Powelevelling gone in EQ2 - horrayFollow

I just wanted to reply to the link Jester put up as it's very flawed. There is some true to it, but only the truth the writer wanted to see. It's obvious the writer wanted to discourage power-leveling and omitted a great deal about how players make up for the disadvantages. I'm going to address the points one-by-one as they are list. I'm addressing these points as an EXPERIENCED PLAYER. A true newbie should not be PLed to higher levels for all these reasons, but an experienced player usually has enough experience to avoid all these pitfalls and that's really MY point.

1) Not being able to keep up with the stats is true at lower levels, but certainly not the higher levels. The higher level you PL, the slower it goes because you need to kill more mobs to level and they are harder to kill. In the early levels your stats can't keep up but as you go higher, they gradually catch up and then before you know it, you're maxed in certain skills before you're half way through to the next level. After you're done PLing, you will most likely need to take a little time to practice certain skills to max them, but the time it takes to do that tends to be very little. Even a caster class can get Attack and Defense up while the PLer watches over them, generally you'll fight blues for the skill-up part of the leveling.

2) As stated, experience is the best teacher. After being PL'd you take some time and learn what the character can do. Most players though already have favorite hunting grounds and are familiar enough with others having played the class to have a general idea of what it can do. Yes, there is more to the class than that and taking some time to learn what that is, is the best thing you can do. Solo or grouped you need to know what all your spells or abilities are when to use them and when not to. Time will give you that though.

3) As I said, I am talking about EXPERIENCE PLAYERS here, so assuming you got your first character to high levels, you paid your dues and know how groups work. The only thing you might need to learn is aggro management with the new class. You'll either want to know how to keep aggro or how to not get it, but that's all in time and shouldn't take a good player long to learn.

4) Twinking. Nuff said, no? An experienced player has access to more resources than a true newbie so this is really not a big issue.

The writer then wrote... Experience does make up for this greatly. Many of these high level characters who are poor players are first time players who don't know ANY class well including their own. These are people who may not have even been PL'd, but bought the account or was given to then by a friend. I can't tell you how many of those I'd heard of.

I agree with the writer on many of the points as being pitfalls for new players, and possibly some people who have played for a while but aren't too bright, but for as many people it's not an issue at all. Unfortunately, this writer is obviously jaded and it trying to make PLing an absolute bad. PLing is neither good nor bad, but a tool, just like a gun. A gun and PLing can do both good and bad and depends on the person using it much like any tool. Responsibility and experience can make both safer.

This article reminds me of that guy from South Park. "Power leveling is bad. If you power level, you're bad, don't be bad, Mkay?"

In a well written article you would be presented unbiased information about the GOOD and bad of power leveling and the ways to avoid the common pitfalls. Unfortunately the article was very jaded with the writer's personal beliefs and you were only shown it in the light the writer wanted you to see it in.

Another common occurrence is to read something and assume it is true in almost all cases or take it as a fact because someone took the time to write it. Messageboards are taken with a grain of salt as you know the person writing it is just a "common" person like yourself and not actually a "writer". "Writers" are given extra credit as having a good education and having researched all the facts. In the end writers are just ordinary people themselves and don't necessarily know so much more. I personally hope to have novels published myself. Maybe it will happen, and maybe it won't, but that won't make anything I write facts.

Keep in mind, as I said, Power Leveling is a tool, nothing more. It can do good or bad, it's not an absolute. I do agree that many people who get power leveled shouldn't have as they don't know their *** from their vambraces, but that doesn't mean many people can't use it and come out of it better for it.

Edited, Wed Apr 28 08:05:53 2004 by KerikDaven