say that I was cheating.
Kill-stealing has a direct and tangible effect on the victim, unlike powerleveling. Also, the mechanisms in place regarding experience splits makes it so that it will often be much slower for you to try to gain levels by kill-stealing. There are other factors, such as reputation and potential GM action if you happen to KS the same group(s) repeatedly.
THEpunishcrime: where is cryptic's policy of not rewarding people for not playing the game?
I would rather that they not become too zealous in their attempts to stop PLing, otherwise we may wind up with changes that affect people who choose NOT to powerlevel. Fiddling too much with sidekicking in order to close loopholes could wind up penalizing people who use it legitimately, while it only slows down PLers slightly.
Which means that they'd just make everyone upset, and that isn't what they would want. The answer given by Statesman requires only very basic reading between the lines to see what he's saying. He doesn't particularly care for powerleveling, but there's little to do about it, save to make the 30+ game more challenging so that it isn't so trivial to powerlevel people.
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I gotta say again, though, great post on the datamine skewing.
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If this behavior is not detectable in datamining then there are some really big problems with the game.
Personally I believe it should be easy to get information of XP gain versus power activations. High XP gain with little to no powers being activated would be a red flag for any type of datamining.
On Justice
Super Goober, Scrankster, Dusty McFluffy, SuperHappyFun and others
_____________________________________________
Daily affirmation: net helpmsg 4006
I'm going to need a hacksaw. -- Jack Bauer
I just lost my chicken - Bubbles
Aaawwk! I can feel it in my choadies - Hank Venture
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I gotta say again, though, great post on the datamine skewing.
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If this behavior is not detectable in datamining then there are some really big problems with the game.
Personally I believe it should be easy to get information of XP gain versus power activations. High XP gain with little to no powers being activated would be a red flag for any type of datamining.
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If you were doing the datamine on individual characters yes, but they are probably doing it based on a general value so it is easier to see the big picture ...
For instance, when I do an incoming and outgoing traffic check on one of my networks, I only see the total traffic involved, not what each machine is doing, if it is very high then I'll start breaking it down with a sniffer or some other network performance app to see the whys and whatfors since it would take much to long to start with an individual systems check only to possibly find there is no problem ..
The thing is, in the case of a game, unless the DEVs are watching for someone getting PLed so they can then have something to reference in their datamine, it would be a daunting task to just start sifting thru logs and data at characters on an individual basis in the hopes of finding multiple characters that would show up as not having activated any, or very powers, while they leveled, so they are probably just doing a general spread of leveling vs time involved ...
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Adlerian:
You, and others, might have a misconception about what is going on with powerleveling. Just as powerleveling is a small minority of how people play the game, powerleveling a new player's toon from 2-50 is also an action taken by a very small minority of the powerleveling players.
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Maybe maybe not.
Most of the higher level SGs operate something like this. They decide they need a particular set of skills and actively recruit people with those skills. Miraculously these people gain anywhere from 10-30 levels in a few days. Take a quick inventory of the L50s on at any given time and these people will make up more then 50% of them in my experience.
Sorry but most of the people defending power leveling fall into one of two categories. The ones who want to but cant because they dont know the right people and the ones who think they are power leveling but are so pathetically bad at it that they cant outlevel people playing naturally.
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And the REASON for it was that powerleveling is not cheating. The method of powerleveling you keep using involves an AFK toon and the tram. One can powerlevel with the exact same team makeup you use as your example and NOT be AFK and be following the team around. It is still PLing.
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No it isnt at worst its leaching, but when people talk about power leveling this is not what they are referring to, unless they fall into the second category of people I mentioned above.
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all games must have players present
Plers arent present at the game
therefore Plers arent playing the game
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I don't think this has been the gist of your argument, unless you define 'present' differently. I presume you mean that the game must have players 'actively participating'. After all, if I just sit at the computer while my character stands at the train station and gets PLed, I don't think this would sit well with you.
I don't think PLing is a big concern for the developers. They are concerned with how easy the game gets at higher levels and as a result of their efforts to fix that, powerleveling will not be as easy. But it will still occur, it will slow down slightly and require a minor change in logistics. That's why I wouldn't worry about other people doing it.
It's like trying to stop twinking, though this game has a pretty good mechanism for blunting the effect. Are you also upset that the PLed character can be given a full set of +3 enhancements to fit out all of those powers that they got by doing nothing? You could call it a form of cheating in the same way that you consider PLing cheating, it is a character gaining access to items that they would not have gotten on their own (at least at low levels before the avalanche of influence rolls in).