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and it's not directed at you. i really love players who refuse to say they "farm". doing the same tf more then once is farming. doing RWZ raids more then once is farming. getting defeat badges is farming. doing your friends missions after you have already done the same ones is farming. get the point yet. anything can be considered farming. i'll tell ya what, ill do your arc and if i get more then 1 ticket or badge it's a farm.
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I was given to understand that farming was doing the same mission over and over again because it gave a decent reward of some kind and for no other reason. Isn't farming more about intent than anything? I don't think most of those things you mentioned could be called farming without the intent.
Dec out.
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and it's not directed at you. i really love players who refuse to say they "farm". doing the same tf more then once is farming. doing RWZ raids more then once is farming. getting defeat badges is farming. doing your friends missions after you have already done the same ones is farming. get the point yet. anything can be considered farming. i'll tell ya what, ill do your arc and if i get more then 1 ticket or badge it's a farm.
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I was given to understand that farming was doing the same mission over and over again because it gave a decent reward of some kind and for no other reason. Isn't farming more about intent than anything? I don't think most of those things you mentioned could be called farming without the intent.
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Check out an illusionist badge farm sometime. 
The "reward" is getting that irritating badge...not much else. You'll also find high lvl toons farming Fake Nemesis for no xp to help a friend get the badge. Lots of players have "merit farming toons" too that they use to run LGTF or ITF over and over.
Lot's of ways to farm.
None of those contradicts "because it gives a decent reward of some kind". Yes, the rewards are the badges, or the merits, but it's farming. Because one intends it to be.
I have no problem with farming at all, but to say "everything is farming" is ludicrous. Farming is a very specific thing.
Dec out.
Ok so now lets get down to business. Every map in the MA has controlled spawn points at a set numbers per map. That is one way to control things.
Now we can conceed that the devs are NOT stupid right? Ok so when they made the tool they made it "auto ex/sk" with a reason in mind right? Just look at what Synapse wrote about the fix to teaming xp and you see they wanted us to have easy teaming with the MA.
Now move back to spawn points for a second. You don't think they thought about people setting up maps of ALL types of farms? I mean you can fill a map with ALL AV's and have a go.
So what's my point? My point is why do people think the devs are dumb? I mean that is essentially what people are saying now. Like they did not know people would make farms with the tool please....
In terms of the few that have rekindled the same old anti-farming rethoric, I just point to I13 and I14 released by the devs as the reality and its as far from their position as you can possibly be.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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Trying to improve characters will usually require some type of strategy to produce resources whether by farming or learning to work the market. I am saying that using the MA to create farm mishes is a waste of its potential to me. As I said finding ways to farm in game content and custom creating content for that purpose are two very different things.
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I wouldn't say it is a waste of the MAs potential as much as an unintended use of its potential. At the worst it's a misuse of its potential, but I wouldn't put too much weight into that, mainly because there are plenty of other examples of leveraging game mechanics to do something unintended or impressive and for the most part not much has been changed because of them. Partially because they are in the minority, partially because fixing them would mean breaking or hurting something else.
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Hopefully you are correct that the farms will remain just a single aspect of a much larger and more rewarding game experience. You most likely are but I believe the first step to avoiding the worst situation is acknowledging the potential for it to happen however slight.
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If it became a real problem then something would be done about it, there is no doubt about that, but it's statistically improbable that MA farming would destroy real content and gimping the MA just to prevent something that has a infinitesimal potential to happen is a bad idea. The MA just isn't going to cause everyone to drop the normal game content to farm.
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Also farms are much easier to produce since they don't require as much effort or writing. That may be why, at least in my experience they seem so prolific at the moment. They also seem to be advertised more. I get many more tells from people asking me to farm than to run story arcs. Somewhere in the middle are tells from people asking me to try the arcs they have written which can be either a farm or story.
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I'm not seeing it. Most of the arcs I see when I open up the list are player written stories, meant to be played like all other content. How great they are is another story, though: I'm not having an issue finding player made content, but it is hard for me to find good, well written content. Alot of the stuff currently up is just self insert stories and uninspired dry content that was written just to have something up. That was expected, however, and can't really be counted against the MA as a feature.
As an inverse, I could argue that while farm content may be easier to make, player written story content has a much larger potential for variety than farm content. Farm content mainly relies on intelligent use of game mechanics, how much can be done with that is limited and as the best techniques become better known the number of farm missions will decline sharply. Story content, for which the MA was written for and designed around, has a much larger scope of use and is far more abstract, and the number of technical tricks used to produce certain effects are much larger for story content as less stories will be trying to achieve the same thing.
I've been asked onto alot of teams to test out peoples story arcs since it went live, although I will agree people aren't publicly advertising their arcs as much as they should. For some reason there is a stigma going around that if you advertise your arc over broadcast you are likely to attract negative attention and get it one starred.
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As far as your story arc: what you could do to get it out there is write all the missions on Local. I don't think there is a limit there. Do them in sets of trilogies maybe. Put one out for awhile and then rotate the others in. Of course if your hoping one of the ones that needs rotation will get HOF or Dev's choice then that throws a wrench in the works but it is an option to get the story out there.
Im very intrigued by such a large scale arc. I hope you do write it. If you do PM me and I'll definitley give it a run. Hell, I'll help you test it if you want.
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Well, my idea is so big because of what it is. I was thinking of making a "choose your path" kind of thing, one arc leading into a choice between 3 others and those arcs all leading into a choice between 2 different endings. I always thought it was kind of lacking that players didn't have a choice in how they progress thru content. For instance, in the Vivacious Verandi arc you are sent to steal a bunch of stuff and blame it on different enemy factions by planting it on them. At the end of the arc you are sent to talk to Hardcase who tells you she's been trying to get them to break an obelisk that protects Johnny Sonata from the Whailers with all their fighting and that if you don't go and stop them from doing this he's going to sic his cronies on you. Now I don't know about you, but I wanted to tell him to go suck an egg, I even entered the mission with the intent of letting them wreck the obelisk, unfortunately that isn't an option. Even letting the obelisk be destroyed and then explaining away whatever would have happened in some deus ex machina would have been preferred to no option at all.
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And you know,I don't think I have even been to the Shadow Shard once! I'm glad you mentioned it. I have to check it out.
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It seems not alot of people have, unfortunately. It's a high level hazard zone-ish place with really weird other dimensional enemies and is completely made of freaky floating islands. The main thing that drives people away from it is the fact it's difficult to get around, I wish they would give the gravity geysers some love, maybe grant Super Jump to everyone in the zone as an autopower. After all, you'd think with no fall damage the gravity would be really low there. It would also be nice if they made it a co-op zone since the Rularuu really don't benefit heroes or villains and added some more mission content, the good mission content is mostly wrapped up in Task Forces which aren't always the easiest thing to get people to sign up for, even with the huge amount of merits the Quarterfield Task Force does.
Regardless the place is really cool and is a breath of fresh air around the time you can enter the zone. You can get there off of PI, it's marked "Fire Base Zulu." If you have trouble getting around using the gravity geysers you can buy a temp jetpack in the zone as well.
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I keep running into those stupid farm missions. No plot, little if any dialogue, just go kill. I finally hit one that was designed in such a way as to constitute an exploit. (And no, I am not telling anybody what it was, not until it's addressed. Yes, I reported it).
I'm tired of the farm missions any way. I want real content. If this finally forces the Dev's to come up with some way to stop these farm missions (mostly because they will all eventually be designed like the one I encountered) all the better.
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How about rather then getting all torked about them, simply dont search for "short" MA arcs. I would imagine its a safe bet that many farms will be 1 mission arcs.
I would personally just say an adjustment to your thinking is going to yeild better results then getting worked up and reporting the arcs. First off, if someone wants to make a farm mission they are going to do it. Secondly, I give it about a month before those that would make the farm missions will realize the best way to keep it live will be to keep it in their local folder, and publish it when they want to run it, and then unpublish it afterward so that it doesnt sit around to be noticed.
There is no way to change farming. The devs have tried over and over. If the MA allows for some type of exploit, that might be different, but i think we all knew that people were basicly going to make their own dreck, wolf ect maps when they announced this. The only possible fix would be to remove rewards from the MA to prevent the want of farmers. Which will prevent players from wanting to use the system also essentially killing what is a great new addition.
I only certianlly hope that the majority of players can adopt a live and let live attitude then going on a farmers hunt and screaming about changes. It doesnt take much more then a basic level or intelligence to get a good idea if the mission is for farming or not before you click play.
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How about rather then getting all torked about them, simply dont search for "short" MA arcs. I would imagine its a safe bet that many farms will be 1 mission arcs.
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The problem is, there are farmers trying to disguise their farm missions. That includes making them more than 1 mission in length.
I have hit Medium/Long Missions where you get a two sentance intro dialogue, get into the first mission and the only other text you get is "Farm" or Kill". And as I stated in the first post, the mission that started this thread was an arc 5 Missions in length. Not a "Very Short" Mission. In addition, it involved an exploit.
BTW, why should I be forced to avoid missions of a certain length just to avoid the rude, obnoxious and potentially exploitable actions of another player? Shouldn't the onus be on the player misbehaving?
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
so basically your saying that all the missions in MA should be click glowie. or did you forget about all the dev created content that says kill(defeat is the same thing) all? or are you saying that because you got several tickets and badges for doing the 5 mission long arc that it's a "farm"? did it maybe come into your thoughts that maybe someone was poking fun at the "farmers"? just some food for thought.
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How about rather then getting all torked about them, simply dont search for "short" MA arcs. I would imagine its a safe bet that many farms will be 1 mission arcs.
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The problem is, there are farmers trying to disguise their farm missions. That includes making them more than 1 mission in length.
I have hit Medium/Long Missions where you get a two sentance intro dialogue, get into the first mission and the only other text you get is "Farm" or Kill". And as I stated in the first post, the mission that started this thread was an arc 5 Missions in length. Not a "Very Short" Mission. In addition, it involved an exploit.
BTW, why should I be forced to avoid missions of a certain length just to avoid the rude, obnoxious and potentially exploitable actions of another player? Shouldn't the onus be on the player misbehaving?
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What I am saying is different strokes for different folks.
Just because you say that a mission with a 2 sentence intro built on a kill all is a waste, doesnt mean all feel it is. Many missions that the devs created are simple kill all Xs in the warehouse. Hell most the radio and paper missions have little to no introduction at all beyond somthing like "<Enemy group> has stolen a new metal, it would earn you decent cash go get it, leave no witnesses."
If you start a mission from the MA, and you go into the door and see that its not a mission you want to do, then you have the ultimate control for yourself. You exit the mission, quit the story and choose another.
Getting all bent outta shape or going on some rant or petition spree because its offensive, or exploitive to you, is setting the idea that for some reason your the ultimate controler about what is right or wrong to play. I have played several missions that i am sure could be considered farms, however you know i still had more fun playing those missions that atleast usally used a new unique enemy group, then i did playing the same old same old from the devs creations for the 10th time.
My point is you control your MA experience. If you dont want to run a mission a player created quit it. But dont get all holier then thou that you have the ultimate judgement of what is or isnt appropriate to play for others. Its basicly the same argument that has existed on farming forever. If you dont want to farm then dont. But playing someone's basic short, story light, arc or mission one time to expereince it for the simple joy of it being different i hardly call farming. Is playing the Dreck map 1 time and completing it farming? Then why would playing the MA mission one time and rating it and moving on be considered content only good for farming?
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Many missions that the devs created are simple kill all Xs in the warehouse. Hell most the radio and paper missions have little to no introduction at all beyond somthing like "<Enemy group> has stolen a new metal, it would earn you decent cash go get it, leave no witnesses."
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Oh, if only most farm missions reached the level of these missions created by the devs. (And, btw, I tend to avoid Radio/Paper Missions like the plague. I only touch them when I need a new contact.)
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If you start a mission from the MA, and you go into the door and see that its not a mission you want to do, then you have the ultimate control for yourself. You exit the mission, quit the story and choose another.
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My point is you control your MA experience. If you dont want to run a mission a player created quit it. But dont get all holier then thou that you have the ultimate judgement of what is or isnt appropriate to play for others.
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Here's one of the biggest problems. Those farm missions that have no content to speak of whatsoever keep getting 5 Stars. A mission that has 10+ votes and a 5 star rating represents good content, right? Not if it's a farm mission. A farm mission with a 5 Star rating is instead an example of a farmer giving a high rating in order to give another farmer tickets. (The farmer of that mission than plays the second farmers mission an rates it 5 stars).
Having farm missions get multiple 5 star ratings moves them to the front of the list. When searching for missions that represent strong content, you should be looking for 5 star missions. But all the farmers have pushed those missions aside.
I wouldn't mind if these farm missions had 1 stars ratings. I wouldn't see them. I wouldn't play them. I wouldn't have to deal with them at all.
But no, the farmers have to keep pushing them in my face.
I don't really control my MA experience if the action of the farmers prevents me from finding the missions I want to play. And it does.
THIS IS THE REASON PEOPLE ARE SO PISSED OFF AT THE FARMERS RIGHT NOW.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
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so basically your saying that all the missions in MA should be click glowie. or did you forget about all the dev created content that says kill(defeat is the same thing) all? or are you saying that because you got several tickets and badges for doing the 5 mission long arc that it's a "farm"? did it maybe come into your thoughts that maybe someone was poking fun at the "farmers"? just some food for thought.
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No, the person was not "poking fun" of farmers. It was an exploit and it got pulled fast. And if you farmers were half as smart as you think you are, you would know by now why a 5 mission story arc designed for farming would constitute an exploit.
(It was literally jaw dropping bad.)
And as for comparing these player created farm missions with dev content, are you nuts?
You're comparing missions with a plot, contact dialogue etc. to "FARM FARM FARM" Kill Kill Kill." especially those missions where all the farmer puts on the map is a custom group consisting of one creature in the default costume?
Oh, and btw, those farmer missions are rarely kill all missions. (At least the ones designed by half-way intelligent farmers). The smart ones put that no thought custom group in and then put one mandatory mission objective in. That way they can leave if they have to (for what ever reason) and still get the mission complete bonus.
You know, right now I have the strong urge to put together a farming mission, publish it, run through it once and post the results. Just to have an illustration as to why this is a problem.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
I wonder what impact this might have on the merit system.
Perhaps it is too early to speculate?
Maybe wait a week or two and see what happens via markets?
take note- alot of farms have been getting removed, deleted, nerfed.
so there is something being done to kind of damage control it.
I guess...
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
lol the funny thing about this is, people have SG mates 5 star their crappy missions to stay in the front, while farmers only do it for the tickets.
If your only playing for the story line/content may I suggest sticking to devs choice.
@Intro lolPvP
great idea!
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
I was trying a few farms. I ran into many different types. I think the term is "rikti dolls". I think its been nerfed or something. the dolls I first saw were lt's the ones i see now are comm... somethings.. anyway.. my point..
I solo. Once in a few months you might catch me on a team. I'm reclusive elusive and alot of the content on this game I will never see because I so very very rarely team.
The xp is outstanding. It's what I've always wanted. This so called "farm" has tons of hard to tear destructible objects. Iv'e never seen anything like that. I like it. These mobs aren't that easy to take down solo. One wrong move <easy to make> and the map can literally be littered with a strong army that will yeild NO XP. <clever> I freakin love it. The massive ammount of xp seems to be in balance with the ginormous danger factor. Thats been my experience. I have spent hours on that so called small map. For me, its been fun! So far at least.Being a mainly solo creature- iv'e gotten quite attached to MA- I only wish we had some way of turning tickets into merits.
we still have a merit system right?
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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so basically your saying that all the missions in MA should be click glowie. or did you forget about all the dev created content that says kill(defeat is the same thing) all? or are you saying that because you got several tickets and badges for doing the 5 mission long arc that it's a "farm"? did it maybe come into your thoughts that maybe someone was poking fun at the "farmers"? just some food for thought.
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No, the person was not "poking fun" of farmers. It was an exploit and it got pulled fast. And if you farmers were half as smart as you think you are, you would know by now why a 5 mission story arc designed for farming would constitute an exploit.
(It was literally jaw dropping bad.)
And as for comparing these player created farm missions with dev content, are you nuts?
You're comparing missions with a plot, contact dialogue etc. to "FARM FARM FARM" Kill Kill Kill." especially those missions where all the farmer puts on the map is a custom group consisting of one creature in the default costume?
Oh, and btw, those farmer missions are rarely kill all missions. (At least the ones designed by half-way intelligent farmers). The smart ones put that no thought custom group in and then put one mandatory mission objective in. That way they can leave if they have to (for what ever reason) and still get the mission complete bonus.
You know, right now I have the strong urge to put together a farming mission, publish it, run through it once and post the results. Just to have an illustration as to why this is a problem.
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And it hasnt occured to you at all that these crappy missiosn are being designed not to even farm but to just earn those tickets.
If i want to make a farm mission, i will likely make a custom group that is tailored to be fought buy a good farm toon. Maybe making sure they dont have knockback powers and are primary fire damage if im using a fire tanker or brute etc.
But i dont make the mission to be light on content. I might make it light on story yes, but as i have said i have run into many farm missions that have a basic story, somethng like "Dude X is bad go beat him down and kill his minions, get back the X he stole"
This is obviously not a heavey handed story line, but it doesnt mean the mission is not fun to play for people that like to play rather then read. One such mission i found had like 20 protect objectives, each one spawning a ambush. It was probably obviously a farm mission. And though i choose not to farm it, it was a hella fun mission to play through. I died a couple time, was taking on huge mobs and spawns, it was a blast to PLAY.
But if i wanted to farm tickets, and i was in a big SG, i could easily publish 3 crappy arcs that had little to do, and just ask my many SG mates to run through them in 5 minutes and give me 5 stars and go collect tickets for having done practicly nothing.
Again i personally feel like your taking a hatred of farmers and saying they have no right to use a new game feature as they wish to use it.
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You know, right now I have the strong urge to put together a farming mission, publish it, run through it once and post the results. Just to have an illustration as to why this is a problem.
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And what would those result be? That your characters earned good xp and infulence/infamy? Oh my that is terrible. Or that they earned 2k tickets? Again holy crap thats the ruin of the game.
You know since the merit system was introduced we have heard nothing but complaints of how it killed the market. People were hording tickets not getting random roles not feeding the markets, and choice was drying up and becoming way to expensive. MA tickets, farmed or not, will help to eliminate this. We once again have a source of fast earning of random roles. Many of those rolls will end up being sold on the market, feeding the communities needs. Im not saying farming is a humanitarian effort, but i know i would rather spend a couple million less for the IO i need on the markets because they are in good supply rather then have to run multiple TFs or Trials to earn enough merits to buy it.
So again i say, your incontrol of your MA experience. Saying anything less is just not being truthful. You select the mission. Read the story before hand, then if it seems decent play it. If you go into the missions and it doesnt seem like your cuppatea then quit it. There is NO limit on how many arcs you can begin and quit. Unlike normal mission contents limit to 1 per 3 days.
Also keep in mind that there will always with a system like this be more crappy content then good. Many players will want to take the time to make good thought out stories, but many more will just play with the system. They will slap together missions that are just intended to try things out, or even just intended to kill a friend off with there difficulty, and yes just intended to farm for tickets or whatever. But again this is their choice.
I fail to see why if players were farming say Katie TF for merits, and running it 3-4 times or even back for random rolls, taking like 45 minutes a run, why that would be ok cause its "Good" content, rather then them taking that same 45 minutes to play "bad" content to get a reward. Its the players choice.
And you know if you choose to see it, which im sure you wont, there is another positive to this system. I dont thnk i have gotten one "will you join me to spawn a map" tell since issue 14 went live. So like it or not, farming will always exist, and the MA gives farmers mor tools to do what they will do anyway, with smaller impact to those of us that dont farm for a living in the game. It also gives me as a mostly solo player the ability to earn some of those rewards that up until now were mostly only going to get earned by playing through lenghty TFs (which many night players cant get in on) or having to team on PUGs to take part in the content that earned the merits and such quickest.
So yes i could sit back and say "OMG i had to quit like 3 missions that were just blatent farms" or i could say "wow i have earned like 10 random roles playing the MA content since the week it went live. And i havent had the chance to do 10 TFs in the last year even." And take what benefits you from this system, and ignore what doesnt.
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I will say this about farming....
Have you been to Grandville on Freedom? There is no pay to farm threads anymore...with autoexempts, and difficulty modifiers, any team can go in and do what they want. I actually had to laugh because alot of "pay farm veterans" were sitting in GV lamenting over their lost business wondering where they would not find their infamy to enhance their new toons.
If that isn't an improvement in the game, I don't kow what is.
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Hey...that's true. This will put a serious dent in some people's inf earning for sure. (Another one I didn't understand...why would you pay "1 million per run"? That's just insane.)