Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Leveling Pact
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2008-12-11 19:18 in Developers' Corner
Objective Feedback
After this week's maintainence it seems that if you are leveling a pacted character without your pactmate logged in and you have leveled since they last logged in then you will not see xps accruing in your xp bar until you change zones.
This leads to most level ups taking place at the end of a mission as you exit to the street (which means the level up bonus is essentially wasted).
I'm not sure if this is a bug or the desired behavior however as it doesn't seem that the experience is being lost, just delayed due to the level imbalance in the pact.
Subjective Feedback
I had thought that Dual Builds would be the big winning feature in this issue for me, but since i13 launched I have spent far more time working on leveling pacts.
I find there's a much stronger psychological reward for leveling up if I know that I'm also helping a friend to level. Additionally there's more reward in playing in general in that I am able to "play with friends" even when they are not on (as is often the case with our conflicting schedules).
"Striving for the impossible" doesn't mean "toiling in vain". It means growth. It means improvement in the direction of your ideals. Not futility.
Erfworld: the Battle for Gobwin Knob
I feel the pact system should be extended to two toons of the same level, instead of restricted to level 5 or less. I know I have a friend with whom we made ghetto leveling pacts to stay close, but it is a pain when one of us is defeated.
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This leads to most level ups taking place at the end of a mission as you exit to the street (which means the level up bonus is essentially wasted).
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Or, in our case last night, after we went to PocketD. It was two brand new chars with no possibility of either debt or patrol XP complicating XP balance, so it does seem to be a little strange, though presumably it was the mission complete bonus for one of us that was at issue. I'm a little confused as to why the calculation doesn't just happen when the XP is awarded, but I admit it isn't exactly a pressing issue. Still, hopefully this will be tweaked later.
One drawback of the internet is how it has trained so many people to think that one day is a long time.
I love the leveling pact and the way it's implemented. My fiancee doesn't get to play as much as I do so this has been wonderful for us, when she logs on we are the same level and on an even playing field.
I also like the 5 level rule, I can just see too many people trying to find loopholes if the level was raised much above that for existing characters.
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I love the leveling pact and the way it's implemented. My fiancee doesn't get to play as much as I do so this has been wonderful for us, when she logs on we are the same level and on an even playing field.
I also like the 5 level rule, I can just see too many people trying to find loopholes if the level was raised much above that for existing characters.
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What I am talking about is not a level 10 and level 30 entering a pact though. I'm talking about allowing two toons of the EXACT same level to enter a pact. For those of us that duo with friends but did so before I13. From a QOL standpoint I would support this quite abit.
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Objective Feedback
After this week's maintainence it seems that if you are leveling a pacted character without your pactmate logged in and you have leveled since they last logged in then you will not see xps accruing in your xp bar until you change zones.
This leads to most level ups taking place at the end of a mission as you exit to the street (which means the level up bonus is essentially wasted).
I'm not sure if this is a bug or the desired behavior however as it doesn't seem that the experience is being lost, just delayed due to the level imbalance in the pact.
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This is not restricted to situations in which the pact mate is not logged in, or in any way on leveling that I can see. I've had it happen with both pact mates in the same mission (a Safeguard in this case) where they started at level 10.38 and stayed there till mission exit, at which point both characters went to level 11.15.
Kosmos
Global: @Calorie
MA Arcs in 4-star purgatory: Four in a Row (#2198) - Hostile Takeover (#69714) - Red Harvest (#268305)
If you got a friend you can make a dummy pact. This helps us with the I gotta do it all people. Were growing in numbers and we dont want just the Orubours stuff. we need to do the grey missions as well.
Its like I have a career counciler who calls my employer and gets me fired.
The Legendary Cosmological Prince Reigar 53rd Illusion Control/Storm Summoning/Primal Forces Mastery/Incarnate
It's a dark and story night. That means something bad is happening out there
I have to agree that not getting XP until I change zones or leave a mission is annoying. Especially on those days when I'm bored and just want to solo street sweep away tons of enemies. I have to frequently log out and back in just to get my XP to show!
However overall I love levelling pacts. I work nights most often and seldom get to play with my friends, but when I do play at night I generally level faster than they do, so this is a great way for us to "team up" and work together on something in game.
My one complaint is that I can't pact my old characters and now I feel a bit guilty when I want to play one of them because my RL friends could wind up getting half XP for nothing if they play the pact character and I'm tooling around with my old favorite.
I'd suggest that after level 5 you get the one time ability to pact with another toon of your level, just to let old characters team up.
If you want you could have this ability refresh if you remain outside a pact for five levels. That would let you dump a pact-mate that wasn't working out and then re-pact with someone else. But you'd pay a price. It would also let you delete a pact character you don't like without screwing your friend out of the ability to be pacted again.
Biggest complaint with level pacts : can't track the influence.
Okay, this is a minor fuss, but would it be possible to implement a server message telling you what you received from you level pact companion? While I get that exp and influence are split half-half between players when they are online, and while i get that when one of the level-pacts is offline they still get half the exp, but don't get any influence...
but what's the breakpoint on when both accounts are logged in but not on the same map? If both level pacts are on a different team? Say one level pact is doing story missions and gaining levels while the other one is doing a task force that exemps the level down? Do they still split influence even though they aren't on the same map? Do they have to be loaded into the same zone with a certain distance of each other to gain influence from each kill?
Getting answers to these kinds of questions would be /really/ nice.
I also agree that not seeing what you've done till you leave a mission is very annoying. I've been in big groups were everyone else lvl'd, but I didn't untill I left the mission. It was a tiny bit irritating. And agreeing with others, a waste of the lvl up bonuses.
Also I agree with the thought of lvl pacting characters who ARE the same lvl. Myself and my friend have been leveling our characters as a team since before this idea came out. The lvling pact would help us so much!
Ruthia Dascht >Co-Founder of Garden of Thorns VG on Guardian. Lvl 50 Energy/Cold Corr
Not being able to level up within a mission is freaking annoying, particularly at lower levels.
If they want to discontinue the levelup bonus, then please make it the same across the board.
We've had a fair amount of large amounts of xp waiting till the end of missions to deliver, and then kinda wasting the bonus. Not always because we do hit inside missions too.
My wife and I love the simultaneous leveling. We have a ton of themed duos, and I end up suiciding a lot to synch up with debt. We really really would like the ability to make pacts with our higher level duos (all our characters on Freedom).
My opinion is that anyone who pacts at higher levels should have to be the exact same level to form the pact. That should prevent any major abuses.
We would love to have that, and pretty much love them as is on our new lowbies.
The final line of a post by Sweet_Sarah on Liberty
"Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes."
Agreed. My boyfriend and I have been having this same issue with our new pact-levelled pair.
Also, I second (third? fourth?) the idea of allowing us to make pacts with our higher level character pairs. We have, um... far too many 
... and it's annoying to always keep them in sync.
As has been said many times in this thread:
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I have to agree that not getting XP until I change zones or leave a mission is annoying. Especially on those days when I'm bored and just want to solo street sweep away tons of enemies. I have to frequently log out and back in just to get my XP to show!
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Irritating beyond belief, as I too like to just street sweep at times and having to zone is frustrating. Could we not get a command to have the calculations done (/Pactxp) or something to get it to release when we want it to.
Also, please consider changing the level 1-5 rule to 1-5 and any other time your level matches.
*EDIT* I should however say that even with the above complaints I really love this idea and it's I13's biggest bonus to me.
Thanks!
Let them work out the bugs before opening it up to higher lvls. Then if it is working nicely look at expanding it slowly. I'd say 1-10 first. Remember there was mentioning that they may expand it to more than 2 people in a pact at some point.
I think the reason you dont see what you get until zoning is so they can make sure xp isn't getting lost. there were some issues with lost xp, I don't know all the issues, but i think this will be a temp solution so we can have pacted charecters until they can get it just right.
Lets hope they get the fix in soon then, this is almost worse than losing a few points here or there for the lowest levels.
Take the sewer run for example . . . it's a great way to go from one to ten, but it's suicide for a pact-mate now. You keep going lower and lower and not levelling until you finally die, gain your levels, and run back?
It's possible, but it's annoying and unless the whole group is going to wipe your going to have to either leave it and seek another or try to find your way back down to them alone, taking who knows how much time.
I say almost because it depends on how many points are lost. If it's one or two every once in a while well . . . I'm already accepting half XP anyway, but if it's a lot or happens often that could cause some people to get mad and give up on the pact idea altogether. Which wouldn't be cool.
Ok, a bit of reading has suggested that the problem has to do with too much data flowing around if your gaining XP every time you should and having it divided between your two pact characters. This may or may not be true, but if it is I have an idea that should fix the problem.
Add in a new bonus power for pact characters, give it a moderate to slow recharge time, and let it divide the points when used. You can still have the points auto-divide on entering and exiting a zone, but even if I'm on a sewer run or in the middle of a huge mission I can hit that button every 2-4 minutes and get my XP.
This "kludge" fix also has the bonus effect of giving a skilled player who knows he has earned enough XP within the instance a new strategic decision. Does he take the level right away, or wait until he needs the resulting bonus? Leveling improves all your powers, but waiting could save you in a tight spot later in the mission.
Which transforms my current issue with the Level Pacts into something people would actually enjoy. I can see wanting that option extended to all of my characters . . . Including those outside of pacts. The current bug thus becomes a useful feature and everyone is happy.
Implimenting this for all players would also cause the amount of data flowing in and out of your system to drop significantly. You'd be getting one number 300, instead of 40, 30, 20, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 30, 10, 15, 10, 5, 40, 20, 10 from every player! That should save a lot of bandwidth and improve performance quality.
The additional power wouldn't be too hard to program either. All it needs to do is trigger the same code your already using to divide XP whenever we enter or leave an instance. It's almost a kludge fix.
To impliment it for all players you'd just need to start everyone out level pacted with themselves. You wouldn't even need a line of code to check for the pact that way, just need a pointer to show where each half of the xp is going.
Edit: Oh you would want a line of code to make sure you didn't show yourself as a "Level pact friend", that would look wierd. lol
Best use of leveling pact: Task Force runs. If you were level 17 or 18 to start a Synapse, you'd be 20 (21 actually, but ex'd down when you hit it) and not gaining xp for the last 1/3 at least. Now you'll get almost to 21 and get your friend up there too.
Thank you, City of Heroes, for giving me a superhero social network combined with amazingly smooth game play. Petitions signed with realistic expectations.
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<ul type="square">[*] A pact can only be created between characters who are Level 5 and under.[/list]
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I feel this needs to be at least 10. I don't normally bother even teaming before lvl 5.
My SG recently decided to make a team of Shield characters to level together but I'd got above 5 before any of the others had logged on. So my feedback is that I tried to use this facility but had already out leveled it. 
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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<ul type="square">[*] A pact can only be created between characters who are Level 5 and under.[/list]
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I feel this needs to be at least 10. I don't normally bother even teaming before lvl 5.
My SG recently decided to make a team of Shield characters to level together but I'd got above 5 before any of the others had logged on. So my feedback is that I tried to use this facility but had already out leveled it.
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Personally, I feel as though it should be extended beyond level 10. I have two characters at 34 and 35 that I would love to pact.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
Objective:
Getting xp only when you zone is very annoying. And defeats the reason of the wonderful level up bonus.
Subjective:
The suggestion about making a medium recharge xp distribution system seens the best way to accomodate both the need for players to actually see their characters improvement and the need to minimize a little data flow.
Also would be nice to allow pre-movement powers character to be able to enter pacts. Or raise pact cap to 3 or 4 people. I play mostly with 2 other friends, and we like to stay in each other´s range...
** Guardian�s Crazy Catgirl **
************* 22 XxX 10 *************
Yes. I can get lost on a straight-line map.
I agree the not tell you zone/exit is not that great. I hunt a lot and I have to zone to get any exp while in a pact.
Also why not make it a within 5 lvls and let it go up to lvl 30+. Becasue your right it takes me about 1/2 hour to get to lvl 5 if that and thats just to short a window.
Also the idea of a multi pact is a great one
Broomhilda BS/Regen/BM Scrapper, Fiddle Faddle Shield/ElecM/BM Tank,
And many others..
Dev's With all the Great new content, Please!! dont forget to fix the bugs with the old content. There is a storm a brewing because they are not getting fixed. If its a problem that no one is reporting them? Well Maybe you need to look at your tech support then..
I love the leveling pact! My partner and I played until 4th level, then he had to go. I then joined a sewer team and played until I was level 7 and everyone else was 8+.
I leveled fine, if more slowly in the sewers.
In real missions I noticed the wierdness of not getting the leveling bonus until exit, or logon, if your partner leveled you. Eh, I can live with it, though it doesn't make me jump for joy. I can put up with it for the leveling pact.
I am for having characters over level 5 create a leveling pact if they are the EXACT same level. Perhaps only let each character create one ONCE after 5 to prevent possible abuse. I have a couple of Twin characters that tried to stay the same level. It's not that easy. One pair is 18, and one 24. It would be nice that they could make a pact, so we don't have to say "Sorry, can't join. My twin's not on"
I do not like the delay in gaining XP. Getting my XP in one lump sum when I zone is not as much fun as seeing progress as I go.
This timing belittles the Level-Up Inspiration Buff. I get the buff as soon as I leave a mission, giving me a brief time of amazing hunting skills, usually at a location full of too-high or too-low opponents.
Use the following topic to discuss Issue 13's Leveling Pact.
<ul type="square">[*] A new innovation to MMOs, this system allows you and a friend to create new characters and have your XP be permanently in sync, whether both characters are online or not. You will always be the same level, even if your friend plays ten times more often than you do![*] A pact can only be created between characters who are Level 5 and under.[*] To begin a pact, right-click on your friend's character and choose "Invite to Leveling Pact".[*] XP and Influence are split between both players.[/list]
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Feedback is important to our development process, there are two types of feedback and both are helpful although some give us more insight and are more easily adapted into game changes.
Objective Feedback: Objective feedback is based upon what you as a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience. This feedback usually can be replicated easily as it involves facts and unbiased opinions. Example: When using the base editor items are sometimes getting caught in columns or pillars.
Subjective Feedback: Subjective feedback is based upon how you feel or experience the game as yourself. This experience may not necessarily be replicated because it is based on feeling and emotion. Subjective feedback is important to us but it is usually helpful if more information is present to describe what and why you feel the way you do. Example: I like the way the graphics look on my shield animation it gives me the feeling of being truly super-powered.
Are you reporting a bug from Issue 13? Please use this thread to report bugs, there is a format in the OP that you can follow to help you in your reporting. Issue 13: BUGS