I16: Super-Sidekicking Explained

This can only be described, like so many things in life, by quoting Futurama:

"Awesome, awesome to the max."

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Forgive me if this has been addressed earlier in the thread, but while I welcome this feature, I forsee a couple of problems with it too.

Right now due to the limitations of the sk function, you're generally limited to how many lowbies you can bring to a team. While this is sometimes irritating, it also guarantees a situation where you get at least half the team that is at least somewhat close in power to the mission holder.

Lots of characters sub level 11 don't even have enhancements, and plenty of characters sub level 21 are running on DOs. That's a substantial power drop from characters on SOs or IOs.

In AE, this is somewhat tolerated because you bring in a powerful level 50 and auto sk everyone in the mission. It creates a situation where there's one or two characters doing the work and everyone else just comes along for the ride.

While I'm sure some people don't care if this happens, I happen to like the fact that I can expect that people on my regular mission teams aren't leeching. This feature seems to encourage leeching. What it will probably mean for me is that I'll have to continue to be selective about teammates and not just grab people who are available.

The other situation that will probably occur are the tells from low level characters to level 45+ characters to allow them onto teams. Unfortunately, I can see this becoming to be a regular and irritating phenomenon. Level 1 blaster sends tells to all characters level 45+ to see if there's room on the team. Again, this is a situation that can be overcome by asking the person's level and AT, but it's the unsolicited nature of these tells which will be bothersome.

Anyways, I don't mean to rain on the parade. Overall, I think this is a step in the right direction. I am a little worried though about how the feature can bring in some negativity as well.

I16 is looking like my favorite issue since I12. Well done!

If somehow I12 PVP was brought back in this issue, I would explode from happiness.

I don't understand how any of this can be interpreted as bad.

I can solo a map set to 6 without bothering anyone else ever. check
I can have my friends on a different mission with me who level at a rediculously slow rate... and I dont have to bother finding mentors for them. check
I won't get any more ingame emails ever. check
I won't have dingdongs asking me to bridge for them when I get to lvl 46. check

I don't understand how any of this can be interpreted as bad.

It really only affects pl'ers really. For them rest of us, it's gonna be a great change. There are too many good things about it that make me happy to see it. It'll be easier to make teams and easier to run missions and easier to get to 20. Can't argue with that in the least.

The only realy change will be to those that Power level. It'll slow that down abit but not really all that much. I don't mind that, but i know there will be a really loud minority that will really be unhappy with it. They'll do what they always do, roar and adapt.


I don't think we'll lose anyone from it and likely get more people to stay because once those guys hit 50, most get bored and leave. I love the AE and it's a great thing, this change goes a long way to putting it back to what it's supposed to be. All they need to do is top of the Mobs in there to about 50-51 max and limit the all lt/boss missions and i'd say it'd be where it should be from the start.


Great stuff and i get to have green fire imps.


Love it.

this looks amazing

WRT SuperSidekicking affecting farmers/PLers:

From what I can tell, SSK will affect primarily Bridgers, i.e., those who 'farm' for XP for lowbies by means of a 'bridge' to put the lowbie in the sweet spot for the most XP per kill.

Bridging is not the only PLing tactic. There are others, and so, there will still be PLing.

Bridging is not the only farming. There are other farms for various things: Prestige; Purple drops; influence; badges; etc.... And so, there will still be farming.

In some ways, SSK is a boon to many types of farming.

However, it is most definitely a bridge-killer.

And basically, that's all I think one can say about SSKing: It's an end to bridging and a boon to some other types of farmers. Oh, and it makes teaming in CoH remarkably easy now.

As for Posi's comments about looking into ways to fix this so that people can keep their recently earned powers as teaming with lower leveled characters, I have an idea for that. I know this isn't the suggestions section, but since its a newly announced feature that more people are likely to read it here so...its probably best described as an example.

Level 35 mission holder. Teammate A at lvl 25, Teammate B at lvl 37, Teammate C at level 42. Whenever the exemplaring/sidekicking kicks in, teammate A (lvl 25) gets sidekicked up to level 34. Teammate B (lvl 37) gets new controls including a slider to select a level with the range of 35-37 (defaulted to 35), and an unexemplar button (for quick unexemplar in case of an emergency and need to quickly beat a group before a team wipe), and a XP on/off toggle so they can choose to earn more money instead of XP, in the team window. Teammate C (lvl 42) gets the same controls, but the level range is from 35-40 (+5 of the mission holder's level, which is the range now for getting XP I believe). Teammates B and C's rewards are scaled as they are now based on their selected level, so above level 40 they won't get any rewards, but they will have higher strength. Powers and slots active follow the selected level as well.

This will allow people to keep the recently earned powers if they just happen to level a couple levels higher than the mission holder, at the sacrifice of some of their rewards, just as it works now, but at their choice. If they want more rewards, they can give up the newly earned power, but since the newly earned power presumably will give them an advantage, if they want to use it they lose some rewards. This should keep the anti-PL group happy with the change because it keeps the lower leveled people closer to the mission level, but it also lets the exemplar function as he is now if he wants or to take advantage of the new system.

Like I said, its just a suggestion. Not sure how long it would take to implement or if that could fit into the issue still, but I think it would give everyone the best of both worlds on the exemplaring side of things by letting the player choose and solve the power-leveling issues on that side as well.

All in all i'm quite happy with the features Positron announced in this thread. Even without adding the ability to use higher level powers while exemplared/malefactored it will be a huge boon to teaming.

i'm actually rather indifferent about the 20% xp boost for those under 20. While i already tend to level faster than i necessarily want to, i can always turn off xp for a while if i want to avoid outleveling specific content, and already have done so on several alts.

PowerLeveling and Farming are completely seperate actually.

Powerleveling has people on a team... and they want EXP.

Farming is you SOLO and there is NO exp.

Anything else is just teaming.

All farming does not have to be done solo. It's just most (potentially) efficient for it to be that way.

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*squeee!*