Zoned in

Sometimes you have to slow down and cyber-smell the realm’s roses

By Michael Lafferty

 

Powerleveling can often cause players to overlook the very elements that started them playing a game

 

It happens in every game. Less-than-content to weave through the worlds, to wrap the storyline about like favored blanket in winter, players rush through to level or complete a game.

 

Just look online and you will see cheats and walkthroughs to guide players to uber-status or to solve a game. Jump online into a massively multiplayer game and you will see higher-level players powering through mobs with lower-level players in tow, powerleveling them up into the higher ranks.

 

Is all this wrong? Not really. After all, no one should tell another how to enjoy the game they are playing. No one has the right to do that. When a person pays for a game, they have the right to play the game the way that they see fit.

 

However …

 

(Yeah, there had to be a however in there, and this is it.) When a player powers up and is singularly unprepared for the advanced challenges, or when a player is powered up and then enters a PvP area (player-versus-player) and proceeds to pound on younger players, then something is definitely wrong.

 

Some games have terrific ideas to handle the idea of powerleveling and fighting in PvP areas according to level. For example, the battlegrounds of Dark Age of Camelot are only available to players within certain levels. The first sets of battlegrounds you can enter are for players in the level 10-14 groups. This ensures that no higher-level players, with superior skills come charging in and devastate younger players. It ensures that players are competing against others within their range. It creates a more level playing field and thus more fun for the players.

 

And with the weapon- and armor-rating system in place, players have a fair and equal opportunity. You do get to see if a player is much higher or close in range (considering a player or a mob is a feature of the game), and as it takes an effort to get to these grounds, you don’t just stumble into them unprepared for the adventure outside a keep’s walls.

 

And City of Heroes has done a superb job in holding powerleveling to a minimum. Mobs (no PvP at this stage) are broken down into levels and the experience points match the level of the mob compared to the level of the hero. If you attack a mob that is gray and well below you in level, you get no experience.

 

In some games, one would merely tag along with upper level players, have them kill the mobs they generally fight and rake in tons of experience. But CoH has countered that with receiving no experience if in a team with much higher players who are doing the killing. But because a player may have friends who spend much more time running missions and thus are higher in level, and because the designers at Cryptic Studios didn’t want to penalize players from teaming up with friends, they have the sidekick system. A player above level 10 can sidekick a younger player who does not get more skills, but has hit points and skill damage upgraded to the level of the player with whom he or she is sidekicked. They will also get the opportunity to earn experience, but the experience is more in line with what they would normally receive if they were fighting mobs within their level.

 

To explain: A level 8 player teams up with a level 17 player to battle the mobs the level 17 player normally fights. The mobs, before being sidekicked are purple and the level 8 would have little if not no chance of even hitting the mobs, let alone inflict any damage. So CoH allows the player to team up with their higher-level friends, but because the game wants to not have powerleveling, that player only gets the experience (or xp) that they would get fighting mobs at level 8 or so. In this way, the player does not powerlevel, but still gets to hang out with friends. Also, mobs are known to drop enhancements. A level 17 player will “find” enhancements close to his or her level. These enhancements would sell for more influence (the game’s version of money) than the enhancements a level 8 player would find fighting mobs around their level.

 

But part of the format for CoH is geared so that any enhancements that level 8 who is sidekicked with a higher-level friend are not at the SK’d level, but rather at the level 8 level. That level 17 may find a level 15 damage enhancement. If the rotation had that damage enhancement go to the level 8 player, it would have been a level 7 (or so) enhancement.

 

This creates a balance in the game.

 

Both DAoC and CoH have great ideas. They are providing enjoyable content, but trying to keep the game from becoming easy pickings for the powerlevelers.

 

In a society that spends ridiculous amounts of money per year on “fast food,” a society that seems to be fixated on getting through something as quickly as possible (meals, games, marriages – well, ok, maybe that latter one only applies to some instances), it is rare to find gamers who are moving through a realm at a leisurely pace, who are slowing down to enjoy the storyline of a particular game.

 

Designers sometimes put a lot of effort into weaving together a storyline that holds the premise together, only to have a lot of players completely ignore it to hurry ahead. That may be why a lot of players experience burnout within a game. They hurry ahead so fast, not taking time to enjoy the journey, that they get to a place where the game stops having any aesthetic value.

 

I’ll admit it – I’ve been guilty of pursuing levels in games, and I have, on occasion, used a game guide to bolt through missions or even a whole game. Nothing, though, gives as much pleasure as actually earning the rank, or working through a mission and discovering how to accomplish it on one’s own. The surprise of the unknown opponent who pops up and is not so much of a challenge as a portend of what is to come. Advancing along your path to understand what skills work in combination with others, and to see what weapons and armor are the most efficient for your skills and character.

 

There was an old adage, which was something to the effect of (this is paraphrased) ‘I hear and I learn; I do and I understand.’

 

Keep your powerleveling, and keep your game guides. I may need a little hint now and again, but for the most part, I would rather work along at my pace, not at some fanatical pace that chews away at the joy and story of the game – which is likely the very reason I started to play it in the first place.