Is PLing a Form of Cheating?

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The 3 basic arguments seem to be..

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You seem to be confused between arguing that PLing is a "good thing," and arguing that it's not cheating. Two different arguments. One is a amtter of opinion. The other fact. So, reason #5, since you had 4 is: The developers have clearly stated it's not a cheat or an exploit.

[qoute[justify behavior that is not desirable in this game.

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Not desirable to whom? You? Who died and made you Statesman?

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It's been backed up.

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Nope.

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You guys say it doesn't affect everyone then when someone proves it

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Proof? Point it out.

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you then backtrack by saying "it doesn't affect you much."

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I never backtracked. It doesn't affect you at all. Period.

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If you want a game where an exploit doesn't affect you play GTA 3. Then that would be true.

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Please read Statesman's post. We're talking about PLing, not an exploit.-

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If you want evidence read back through the thread.

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I've read the thread several times. If they changed the definition of "evidence" to "emotional, baseless, opinions," then I definitely wasn't informed.

Wow icarus, its called LOOKING YOURSELF. Evidence is all over this 65 pages of thread.

*Whispers* 61.

i got to say to some certain people on both sides ... that plugging your ears and deciding not to give credit to fully creditable opinions is not a "lack of evidence" for the other side.

it's merely you being to close minded to accept the other sides input. it's a great elementary school debate team tactic ... as long as you don't mind being recognized as being elementary.

as for how powerlelveling effects other players ... that's about as clear as anything that monmaxing and any kind of powergaming does effect others players as it directs the decisions made by the dev team ... who have made t more than clear (in words and actions) that they are very afraid of the mass migration to 50 by so many players.

i could care less about the "whys" of their fears, but that is pretty clear as well (at least in my opinionated conclusion).

but a perfect example would be the decisions during beta about slotting. the best example would be damage. damage classes also have build up. blasters then have aim on top of that for a little extra boost. and more than likely a lot of players have maxed out 6 dmage in their favorite high dmage attacks.

well .... cryptic decided that the effect of build up (or whatever their reasoning was) that damage should cap at (i think) 200%. this meant that 3 slotting with SOs would put you at cap with BU + aim. that meant you could take BU and AIM and live off buffs when you wanted to go heavy damage .... or you could simply slot 6 .. forget BU (as it would all be above cap) forget aim (unless you wanted some sure fiure hits ... and be ... dare i say it ... diversified in the blaster set. did i mention that when this was going on with the lower cap that bolasters weren't the solo destruction manchines that thy are now? they were great and very soloable ... just not able to kill everything before they shot back.

so players whined. they whined because they needed things maxed all the way to one way. they wanted 6 slots and the BU.

cryptic gave in to them. i would say cryptic went and changed it to be as they had planned it .... but the beta boards really didn't give me that impression. it was more like a lobbying group that had won a votes favor. sp instead of build flexibility ... you now have two must have powers ... BU and AIM.

the behavior was min maxing. and it did indeed end up causes decisions to be made about changing the mobs overall.


slot min maxing's next big thing i think was tanks. and every tank paid for this though i don't think every tank was even capable of the min max. invul was though. sems if you took invul .... took resist physical damage .... temp invul ... and tough and maxed them out .... nothing could hurt you that was leathal or smashing. so instead of leaving the flexability to take eithr temp ... or RPD ... or tough, or any combo that would have left the intended flexibility of the archtype system there for the invul tank ..... NEW RULES. and like i said, it wasn't just every invul tank that got effected ... it was every tank. but it's not like cryptic gives a crap about the tank .... they still haven't adressed the fact that a whole big pecentage of tanks go to the power pool at 6 to fulfill their team use .... a team game trend that they are digging much deeper into with the upcoming patch. because see ... balance has nothing to do with balance .... it has everything to do with teaming ... so all we have to do is make the blaster sick of dying and join teams ... great idea ... but an end result of a lot of these types of changes. sounds like it effects more than just the guy doing it.

another good example would be how Super speed, flight, and other travel powers were being used in different unintended ways. while everyone was not a cheater ... or should i say a scumbag (since it is such opinion on what is and is not cheating). these powers then were changed from original design ... in some cases helping players us the mechanics to use other abusive playing techniques.

then you had the orignal hover snipers and how they effected the AI of mobs ... even though these guys actually did not level faster thna anyone else. by the time they had hovered into posisition and waited for snipe to warm up over and over ... first hand ... it was no big deal level wise ... not even safty wise .. unless the mob had no ranged attack. lord knows that the three fold fix they made for it would have been fine with JUST the increase range of mobs.

but when you look at all the changes based on that .... including the very sensitive running AI, or "chicken switch" as i call it, i think it's pretty easy to say without doubt that all those kinds of game behavior efect other players. ANYTIME you step out of the intended purposes of play .... and when you do step out ... you know it.

i mean serously .. is there a need to go on? this shouldn't even be a question about how one player abusing a mmorpg game system effects the other players. and with the super dumbed down version of COH that came through so that house wives and childern from the ages of maybe 7 or 8 could play ..... finding the loopholes (or even just the min max powerset combos whose performance does have an effect on the entire archtype set) has been EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-Z.

Crime, you gave a decent argument about how min/maxing can affect other players. And while I agree in general, this does not apply to powerleveling. They are 2 seperate beasts... although not mutually exclusive in the gaming world, only for this discussion. I could argue points on how min/max players also expedite the finding of game balance bugs before the majority of the base gets there. I could talk about early bug/loophole identification. Problem is, this isn't the topic, but feel free to start a new thread... I would participate.

I am still looking for a valid discussion on how powerleveling, specifically, affects others. Saying that it is clear how it (and min/maxing) affects everyone, yet providing only min/max examples doesn't make sense. Support your statement on the topic, not a secondary concern.

At that point, we can discuss differences of opinions or facts, whatever they may be.

EDIT: BTW, I fully support min/max. People say it like it's a negative thing. Since I don't role play and have very limited free time, the most efficient build/zone/mob/xp is suited to my tastes. This gives you your opposing statement, to start off the new thread.

You could argue that powerlevelling does affect others as the developers seek to close the all the loopholes. If they decide to cut XP or get rid of Sidekicking altogether in an effort to finally stamp out all the exploits, I'll be there to say I told you so.

This isn't a single-player console game. Nothing you do happens in a vacuum.

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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.

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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 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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I personally have avoided labeling this AFK leveling as "right" or "wrong".

Undesirable on the part of the developers, yes, however. Which is why they will be attempting to make this behavior unrewarding to do. Fix the system, not punish the players for doing something allowed by the defective system.

I cannot think of a single valid reason as to why any game developer would ever want a player to stand around in one spot doing nothing, for ANY reason.


-np

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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'!

I don't think PL'n is cheating at all. Its a choice you make and you character will reflect that choice.

If you want to play the missions solos, you need to go through the game or you lose your contacts. If you don't care about the role play and want to kill and team play, then PL'n is fine.

I spent time doing the missions to get to level 14 with my controller only to not like her and want to use a defender again. I don't want to deal with those stupid missions in the same locations again, it's dumb and the levels suk. My defender is built for team support, so PL'n her to the level of the team so I can actually play and be of use is critical to my gaming experience and needs of my character.

So you don't like someone PL'n to level 20, how do you know that person isn't planning on supporting every hereo they come across? I know if I was a level 20 defender, I would revive or heal anyone who needs it I run across, you telling me those people healing you take away from your gaming experience? they might save your butt when you need it most, and they got to that point by PL'n.

If someone is PL'n just to be some level 50 masta, then yea, thats dumb, but if you are like me and doing it so I can rejoin my supergroup with a defender of great use, I wouldn't [censored] about it.

PLing isn't cheating, IMO and I don't care one way or another if things don't affect me. Pling SG members, cool.
Pling alts, cool.

When it gets to me is when I'm on a team with some 40s who have Pled their very first character and have been in game for 2 weeks. Who don't know where any of the zones are or lack certain gameplay skills. Are aggro kings/queens who are a danger to the whole team.

I've played with these people. They wouldn't have gotten to 40 otherwise without either smartening up or quitting.
This makes the game less fun for me. Its not fun to play with people are are used to just gaming the system and don't understand they are playing with other human beings. People who quit in the middle of missions as soon as it gets tough without a word and run crying as soon as they get a little debt.

Pling is ok, but keep it in the family. And smarten up a bit before you go out into the greater world.

Sweet cherry molasses! Why won't this topic die? *sob*