Just getting back...explain new SK rules please?

I've been away for several months, so could someone explain to me how the new SK'ng rules work please?

I decided to open a second account this time around, but I'm wondering if it's even useful (in terms of levelling up toons faster) like it used to be.

Zombie Man's Guide has the best explanation of the new SSK rules.

Welcome back!

Thanks


I was just thinking...one of the things I'm wanting to know is isit necessarry for a lowbie to stay with the mentor now, odr is there a difference in xp if he does/doesn't?

There's no more "leash" on a lowbie being sk'd up. No difference in xp if there's distance between them. That part works the same way exemplaring used to.

The auto SK levelling is determined by the leader and/or the level the selected mission. AFAIK the team member location range no longer affects it. Unless I'm misunderstanding the question.

So is levelling up a toon on a second account harder or easier nowadays?

Please don't flame me for "runining the game with powerlevelling." Minus several hiatuses, I've been around a long time (I3). I just don't want to spend alot of time going through the same wearly-level gwoign pains everytime I make a new toon...or spend all that time to figure out the toon's not goign to work the way I had envisioned.

With the Mission Architect system it seems to be a lot easier from what I can tell from people's postings. Everything is in one spot, no travelling to diff locations etc. The devs seem to do a pretty good job at nixing exploits but the nature of the MA system seems to lend itself to quick levelling in a fairly convenient manner.

Also with the new difficulty controls you can specify whether you are considered a group on your own, what types of mobs you want to see etc. So regardless of the MA system there is a mechanism for faster levelling in normal missions with this in mind.

Any suggestions for which missions / arcs would be optimal for this?

I don't use the MA system so I really couldn't help in that regard.

Even before the new difficulty settings were in place, challenge 3 and up was more than enough of a boost for increased experience. Now there's even more variations to what you can do with it. If you are going to group your toons together, have the leader set the mission to always consider you a group and set the + level of the mobs and you'll definitely see an increase in the XP rewards for normal missions at any rate.

These are the new difficulty options accessible through the npcs:

hmmm...out of all that stuff, I'm wondering what the best recipe for success is.

PLing is not considered an exploit. PLing is not against any rules in the game.

Utilizing exploits is against the rules. Utilizing imbalances in the game to further PLing is against the rules.

PLing is not against the rules. Farming is not against the rules.

Please note: I am not a farmer or PLer. So don't start that tripe with me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

The numbers about how many subscribers COX has is highly misleading, because many of those are from people hacing MULTIPLE accounts. The chief reason for multiple accounts is that it facilitates PL'ng. If PL'ng were comepletely erradicated, a truckload of accounts would vanish and this game would either die off or be SEVERELY crippled in terms of new content, improvements, etc. because of a vastly reduced revenue stream. Most people (assuming they don't just play the same old toons all the time) simply do not have the time it would take to level every character up from scratch (and no...I'm not necessarily advocating PL'ng a toon all the way to 50). For someone to have THAT much time on their hands would be pretty sad actually because his/ her life is missing something...a job...girlfirend...attending to their family...etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of 50s runnign around with people that have no clue how to play them, but I do not feel I owe anyone an apology because I don't want to play through the same early-level growing pains every time I make something new. Doing so would be monotonus (I probably spelled that wrong, but oh well). That kind of monotony would also drive people away from the game.

What really kills me when the whole farming/PL'ng issue comes up is that You never (or atleast I never have) see people who PL/farm telling those who don't how to play the game because the feeling largely is that, if they don't want to handle it that way, that's their choice. It's the Anti-PL'ers / Anti-farmers who are the ones consistently trying to shove their viewpoint down someone else's throat. Some of the last few posts are a case in point...I asked a question about how to expedite teh leveling of toons on my second account. If someone is unable or unwilling to offer good advice on the subject, that's all well and good, but when someone stops and takes the time to give me *&%# for a playstyle that's different than thiers, THAT is disrespectful...and really freakin' pathetic.

Wow, didn't take this long to degenerate. You might consider that you have been away for a bit and that, between Patrol XP and the way XP in general has been improved, simply playing the game is now a significantly faster way of progressing than it once was. Since you clearly aren't up on many of the latest developments (SSK system, etc), this isn't an unreasonable thing to point out and certainly doesn't justify jumping down someone's throat.

Personally, I don't PL and likely never will because I find it irksome and boring and I have no problem progressing my characters without resorting to it. I don't much care for the practice in general and I find some of its proponents to be disingenous about how and why they engage in it, but that's neither here nor there. Ultimately it's never going away and honestly any attempt to get rid of it entirely does more harm than good. PL will never be eradicated and it'd be foolish of the Devs even to try, but not because of a concern over revenue (at least, not the way it's presented above - plenty of people have multiple accounts for reasons other than PL). The reason PL will never be eradicated is because the damage to the non-PLing XP system would be devastating. Not only would they anger the PL crowd, but a much larger crowd that's entirely indifferent to the issue.

As for the exploint/not an exploit thing, PL isn't an exploit unless it makes use of a bug for the furtherance of PL (such as any of the various fiascos with abuse of the MA system, to give a recent example). Aggelakis is quite correct. PL is certainly in most cases a twink on the existing systems, a min/max that finds the greatest gain for the least investment and often involves many parties putting forth no investment at all (doorsitting). It is not, however, an exploit or a cheat. It is manipulation within the rules, a critical distinction. It may be unpopular with some, but it's not a violation of game rules or of the EULA. So the Devs will continue to take steps to curb those areas most often targeted for abuse by PLers but won't try to destroy PL itself, which has worked out well as a position for them in the past and is likely to remain their general position on the matter in the future.

If the OP (or whoever) wants to PL then that's their prerogative. If I want to avoid the practice altogether, that's mine.


As to the questions regarding PL and the SK system, the practice known as "bridging" is effectively dead. Whether this is a good thing or not is somewhat subjective. If you have multiple accounts, there should be nothing preventing you from simply setting your difficulty settings for a team of 8, inviting your alts to team, and clearing the selected mission on the PLing character. Essentially the same rules apply for regular maps as they always have - choose something that you can clear quickly that's not much of a threat to the character doing the PLing. No-brainer there.

You can also make use of the MA, but you should take care to observe the recent changes restricting rewards from lopsided custom groups (an anti- "boss farm" measure). As the MA was never supposed to be a farming tool and in fact has been expressly marked "not for farming" at least a dozen times by the Devs, that's no great surprise. That people continue to abuse it anyway is also no great surprise. I bring this up only because, if you plan to PL in the MA, you will want to educate yourself before potentially wasting your time on an MA mission that does not fit the new parameters.