Hopfuly "Going Rogue" = no more levels

Except that the "super-sidekick" system doesn't do exactly what you suggested (as I understood it).

For example, the system being implemented does nothing in regards to the street mobs. It doesn't create level 10 Carnies. It means that a level 10 character, in a level 41 Carnie mission, is fighting just as if he were sidekicked to a level 41 character. If the team leader is level 35, and the mission takes you to Atlas Park, all of the mobs on the way to the mission will con gray to everyone, even the level 4 character on the team.

Purples will still be Purples, and Grays will still be Grays, they will be as tought to fight, and you will be rewarded for fighting them, as appropriate to you current level, as determined by the mission holder or team leader.

What they have removed is the need to actually sidekick or exemplar to someone. The game will do that for us automatically. The new system is, essentially, making the mission holder or team leader the "mentor" for the rest of the team.

I'm still a little leery of level 40 characters getting expereince for beating up Skulls, especially if the auto exemplaring allows them to retain their powers, as has been implied in Positron's description of one of the hurdles the testers are jumping right now. But, really, that's a logical hurdle, and not a technical one. If a player is fighting and being challenged, they should be rewarded.

It just feels "dirty," somehow, taking all that XP from those defenseless Skulls.

It's almost exactly the same thing, except that lower levels will be 1 level lower then the team leader.

It only effects street mobs if your SKed. While I still think making the street mobs even levled would add to the immersion of the game, the super sking system accomplishes the intent of making team formation easier.


not completly true as now higher levels will retain their powers and get xp. However, this is pretty much exactly what I perposed, except that I didn't/don't see the necessity for a mentor.

I didn't get that implication at all from Posy's post.

Hmph! If what you suggested, and I quoted, was "almost exactly" the "supersidekick" system that is being put into place in Issue 16, then I didn't understand you at all. Funny that I think I understand the "supersidekick" system almost perfectly (still some exemplaring questions that need to be answered to my satisfaction).

The fact that you approve, and that it has aspects of your idea does not make it "almost exactly the same thing."

Yes because some aspects not being implemented wouldn't qualify for "almost"? The new side kicking falls just short of what I suggested. My suggestion was basically to treat everyone like they were side kicked all the time and the super side kicking eleminates the need for having mentors/exemplars, while in groups.

It sounds a lot like your grasping for justification for your previous discontent with my idea. Most of the precieved problems mentioned with my idea are going to have to be answered with the side kicking system as well (although they were problems with the current system as well, but that didn't seem to stop people). The devs don't seem to think those problems are actually problems either.

I'm glad you like what is being added in Issue 16, but I think it falls well short of your idea, again, as I understand it.

Your team of level 32 characters will still run into Purple Carnies that will be almost impossible to touch in Peregrine Island, and sill still run into Gray Hellions in Atlas Park that you can kill with ease, but will get no xp for.

If you were, in fact, proposing a system very like the one we are getting, you did not present it very clearly. However, this does not mean that I am being hypocritical. While I did not like your idea as presented, there are things that bother me about the "supersidekick system" we are getting in Issue 16, too. One of my main points of discontent with your idea is the idea that I can get xp for defeating foes that I outleveled ten or more levels ago.

However, I admit that this is mainly a disagreement from a philosophical, rather than mechanical, standpoint. If I'm level 30, Skulls stopped being a threat 15 levels ago. There should be nothing new I can learn by fighting them now. I can earn the thanks of the City (influence), but, unless they have new tricks, they have nothing they can teach me (experience). I disagreed with it, philosophically, when you presented the idea, and I disagree with it, philosophically, with the "supersidekick system."

I, too, wait to see how it will be implemented.

Depends on who is the leader of the group. What's grey or purple is completly relative with the new sking. Beyond your power selection and enhancements being level 10, 32, 50 is relative based upon the team leader. Which is pretty close to what I suggested, except I wanted to remove having to constantly adjust the groups level by changing the leader.

However, I understand that the new sking system is easier to implement and accomplishes my main reason for the suggestion in the first place.



there were plenty of people who seemed to understand it fine. Personally I think the real issue is because I suggested it instead of a dev people respond negativly out of reaction, for various reasons. It happens all the time on forums.


I still don't understand how you seem to think this is deifferent from the current sk system or from fighting greens and blues.

but thats only a problem because that's how it has been, not because it's the way it should be. At level 30 even if a skull is a white con, it's still going to be an easy fight at level 30 reguardless. And like I said before, unless you never exemplar it's already a cvontradiction in the immersion of the game.

What you suggested eliminated levels. This allows everyone to play at the level of the team leader. The capital difference is that it doesn't eliminate levels and you still require a person who is legitimately the level you are sidekicking to. Almost no-one is ever going to have a problem with one person being able to SK more than one other person. This eliminates nothing but the need for more mentors. Chiefly, it doesn't eliminate levels or the con system. It just gives you a way around it IF you want and IF you can find a mentor.

Existentialist nonsense. It's a problem because it's a problem. A white con minion does not go down from a single brawl delivered by a Mastermind. A -49 minion does, several times over. A white con minion can deal damage and land attacks. A -49 minion cannot land almost any attacks at all, and the attacks he does land do nothing. An even con boss is a meaningful obstacle even if he possesses NO powers at all.

Lower-level players not being able to engage in high-level content and fight high-level enemies without a genuinely high-level player present is a good thing, as is high-level players vastly outlevelling lower-level enemies. Multiple sidekicking changes nothing in this regard.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

No it's not non-sense. If the game had always been set up so that at level 10 you could take on 3 skulls, but at level 50 you could take on 15 skulls, it wouldn't be percieved as a problem now that skulls don't become completely obsolete as you level up. No one would of played the game and thought, "now that I'm level 50 skulls should never be able to hit me anymore." if it was never that way to begin with.

The SK system and AE and certainly the new SK syste make levels completely arbitrary. The ability to circumvent the level difference in these ways illustrates how useless having it is. Trying to make the argument that haveing a system where everyone can play at what ever level they want to (as long as they play with someone who is that level) is fine and desired, but somehow a system that everyone essentually is always the same level (doing nothing but elimnating having to jump through hoops to circumvent an arbitray system) is broken is an asinine argument.

However, as I have noted, The super Sking system answers my primary concerns for why I wanted such a system (ie easier team formation). As folonius mentioned a week ago "what you suggest, and what the Op implies are very similar."

It does accomplish your goal, yes, but in a different way than you suggest.

You aren't so important that people will disagree with you just out of principle. Trust me, you are no Angry Citizen, Venture, Perfect Pain or LaserJesus. Neither am I, for that matter.

Because, when fighting Greens and Blues, you have not left them in the dust. They are only one or two levels behind you. Fighting Skulls at level 16 is not even remotely close to fighting Skulls at level 30. At level 16, a level 14 Skull can still kill you. At level 30, all they are good for is the damage badge (and there are far more efficient ways of getting that).

And this is my point exactly. If the fight is going to be that easy, why should I be getting rewards for it? Currently, all I get for exemplaring down and fighting lower level enemies that I outgrew ten levels ago is the thanks of the City (influence). Because they don't push my character to push his powers to new heights, why should they give him experience? The current system only breaks immersion in that I lose access to some of my powers. The new system will likely allow me to keep using all my powers, AND gain XP. Immersion breaking in a different way.

This. At level 1, you're a rookie hero, and getting blindsided by a gang member could easily be an issue. Think Hal Jordan when he starts and doesn't have a great idea of what he's doing. At level 50, you're in the realm of Hal Jordan after years of ring-slinging, where you can stare at a purse snatcher angrily and he'll turn himself in.

Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?

This system is already in place and it doesn't work well enough. Something like this would absolutely make the game unplayable at low levels without always running around in a full team AND increasing the max team size.

Regardless of the fact that that Rikti may con White to both the level 2 and the level 50 characters attacking it, that level 2 doesn't stand a chance against it. He or she probably has no attacks that will get through the Rikti's defenses and on the flip side probably has no defense against the Rikti's attacks.

The same hold trues when fighting custom characters in AE or characters which have been artificially scaled down by the arc's author by adjusting the mission's level range. Unlike PCs, the NPCs get to keep all of their powers when their level scales down. Only the iintensity of the power is reduced.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

False. I would still have thought it would be patently ridiculous that thugs with clubs and knives can so much as scratch my power-armour-clad super soldier who rips alien armour and futuristic robots apart with his bare hands. Claiming we feel as we feel because that's what we've been conditioned to feel IS existentialist nonsense. I prefer the status quo not because it is the status quo, but because I consider it superior to your suggested change. It's not change in and of itself I oppose, it's what you are proposing to change the game to that I dislike.

I red up more on this super-sidekicking thing, and I find myself I don't like the concept of MANDATORY sidekicking and exemplaring for much the same reasons - it makes wimps suddenly super strong and strong men suddenly wimps with no way to opt out of it short of leaving the team. The one mitigating factor is that you at least have to have a higher-lower level member on the team for this to take effect, and you can always explain it away as "Oh, I'm just pulling my punches to show the new guys how we used to do it back in my day." I do not, however, exemplar my characters ever for any reason, so being on a team and forcibly exemplared such that enemies who shouldn't pose any threat now do is NOT something I like.

This isn't limited to JUST exemparing. A lot of genuinely high-level enemies don't make sense to be a challenge to us in the upper levels at all. Things like Crey Scientists punching and causing actual damage to a supposedly invulnerable character is absurd, and them having even as much health as they do is ridiculous. They're not armoured, many of them aren't armed, and some of them are BOSSES! Mobsters also have no business spawning at level 50, and the various Pratorians have a lot of enemies who have no business being as tough as they end up being. Marauder's "level 50 Hellions" are a perfect example. They're not super-powered. They're just very tough. But being tough doesn't protect you from a long-range missile rocket to the face.

False. Being able to "cheat" the system so that you can play with your friends in no way suggests that not HAVING the system to begin with is superior. Levels have their place as both a statistical and practical measuring stick of a character's standing in the game. Being level 25 makes me a lot stronger than a level 1 and a lot weaker than a level 50, not just because my "number" is half-way in-between, but because I can kill stuff the level 1 can't even touch and the stuff the level 1 can kill can't touch me, and also because the stuff the level 50 can kill I can't hope to touch, yet the stuff I can reasonably kill can't touch him. At level 25, I'm BETTER than a level 1, but a level 50 is BETTER than me. Not by a little, not by the measure of a few minions, not by a few powers or a few percent points. Overwhelmingly, visibly, tangibly and undeniably BETTER.

That this can be circumvented for convenience does not mean it SHOULD be circumvented as status quo. Level-less games simply suck.

And as Folonius later appended: "I am against this as well." As far as I can tell, no-one here was ever in favour of removing levels as a game mechanic, but everyone was in favour of making sidekicking easier, myself included. Sidekicking, even super-duper-ultra-sidekicking, is NOT a removal of levels, it's an out to make teaming easier without ruining the game. Just the way it should be.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.