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7. Stationary "Buff Bot" allies. These are set to not follow, but can give you speed boost, fortification, shields, forge and others I'm sure. As long as you don't lead enemies back to them they won't leach exp because they won't follow.
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I didn't know that one was possible, maybe because I never noticed an ally that did it in regular missions. I think all of your list are fair questions that deserve answers, though.
@Exabecquerel | 50s:
1 corr (fire/kin), 1 widow (tuna), 3 MM (bots/ff, demons/dark, demons/traps), 2 brutes (ss/wp, kin/sr)
1 def (kin/dp), 2 trollers (fire/rad, earth/storm), 2 scrappers (spines/dark, kat/sr)
As a guess? having a couple of these would be fine Even having 2-3 instances of various items would be fine - (ie, a buffable ally, an exploding box, and a level setter.) It when you have multiple versions of EACH on a map that it's pretty obvious that it's fallen into farming.
As a safe bet? Give yourself a PLing "score" - one point for each instance of the things you mention. If you get above 3, you're probably hitting PLing territory. If you're over 10? yeah, you're well into the farm.
(Interestingly enough, even using this definition, some dev story arcs would count - I think there are a couple that have multiple exploding items.)
Another less obvious exploit i hope Devs will deal with soon:
Invalid AE missions STILL being run by players who never completed them. They can reset these missions forever as long as they do not complete objective , log out and log back.
That explains why some players can still run fire imps or comm officers missions even after the patch.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
The devs would be foolish to post exact examples of what they consider exploitative or not. Simply because people will use that to skirt as close to edge as they can without getting caught. Honestly, I don't think you're ever going to get a concrete answer on that.
I would say it would probably be best to avoid any blatant MA farming if you aren't willing to risk possible consequences. If you want to farm then farm. But just realize that you run the risk of getting caught. If that risk makes you uneasy, then maybe farming isn't for you and just shouldn't do it.
Lastly, you could always just write customer service and have them look at an arc you've written. If you're worried you may have innocently created a farm without meaning to. If you weren't trying to do anything you shouldn't be..you have nothing to worry about.
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi
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Another less obvious exploit i hope Devs will deal with soon:
Invalid AE missions STILL being run by players who never completed them. They can reset these missions forever as long as they do not complete objective , log out and log back.
That explains why some players can still run fire imps or comm officers missions even after the patch.
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And the only way you would know about this is to have done it yourself.
There are people still running the pre-nerf dreck farm map too.
Those isolated instances are not the problem. It's only a problem when massive numbers of people do them. sooner or later these folks are going to hit 42 and no longer going to get any exp from the comm farms. They are going to have to quit them and move on, or stop playing the characters.
But, as a leading sadist in the fun police, I am sure that just 'leaving it be' rankles you to no end.
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Another less obvious exploit i hope Devs will deal with soon:
Invalid AE missions STILL being run by players who never completed them. They can reset these missions forever as long as they do not complete objective , log out and log back.
That explains why some players can still run fire imps or comm officers missions even after the patch.
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And the only way you would know about this is to have done it yourself.
There are people still running the pre-nerf dreck farm map too.
Those isolated instances are not the problem. It's only a problem when massive numbers of people do them. sooner or later these folks are going to hit 42 and no longer going to get any exp from the comm farms. They are going to have to quit them and move on, or stop playing the characters.
But, as a leading sadist in the fun police, I am sure that just 'leaving it be' rankles you to no end.
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Yup. You are totally right about that. ( Why do i even bother reply is beyond me ) 
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
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Yup. You are totally right about that. ( Why do i even bother reply is beyond me )
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No, it is not, you know full well that it was to foster passive-aggressive guilt and try to garner sympathy.
There are other ways to find out about this exploit that doesn't require you to use it yourself. The most obvious would be to have someone tell you about it. Was that too easy?
"leading sadist in the fun police" - what the [censored]? First of all, nobody died and made Celestial_Fury leader of anything. Second, there is no fun police. Third, don't try to garner sympathy with your active-aggressive idiocy. Yeah, I can spout drivel too, and it doesn't make more sense when I do it. Shut up.
Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522
If you are uncomfortable with what you think "might be" considered abusing the system --I suggest that you refrain from any content you feel "might be" abusing the system.
That's pretty clearly your judgment.
Think of it as a risk versus reward ratio like the DEVs have said. If it is too easy to get too great a reward - it should not be happening and is an abuse of the system.
This gray area talk is silliness and hair-splitting. It is clear what makes a mission too easy and give too much loot of one flavor of another.
I'd go into specifics but I don't have time.
I'd think that the following of your numbers are clearly abusing the system and not using it as intended - 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
As far as the others, it if makes it too easy...then it is abusing the system.
Just my opinions:
If you are gaining xp with 0 risk, it's abuse (if you can herd/pull 3 critter groups and drop them all in under 3 minutes with over 50% health/end remaining, I'd call that close enough to 0 risk). This includes door sitting.
If you are gaining levels faster than 1 per hour (beyond level 5), it's abuse.
Doesn't matter if it's a Dev mission or not.
I think that pretty much covers it.
BTW, OP, saw you on TV, you were cool.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
Ok ok ok.....so what about well organized teams...good players....good toons...??
Am I "abusing" the system when I have a fully IO'd out toon...and can solo missions on Invincible without a scratch??
Am I "abusing" the system when I put together a TF with friends that I know have IO'd out toons, and know how to play them well...and we can run a ITF in 25minutes or less??
I understand that farming is "bad"....but is there that much of a difference between running a Warrior farm with a team, 4 or 5 times in an hour -- compared to running a Katie or ITF twice in the same amount of time?
Maybe I'm choosing to be...ignorant....but I'm unaware of it. =p
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If you are gaining levels faster than 1 per hour (beyond level 5), it's abuse.
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I've been on plenty of random PUGs that exceeded a level per hour just doing radio missions or whatever random missions. Good teams aren't "abuse" 
It's redifined on a whim. Basically abuse is anything that helps you succeed at something at a faster rate then the devs want.
regardless fo what/why/or how..they label it abuse soon as it's widely known.
I'd down with comm officers getting nerfed..they did give too much xp vs the risk involved...but they're already working on buffing all lieutenants on test to have ranged attacks..which is all fine and good but..check out what's being said about it.
once soloable arcs (with challenge) are becoming un-soloable. Baby Posi is taking things TOO far.
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.but they're already working on buffing all lieutenants on test to have ranged attacks.
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Done deal. Not just lts, though. Everyone. Each power set has at least one ranged attack now. And the patch went to live...yesterday? Day before? I forget.
Dec out.
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The devs would be foolish to post exact examples of what they consider exploitative or not. Simply because people will use that to skirt as close to edge as they can without getting caught. Honestly, I don't think you're ever going to get a concrete answer on that.
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Thats just insane.
If the developers aren't going to give guidelines they can hardly expect anyone to follow them. Especially in a game with as much dynamic range as this one and so many bugs
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Just my opinions:
If you are gaining xp with 0 risk, it's abuse (if you can herd/pull 3 critter groups and drop them all in under 3 minutes with over 50% health/end remaining, I'd call that close enough to 0 risk). This includes door sitting.
If you are gaining levels faster than 1 per hour (beyond level 5), it's abuse.
Doesn't matter if it's a Dev mission or not.
I think that pretty much covers it.
it
BTW, OP, saw you on TV, you were cool.
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Thank you for making the counterpoint. Herding 3 spawns an exploit ?? Gaining levels faster than 1/hr after 5 ??
Well that makes every tank /kin combo team an exploit and large teams an exploit
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Just my opinions:
If you are gaining xp with 0 risk, it's abuse (if you can herd/pull 3 critter groups and drop them all in under 3 minutes with over 50% health/end remaining, I'd call that close enough to 0 risk). This includes door sitting.
Doesn't matter if it's a Dev mission or not.
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Awesome.. So my AR/EM blaster running the wall in Cimerora is "abuse"? Or doing something similar with my fire/rad controller? Because I guarantee I can drop 3 groups in way less than 3 minutes with either of those.
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If you are gaining levels faster than 1 per hour (beyond level 5), it's abuse.
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I guess I had better stop running any more Taskforces unless I am exemplaring down for them as well. Wouldn't want to "abuse" the system.
Plus the more generic and obvious: a tank, brute, and many scrappers can readily pull three and survive easily, especially at upper levels. If you're regen or WP, you may walk out of it with full health. :-)
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Invalid AE missions STILL being run by players who never completed them. They can reset these missions forever as long as they do not complete objective , log out and log back.
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I don't think you can run a team through those, though. At least in my experience, a mission getting unpublished or republished, between the time you get it and the time you start it, causes teammates to not be able to zone into the mission.
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.but they're already working on buffing all lieutenants on test to have ranged attacks.
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Done deal. Not just lts, though. Everyone. Each power set has at least one ranged attack now. And the patch went to live...yesterday? Day before? I forget.
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Not only that, the ranged attack hurts more than most of their melee attacks. WTF. Its the Wolves all over again.
<sigh> Viv says its no longer "all me".
http://wendy-mags.mybrute.com/
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Just my opinions:
If you are gaining xp with 0 risk, it's abuse (if you can herd/pull 3 critter groups and drop them all in under 3 minutes with over 50% health/end remaining, I'd call that close enough to 0 risk). This includes door sitting.
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Wow, then let's ban all /Shield Brutes!
Are you really serious with that? A shield brute at full fury can Build Up > Shield Charge, and kill all minions in a spawn even if they're +3's, and I've been able to do it against +4's too.
And, this Shield brute of mine that I've been able to do this with, doesn't even have IO's yet, just using SO's still, heh.
Damage Proc Mini-FAQ
Just noticed Damage Proc Mini-FAQ wasn't working with new forums, it's been updated.
I think the difference of opinions here shows just how gray this gray area is. There are some things that are obvious (comm officers for instance), but a lot of this stuff is not clear.
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I'd think that the following of your numbers are clearly abusing the system and not using it as intended - 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
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The flip side of this is that by including shields and other similar allies, as a misison author, I can tune the level of difficulty, particularly if I'm using EBs or AVs, and I'm doing a story-focused arc that is intended to be soloable.
These items matter a whole lot more to lower-level and solo toons than to do to a team, as well.
Teamed, I don't think the buffs really matter at all. I suspect that data-mining Meows with and without this kind of buffer will show no statistical difference in either rate of XP gain or death rate.
Explosives are another matter, but the fix for that is simple -- just make them steal XP.
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If you are gaining xp with 0 risk, it's abuse (if you can herd/pull 3 critter groups and drop them all in under 3 minutes with over 50% health/end remaining, I'd call that close enough to 0 risk). This includes door sitting.
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I have toons that can do that with pretty much most available factions in game... Well, not gain xp since it's really hard to get that last xp needed to hit 51, but still.
Guess I'd just better stay away from MA all together to be on the safe side. I'd hate to have one of my billion dollar build toons deleted.
Any and all spelling, grammar and logic errors are intentional so this post will blend seamlessly into the Internet
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Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!
Looking for clarification here. "If it feels like farming, it probably is" brings us into a really uncomfortable gray area, especially when penalties can include character loss and revocation of MA privileges via arc locks.
So, which of the following are exploits, and are they always? What, if any, punishments will players/publishers of such features face?
1. All boss missions: I would think their boss status would make them enough of a challenge to keep the risk/reward ratio intact, but they do seem to throw the time/reward ratio off... so is this an exploit? If so, why is it even allowed?
2. All minion missions: easy to group up for AoE, certain builds are optimized better for this kind of mission. Same could apply to an all Lt. mission.
3. All smashing/lethal damage enemies. It's pretty easy to make sure your enemies don't do anything but the most easily resisted damage types, and that none of them can really slap you with any harmful debuffs.
4. Allies with low damage but high utility. The control sets come to mind, with AoE controls which can lock up mobs without sucking up too much exp. Add a nice debuff secondary to help even more.
5. Stationary "Shield Bearer" allies. Allies which do not "wake up" to follow you, but simply provide a shield (generally sonic of FF, though some other toggles work well for this as well) for fighting the enemies guarding them.
6. Mobile "Shield Bearer" allies. Allies which do not attack, but bear shields and follow you as you progress. On some missions enough of these can join you that your resists and defenses are capped, or that many of the enemies you face will be held via choking cloud. I'm sure other uses exist.
7. Stationary "Buff Bot" allies. These are set to not follow, but can give you speed boost, fortification, shields, forge and others I'm sure. As long as you don't lead enemies back to them they won't leach exp because they won't follow.
8. "Car Bombs" or other destructible objects what, upon exploding, damage enemies, sometimes severely, without leaching any exp: as long as you dealt SOME damage to the enemy, even just a caltrops patch, you get full exp.
9. Helpful protected objects, like the regen altars. In the main game these are used to give enemies a regen bonus, but when set to be saved by the player these will give the player a nice bit of extra healing.
10. Level setters. Mobs that are placed in missions to set it at the desired level. This is often a level 50 mob, to make sure no sidekicking is required, but it's sometimes a level 54 mob to ensure the hardest enemies and thus the highest rewards.
That's all I can think of at the moment, but there's alot more: really, just about any decision a mission writer makes can be viewed by somebody as an exploit. I'm not trying to provoke anybody here, just want a straight answer, hopefully from a dev, but player opinions are welcome as well.