Level pacts...broken without notice

I know that it's probably not a fun thing for a good MMO to think about/discuss things that happen if an account subscription should lapse. As it is, my own account lapsed recently due to major and rather sudden financial hardship. We were without internet, and without our game subscriptions, for about two weeks, but as soon as we could manage it, we paid our dues and got back to the game we've played and loved for a long time now. Two weeks, because real life interfered. That's all.

When I returned to several of my characters that I had level-pacted with a friend of mine, I found the pacts were broken. My friend contacted support about this, and was told quite simply that this was "how the feature was designed to work". It was stated rather bluntly and coldly, with very little understanding of the situation. She was rather irate about the whole experience... myself, I was just very disappointed.

I can understand that Level Pacts are meant to be between two characters with active accounts, and given all the recent anti-hype about PLing due to MA and such exploits, that there would be concern about people getting benefits from being pacted while their accounts are not being paid for. That's fair. My main concern, which is probably obvious by this point, is that, due to the way level pacts were designed, if either or both characters is over level 5, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to reinstate the pact once the game account is renewed.

The limit for account "downtime" is actually shorter than two weeks. Somebody else reported their pacts being broken when their account went down due to a billing error, and was inaccessible for less than 24 hours before the situation was fixed. That seems a pretty darn unforgivable window for a game feature that CANNOT be renewed.

If the level pacting system was available for any two characters under level 5, and also for any characters between 6 and 49 who were both the same level when the pact was initiated, that would be a different matter. Even if the account lapse was longer than a few weeks, and the other character was being played, all that would be necessary was for the inactive toon to "catch up" before re-pacting... either way it would still be a possibility. But since it's not at all an option for any character above level 5, regardless if they are still the same level and previously pacted, this just feels badly broken to me. I had pacts broken between characters that neither my friend or I had even logged IN to during my downtime... it's not as if any illegitimate experience had been earned.

Worst of all, I think, was the fact that precedence for account-lapse-related issues of other kinds (character names, etc) has always been around 90 days, or even a month at the very least. I had no idea, warning, or even a suspicion that I would lose access to most of my level pacts for a downtime of as little as two weeks. I am very, very disappointed that a new and very enjoyable game feature that is impossible to repair once broken, can be broken for things as simple as a temporary lack of money, or even a simple clerical error.

I'm not trying to flame or anger anybody, but it seems only fair that people be made aware that this is a consequence of account lapse, and it is -immediate-, with no grace period, which is, according to Support, "how it was designed to be". I would also hope for a re-think on how pacting can be initiated, for future reference. Would it break game balance so horribly to allow a pact to be made between two characters of the same higher level? It just feels like a game feature that can be broken so easily needs SOME way of being fixed again.

I have to say that the zero grace period does concern me as well. I think the best suggestion I can make is to contact one of the community relations folks (Niviene, Avatea, Moderator 08 aka TheOcho) to let them know your situation, concerns, suggestions and to see if anything can be done to resolve the matter.

My brother and I both have accounts and we often let them lapse. we just don't use them sometimes, and it doesn't make sense to pay for it when we can't use it.



I didn't realize that pacts were broken by lapsed accounts. I guess it's one feature I'll have to do without.

I always assumed this is how it would work. To my knowledge, no MMO ever allowed a character to gain XP on an inactive account.

The issue of reinstating a pact that has been broken by a lapsed account is up for discussion. I don't imagine the devs will allow it, as it would involve the immediate balancing of levels, so in extremee cases a player who just came back to the game could pact with a friend and gain from 1 to 20 levels without doing anything.

I don't see how it would involve an immediate balancing of levels. If a level 5 character pacts now with a level one there is no such immediate leveling. Paired XP after that point goes to the lower toon until balance is restored, but there is no "insta-leveling" involved.

Aside from that, if it is concern over level disparity, I already mentioned that for toons over level 5 they could have a requirement that both characters already be the same level... thus if the active person leveled while the other was inactive, the inactive character would have to be leveled up to the same point before the pact could be reinstated. I have no desire to suddenly receive a mass of XP I did not earn.

Again, it was not my intention to allow my account to lapse and not pay, while reaping the benefits of existing level pacts... as I stated, for most of the characters in question, neither character had been played since the lapse. My main concern is the dual problem of there being NO grace period and there also being NO way to reinstate the pact afterward... along with the added frustration of having no warning that this was going to be the case.

Levelling pacts from the NCsoft knowledge base

Levelling pact on the wiki

Both places have it clear that an account going inactive breaks the pact.

I wish the op luck with support, but doubt there is anything they can do.

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I don't see how it would involve an immediate balancing of levels. If a level 5 character pacts now with a level one there is no such immediate leveling. Paired XP after that point goes to the lower toon until balance is restored, but there is no "insta-leveling" involved.

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If I have a character that is Level Pacted with a friend, and I log off. If my friend continues to play their half of the characters, and gains 2 levels, when I next log on with my half of the Level Pacted characters, I will instantly have two levels of XP, and level up twice. That's how Level Pacts work.

It may not be your intent to abuse the system, but that doesn't mean the system should be set up so abuse can occur. Because if they do, they have to accept that it WILL be abused. Maybe not by you, but by people.

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I don't see how it would involve an immediate balancing of levels. If a level 5 character pacts now with a level one there is no such immediate leveling. Paired XP after that point goes to the lower toon until balance is restored, but there is no "insta-leveling" involved.

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I guess I don't understand how pacts work now. My assumption was that once in a pact you always had to be at the same level.

Even if there is no insta-leveling, however, a lvl 5 pacted with a lvl 49 would get a huge bonus to XP, because getting all of the higher leveled players take would be a huge number for a lvl 5. I think this would be another PLing scenario, and regardless of whether you are in favor of PLing or not, the Devs clearly don't like it.

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I always assumed this is how it would work. To my knowledge, no MMO ever allowed a character to gain XP on an inactive account.

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Eve has the funny system where you pick a skill and after X amount of real time it'll be trained. Up until sometime last year selected skills would continue to train while your account was inactive.

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The issue of reinstating a pact that has been broken by a lapsed account is up for discussion. I don't imagine the devs will allow it, as it would involve the immediate balancing of levels, so in extremee cases a player who just came back to the game could pact with a friend and gain from 1 to 20 levels without doing anything.

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No, no, there is a very simple solution.
1) The two characters in question must be the same level.
2) Current XP is equalized to whichever character currently has less.

Please note, further improvements to the systems ARE expected. We were told that duo level pacts were the first step in the process and the "plan" is to be able to form pacts with larger numbers of characters.

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The issue of reinstating a pact that has been broken by a lapsed account is up for discussion. I don't imagine the devs will allow it, as it would involve the immediate balancing of levels, so in extremee cases a player who just came back to the game could pact with a friend and gain from 1 to 20 levels without doing anything.

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No, no, there is a very simple solution.
1) The two characters in question must be the same level.
2) Current XP is equalized to whichever character currently has less.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a simple solution, but if the issue in question is a pact being broken because one member went inactive and the remaining partner gained a bunch of levels, it does not allow for the pact to be reinstated immediately. The inactive player would need to catch up first.

I don't mean to sound overly frustrated, but for the record I -did- already say that what would make the reinstatement fair was for the other character to have to "catch up" so that the characters would be of the same level. Nowhere in my previous posts did I imply that a level 5 would or should EVER be able to pact to a 45. I'm not even sure where anybody got that implication.

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The issue of reinstating a pact that has been broken by a lapsed account is up for discussion. I don't imagine the devs will allow it, as it would involve the immediate balancing of levels, so in extremee cases a player who just came back to the game could pact with a friend and gain from 1 to 20 levels without doing anything.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, no, there is a very simple solution.
1) The two characters in question must be the same level.
2) Current XP is equalized to whichever character currently has less.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a simple solution, but if the issue in question is a pact being broken because one member went inactive and the remaining partner gained a bunch of levels, it does not allow for the pact to be reinstated immediately. The inactive player would need to catch up first.

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Well, yeah, but... tough. Any other method would be exploitable.

Besides, if you're good enough friends with someone to want to level pact with them, surely you would know if they let their account lapse. In that case, stop leveling your toon.

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Besides, if you're good enough friends with someone to want to level pact with them, surely you would know if they let their account lapse. In that case, stop leveling your toon.

[/ QUOTE ] That's a good point, because everybody always remembers the date their account expires. And without a doubt we all know the expiration dates on our friends accounts. Good point.

I had the same problem with both my account and my wife's account. The characters in question are still at the same level and exp values.

All Support did was gaff me off on searching the knowledge base myself and basically imply I'm stupid for not knowing this unpublished limitation. One would think it would be in the feature documentation. But what do I know as programmer / admin / technical writer?

If it's not in the official docs, it doesn't exist as far as the customer is concerned.

The level pact functionality needs to be updated to let people make pacts at any time their levels are the same. Then any difference between them is reconciled (with the lower level getting all the exp until they are equal in exp values) and then sharing as is normal within the pact.

Couldn't this be dealt with by letting people pact at any level? Why the restriction?

I think the best solution to this is to simply flag the most recent character you have LP'ed with. That way, if the pact is broken, you can simply pact with the flagged character again. And if said character has since levelled without you, simply skew the XP so the lower can catch up quickly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Right It may not be your intent to abuse the system, but that doesn't mean the system should be set up so abuse can occur. Because if they do, they have to accept that it WILL be abused. Maybe not by you, but by people.

*coughMissionArchitectcough*

In my experiences when my partner's account went inactive and mine didn't, I found that the character I logged in while pacted started levelling by his lonesome again, whereas many other pacted characters didn't break their pact.

YMMV

I guess I hadn't thought about it, but it makes sense that they wouldn't want characters on innactive accounts to gain XP. However, I think they could improve the system by:

A) Letting people know in game when their pact breaks. I'm thinking a pop up window or something

and

B) Letting characters that are the same level re-pact, or form a new pact. It's never made sense to me that a level pact has to be made below level 5. I can understand not letting a low level pact with a high level, but what about letting two characters that are both the same level form a pact? My husband and I both have characters at level 40 for example. I don't see how it would be eploitive to let those characters pact going forward.

It may be a new thing because shortly after levelling pacts were introduced I couldn't afford to renew one of my accounts and it had a gap of about two weeks. I looked beforehand (and asked on the EU forums) about whether they'd be broken automatically, broken if the other pact partner logged in, might survive, or what, but couldn't find an answer. When I gathered the finances, renewed and logged back in- all my pacts were fine.

Guess I was lucky. I'm going to make sure I keep the accounts running now though.

I have two accounts, and never saw the note about account deactivations breaking pacts. Had many pacts between characters on my two accounts. They all broke. Thankfully most were under 20 and I have re-rolled many of them.

It at least seems like the inactive account check should only happen when a character is being logged in, rather than how it was implemented.

• Set a flag or remove a flag based on account status.
• On means inactive, off means nothing or at least active.
• Check for flag only on character log in, and then abolish the pact if one of the characters is flagged.