You all must have played on servers with real aholes...
If I or a group of us came along to an area where someone was PLing someone, most often they either left, arranged to leave me/us as many mobs as we could handle, or asked if I/we wanted to join up in the PL session.
I only recall a handful of times where someone monopolized an area without consideration to proper level players trying to play the area, and even then, they tended to be where there was plenty of similar content wiithin the zone.
Fulton said:You all must have played on servers with real aholes...
If I or a group of us came along to an area where someone was PLing someone, most often they either left, arranged to leave me/us as many mobs as we could handle, or asked if I/we wanted to join up in the PL session.
I only recall a handful of times where someone monopolized an area without consideration to proper level players trying to play the area, and even then, they tended to be where there was plenty of similar content wiithin the zone.
I don't feel like either of the servers I played on had many assholes. I don't think I ever saw anyone who felt compelled to leave because they were powerleveling. Most people just feel like they're entitled to content they claimed first, regardless of whether they are level-appropriate.
Dullahan said:No, I would say the temporary advantage of a buff is not on par with the permanent advantages of powerleveling. Apples and oranges. I would, however, say that a long term high level run buff should have a reduced duration on a low level target. =)
Buffing the holy hell out of a low level player and sticking with them to refresh those buffs in order for them to easily gain more levels is fine then. The buffs are temporary.
Dullahan said:Personally, I can't see why or how everyone doesn't regard that as a potential problem, should it be emulated in Pantheon.
Because people recognize that there are scenarios in which powerleveling is meaningful. Guilds who lose a cleric who quit and dont want to wait for a year for someone they trust to level up. Groups of real life aquaintences or family members who invite others in their real-life network to play with them, and dont want to wait for a year to do so, or pause playing their main in order to.
Feyshtey said:Dullahan said:No, I would say the temporary advantage of a buff is not on par with the permanent advantages of powerleveling. Apples and oranges. I would, however, say that a long term high level run buff should have a reduced duration on a low level target. =)
Buffing the holy hell out of a low level player and sticking with them to refresh those buffs in order for them to easily gain more levels is fine then. The buffs are temporary.
Dullahan said:Personally, I can't see why or how everyone doesn't regard that as a potential problem, should it be emulated in Pantheon.
Because people recognize that there are scenarios in which powerleveling is meaningful. Guilds who lose a cleric who quit and dont want to wait for a year for someone they trust to level up. Groups of real life aquaintences or family members who invite others in their real-life network to play with them, and dont want to wait for a year to do so, or pause playing their main in order to.
Yeah, and I'm not suggesting it be done away with altogether, only that it should not exist as it did in EQ. Really, I'm not sure why anyone would even expect that when even Vanguard didn't allow powerleveling that was close to as beneficial as it was in EQ.
I'm not going to dive into commenting on the nuances of the conversation, but there is something I would like to add.
Maintaining proper player populations on servers goes a long way in preventing some (if not most) powerleveling. The idea is that at least some players would prefer to group and level up an alt character traditionally, but often find the player base has become very top heavy, or there is inadequate population on the server in general to support reliable grouping. EQ became this way for me. I *wanted* to level alts traditionally, but there was no low-level player base to support that. The only alternative was to ask a guildie for a PL. This wasnt my first choice for how to level... it was my only choice. Once a playerbase gets too top heavy, PLing moves from being a shortcut to a requirement.
I'm not supporting PLing, but rather I'm advocating for proactively treating the cause rather than reactively treating the symptoms.
Dekaden said:I'm not going to dive into commenting on the nuances of the conversation, but there is something I would like to add.
Maintaining proper player populations on servers goes a long way in preventing some (if not most) powerleveling. The idea is that at least some players would prefer to group and level up an alt character traditionally, but often find the player base has become very top heavy, or there is inadequate population on the server in general to support reliable grouping. EQ became this way for me. I *wanted* to level alts traditionally, but there was no low-level player base to support that. The only alternative was to ask a guildie for a PL. This wasnt my first choice for how to level... it was my only choice. Once a playerbase gets too top heavy, PLing moves from being a shortcut to a requirement.
I'm not supporting PLing, but rather I'm advocating for proactively treating the cause rather than reactively treating the symptoms.
Perhaps you couldn't find groups because most people were poweleveling. People tend to take the easiest path in these games and poweleveling in EQ was definitely the easiest path.
It's up to the devs to design a better system. I trust they will.
Yall have covered all the bases I can think of.
First, folks seemed like they were rather cross with the op because he said something extreme. "Pling is bad most of the time so it should be completely restricted". The cross then said OP shouldnt try to impose rules on people. "Imposing rules on people is bad so it should be completely restricted". See what I did there?
One side wants security, so, among some other benefits, they can have the freedom to play a game they know is fair between all the players.
The other side wants freedom, so among some other benefits, they can have the security of knowing they can do what they want or need to do.
Guilds need to replace their members as soon as possible to enjoy all the content they told their members they could have, potential members need to know they are fairly considered to enter a guild instead of some power leveled alt.
Some bad players are power leveled, some of the only good players are power leveled.
Good discussion =p. Our options are allow everything, restrict everything, or find a compromise at some level between the two.
Personally, I like the idea that we should stop only the most extreme cases of power leveling. Some pling is very useful to people, too much can be detrimental to the fairness of the game:
That guy in Kurn's tower pulling everything there; taking everything from everyone and giving the alt a huge and blatantly unfair advantage. Versus that pler in kurn's tower helping his lil bro, guildy, or buddy to get to the pler's level by tossing buffs and heals, to him and whoever happens to be around, making friends, family, and laughter happen.
I like one guy's idea of reducing xp, but not gear, gains by how well you and your like leveld group personally killed the mob. You could attempt to find that happy place where buffs, heals, and doing a little damage here and there are good, but making everything simpler than a todlers game is not. Another idea could be reducing "overflow" experience; Theres a certain amount of kills the absolute best group of twinks could get, when you significantly exceed that number experience suffers.
Finally you could deal with it case by case, based on the core tenants of the game. Gms are hard to find and underpaid, but even so it's a possibility. Theoretically only the a holes who deserve gm action would get reported.
Thanakos said:Perhaps you couldn't find groups because most people were poweleveling. People tend to take the easiest path in these games and poweleveling in EQ was definitely the easiest path.
It's up to the devs to design a better system. I trust they will.
No, unfortunately he's right. After a few years if you did a /who all 20-25 to find approoriate level people, you might get a list of 20. But they were so deeply scattered across the world that'd it'd be an hour before you could get them all in one spot to group. And a pretty decent chuck of them would show as being in the bazaar, and you could assume at least some were vendor mules.
I agree with the notion of giving enough compelling, changing content that people want to replay the game. But there will always be a large portion of the player base who want to be at the higher levels conquering dragons, not their 1 millionth orc.
Feyshtey said:Thanakos said:Perhaps you couldn't find groups because most people were poweleveling. People tend to take the easiest path in these games and poweleveling in EQ was definitely the easiest path.
It's up to the devs to design a better system. I trust they will.
No, unfortunately he's right. After a few years if you did a /who all 20-25 to find approoriate level people, you might get a list of 20. But they were so deeply scattered across the world that'd it'd be an hour before you could get them all in one spot to group. And a pretty decent chuck of them would show as being in the bazaar, and you could assume at least some were vendor mules.
I agree with the notion of giving enough compelling, changing content that people want to replay the game. But there will always be a large portion of the player base who want to be at the higher levels conquering dragons, not their 1 millionth orc.
Probably everyone will want to be at max level but that doesn't mean everyone always will. There are plenty of ways to keep a healthy amount of players at each stage of the game. The devs have already said they are coming up with some ideas. And in my opinion, who says you have to be max level to slay a dragon? Why can't there be lvl 25 dragons? There will be enough horizontal progression and speed bumps to keep things spread out nicely. Plus, any good game will have a constant, steady influx of new players, which will also mean there are always players at different stages.
DDO had reincarnations in which you could return a max level player to level 1 in exchange for a new unique and pretty powerful passive ability and then have to level back up to cap, at which point you could do it all over again if you want. Plus, all dungeons were instanced and if you had someone in your group that was too high level, you'd take a massive xp hit. I'm not saying they should do any of this in Pantheon, the point is there are a lot of ways to keep lower level content alive and well. Brad is aware of the problems of a topheavy playerbase and is plenty creative to come up with good ideas to counter it.
Bazgrim said:Probably everyone will want to be at max level but that doesn't mean everyone always will. There are plenty of ways to keep a healthy amount of players at each stage of the game. The devs have already said they are coming up with some ideas. And in my opinion, who says you have to be max level to slay a dragon? Why can't there be lvl 25 dragons? There will be enough horizontal progression and speed bumps to keep things spread out nicely. Plus, any good game will have a constant, steady influx of new players, which will also mean there are always players at different stages.
DDO had reincarnations in which you could return a max level player to level 1 in exchange for a new unique and pretty powerful passive ability and then have to level back up to cap, at which point you could do it all over again if you want. Plus, all dungeons were instanced and if you had someone in your group that was too high level, you'd take a massive xp hit. I'm not saying they should do any of this in Pantheon, the point is there are a lot of ways to keep lower level content alive and well. Brad is aware of the problems of a topheavy playerbase and is plenty creative to come up with good ideas to counter it.
First off, Pantheon has proposed the idea of Progeny which is another potential method of having people reroll with minor benefits, which then encourages replaying the lower levels. This is much like DDO and other games that do the same, and for the same reasons. This has not been met with what I would term as glowing enthusiam. I'm personally in the camp opposed. I have somewhat limited gametime. But I am very supportive of long leveling curves in order for progression to have meaningful personal accomplishment and long-term viability of the game itself. Couple these with the notion of playing for months (or years) just to start over is very unappealing to me.
Second, the ideas Pantheon has suggested dont have anything to do with keeping people in the lower levels, but rather has much more to do with keeping people engaged while playing lower levels. Those are two dramatically different things. I fully support the latter, but find the notion of the former to be a trainwreck notion for a multitude of reasons. While keeping people engaged might make it more intersting to reroll and replay the game, it doesnt change the fundimental deep-seated TypeA personality trait so many MMO players have. Nor does it address the common and predictable notion that people want to play with others they know and like. Making it fun to replay lower levels doesn't synchronize when groups of friends, families and guildmates choose to do it. These ideas are at odds, and in my experience is that the outcome is more often than not that those who might have prefered to replay choose instead to stick with their core group of allies, which generally means continuing up rather that breaking and moving back down.
Perhaps Pantheon will be the first game that creates such amazing lower level content that even half of the player base chooses to remain there. But my bet is that they will not have found a way to overcome basic human nature and a herd mentality of "always forward".
With the Progeny System aside, I do not think powerleveling should be fully prevented. However, I do think it should be able to be policed by the players (training allowed, PvP, etc.) if the PLer is unwilling to work with others. Powerleveling can be annoying, but it also still promotes people to play together. As long as the mechanics of experience gains do not allow PLees to reach max level in less than 65% (arbitrary) of the time as "normal", I do not see it being a major problem. People will always find ways to powerlevel one another. It may come to a point where prevention measures could start to affect regular gameplay. Let the players run the world!
Kilaen said:With the Progeny System aside, I do not think powerleveling should be fully prevented. However, I do think it should be able to be policed by the players (training allowed, PvP, etc.) if the PLer is unwilling to work with others. Powerleveling can be annoying, but it also still promotes people to play together. As long as the mechanics of experience gains do not allow PLees to reach max level in less than 65% (arbitrary) of the time as "normal", I do not see it being a major problem. People will always find ways to powerlevel one another. It may come to a point where prevention measures could start to affect regular gameplay. Let the players run the world!
I agree with this.
Even in DDO, a game where most people would say PLing is impossible, one of my alts was definitely PLed by a friend who was an absolute master of the game. He had dozens of past lives (accumulated passive benefits like the Progeny system people are describing) from having reincarnated so many times over the years, and tons of good gear for all the different level ranges to go with it, not to mention knowing all the best xp dungeons like the back of his hand, allowing him to absolutely crush content. I certainly wasn't a noob, but I could still pretty much just sit back and watch as my rogue went from creation to cap in 2 days just by being grouped with him.
I would be extremely disappointed if Pantheon implemented a reincarnation-esque system. And I don't think it would solve any of the problems of PLing. If anything, it would make it worse (although admittedly I still have to read the devs' exact comments on it.) My cleric in DDO was one of the best on the server with only 2 past lives, but it still always felt like you were looked down upon if you didn't partake in the reincarnation system because the passive benefits were so good. And of course everyone always just zerged through them. There was no point in stopping to smell the flowers when the only reason to reincarnate was to get back up to cap ASAP so that you can do it all over again and just keep tacking on those passives.
But that's probably a different conversation for a different thread. The point is, yes, people will always find a way to powerlevel. And I'm totally okay with that. But that doesn't necessarily mean the devs shouldn't at least try to curb the severity of the xp gain rate.
Dullahan said:.There is also the argument that powerleveling creates an exclusive environment rather than inclusive. By powerleveling players, it eliminates groups that would otherwise exist and the social and community aspects that go with it.
Then there's the issue of content monopoly as well. How many times did groups playing EQ find entire areas locked down by a couple high levels powerleveling someone? Too often, imo.
yet in the case of world/raid bosses, you were on the first come first serve side, 'try harder' i believe was what you said about players who missed out because a larger guild or group got to things before them, screw instances or lockout timers, monopolies in that sense didnt sem to bother you. now its a problem to monopolise content by powerlevelers. why? because you dont like powerleveling. now all of a sudden you are worried about inclusive environments.
Put me in the "PLing is fine, leave it alone" camp. Anyway, it would be of limited use unless the game has some sort of overpowered mentoring system e.g. like EQ2s.
You should be encouraging higher levels to group with lower level people, not penalizing them. If VG create a robust and effective mentoring system, the point is moot anyway. The vast majority of PLers are people leveling alts who have already played through the game anyhow and are probably doing it for their guild.
1. Sometimes it boils down to limited time, and just to have a quiet night alone.
2. Sometimes a person is working on a new character in preps for a switch, as a main.
3. Sometimes it boils down to, its none of our business what another person does or doesnt. If they box or powerlevel it is their choice, what you guys/gals fail to remember is we had them back in 1999 too in EQ. I remember wizards, and enchanters boxing all the time. Normally it was to support other classes, with mez or burns.
We cant control the way it is played. Players advance so far ahead, they find ways to teach others how to advance faster.
Going to tell you a sad story, but great for EQ. My father who was dieing of cancer, had 12 accounts to use. He would box on 4 computers 2 each and would sit in the corner and play all day until he was unable. He never knew how to chat right, or play each character well enough, but he sure knew how to level up characters. Sometimes i would hear how others would get upset at him for clearing a small section of the map because they decided to log in where he was located. All in all it helped keep EQ running for many years with the accounts we had active, all which where gold. He didnt bother anyone, and he did not have to explain why or how he wanted to play. Players sometimes need to step back for a second and remember 12 accounts = much more money spent then your single account, which accessed 99% more of the content then what 1 individual did.
4. MMO's can be a healing thing.
If you dont want to play that way, then i suggest you find the group you can best suit your needs and dont hassle others, it is their game too. Not everyone is a jerk, or wants to group everything 24/7
Just saying we never read between the lines, even if i/we hate the way 80% of EQ players played, and didnt know **** with how to pull or tank or even heal.... afk seemed to be the better skill.
I didnt mean to bring it to a ground level the way i did, but really we need to treat others with more respect then belittle someone for doing something different. As long as they are not exploiting i am fine with it, and how many larger then life guilds exploited in EQ? many... dont fool yourself, and we called them good at the game.
Greattaste said: I always enjoyed power-leveling in EQ. Being able to power-level someone was a tradeable service also. I hope I will be able to PL or be PL'ed in Pantheon.
Sometimes its just fun, most non rude people will actually contribute or help out someone else in that zone. Weither it being epic, quest or just plain experiencing.
So nobody is around, or clearly doesnt wish to group there or even help you out. Sometimes a person running a couple characters in an open zone actually can help for a short time. We rely on those people from time to time.
I too loved to powerlvl, box. I am not talking just 1 or 2 accounts i am talking about 2 full groups. It was a learning curve. But..... when it came time to group, or guild group i would run 1 main or a 2nd one to fill a void. That is all, nothing abused or gained.
It also takes 100times more effort to powerlvl someone and get them the needed gear, items, and spells to advance in the guild. They also have rules regarding boxing, on raids etc..
So it is not up to the devs to decide what to do about pling but more we police ourselves.
Take away the most important tools we have? players Walk, its a proven fact.
EQ did that with mages a few years ago, took away some tools they used for factioning, mass killing in a range because people used 3rd party cheats to powerlvl for profit. Yet it had nothing to do with the spell, or the way they powerlvled. It had to do with 3rd party rules they would not administer. All of us mages where to blame. So was the SK, wizards. It just boiled down to they over did the game too soon, and wanted to extend the game for more years to come. PPl finally walked after that. sick of being nerfed to death. A game players enjoyed and would continue to play. Nerfing the zones, the spells, the softcaps players just had enough. I also think this group was the same people that nerfed SWG years ago, and players walked after that too.
werzul said:Dullahan said:There is also the argument that powerleveling creates an exclusive environment rather than inclusive. By powerleveling players, it eliminates groups that would otherwise exist and the social and community aspects that go with it.
Then there's the issue of content monopoly as well. How many times did groups playing EQ find entire areas locked down by a couple high levels powerleveling someone? Too often, imo.
yet in the case of world/raid bosses, you were on the first come first serve side, 'try harder' i believe was what you said about players who missed out because a larger guild or group got to things before them, screw instances or lockout timers, monopolies in that sense didnt sem to bother you. now its a problem to monopolise content by powerlevelers. why? because you dont like powerleveling. now all of a sudden you are worried about inclusive environments.
That is a different kind of exclusivity. Rewarding the better or more devoted players doesn't eliminate the social nature of the game. Social exclusivity versus reward exclusivity.
werzul said:Dullahan said:.There is also the argument that powerleveling creates an exclusive environment rather than inclusive. By powerleveling players, it eliminates groups that would otherwise exist and the social and community aspects that go with it.
Then there's the issue of content monopoly as well. How many times did groups playing EQ find entire areas locked down by a couple high levels powerleveling someone? Too often, imo.
yet in the case of world/raid bosses, you were on the first come first serve side, 'try harder' i believe was what you said about players who missed out because a larger guild or group got to things before them, screw instances or lockout timers, monopolies in that sense didnt sem to bother you. now its a problem to monopolise content by powerlevelers. why? because you dont like powerleveling. now all of a sudden you are worried about inclusive environments.
I love this comment. you win the internet for a day
I guess there are worse things to love than false equivalence.
philo said:Dullahan said:Rewarding the better or more devoted players
Let's refrain from making opinionated blanket statements about who the "better or more devoted players" are.
Why, does it hurt your feelings that some players earn things that other players have yet to earn? Is stating such too discriminatory for you?
Dullahan said:philo said:Dullahan said:Rewarding the better or more devoted players
Let's refrain from making opinionated blanket statements about who the "better or more devoted players" are.
Why, does it hurt your feelings that some players earn things that other players have yet to earn? Is stating such too discriminatory for you?
That doesn't justify a response. Let's keep this constructive.