Is PLing a Form of Cheating?
By
Agrippa_CoH,
Posted on: 2004-09-09 12:12 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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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 ATs.
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Yes, and they do this with full knowledge of PLEVELING and its affects on the rate at which people are able to reach level 50.
The developers don't work in a vacuum, you know? They have access to all the information you do, and rest assured they're not making decisions about XP rate based on how fast someone can be PL'd to 50.
Try again, please.
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They may try to make allowances for it but there is no way to compensate completely. The complexity of such filtering would make data mining all but impossible. The best they can do is come up with a fudge factor to try and compensate but this is not an accurate method.
So, perhaps you should try again.
Pl'ing has been in every form of MMO that I know of. It was done in EQ all of the time and eventually was nerfed to a extent but never stopped the people willing to put time and effort into levelling their twinks (alts).
It doesn't have any effect on your game nor impede on others. The problem you have is your own opinion but there are many who do this for reasons already stated.
I think most are stereo-typing most form of pl'ing to someone who is being pl'd that is new to the game and never played it before. When in fact most of the people doing it already have high level characters, in super groups and have been through many missions, TF's etc.
It does boil down to envy though or jealousy because you don't have the means to do it and think it's unfair someone else can get through the game faster than you can. Does it matter to you that they're still putting effort into their character, just in a different way that you don't want to accept?
I have friends that are just starting the game and are social gamers. They love to group up and have in many games before. I've helped them level up to join myself and others. I've also pl'ed a couple of my characters so I don't have to go through the incredibly boring teens like I have with many characters again and again. I don't see there being a problem with it. I love the game, I enjoy it and don't want to go through levels where the content is stale and not where the majority of my friends are at in level.
To say it's cheating is false, as others have said it's a game mechanic that you're using they had in line since the beginning of the game. If it was a bug or cheating then you could be banned for doing so and this isn't something you can be banned for.
Frankly, I have a variety of friends in their 40s that could Pl me. I was going to to ask but when I thought about it and saw people leveling at the train station it made me angry. It is a cheat. I like to be an ethical person that is proud of what he does. That's it.
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Clearly power leveling falls under the second category and if you have any doubts about how they feel about it (it is their game and they ultimately make all the rules) consider the suspension to the person who posted about the anchor bug that many power levelers exploited several months ago.
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Was that player suspended for powerleveling?
Has any player been reprimanded, warned, suspended or banned for powerleveling?
Has any developer made any statement regarding powerleveling?
Using an exploit or a bug to advance your character at an accelerated rate is against the rules.
Maximising your character advancement using established game mechanics is not.
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or were you going to attack the way I said it instead of what I said. I said it before, and I'll say it again, people on these boards need to seriously brush up on their interpetitive skills
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Perhaps you need to brush up on your communications skills.
When drawing an analogy you're best served to use two examples that have an easily recognizable connection or similarity.
Comparing a crime, punishable by law, to someone powerleveling in a video game is outrageous.
There is no apparent correlation between the two.
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Oh boy, you quoted my statement about interpetitive skills then proceeded to further validate it. I WAS NOT COMPARING THE ACTUAL ACTS THEMSELVES. I am not insane, crazy, nor an idiot! I know there is a difference between violating the law, and PLing in a video game! Apparently I have to spell it out:
I provided an example of acts that do not affect me (the crimes)
Versus
An act which does not affect me (PLing)
How did you miss the correlation?
Miir
I don't know for sure but I assume that you have to observe someone PLing. Now, how could the developers know?
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Icarus
Your wings have melted on that one. Players that don't know how to play get you killed. Then, you have to deal with debt because there is no one to help you cheat your way out of it. Think first speak second.
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Actually, there are plenty of morons running around at later levels that have no clue... but were not powerleveled or even powergamed up. I think you'll find that a good chunk of powerleveled toons are used by players who have already experienced the content many times over. Most of the morons running around at mid mid-high levels are casual players, not powerlevelers (who usually understand everything from game physics to DPE).
Jealousy is what this all boils down to. Except for arguments that pl'ed toons affect dev decisions for gameplay, you should care less.
What this game is sorely lacking is the ability to start a toon at a higher level, based on your previous experience level. If I get a toon to 50, I should be able to start the next at 14 if I like. Having to suffer through starter zones, with inexperienced players doing all kinds of unintentional griefing, only serves to frustrate you into not playing. Those first 14 levels are only 10-30 hours of gameplay. If I already have several hundred under my belt (close to a thousand in my case), why force me to suffer through the seriously painful ones.
I don't see why anyone wouldn't stop pl'ing after 14-20, but if they don't... no skin off my back. By 20, you have a bunch of cool powers, decent slotting, and a travel power to get you around. You then have the fight to SOs at 22 and it becomes a whole new ball game. Those are the fun times.
they lvl from 2-32 in 3 days? That could give it away....
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They may try to make allowances for it but there is no way to compensate completely. The complexity of such filtering would make data mining all but impossible. The best they can do is come up with a fudge factor to try and compensate but this is not an accurate method.
So, perhaps you should try again.
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Haha, okay; we're not talking about solving calculus equations here, man. There is no such thing as an "accurate method" of looking at this data and trying to decide how to much subtle changes to the game mechanics, XP, minion statistics, etc.
It's all a matter of the developer's ability to interpret the numbers. They look at them, they think about them, and they think about what they want to do as a result. In the end, all of the data available to them is included in this decision, including knowledge of the people who level faster than average and those that level slower than average.
In the end, the argument is moot anyway, because for all you know players who are leveling very slowly are more than compensating for those that are leveling "too quickly."
Should we make "taking your time" illegal too? That skews the numbers, too, right? It should be considered "cheating" to log on and not get XP all the time, right? By your rationale, that makes perfect sense. Nobody should be allowed to spend a lot of time online without gaining XP, because that "skews the numbers" and affects everybody right?
I'm trying to think of a way to make it more clear how illogical this line of reasoning is, but I can't. I think I've done all I can at this point. It's up to you to open your eyes. 
PLing isn't a bug, it's in almost any MMO.
It's not cheating but it is cheesy and if there was open PvP, it would be affecting your game experience big time.
Want to fix it, do what most other games do - range bubble for getting exp. In otherwords no standing in the tram while your buddy fights on the other side of the map. Make it 300 or 400 feet - outside that range no exp. Make them get close to the action. Will cut down on quite a bit of it.
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To the OP, yadayadayada.....
sorry but how people get their levels is of no concern to me.
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my only problem with powerleveling is that it throws off the real figures. then after making the data bunk by having someone else crazy pl them to at least a point where their archtype has some real powers and abilities ..... and then saying the game is too easy.
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Now THIS I do agree with. It skews the numbers and makes datamining less accurate.
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I would only agree that datamining is less accurate if those doing the mining do not take this type of behavior into their analysis.
In other words if a toon shows a very LARGE sum of xp gained in a short period of time WITHOUT activating any powers a red flag should be placed with that datapoint.
I have faith that the devs are able to identify behaviors like this and are able to make good decisions about this.
On Justice
Super Goober, Scrankster, Dusty McFluffy, SuperHappyFun and others
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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
Okay so is this PL'ing;
My friend and I start two charcters, team them up, run missions together most of the evening (I wish the was a way to make a super-duo so you didn't have to run the same missions twice when you play this way, seriously we both just took the same ledger to carla brunelli at the same time, and got the ambushes at once for it)
Then I get sleepy and wantto go to bed, he's still wide awake, there's a hunting mission or two that we each have to do, we park me in safe spot and he goes and clears out as many missions as he can. Now his game play has slowed down a little cause I am not helping him, but he's usually only on for an hour or so more than me anyway. Doing this we have gotten about a level a night
Is this powerleveling?
This is a low level alt for me and we are doing it so we could play a team together.
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How about if you are not in SK range it drops the XP. Once it says "you can are no longer being SK'd" kiss the XP good bye.
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This mechanic already esists in game.
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My understanding is that if you are SK'd and are "in the same zone" or "in the mission" when the XP is given you receive it. If you "get too far away from your SK" I don't think that stops you from getting XP. It just means that you will probably not be able to kill anything that you come across.
Does anyone know?
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Your wings have melted on that one. Players that don't know how to play get you killed. Then, you have to deal with debt because there is no one to help you cheat your way out of it. Think first speak second.
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Muahaha. By that (totally illogical) rationale, "being stupid" should be against the rules, too.
Sorry, man, you can't make it against the rules for people to play poorly.
Plenty of people who have worked their way to 50 "legitimately" are still going to be bad players. This is unfortunate, granted, but it's not an argument against power leveling.
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it doesnt negatively impact your ability to play your character in the slighest.
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That's all there is to say on the subject. Besides jealousy, there's really no reason for you to care.
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I love this philosophy! We should apply it to real life too. Someone just robbed a convenience store? Who cares? Doesn't affect me. Someone is lying about disability just to collect $$. Who cares? Doesn't affect me. He's right, people are just jealous that the criminal who held up the store got lots of money.
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I believe this is a really bad analogy. I would think that watching a movie in a theater and someone else starts talking would be a better one... Entertainment that requires cost and someone making the entertainment less entertaining versus breaking laws.
But this still doesn't really fit well because you can ignore the person in game and go somewhere else. Or you can drive yourself nuts trying to comprehend how many people are doing this when you are not playing or on servers you don't play on...
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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My understanding is that if you are SK'd and are "in the same zone" or "in the mission" when the XP is given you receive it. If you "get too far away from your SK" I don't think that stops you from getting XP. It just means that you will probably not be able to kill anything that you come across.
Does anyone know?
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If you are too far away to be considered SK'd, and you are too low a level to earn experience off the mobs the group is facing without SK, then you earn NO experience. Being in a mission doesn't change this.
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it doesnt negatively impact your ability to play your character in the slighest.
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That's all there is to say on the subject. Besides jealousy, there's really no reason for you to care.
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I love this philosophy! We should apply it to real life too. Someone just robbed a convenience store? Who cares? Doesn't affect me. Someone is lying about disability just to collect $$. Who cares? Doesn't affect me. He's right, people are just jealous that the criminal who held up the store got lots of money.
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I believe this is a really bad analogy. I would think that watching a movie in a theater and someone else starts talking would be a better one... Entertainment that requires cost and someone making the entertainment less entertaining versus breaking laws.
But this still doesn't really fit well because you can ignore the person in game and go somewhere else. Or you can drive yourself nuts trying to comprehend how many people are doing this when you are not playing or on servers you don't play on...
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I know, I know...I should just give up. It's just not in me to do so though....Please read my post that immediatly preceeds this one for my answer to this.
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Should we make "taking your time" illegal too? That skews the numbers, too, right? It should be considered "cheating" to log on and not get XP all the time, right? By your rationale, that makes perfect sense. Nobody should be allowed to spend a lot of time online without gaining XP, because that "skews the numbers" and affects everybody right?
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Don't agree with almost any of your posts usually Icky, but I have to agree here.
If people are worried about skewing data, they should worry about both directions. The direction you suggest, improperly interpreted by dev, would result in changes that make things too easy.
Suffice it to say, I am sure all of the data is being stored in a DB and can be mined fairly easily with sql statements. Those can be altered to handle such irregularities and provide a median result. It's odd that people can think a whole MMO such as this can be made, but trivial sql statements for data mining are just beyond comprehension.
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i would also like to see proof that majority of the lvl 50 heroes were powerlevled.....If you have none dont state the fact...if you cant debate a fact with solid evidence dont bring it up.
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Unfortunately there really isnt any way for us to prove this one way or the other. The devs may be able to do some very complex data mining but I doubt they would ever share the results with us. But, just because something cannot be proven absolutely to be true does not mean it is false.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/distract/ig.htm
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Arguments of this form assume that since something has not been proven false, it is therefore true. Conversely, such an argument may assume that since something has not been proven true, it is therefore false (This is a special case of a false dilemma, since it assumes that all propositions must either be known to be true or known to be false.)
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By the way least you accuse me of the second form of this fallacy, my comment was an observation based on my own personal experience.
As someone who was in the higher level zones before they became crowded at it is fairly easy to see what was and is going on. The early L40s and later L50s are a small community on most servers. You will have bumped into almost all of them on a regular basis. When I first worked IP a /whoall would seldom have more then 10 people in the zone same story with bricks and FF. TV never had anybody in it.
Under these conditions its not that hard to notice when someone shoots up 6 levels in a day or two. You also know who is in what SG and what they are doing. If you see the same people camping outside portal corp day in and day out while gaining levels at a high rate it is not hard to guess what they are doing.
Any time I go on am hammie raid these very same people make up the vast majority of those present. Sure there are some who rocketed to 50 and were never heard from again. While I know longer personally know most of the L50s on my server I do know who they associate whit and what they do, and I have had ample opportunity to see them parked around portal corp in PI before they ever hit 50.
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Using an exploit or a bug to advance your character at an accelerated rate is against the rules.
Maximising your character advancement using established game mechanics is not.
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Ummm ok. But before any cheat or bug is fixed...is it not considered an 'established game mechanic'?
I don't get it. Why hide behind something so silly. As stated previously, the Devs have given no yes or no on the train station exploit. Notice I don't call this powerleveling. Gaining advancement while taking NO action from a safe haven in the train station is not powerleveling. It's simply an exploit of game mechanics that the devs have not addressed. I do not know if they WILL address it. They may have a heap of other things to fix or the code may be tricky to manipulate without putting other game mechanics at risk. No one here really knows.
Stop mixing up powerleveling with an obvious exploit. The game is there to be played. Not to be breezed through. Regardless of if you have 3 or 4 high level toons. This does not give you the right to slipstream through all the lower level content to get up to 40 or 50.
What can be said is that perhaps due to lack of a larger mission variety at lower levels, its not as fun to repeat the process. Thats a content issue that the devs should take care of. It would be great if no 2 heroes had the exact same experience but I imagine that takes a lot of doing from a game design point of view.
And another thing, just because something takes a hell of a long time to fix, doesnt meant that the devs don't care about it, arent aware of it, or consider it acceptable gameplay. When I first started EQ, they had just fixed a well-known bug that had been there for two and a half years.
Something for nothing is against MMORPG game design and no devs WANT or DESIRE players to play the game as such. You're kidding yourself if you think so. They nerfed(errr...fixed) one of the coolest mage abilities in EQ(Call of the Hero) just so players couldn't skip content in certain areas.
And if its true that all of you never 'powerlevel' but think its ok, why even bother to post here? I would expect the powerlevelers to be the loud ones along with those opposed to that particular gameplay action. Maybe some of you are being a little less than honest about your gameplay practices...which you have stated are totally ok by the way 
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Frankly, I have a variety of friends in their 40s that could Pl me. I was going to to ask but when I thought about it and saw people leveling at the train station it made me angry. It is a cheat. I like to be an ethical person that is proud of what he does. That's it.
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That's your loss.
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Also the jealously thing is getting boring. Why would anyone be jealous of unethical cheaters. That's like being jealous of a rapist for getting a lot of sex. How was that for an extreme real-world analogy?
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Keyword in your thing is "unethical." Anyone in the real world who hates unethical abusers usually has some sort of envy and jealousy involved. They feel that the guy is exploiting something to his advantage and it's not fair, at the same time they are frustrated and dont want to do it even though they think it may be a good idea. On the same token, they are also envious that person has the guts to do it. I've sure felt this way before... are you saying you havent?
No one said what you said is false i just want evidence before you state the fact that most poeple didnt earn there way....It is just now that most of the people that worked for 50 the majority are getting it...well out of my sg most are jsut getting to 50 in the last 2 weeks none were pled to there. So there is my proof i have seen the lvl 50 community it is very large so therefor i believe most have actually worked there way to there. Plus even if you pl someone from lvl 40-50 is the biggest grind so it would take you about a week just to get from 40-50 even being PL'd. BTW my name isnt flawed its flawless
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Frankly, I have a variety of friends in their 40s that could Pl me. I was going to to ask but when I thought about it and saw people leveling at the train station it made me angry. It is a cheat. I like to be an ethical person that is proud of what he does. That's it.
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That's your loss.
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Also the jealously thing is getting boring. Why would anyone be jealous of unethical cheaters. That's like being jealous of a rapist for getting a lot of sex. How was that for an extreme real-world analogy?
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Keyword in your thing is "unethical." Anyone in the real world who hates unethical abusers usually has some sort of envy and jealousy involved. They feel that the guy is exploiting something to his advantage and it's not fair, at the same time they are frustrated and dont want to do it even though they think it may be a good idea. On the same token, they are also envious that person has the guts to do it. I've sure felt this way before... are you saying you havent?
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Wow, major generalization in the last paragraph. Don't include me in that "unethical equals envy" boat. While technically legal, leaking the name of a victim in a **** case is unethical. Yet I have no envy for the leakers. Cheating on a spouse is legal, but not ethical. Yet I don't envy the cheater...
I think you need to rethink that one...
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Pling allows for an incompetent approach to the game. If there was no Pling you would still have bad players but it wouldn't be because they are cheaters.
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This might be true if powerleveling was considered to be cheating.
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I don't get it. Why hide behind something so silly. As stated previously, the Devs have given no yes or no on the train station exploit. Notice I don't call this powerleveling. Gaining advancement while taking NO action from a safe haven in the train station is not powerleveling. It's simply an exploit of game mechanics that the devs have not addressed. I do not know if they WILL address it. They may have a heap of other things to fix or the code may be tricky to manipulate without putting other game mechanics at risk. No one here really knows.
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How is it an exploit?
What game mechanic is it exploiting?
You pose that there is a chance that the developers may or may not consider it an exploit... since they are aware of the situation and have not made any official statement regarding the 'legality' of it, it is safe to assume that partaking in such actions is neither cheating or exploiting.
Snce this is not your game and you do not make the rules, your claim this is an exploit is simply trying to place your own personal standards on other people who play the game. My $15 a month does not give me the right to tell you how to play COH, nor does it give me the power to label someone elses actions an exploit.
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Stop mixing up powerleveling with an obvious exploit. The game is there to be played. Not to be breezed through. Regardless
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Obvious exploit?
There is one loophole that has been addressed in Issue 2 (Sidekicks have to be in the same group) but aside from that, grouping with someone at max XP level range -1 and then sidekicking someone is not an exploit.
Said I'm sorry.
I have a bad tendency to take things the wrong way and shoot my fingers off before I think.
If I were dishonest though, most of my "posts" would be edited to nothing or deleted, by me.
Never read the previous posts, just jumped in. Again, My mistake and appologies.