End PL allow characters to begin at 50

[Wavicle]

Just now, Rudra said:

Why? I already have my level 4 ones. Why should I turn around and make level 1 ones too?

 

Also, while I acknowledge I won't be seeing any Voids or Quantums attacking my Kheldian base builder if I make one, I hate Kheldians. Regardless of whether or not I will run the character through any content, my attempts at playing them has me sufficiently hateful of them that I simply do not want to bother having any Kheldian characters.

when did you last try? they’ve gotten a lot better recently

[PeregrineFalcon]

9 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

There are some things that I haven't spent a lot of time on, like warshades and dominators, but once you have a general understanding of how the mechanics of this game work it does not take long to get up to speed on anything.

While true, the sheer number of "AE Babies" that people have encountered isn't an imaginary thing. And I don't care how long you've been playing this game, you're going to be better at playing a character that you've played all the way up to level 50 than you will be playing a character after you just hit the "Insta 50" button.

 

Now for you, a highly experienced player, that learning curve won't take long, but you're not the entire player base. There are people who learn slower than you do, and some who really won't learn how to play their character at all if they haven't played it while leveling.

 

Also, and frankly this never occurred to me so thanks for that @Akisan and @UltraAlt, the ability for people to use Insta-50s to completely end-run the entire name reclamation system would make all the time and effort that the devs put into writing the code for that system into a complete waste.

 

So why would the developers deliberately give players the ability to completely end-run and entire system that they built from scratch for a reason?

[Rudra]

Back on Live. Not long after they were released. When each and every time I tried a PB, my first mission always had a +1 Void lieutenant that 1 or 2-hits my character into oblivion. And if I use every inspiration slot my starting character has available to defend against the Void or try to out-damage the Void, the result was laughably pathetic. And I wasn't a fan of the WSs with their teleports. I'm glad players enjoy their Kheldians. I'm glad there are people that swear by them and run them through everything. I HATE Kheldians.

[Wavicle]

How long does it take to PL to 50 in Page 5? More than a few hours?

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Rudra said:

Back on Live. Not long after they were released. When each and every time I tried a PB, my first mission always had a +1 Void lieutenant that 1 or 2-hits my character into oblivion. And if I use every inspiration slot my starting character has available to defend against the Void or try to out-damage the Void, the result was laughably pathetic. And I wasn't a fan of the WSs with their teleports. I'm glad players enjoy their Kheldians. I'm glad there are people that swear by them and run them through everything. I HATE Kheldians.

You might give them another shot. VASTLY better than at release.

[Rudra]

Pretty sure the stance is not that players will make instant-50s for the sake of name squatting. My understanding is that the stance is that the unnamed player will make instant-50s, get bored with the character for lack of investment, and then just leave the character abandoned and forgotten. Result is still that the name is no longer available and it bypasses the whole point of the name reclamation system that has been implemented in the game but is currently locked in Warning Only state so players have time to get used to it.

[Akisan]

24 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Why do I have to name all of them? What if I can name more 50s than you have characters?

 

It's not about whether you can, its about which ones are easier to remember.  I'm not saying alting is good or bad, I'm betting that it's easier to remember your non-PL'd characters vs. your PL'd characters. 

 

And as @PeregrineFalcon hinted at, you're not the type of player I mind being PL'd - you have plenty of player experience already, and can most likely adapt well to any given powerset combo.  I have issues with newer players trying just that (the AE Babies), or even worse, seeing the calls for PL'ing and thinking that should be normal, and not the exception.

[PeregrineFalcon]

9 minutes ago, Krimson said:

I'd love to see that happen OUTSIDE of people's heads. Someone is going to dish out 100 million INF+ JUST to squat a name? That's an interesting perspective.

Ok, I haven't seen any suggestion about the Insta-50 button costing 100million INF, that's a different thing I suppose.

 

As for name camping outside of people's heads, I've read posts on this forum where people have flat out said that they've got a bunch of name camping characters. There's an entire thread where people are trading the names that they've camped. And, when the devs revealed that they were testing a name reclamation system, the name campers lit the forums on fire for a couple of weeks.

 

So please, don't waste people's time with your imaginary notion that people aren't name camping. It's a proven FACT.

[UltraAlt]

20 minutes ago, Akisan said:

Pretty much the only people adding non-50s into the pool of characters would be roleplayers, people running challenges, and people that disagree with the instant 50 option.

 

Wow.

That is a bit belittling to those people that don't want to insta-50.

 

What about the people that actually want to play the game instead of the "end-game"?

There are all different kinds of players that want to play the game.

Players that play the game generally don't level up their characters by the same method each time (I will at least say that I don't).

 

It's not a matter of "disagreeing with instant 50 option". It's a matter of not wanting to taking part in it on a given character.

Some of the players that would use the insta-50 option would still make some characters and enjoy the leveling content as well.

It is more "...and people that wouldn't insta-50 every character." instead of "... people that disagree with the instant 50 option"

 

I don't think that there are players that just farm (I certainly hope there aren't.)

I don't think there are players that just constantly doorsit AE, ding to 50 and go back into the AE to do it again - and do nothing else.

 

The "end-game" was added to the end of the game because players with level 50's wanted something to do. Not because the game starts at level 50.

The game itself is level sub-50.

 

When it comes down to it, Ouroboros is end-game content for players that leveled past that content. Most of the time they leveled past it because they leveled directly to 50 ("Do not talk to a contact, AE to 50").

 

I can see that a good half of the characters in the game on any of the 5 servers are level 50's, but the game doesn't start at level 50 ... the game is over at level 50.

At level 50, only the end-game remains.

it is called the end-game. Everyone knows it is the end-game.

 

I know that there are people that feel better about themselves because they are playing a level 50 for multiple reasons and that's fine.

However, I feel that allowing people to instantly be 50 is wrong. Levels are meant to be earned. They are created as a game mechanic to be earned and not to be bypassed.

AE babies that don't know how to play their characters are just that; level 50's that think they are better than players that spent the time to level by gameplay but they have no idea to play their characters. These players tend to use MIDs to make cookie-cutter builds. To me, bypassing the game takes much of the creativity and knowledge building from the experience.

 

Games that have the option to "pay" to level up do it for several reasons, and it always has to do with the end-game ::

1) to make money (obviously)

2) to keep making money by giving players a way to a level to a level that most paying (was subscribers) players are playing at (usually not to max-level or gear, but close to it so L337 end-gamers can still feel L337 about themselves, but high enough so that they can team with other end-gamers)

3) to keep making money by funneling end-gamers into content with lower level players (an example of this are weekly task force/strike force and holiday events)

4) to keep making money from end-gamers by giving them other players to game with. (and this is really the main reason - to keep the long term players happy by giving them someone to team with.)

 

In City of Heroes, all the end-game content is more or less the same "level".

There is very little end-game content that requires something other than level 50 to take part in it.

Being level 50, more-or-less (due to the Ouroboros) unlocks the whole game.

 

47 minutes ago, Akisan said:

And yeah, you could fill teams with a few exemp'd 50s, but a surprising number of 50s just... run off, and solo the missions.  I know a few people that don't invite 50s to teams, just because of that.

 

Level 50's bulldozing a leveling team's missions is an issue for me.

If you are a 50, have some respect for a team that is playing the game. Don't join a leveling team, low level mission team, or sub-50 task force/strike force and think you are responsible to make it a "speed" run.

 

And I'll say it again, if you are leading a leveling team and you don't want this behavior going on, give a warning and use the boot if you have to on a level 50 that doesn't want to behave as a team member. They are the ones being a disruption. You are a benefit to the game if you lead a team. You are a benefit to the other players experience on the team if you remove disruptive players from  your team.

 

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

And yes, it builds character (pun intended).  I've found that I'm far more attached to things that I worked hard for, and things that are just given to me tend to be shelved and (eventually) forgotten.  I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that regard

 

Some people enjoy earning the "ding" and the "ding" means more for them because they worked for it. Sometimes even struggled for it.

The feeling of a "ding" is real when you actually earned it.

"Ding"ing afk means less than nothing. "Ding"ing when door-sitting ("Ho hum, not 50 yet. I don't care.") also means practically nothing.

 

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

I challenge you altaholics to name all of your 50s, without looking at a list of them, and see which toons you remember more easily.

 

I have 136 characters at this point.

I don't AE Farm/doorsit.

I only have 3 level 50's. They are thrown in the closet until one day I may need them. I really don't enjoy the end-game content for multiple reasons.

 

I create the original costume and bio before I ever log into the game.

I'm a character conception player.

 

Could I make a list of all 136 characters? I could probably list over 75% of them (some duplicates across servers). I'm not going to say that I could write down the names of all of them and I would probably lose track unless I was counting as I was going. Some I wouldn't remember the name because I used a name that I don't have memorized, but I could say "...and this character with these traits and, generally, this bio..."; but this would be just a page or two (8-20) character that would fall into that.

I have them all listed on a spreadsheet and, roughly, every month I go through and update what level they are. 

 

I like to alt-jump and, if I'm not on a team with someone that I'm more-or-less in a leveling pact with, I jump characters/servers multiple times a play session.

 

But I will agree that people that don't have anything invested in their characters and have several pages of 50's only who probably are more inclined to think of their characters as "my farmer", "my mission tank", "my controller", etc. with maybe some variation of "my fire tank", "my kinetic defender", etc.

If that's the way that they want to play, that's fine.

 

However, I will agree that the point of THE CITY is to express your creativity and overcome challenges (instead of bypassing them by insta-50) within the superhero genre.

And, that following that path (playing the game), improves connection to each character and the gaming experience overall.

 

[Akisan]

7 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Wow.

That is a bit belittling to those people that don't want to insta-50.

 

What about the people that actually want to play the game instead of the "end-game"?

<snip>

 

Fair. I could have phrased that... a lot better.  I will agree though, the game begins in the character creator, not when you ding 50 - it's why I often freeze XP on the few alts I do have.

[UltraAlt]

28 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Pretty sure the stance is not that players will make instant-50s for the sake of name squatting.

 

If there is an insta-50 option, name squatters will use it for name squatting for the same reason people doorsitt and afk farmers farm (it achieves their goal with little to no effort on their part)

 

31 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Result is still that the name is no longer available and it bypasses the whole point of the name reclamation system that has been implemented

 

Exactly.

 

32 minutes ago, Akisan said:

I have issues with newer players trying just that (the AE Babies), or even worse, seeing the calls for PL'ing and thinking that should be normal, and not the exception.

 

Well, there is that contact in Atlas and that other one in Mercy Island that explains how to be power-leveled through door sitting in the AE and how to ask for a spot as a door sitter in the AE in the /lfg channel ... oh, wait, that's not a thing ....

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

While true, the sheer number of "AE Babies" that people have encountered isn't an imaginary thing.

Corpse punching isn't an imaginary thing either. Neither is routinely completing BAFs, steamrolling radio missions, etc. I've had one failed team experience all year and it was honestly hilarious. Talking to some people on the forums, you'd think incompetence was everywhere. I only hear about it when I engage in these discussions.

 

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Now for you, a highly experienced player, that learning curve won't take long, but you're not the entire player base. There are people who learn slower than you do, and some who really won't learn how to play their character at all if they haven't played it while leveling.

 

But the people you're worried about are getting pled already. Or are leveling through the early content very quickly. So with this change, a variety of people with different levels of experience spend less time pling. They all go straight to 50. How is the end result any different than the way things are now? The only significant change I see is that people don't have to spend hours on a farm grinding a new 50 to play the way they want. That's it.

 

2 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So why would the developers deliberately give players the ability to completely end-run and entire system that they built from scratch for a reason?

 

Because they want to retain players and they can adapt their system to fit with new conditions.

[Indystruck]

Nah

[battlewraith]

2 hours ago, Akisan said:

It's not about whether you can, its about which ones are easier to remember.  I'm not saying alting is good or bad, I'm betting that it's easier to remember your non-PL'd characters vs. your PL'd characters. 

 

No. It's not. First of all, the vast majority of my characters were pled, even before AE. When the arena was added, I spent most of my time pvping. The characters that are easiest to remember are the ones that were successful in pvp. There are also characters I remember more clearly because they figured into game related art or fiction. Conventional leveling does not endear me more to a character or make it more memorable. There are characters on Homecoming that I have that I know I spent a fair amount of time doing lowbie content and they are not more memorable for that reason.

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Why? I already have my level 4 ones. Why should I turn around and make level 1 ones too?

 

 

... who said to do that? I simply pointed out that you can make a Peacebringer and have it ready to go for base building immediately instead of leveling. Never said "And delete those others."

[Akisan]

58 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

No. It's not. First of all, the vast majority of my characters were pled, even before AE. When the arena was added, I spent most of my time pvping. The characters that are easiest to remember are the ones that were successful in pvp. There are also characters I remember more clearly because they figured into game related art or fiction. Conventional leveling does not endear me more to a character or make it more memorable. There are characters on Homecoming that I have that I know I spent a fair amount of time doing lowbie content and they are not more memorable for that reason.

 

And that would be why it's a bet, and not a fact.  Yes, my 3rd point in my original post is an opinion based on my preferences, but I'm not alone in that opinion, and it's definitely not the only reason I oppose this suggestion. 

 

2 hours ago, battlewraith said:

You oppose this proposal because you want to make people do the content they don't like in order to support your preferences. Except that doesn't work anyway because people pl through it in various ways already.

 

I despise the "I had to suffer through something, therefore you do too" mindset - it's not a valid reason.  My objection here isn't that levels are being skipped, or that content is being skipped, it's that it allows players without sufficient game knowledge to get to 50, where there is a reasonable expectation that you know how to play your character.  Quite a few forum-goers already have that knowledge, and I have no issues with them being PL'd.  I want a barrier left in place to prevent newer players (who most likely don't have that knowledge) from easily being PL'd, so that we don't lose the expectation that a 50 has at least learned the basics. (I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, btw).

 

Which also means that I'll oppose any set unlock point for an instant 50 option - some players will pick up the game very easily, and earning the unlock would be an unnecessary slog, and others (like me) might only play certain powersets (so they could potentially earn the unlock, but still not really know how to run other sets).  Case in point - I've 3000+ hours on my main, with 1000+ badges (blueside only), and while I know a lot of game systems inside and out, I've never levelled a MM past 15.  I'd be so very lost with an instant 50 MM.  I don't feel the need to burden a 50 team with a clueless MM, and I'm pretty sure most teams don't really want to be burdened with a clueless 50 MM.  (That said, this community is great, and I'm pretty sure I'd get quite a bit of help/encouragement with said MM).

 

Ultimately, I don't care how people get to 50, as long as they know how to play said 50 on at least a basic level. I don't care that people are being PL'd, I care that there are people that have no idea how to play their characters when they should. And again, I'll oppose any instant-50 suggestion because, while I am happy to help new players, I do expect that any random 50 in a team has at least some idea on how to play. (And yes, "basic level" is subjective, and its definition varies from person to person.  It's one of the reasons we keep having these discussions.)

[Rudra]

7 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

... who said to do that? I simply pointed out that you can make a Peacebringer and have it ready to go for base building immediately instead of leveling. Never said "And delete those others."

Didn't take your statement as I should delete my level 4s. Was just saying I already have my base builder characters and they are already level 4. Making a level 1 PB base builder is not needed and I am not inclined to have a Kheldian character.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

Ultimately, I don't care how people get to 50, as long as they know how to play said 50 on at least a basic level. I don't care that people are being PL'd, I care that there are people that have no idea how to play their characters when they should. And again, I'll oppose any instant-50 suggestion because, while I am happy to help new players, I do expect that any random 50 in a team has at least some idea on how to play. (And yes, "basic level" is subjective, and its definition varies from person to person.  It's one of the reasons we keep having these discussions.)

 

You're under no obligation to play with to play with someone who doesn't know what they're doing (or is stoned, drunk, has to go afk, whatever). You can kick them from your team or leave a team that has someone on it that bothers you. I get that a lot of people are hung up on this issue. A lot of people can't seem to update their expectations of the game from when it was live and actually had a subscription fee. But the problem here is that you're opposing a proposed benefit to actual players that are actively creating alts because of a hypothetical situation where a new player somehow bothers you because they don't know what they're doing--a situation which is also kind of farfetched in the age of incarnates.

[Akisan]

14 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

But the problem here is that you're opposing a proposed benefit to actual players that are actively creating alts because of a hypothetical situation where a new player somehow bothers you because they don't know what they're doing

 

Except it's not just a hypothetical situation, and I'm not the only one bothered by it - if that were the case, then we probably wouldn't even be having this arguement.

 

[Astralock]

I mean, it's not like Mission Architect buildings were removed from the two starter zones two months ago, partly because AE babies had no clue how to zone.  Oh wait...

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Akisan said:

Except it's not just a hypothetical situation, and I'm not the only one bothered by it - if that were the case, then we probably wouldn't even be having this arguement.

Yes it's hypothetical--there isn't an option to instantly level to 50. That's what I was referring to. 

Now if this is already happening to you, lol might as well offer a leveling option because you're getting bothered whether it's a thing or not. 

 

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

I mean, it's not like Mission Architect buildings were removed from the two starter zones two months ago, partly because AE babies had no clue how to zone.  Oh wait...

 

Oh you mean they were lying when they said it was about the zone performance?

[Astralock]

Just now, battlewraith said:

Yes it's hypothetical--there isn't an option to instantly level to 50. That's what I was referring to. 

Now if this is already happening to you, lol might as well offer a leveling option because you're getting bothered whether it's a thing or not. 

 

 

Oh you mean they were lying when they said it was about the zone performance?

 

Nope.  They weren't lying.  I said "partly because."  Zone performance definitely was another significant reason as well.  You can see it and feel it for yourself how much better Atlas Park on Excelsior feels.

[InvaderStych]

 

The sandbox already exists.

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

 

Nope.  They weren't lying.  I said "partly because."  Zone performance definitely was another significant reason as well.  You can see it and feel it for yourself how much better Atlas Park on Excelsior feels.

Oh I see. Where did they say it was related to AE babies?

[battlewraith]

1 hour ago, InvaderStych said:

The sandbox already exists.

So does this type of inane comment. And it's been responded to ad nauseam.