Bring Back Leveling Pacts

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Rarely Do @Rudra see eye to eye but:

I'm with @Rudra on this one.

I really miss this feature.

 

[SeraphimKensai]

@Rudra I have no issues with people using leveling pacts to PL up alts. Hell at this point I have more 50's then I can play as is (some I haven't played in more than 2 years). Letting someone else get a few more isn't going to hurt me any.

 

The only issue I see is trying to figure out how to get it to actually work and be bug free.

[UltraAlt]

 

On 12/23/2023 at 9:56 PM, Rudra said:

My friend and I both started brand new characters today. Our goal? Progress them together. We couldn't enter a leveling pact because they don't exist any more. (She tried. It failed.) Doing the first story arc in Mercy Island, we get to the blow up the Longbow base mission. We started everything at the same time, camping out in our base until we were ready to run the missions, and neither of us have any explore badges yet to explain what happened. Her MM hit level 3 while we were fighting Golden Palm and Sergeant Whoever. My Dominator was still a half level behind her, fighting the exact same enemies, in the exact same missions. (Her MM hit level 2 before my Dominator did by 2 fights before we even entered that mission.)

 

I don't know all the ins-and-outs of what was going on with this.

I'm assuming you both had the same combat and didn't fight anything when you weren't within 100 or so feet of one another (I can't remember what the shared xp/reward/count cut-off distance is in the open world) and both are falling/not falling in combat at the same rate.

 

What I do know is that when I'm running with characters that I'm trying to synch leveling with, we alway get the same missions and when one of us levels (if the others aren't close) we turn off the xp until they player fatherist behind levels up to the current level of the other characters.

 

I tried to use the leveling pact a couple of times before the Sunset, but it was always a failure when trying to use it for one reason or another.

 

I'm not against it for other people's use in general if used as intended, but I do feel like it would be (and probably was) used as an exploit.

I know that I would not use the system if it was reactivated.

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by UltraAlt

[Rudra]

@UltraAlt, please tell me you are joking. Okay, let's break this down. First, a single character can only be level pacted with a single other character. Second, both characters to be in the level pact cannot be higher than level 5 when they enter into the leveling pact. So let's take a look at your SG scenario.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Each player in the SG (we'll say 8 players) picks a main. Each of the players make 7 "level pack" characters.

So to start, you are saying that 8 players have decided to make 8 characters each to exploit this for a total of 64 characters. First, they would have to sit down and make all those characters.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Player 1 logs in with their main and level packs with one of each of the other 7 player's "Level-pack" characters. 

At this point the scenario falls apart, because like I said, a single character may only be in a leveling pact with another single character. So Player 1 cannot have a leveling pact with the other players at the same time. Player 1's currently active less than level 6 character can only enter into a leveling pact with Player 2's less than level 6 character or Player 3's or Player 4's or any ONE of the other 4 players in question. It's a leveling pact, not a leveling pack. A contract between two and only two characters.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Player 2 logs in with their main and level packs with one of each of the other 7 player's "Level-pack" characters.

repeat through

Player 8 logs in with their main and level packs with one of each of the other 7 player's "Level-pack" characters.

This is a repeat of the failed scenario explained above.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Now all 64 characters are linked through "level packing".

No, they aren't, because each character can only have a leveling pact with a single other character. So the scenario changes to the SG having 32 separate leveling pacts, 4 of which they can field at a time if they play their level pacted characters, or 8 if they are trying to exploit the system. So 8 of those 64 characters will level as normal because those players are playing them per their leveling pact, or 16 will be leveling at half normal rate. Most definitely not 64 though.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Each player logs into their main and they play their main through level 50 to level up the other 56 "Level-pack" characters to level 50.

If those 8 players choose to try and exploit the system in this way, then like in my preceding comment, they can only do so for 16 characters, and those characters will be progressing at half speed. Even slower if they have any defeats on any of those characters as debt will reduce what XP both level pacted characters get.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

My guess is that it was likely that this was going on (the system was being exploited).

Per the wiki, your guess would be wrong.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Are you okay with this kind of exploitive behavior behavior if level-pact-ing returned?

I am never okay with exploits being used in the game. However, the exploits you and @biostem say are there, just really aren't. I mean, seriously, I even linked to Homecoming's page for leveling pacts and the original Paragonwiki page for leveling pacts. Everything I am saying is explained there. This isn't some new system. People argued the system would be exploited back on Live when it was introduced. And guess what? It didn't work out anywhere like they said it would.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I'm assuming you both had the same combat and didn't fight anything when you weren't within 100 or so feet of one another (I can't remember what the shared xp/reward/count cut-off distance is in the open world) and both are falling/not falling in combat at the same rate.

We were never more than 20 feet apart. (Edit: And neither of us suffered a defeat. And since were are both still under level 10, we can't accrue debt yet anyway.)

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I tried to use the leveling pact a couple of times before the Sunset, but it was always a failure when trying to use it for one reason or another.

I can't recall every using the leveling pact back on Live. However, I do recall there were some problems with it. Like @Greycat said, it is known to be buggy. Most notably for dropping the leveling pacted characters from the leveling pact randomly after they level higher than 10, if I remember correctly. At which point they can no longer be in a leveling pact. That would need to be fixed.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to change "they" to "it" and add noted comment.

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

At this point the scenario falls apart, because like I said, a single character may only be in a leveling pact with another single character

 

Actually.... at one point it was possible to be in one with basically a full team.

HOWEVER. XP earned by one character *would be split 8 ways* in that scenario.  No, I'm not sure how any of them having 2xp running would affect it (and would likely just break things further.)

 

The devs were fully aware of "oh, one person can PL with another benefitting."

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Actually.... at one point it was possible to be in one with basically a full team.

HOWEVER. XP earned by one character *would be split 8 ways* in that scenario.  No, I'm not sure how any of them having 2xp running would affect it (and would likely just break things further.)

 

The devs were fully aware of "oh, one person can PL with another benefitting."

I don't recall that. I just recall that it was meant for two characters and only two characters, and per the wikis' explanation, that is how it worked.

[UltraAlt]

21 minutes ago, Rudra said:

First, a single character can only be level pacted with a single other character.

 

I forgot.

Been so long since I used it.

I didn't remember it was just a level pact with one other character.

 

Makes it far less useful for me and probably one of the reasons dismissed it.

 

No need for me to go on about it.

 

I admit I was wrong about the extent of possible abuse. I'll delete that part of my post.

I still don't think it is worth the DEVs time to fix it when other things would be more enjoyable to a larger percentage of the player base.

 

It is easy enough to work around by the character getting too far ahead turning off their xp until the other character catches up.

Edited December 26, 2023 by UltraAlt