Unintended Power-Leveling Officially Deemed Exploiting
As you know Nevewinter comes with a level-scaling algorithm that allows players of different levels to run the same content together. It applies to Call-to-Arms events, the Siege of Neverwinter, Portobello, Strongholds and more. The algorithm is a little rough on the edges. Normally upscaled players are having a hard time while downscaled ones just breeze through. Apart from the difficulty however, players soon realized you could efficiently power-level characters in scaling content as well.
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Lower Levels, More XP!
We’re assuming the reason is that the level 60/70 mobs hand out XP appropriate for their level, not for the level of the adventurers fighting them. So scaled low-level toons receive at least level 60 XP reward for fighting mobs, hence leveling super fast. During the Siege of Neverwinter event you could get from 1-60 in roughly two hours, much faster than the speed of the regular campaign.
Although it clearly seems to be an unintentional side effect of scaling, players widely didn’t consider it to be a true issue. The more astonishing it is that the subject started to quietly disappear (1 2 3). Apparently the devs are viewing this as a true exploit and bannable offense. A wall post at @strumslinger might indicate they have already banned players, although this could also be due to 3rd party.
Legit becomes exploitive
This sneaky policy change is interesting on multiple levels. For us it’s not enough of an issue to be labeled an exploit to be honest, but more than that how are players supposed to find out that the devs are tracking this as of late? Are you already exploiting when participating with a low-level character in scaling content? Even adamantly non-exploiting guilds are directing newer players trying to grind out levels to the Siege map. Whoops!
That being said it makes sense to target those that are indeed exploiting the feature. Apparently there has been a market for power-leveling. Players charge a certain amount and then drag the buyer through Stronghold Heroic Encounters to the desired level. This is probably also what 3rd party website are doing when they offer such a service.
On PC this has already been patched and consoles will presumably follow with the Storm Kings Thunder update. Nonetheless it’s puzzling how such a convenience bug gets the full exploit treatment. It really shows a black/white mentality for anything that could potentially be an unintended advantage for the player. At least they need to have the decency to make a public post about it, even at the risk of raising the overall awareness of such bugs.
What’s your opinion on the topic? Share it in the comments below or visit the corresponding thread on our message board!
*** UPDATE *** The verified bans seem to be limited to players that sold or bought power-leveling services. While unintended power-leveling itself is clearly not appreciated, there should be no repercussions for doing it as long as no money changes hands.
The real issue that they have with power leveling is that they want to sell level 70 premades. Why spend $50 on something you can grind out in a couple hours (or less on 2x RP weekend)
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I have power leveled some friend by farming giants on spinward map. Really, they care only about $ gain. I have no doubt some lazy people gonna buy fresh 70 from market but those would do that anyway. This step wont make people who were power leveling pay money for poorly geared and almost non booned premade 70
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So this game has been out for a solid 2 months now on console PS4 and in that time I have seen alot about game exploiting glitches or an unintentional overlooked feature from poor programing. MAYBE Arc needs to do some more testing before pushing out updates AoE quickly. Me personally, I don’t see a real point for selling pre-made level 70’s. What’s to stop some “greenhorn” from wasting money for a character they haven’t taken the time to properly learn by playing through the game as it should be done. If they think this sort of things is the way of the future I’ll just take my money on something worth while. It does not teach people the value of hard work. There is ZERO value in spending $$ for a pre-made toon. The more I learn about what they are doing to *censored word* up this game the less I want to spend my time and hard earned money on playing it.
lmao neverwinter
Makes no sense to ban players for performing a service for in-game currency.
Another move to alienate the player-base, but makes sense now that we can buy a fresh lvl 70 toon from the zen store. They don’t want competition for something that makes them money. On the flip side though, all they had to do was scale exp to character level if they wanted us to level as more even pace.