Thank you for the Wolf Mission Timer
By
10101,
Posted on: 2005-02-22 21:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Not an exclusive empath problem, it was just one very annoying example I ran into a few days ago.
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LOL, well the change to the wolf mission has utterly failed in that respect.
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Yeah, it has. The change to the Wolf mission seems to have hurt non PLers more than the PLers. Or should I say the non-herders more than the herders. This is just my experience.
There are plenty of missions for PLers to herd now. The only people this effects in a negative way are the non-PLers. In my opinion the mission was made unfun for the average joe who now has to race through the mission to complete it unable to take the time to enjoy it.
I am still getting plenty of tells from people who want a kinetics defender to buff their people up before they nuke.
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You wann know how PLing makes the game unfun? Try this:
*invite Empath Defender*
*fight*
*TEAM DIES BECAUSE THE EMPATH DID NOTHING BUT BLAST AWAY THE WHOLE FIGHT, since she has ONE HEAL and ALL OF HER BLASTS, AIR SUPERIORITY, AND SEVERAL OTHER POOL POWERS, and the only reason she ever made it to lvl 20 IS BECAUSE SHE PLED OFF OF WEREWOLVES*
THE END!
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The reason you died is your own fault. When someone is invited to my team and i click on them to see their info and something looks out of whack i'll ask what's up. If they seem completely clueless on why they have 7 attack powers and heal aura then i'll find another emp def. So i say again, your own fault.
As far as WW p/ling, you may want to reconsider your generalized statement. If you recall most of the p/led chars are coming from WL, not WW. And you have the wonderful QA department to thank for that one. 9 times out of 10 if a char is p/l through WW's then it's an alt of someone's that owns a lvl 50. I don't think anyone goes to AP and broadcasts that they're running a wolf herding mish, anyone wanna join?
The point of this post is that you need to pick your team a little more wisely and stop trying to blame other people for your shortcomings.
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I don't know what the big deal is. It's a stopgap fix to an epidemic problem in the game, and something that will probably be addressed by removing the very ability to effectively let someone 9 levels below get insane XP and be practically worthless, otherwise.
We're probably going to see sweeping changes like a 5level cap on XP, and/or all purple mobs (no matter high higher they are) give the same XP per mob. IOW a lvl 45 mob that's 5 levels above you will give you the same XP as a mob that's 7 levels above you, because they are both a minion (or whatever) of the same con (purple).
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First off, if you are 9 levels below the con of the mob you get less XP than if you are 5 lvls below it. There is a curve in which the XP tapers off once you get so many lvls lower than what is being "arrested".
Seconly, if they put a 5 lvl cap on XP, how is that going to stop what all these whiners are complaining about? You will still be able to p/l, and tells will still be sent out for that certain lvl range that fills the gap. Whether it be a lvl 42 to sk someone or a lvl 46 to sk someone.
As i stated before, #1 - mind your own business and #2 - p/ling will never stop. I'm guessing neither will all the complaining whiners that dont have a lvl 50 or someone thats a lvl 50 that they're friends with to help them lvl. Really, thats what this all boils down to...jealousy. You could really care less about the longevity of the game and you can't blow enough smoke up my rear to make me believe you do. Get over it!
Leveling in the game is incredibly fast compared to what it was on release. And AV missions if at most people die twice in over twenty AVs.
If you die more then twice in facing over a dozen AVs you are doing something wrong.
Grouping actually gets more xp then solo since the group bonus was increased and you get ten times as many mobs.
Complaints that takes forver to get through a wolf mission are ridicoulous. Even on the defeat alls it only takes 20 mins at most since wolves are patheticaly easy to defeat.
The only AVs that are troublesome are Numina's alt and Dominatrix.
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The reason people are pl'ing is because the investment in running missions in terms of advancement is laughable.
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Funny that it only takes at most fourty hours to get from level 40-50 running missions and tfs.
If anything the time it takes to get from level one to fifty has been reduced to under four hundred hours with mission and group xp as it is now.
Getting into teams who wanted to do the content at 40+ took fraking forever due to wolf teams.
If anything powerleveling reduces leveling speed.
Race through the wolf missions?
What are you playing on a connection that is slideshow?
Wolf missions were done so fast they should be the ten minute missions.
Even without herding they were over and done with so fast they were a joke.
Wolves were a mistake to put in game.
Replace the thugs in the tutorial with wolves and outbreak would be a hundred times easier.
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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I don't see that as a valid excuse for taking time out of your and/or your dev staff's busy schedule to make changes to various missions. It causes more harm than it does good.
In the case of the CoT portal spawns, that content is ruined, and very few groups that I'm in actually go into that room unless they have to. It's just not rewarding to do once anymore, let alone farm the area.
The wolf mission timer won't have such a negative effect, but it is all moot. If you're still planning on a system where we can go back and do missions/archs even after we've outleveled them, then your whole point about why you don't like pling is going to be solved in the long run. Nobody will have any problem of "missing" the "fun" content that you have deamed worthy of your player base, and you can let us choose how we spend our time enjoying this game.
I personally never find progressing slowly in a repetetive manner (i.e. doing missions that take me to the same office, lab, or cave) to be fun. I'd rather street hunt and level faster. In either case I'm doing something repetetive by nature, it's just that one is more rewarding than the other.
It's not the maps that are the content. It's the stories represented by the mission info and clues.
Also the portal rooms give major xp for the portals when defeated.
Like three or four bosses worth each portal and they are easy to destroy.
Didn't read through the thread nor the original post.
Everyone has there opinion and is entitled to it. I would like to make one simple comment.
Be honest with yourself, about PL'ing. I cant believe all the negative comments about the wolf mission, yet all the people asking and participating...
It's similar to the hypocracy about the Winter Lord event, lots of threads, many people happy it was over, Galaxy & Perez flooded with heroes!!!
The wolf mission didn't bother me and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the game. The things that do make it less fun, I simply shy away from...
One more comment, if wolf herding is so frowned upon by devs, then why is it that they didn't they place a timer on the people that already had the mission?
Hypocracy at it's best...
Have fun on CoH everyone!!! 
Coding for one. Changing code on missions people have is something that always takes more man hours. Even if the fix is beloved like a patch that shows the mission on the map properly the devs won't do it.
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The only AVs that are troublesome are Numina's alt and Dominatrix.
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Well that really depends a lot on your AT and build doesn't it. There are numerous AV's who have a PBAoE nuke that will one shot my scrapper. So if I am fighting an AV I either duck out mid fight or I pop a lot of lucks and hope for the best. If I get hit I die. Simple as that. So the risk of facing an av (debt, possible mulitple times) grossly out weighs the reward (late 40's an av defeat grouped is going to give you what? 6-10K XP?). Honestly AV's are really not worth the trouble of fighting them. Only reason I do at all is to complete my arcs.
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Grouping actually gets more xp then solo since the group bonus was increased and you get ten times as many mobs.
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Again, depends on the build. My scrapper can make more XP running mission solo with far less risk than when I team up. I team up often because I have a good group of SG mates that I enjoy playing with, even if it slows me down. Now my controller at 27 groups because yes, the XP is far better than trying solo. Though I have a feeling that'll change in a few levels.
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Funny that it only takes at most fourty hours to get from level 40-50 running missions and tfs.
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I dunno, I don't check how long each level takes me. And agan depends on how much time you can spend playing. To someone who can play 40 hours a week, maybe it doesn't seem so long. To someone who only plays an hour a week? Well I doubt they'll have to worry about the 40-50 climb.
I also find your estimate dubious at best. With missions set on Invincible, solo, I get just over half a bubble on the average mission. So 20 missions per level? I can run a mission in about 20 minutes. That is on average 6 1/2 to 7 hours per level, if you are constantly in a mission. So probably adding in travel time, badge hunting, LFT, conversing with friends, running to sell, running between contacts, lets say 10 hours a level. So 100 hours from 40-50 for running missions might be a better estimate.
Now if you are powering out levels in a hazard zone, non stop killing I'd say 40-50 is a decent estimate, but not for running missions. 
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If anything the time it takes to get from level one to fifty has been reduced to under four hundred hours with mission and group xp as it is now.
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LMAO. I seriously doubt it. Again, maybe if your a power gamer, but I already have over 500 on a tanker that is only level 41. Now granted he was started long before the mission xp increase, and I honestly can say I never noticed the grouping bonus increase, that changes weren't that huge. Now the difficulty slider will certainly increase leveling speed for those that can handle the harder difficulty settings and maintain the same pace as before. Of course that depends on build/at/powers though.
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Getting into teams who wanted to do the content at 40+ took fraking forever due to wolf teams.
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I really don't believe wolf missions was the cause of this. Guess you'll find out, come back in two weeks and lets see if anyone finds it easier to team. I seriously doubt much will change because a timer got added to the wolf mission.
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If anything powerleveling reduces leveling speed.
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LOL, no. It just makes the time it takes you to level by comparison seem slower. Your actually leveling at the speed the devs intended. The PL'ers are simply going faster. They don't have any direct impact on your leveling speed.
I'm sorry, but PL'ing isn't the reason no one teams 40+ unless they are looking for AV help. It is a combination of risk outweighing reward for larger spawns and the large leveling requirements and the large debt possibilities.
I don't want to start writing a thesis here, anyone that has played through the better part of the 40's understands why no one teams. Like Statesman trumpets often. Risk should equal reward. In a lot of areas the risk greatly outweighs reward. 
If your scrapper gets Koed in one hit then you are playing a gimp scrapper.
Selling characters or influence or selling levels is something that should get an account banned and the person blacklisted from any game company.
Sadly this is slowly coming true instead of the speed it should have been.
Risk vs. reward is a crap excuse.
AVs fall so easily to any build in a team unless someone is a screwup. And sadly powerleveling is the reason one finds a lot of screwups in the post 35+
If people didn't powerlevel you would find most of the dolts would have quit the game. Most dolts who don't find someone to powerlevel them do quit.
I have played through the 40s as does 99% of the anti-powerleveling crowd. We know the reason why teaming is hard to do is because every frigging request to team is to do wolf missions. Every tank with self respect hated powerlevelers. Everyone who wants to do a shadow shard tf finds the amount of effort to get one going is a lot easier with the wolf timer in place.
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If your scrapper gets Koed in one hit then you are playing a gimp scrapper.
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You've obviously never played a */regen scrapper have you?
I don't care if you have every defense in the regen line fully slotted and tough and weave too, there's a weakness to every AT of scrapper and AV's will find it.
For you to make a comment like that is simply ludicrous.
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Selling characters or influence or selling levels is something that should get an account banned and the person blacklisted from any game company.
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While i agree someone that buys an acct with chars on it is usually a moof, you'll never stop this.
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If people didn't powerlevel you would find most of the dolts would have quit the game. Most dolts who don't find someone to powerlevel them do quit.
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So why haven't you quit yet?
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We know the reason why teaming is hard to do is because every frigging request to team is to do wolf missions.
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Maybe you should have prefaced that comment with /huge exaggeration, cause that's what it is.
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Every tank with self respect hated powerlevelers. Everyone who wants to do a shadow shard tf finds the amount of effort to get one going is a lot easier with the wolf timer in place.
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I love how you use the words "Every" and "All" so freely, please stop the craptastic, at best, posts.
Thank you, drive through.
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Race through the wolf missions?
What are you playing on a connection that is slideshow?
Wolf missions were done so fast they should be the ten minute missions.
Even without herding they were over and done with so fast they were a joke.
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I was talking about the specific mission in the OP. If you can herd an AV in ten minutes and all the minions on a map while getting all the glowies my hat is off to you.
Oh, what a bunch of pure, unadulterated HOGWASH about people "enjoying" the wolf missions.
They were exploiting them in their haste to get to level 50 to "win the game".
Or they were exploiting them for pure profit.
People "enjoyed" putting their character at the entrance to the mission, the Homer Simpson drinky-bird on their keyboard to keep them from getting auto-logged out, and then walking away to watch American Idol.
People enjoyed getting $800 to bring a character from level 1 to level 50, and now their style has been cramped a little, and they're angry.
Be honest with yourselves, if not with each other.
If you want to play a game by standing there, doing nothing and getting a reward for it, go find some touch-feely kindergarten teacher who'll give you warm fuzzies for just being you.
40062: The World's Worst PUG
84008: Jenkins's Guide to Super-Villainy
230187: The Hero of Kings Row
No H8 - 08.04.10
@Circuit Boy - Moderator - Pride global chat channel
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It's not the maps that are the content. It's the stories represented by the mission info and clues.
Also the portal rooms give major xp for the portals when defeated.
Like three or four bosses worth each portal and they are easy to destroy.
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The portals don't give "major" xp. It's a little more than a boss, but nowhere near the xp you'd get from getting xp from the hoarde that comes out at you.
As for "stories" being content. That's your point of view, and it's moot. The point of my post was that once the system is put in place where you can revisit old missions and story archs all of this "game balancing" will no longer have a valid, Statesman seal-of-approval signed reason for happening. If States doesn't want people outleveling content, spend time working on that system instead of changing the content that's currently being enjoyed by a lot of the player base.
Now that I've belabored my point, I'd like to disagree that "content = story." This is a video game. They have a novelization coming out (if it's not out already) and in the novel, content = story. That's not the case in a video game. Content is the sum of all parts. In this game the sound is content, the story is content, the mobs are content, and the mission zones are content. Anyone can write a decent story (and a lot of us have for the background of our characters) but how many of us can design and implement a zone like Crey's Folly?
You mean flashback? Nothing on what the flashback system really allows you to do has been mentioned or what you would expierence.
Stories are content according to the game developers. They have a story Bible that is 500 pages long. Obviously the info on mobs, clues, spoken text by mobs, civilans is all part of the backstory of the game.
Sorry at 30 a boss doesn't give 3k xp solo even con.
It's three times a boss. And all the portals give two to three bars of xp in one hour whearas the old farming took hours to just get one bar.
I farmed portals because I ran out of missions with four levels before new ones and a tf only gave one bar at the most. This was preissue 2 btw.
Sorry I have seen regen scrappers survive AVs that INV and Dark Armor gets wiped out on.
Never have I seen a regen die on AV and I have seen dozens of AVs fall to regen.
Sorry it is not a huge exaggeration. The devs examine the chat logs of the zones when they need to and what occurs in a mission.
Guess what hundreds of resets on a character's mission obviosuly is not natural gaming and would gather attention due to the resource allocation.
Much like the afk idiots the devs do have access to far more data then you would like to admit or dream about.
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Sorry I have seen regen scrappers survive AVs that INV and Dark Armor gets wiped out on.
Never have I seen a regen die on AV and I have seen dozens of AVs fall to regen.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Again, obviously you have never played a regen scrapper because i can name at least 3 AV's that will one-shot a regen scrapper. Take SH for instance, he has one attack that will hit you for over 2500 HP, even with tough, weave, resilience, DP and reconstruction on....he'll make you eat dirt.
Please, if you have no clue what you are talking about, don't make huge blanket statements like that because it makes you look even more like what the first part of your name says than people already think of you.
Back to the actual matter at hand.
Quoted from Circuit Boy's post:
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Oh, what a bunch of pure, unadulterated HOGWASH about people "enjoying" the wolf missions
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You need to go back and re-read Statesman's post
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Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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If you don't find it fun, CB, then don't do it. But don't come here and try to tell me what i enjoy or not.
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Never have I seen a regen die on AV and I have seen dozens of AVs fall to regen.
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I see regen scrappers die to AVs now and then. Today a +3(or maybe+4) chimera killed a regen scrapper in about 2 seconds with a whirling sword AoE attack while my tank held his aggro. Several other AVs does a nuke when severely hurt that one-shots many things, not sure how regens stack up to that.
And why do praetorian AV missions on invincible? Because an 8-people team gets silly amounts of xp clearing the maps, even with a few deaths.
I dont think it is a problem that some people powerlevel, but if half the server population sits in werewolf missions getting bored to tears, just because it is a lot faster xp than other things, the game gets in trouble.
I suspect that nothing else can be herded nearly as efficiently as werewolves, since wolves run 5 times faster than other enemies. Which might make regular missions slightly more appealing in comparison.
I agree, the obvious massive PLing done with the wolf and kora missions was disgusting. I'm glad the devs fixed it and only wish they did so quicker. Doing one mission over and over dozens or hundred of times is not good for the game.
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Sorry Statesman, but it doesn't make sense... If someone is doing this over and over, how does this make it unfun or more fun for someone else?
If someone chooses to miss content it should be their perogative. It you want to stop it then put more rewards in the 40's and maybe the heroes won't want to skip the content... (this is just a thought and not a solution in and of itself)
The timer is a bad idea, and it's obvious from the flooding the posts from people that are frowning this rather than praising this decision.
SHAME ON YOU for not allowing players to make their own decisions!!!!!
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I disagree. When States said the player should have the choice and "make their own decision" he wasn't talking about exploits or PLing and I'm sure he never intended playing one single missions over and over as part of that choice.
If it was suddenly found that you could insta-level youself by pressing ctrl-alt-F5 while standing at the top of the atlas statue, people would do it all the time. That would be a choice but it would be bad for the game and bad for the players and it, like all forms of PLing, should be quickly stopped whenever it is found.
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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I guess I'll jump in..now I've never farmed anything but...Who are you to say what's "unfun" for players? Yes you created the game and I thank you for that but as you said it's all subjective...meaning that there was no real need for the timers...People who found the farming "unfun" simply wouldn't do it...those who did find it fun would. No one is being forced to do anything 'Unfun' in this game for exp except,in some cases, level grind. I've read in some post were people have qutoed you on your "unfun" perspectives...Stop pushing what you find "unfun" on us and let us decide what we find fun or "unfun" and then go from there. If it's an exploit then fine just say so and fix it don't hide behind fancy wording and banter. Again love the game have been playing since beta...but please some things are just getting annoying
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Only because there are a few people complaining about it.
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That says it all
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When States said the player should have the choice and "make their own decision" he wasn't talking about exploits or PLing and I'm sure he never intended playing one single missions over and over as part of that choice.
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I sure am glad we have all these people around to tell us what other people's thoughts really are.
BTW, doing a mission more than once is NOT an exploit, and for about the 3rd time, you'll NEVER stop power leveling.
All i can say is, don't let me join a team and see one of you whiners from the forums here running missions that belong to a higher level character in your group.
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Well at least your honest about mischaracterizing people.
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I wasn't mischaracterizing anything. If I say in the same sentence "some people like iced tea and some people dont, so I am going to outlaw iced tea because no one likes it" Don't you think that sounds just a little odd?
If the first statement is true then the second makes no sense.
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It's to combat rampant powerlevelling, not to "remove fun from people who enjoy powerlevelling."
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LOL, well the change to the wolf mission has utterly failed in that respect.
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This is where gross misrepresntation such as the kind you foster is revealed. Thanks for being honest about it.
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Again it is only a mischaracterization if you are a blind follower, taking the devs word as gospel without thinking about it for yourself.
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The problem with rampant powerlevelling is that it makes it hard for people like me and many others to legitimately group and do missions together.
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No what makes it hard to group and enjoy missions is the fact that grouping is simply not as profitable as soloing. The reason people are pl'ing is because the investment in running missions in terms of advancement is laughable. The reason people herd and reset missions is because the risk-vs-reward of facing a string of AV's mission after mission is simply out of whack.
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I would not be surprised to see the level difference for XP reviewed at some point in the future.
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I agree that it will be reviewed, I don't agree that it is a good thing. Like I said earlier, the devs are trying to slow down the leveling process, even if they are saying they don't care how fast you level. How many issues do the devs have to try and ride both sides of the fence on before you see the fallacy in their arguments?
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What I find hypocritical is that you admit you're being dishonest but expect anyone to take you seriously. Why would anyone want to try to argue what you twist? Not me.
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LOL, I'm not the one being dishonest here. Take the fanboi hat of for a minute, re-read what he said, and think about it. It is pretty plain to see.
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Nah I think it's just you that's being hypocritical. Maybe one day when you're ready for an honest conversation, you might have something to contribute. Right now, though, I think your comments at least have some comedic value.
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Well, if you don't mind following the path the devs lay before you without even thinking about why or the consequences of their actions more power to you. I'd rather think for myself though.