Is PLing a Form of Cheating?

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Im a force field defender. I've often teamed up with people 6+ levels higher than me, un-sidekicked. I would generally, stay very close and keep the person shielded, and use repulsion field to keep enemies on the ground. I have leadership pool and the medicine pool to keep my teammate healed.

Even though I was using any of my offensive powers (not that I could), is this still considered powerleveling?

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To me, no. Then again I define powerleveling as the gain of XP with little or no risk to yourself.

You are in the thick of the fight and are risking as much as the rest of your group.

My main point in this thread has been that you should never get a reward if you are not taking a risk.

Standing around in a tram while someone else earns XP for you is not a risk at all.


-np

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The devs have already stated that PL'ing is not cheating. This topic comes up once a week. Just do a search and find your answers. No, not cheating. Are they enjoying the game? I don't know, but more power to you if your friends can PL you or you are rolling an ALT because you have already reached 50 and would like to play with some new powers and not have to go through all the kill stealing at the low levels. P.S. I think the OP is trolling. IMO.

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As an avid Dev Tracker addict, I gotta ask "When, where, what?". I have never seen such a post. Can you provide a link, or a quote?

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It can affect the long term development of the game by artificially skewing the numbers the devs use to plan future content.


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We don't know what methods the devs use to mine data, so while it may be possible that results get skewed due to powerleveling, none of us can prove or disprove it so it cannot be reliably used in an arguement for either side here.

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

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True, but you have to live with that anywhere. It's not limited to CoH.

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It seriously breaks the immersion of the game.


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So do a number of other things. OOC chat, characters names "Wulferin007"... breaking the immersion of the game cannot really be made into an issue unless it's on an RP server.

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It encourages an environment of number-crunchers and those only concerned with the maximum efficiency, which if you pay attention to forums and areas which cater to these types is almost always a relentlessly negative and argumentative bunch.


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That's a sweeping generalization, which in general is a "bad thing." I'm a programmer so I do consider myself to be somewhat of a number-cruncher and an efficiency-minded person, and I think my gameplay refects that. I'm most certainly not "relentlessly negative." Even with the word "almost" in there I'd say you are way off base in making that assertion.

Capt Shield
That is not what I'm talking about. If you are helping the team then that's great. To see what I'm talking about check out the train station in brick and watch the people that just stand there. Sometimes you can see them leveling.

Also, I did not know that you can buy leveled characters on E-Bay. These accounts should be canceled.

If you are sceptical the cheating aspect of PLing just imagine that you are talking to the team that developed the game. Its a great game and I'm sure that they put months into developing the content, so do you think that they would like people just bypass it all and not really play the game that they developed?
I enjoy the struggle of they game and helping other people. Its fun, but I kind of feel like its a waste of time for me to struggle through the levels when others don't have to. I almost quit the other day because I was annoyed by the dozens of people that I observed doing it. After getting about 24K in debt that night I felt a bit defined by their easy ride.
Should I feel this way? No. However, I am a person that enjoys getting in to the game and using strategy to win, so I simply do feel this way.
My feelings or anyone else's are not important because objectively Pling is a cheat or exploit (whatever!) hands down.

The best way, IMO to fix this will be with CoV. Let PLing be an option. You can even go so far as to describe how to do it in the game manual... but let it only be an option in PvP zones

That way, if you want to try and hide behind the police drones and get PLed, more power too you. Just watch out for some villian with a sniper shot...

</sarcasm>

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Being ethically oppossed to cheating is not a from of jealousy. After working hard I do not like to see people stealing the same thing that I earned. The characters in the game define each other.

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No, it isn't a form of jealousy, it is a form of self righteousness.

Also, they are not stealing anything. The only way to be powerleveled is for someone else to agree to it. That in and of itself is not stealing. The powerleveled person is not stealing anyones time, or energy as that person is voluntarily doing it.

Besides all that, what do you think Sidekicking is? It is a form of powerleveling. While there are a handful of powerlevelers that do so out of their own greed most are doing it so they can keep up with their friends or their supergroup and not feel useless.


(And no, I did not read the entire thread - I may or may not because this kind of self appointed moral compass crap is disgusting.)

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Being ethically oppossed to cheating is not a from of jealousy. After working hard I do not like to see people stealing the same thing that I earned. The characters in the game define each other.

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No, it isn't a form of jealousy, it is a form of self righteousness.

Also, they are not stealing anything. The only way to be powerleveled is for someone else to agree to it. That in and of itself is not stealing. The powerleveled person is not stealing anyones time, or energy as that person is voluntarily doing it.

Besides all that, what do you think Sidekicking is? It is a form of powerleveling. While there are a handful of powerlevelers that do so out of their own greed most are doing it so they can keep up with their friends or their supergroup and not feel useless.

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To me, no. Then again I define powerleveling as the gain of XP with little or no risk to yourself.
You are in the thick of the fight and are risking as much as the rest of your group.
My main point in this thread has been that you should never get a reward if you are not taking a risk.
Standing around in a tram while someone else earns XP for you is not a risk at all.


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How do you propose to implement a change like that?
COH in it's current state cannot objectively determine the risk a player is placing themselves in for each and every fight.
Using your criteria, risk is purely subjective and since computers cannot be subjective, your suggestion is unrealistic.


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Should I feel this way? No. However, I am a person that enjoys getting in to the game and using strategy to win, so I simply do feel this way.
My feelings or anyone else's are not important because objectively Pling is a cheat or exploit (whatever!) hands down.

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Objectively, it is not.
Subjectively, in your mind it is.

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

It seriously breaks the immersion of the game.


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

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It encourages an environment of number-crunchers and those only concerned with the maximum efficiency, which if you pay attention to forums and areas which cater to these types is almost always a relentlessly negative and argumentative bunch.


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

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If you are sceptical the cheating aspect of PLing just imagine that you are talking to the team that developed the game. Its a great game and I'm sure that they put months into developing the content, so do you think that they would like people just bypass it all and not really play the game that they developed?


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If people don't enjoy every aspect of the game, but are still finding enough things that they DO enjoy that they want to keep playing, then I don't think the devs are going to be hurt.

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I enjoy the struggle of they game and helping other people. Its fun, but I kind of feel like its a waste of time for me to struggle through the levels when others don't have to. I almost quit the other day because I was annoyed by the dozens of people that I observed doing it. After getting about 24K in debt that night I felt a bit defined by their easy ride.
Should I feel this way? No. However, I am a person that enjoys getting in to the game and using strategy to win, so I simply do feel this way.
My feelings or anyone else's are not important because objectively Pling is a cheat or exploit (whatever!) hands down.

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I can see where you are coming from, and please don't think I'm trying to be mean here (I'm just trying to be objective), but something can't be considered cheating or exploiting just because it makes you feel bad/jealous/like you are wasting your time. That's something you need to overcome, not the devs.

*Edit - grammer problems

Personally, I don't PL, I like to play the game.

BUT, once there are enough people on here complaining about it, they will change it.

Seems to me that's how they "fix" most things in the game.

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To me, no. Then again I define powerleveling as the gain of XP with little or no risk to yourself.
You are in the thick of the fight and are risking as much as the rest of your group.
My main point in this thread has been that you should never get a reward if you are not taking a risk.
Standing around in a tram while someone else earns XP for you is not a risk at all.


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How do you propose to implement a change like that?
COH in it's current state cannot objectively determine the risk a player is placing themselves in for each and every fight.
Using your criteria, risk is purely subjective and since computers cannot be subjective, your suggestion is unrealistic.

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Actually, how's this: If you are not in aggro range (or some other close range) of a mob, you cannot gain XP from that mob.

This also solves the problem of folks running around "tapping" all the mobs in a zone and leeching off other folks in that way.


-np

I do not need to overcome being annoyed a cheaters. I feel like I'm in a 1960's psychotherapy group! It is not self righteous to point out what is really happening. There is something odd about going from 16-32 in a few days. According to the design of the game and general rules that seems strange. Why not have an opion button where you can just stand there and collect points. Lets cut out the middle man!
I think that many people here have PLed and are ashamed then they rationalize that the annoyed are somehow wrong or more unethical for complaining.
I'm glad you don't have super powers in real life! Imagine that!

I didnt bother reading the whole thing b/c the same thing will be stated over...and im sure this has been stated but i would like to bring it up again (if it has been stated). Powerlevling is bad if you have never leveled a player i would say past 40...you get all your good powers and after 40 the only thing that is good is the storyarcs. If you level a character to 32-40 i think you deserved to be powerleveled. I never want to go through what i went through with my main. I still put in my time why should i have to do it again?

The developers are fully aware of PLing. What makes you think they would not take that into account when analyzing the numbers and deciding on changes?

These forums are hilarious. One minute the developers are Gods, incapable of error, the next they are mindless zombies who don't know how their own game works.

Fact: Some Joe Blow sitting at the train station milking XP from his buddy has no effect whatsoever on you or the future of this game. If you don't like it, get over it.

Exploiting and hacking are cheating.
Everything else is opinion.

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The reason I am asking this is because, though I thought it was reasonable way of playing the game, certain other people continue to harrass me because im a "powerleveler".


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Ah, we're just messin' with ya, Cap.

But on powerleveling in general: I don't mind to help out a friend or a SG member a little bit, but there's no way I'd do it for any length of time, certainly not long enough for them to gain 20 levels or anything like that. If they can contribute in some way, like Captain Shield does using his bubbles with his higher-level friends, or my friend Flare Dominus with his smoke grenade, then I REALLY don't mind. If I'm just street sweeping anyway, I'll usually let a low-level SG friend tag along for a bit, but I make it clear to them that I expect them to do the majority of leveling themselves.

All TRUE powerleveling does is produce tons of level 30s and 40s who have no idea how to use their powers.

Later,

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How does PLing hurt you?


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How in the world is that relevant in any way? If everyone adopted that philosophy then civilization would have ended a long time ago.

I don't have to be hurt by something to oppose it. Cheating on taxes, lying about disability or welfare fraud doesn't hurt me, but I oppose them.

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Actually, how's this: If you are not in aggro range (or some other close range) of a mob, you cannot gain XP from that mob.

This also solves the problem of folks running around "tapping" all the mobs in a zone and leeching off other folks in that way.


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I hadn't even considered that side benefit, it makes the "xp range" a good idea. I'd make it considerably more than melee range, perhaps just outside of sniper range to not punish players who use snipe attacks as part of their arsenal. It's a long enough range not to harm the occasional player who is a bit out of range from the group for any reason, while still forcing team members to be within a reasonable range of the fight to get exp.

And it would limit the ability to farm exp by quickly moving through a zone and zapping groups of mobs before others engage them, in the hopes that they'll finish them off.

It would provide an interesting exp "cheat", in that you could group up with a bunch of people then go off and solo, and you'd get full exp/inf for each kill plus a bonus for grouping, but I think that overall, it solves more concerns that it creates.

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I don't have to be hurt by something to oppose it. Cheating on taxes, lying about disability or welfare fraud doesn't hurt me, but I oppose them.

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edit-Na, not even gonna try to point out how silly this is.

Well, I dont have PL'd chars, and probably never will so i guess i dont fit in your concept. But, i find funny how people tends to care so much about how others define fun in a situation where there is no way they could affect your gameplay by any way. If we had PvP, it could be an issue, but even then it would be a minor one.

Cheating could be defined as "stealing" resources from the world (game/server) by bypassing game imposed limitations without work or risk.

PL surely doesnt fit on this because SOMEONE is doing the job that makes him worth to get that resource (xp/influence). Someone is out there working for 2 people, not just for himself to get the other one xp.

So if it is indeed a cheat, lets take grouping as an example. Two people fight less on a group than they would be soloing for that same content. Still, they earn more xp.. Hmm.. sounds like cheating to me eh? The work/xp on a group is lesser than soloing and still you dont consider it an exploit/cheat...

So, I cant really understand your point, sorry...


Regards

For those who do not think power leveling hurts everyone else consider this. More then half the current L50 hero’s were power leveled at least part of the way. A great many were PL’d most of the way. (And, a great many of those that were not power leveled made extensive use of some form of exploit or overpowered power like burn, caltrops, smoke grenade or some undesirable technique like AoE blast and run or herding. )

The fact is, on most servers there are only a small handful of people who have actually earned a L50 character at this point. Yet the devs use these numbers to determine things like the rate at which they want people to hit 50 and the rate at which they want to give out rewards like Epic AT’s.

Power leveling helps to completely hide the incredible grind most people face. This grind seriously hampers the fun factor of everyone else who plays the game.

Secondly when players do put their blood sweat and tears into accomplishing something it is seen as old hat bye most since they have already seen it dozens of times over, much of the time from people who never paid their dues.

For example I was one of the first eng blasters to hit level 32 on my server. Nearly every time I played with a new person, even in my 40’s, I got the “Holy S***” reaction the first time they saw it. Today anyone with a high level character can build themselves an eng blaster in a few days and get Nova if they want it. (Most are to busy building fire controllers or scrappers)

It’s no longer special unique or particularly hard to get so the people that actually earn it are completely derived of the satisfaction of doing so. How do you think people will feel about finally getting their epic AT’s knowing that thousands of people got theirs simply by having someone build a L50 for them without ever putting forth any effort. I don’t care what you may claim there is no satisfaction in working your [censored] off for something that most others are getting for free.

Finally it helps create situations where people with high level characters simply do not know how to play them because they never had to learn.

This is a game not talking about taxes....remember its a game...and PLing you still do you work if a buddy pl's you, you in return PL the alt they have. Its a cycle the annoying thing is when people broadcast..."can someone powerlevel me ectt....." All in all powerleveling is done mostly through your SG mates and then you return the favor. So you still do your work by lvling your main some more (if you havnt got lvl 50) and then you get to turn around and play with new powers. That seems like cheating to me b/c you did nothing right? <---sarcasm . All the people who are debating it is cheating because you dont do work, well there is your argument for that.

I have not said one negative thing about the developers. However, I assume that things in a game this complex take time to change. Also, they may not be aware that it is making some of their customers annoyed that it is going on. This is a very successful game from what I understand. People get into it ,books are sold about how to create characters and so forth, well who needs any of that stuff if one is being PLed. There is a lot of money being lost. PLed people may keep their account for a shorter period of time for instance.
If I try for 50 it will take months and months, so I will have spend hundreds of dollars on the game. If a person reaches 50 in a few weeks then they have spent a lot less. So, it would benefit the developers to fix this problem from a financial stand point. Also the longer people are on the more they will use related materials and websites.
I like the developers for making the game! So, I think that they should be successful. If everyone PLed to 50 by the end of the month the game would probably be over.
That is Kantian philosophy in action! Just ask yourself what if everyone was doing it.

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I don't have to be hurt by something to oppose it. Cheating on taxes, lying about disability or welfare fraud doesn't hurt me, but I oppose them.

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edit-Na, not even gonna try to point out how silly this is.

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Translation: I can't counter this, so I'll make a vague smug reply instead.