On farms


AncientSpirit_NA

 

Posted

I played a mission yesterday that for all intents and purposes was a farm. It was "cleverly disguised" as a story with a plot but all it really was was a vehicle to put the team up against the weakest possible custom enemies and level 51 AVs that would give 376 thousand xp to a level 49 character. That's almost a bubble per AV. There was 7 or 8 of them on the map.

Normally, in real missions, this particular AV wouldn't be found in seven or eight easily dispatched instances in the same easily navigated map, filled with such laughably pathetic foes. Normally this AV would only be found at the end of a 2-hour TF, or an almost equally long story arc, or possibly as a bank robber in Peregrine Island. Lord Recluse doesn't leave his tower for nothing.

The problem is thus: we can create missions which puts us up against enemies with insane rewards which lets us bypass hours worth of "build-up" which we would normally have to slog through in order to reach that enemy. This build-up period is what usually keeps us from "farming" those enemies effectively.

As terrible as it seems to me, I think what is needed to keep MA missions in check is a "cool-down period" on AVs and other highly rewarding enemies. After killing an AV in a MA mission we could get a temporary power which would reduce the rewards from killing other AVs within its duration. This temporary power would stack with itself so the more AVs you kill and the faster you kill them, the less reward you would get from each. The reward should not reach zero, but it should be discouraging farms like this. Instead of getting from level 49 to 50 in a single mission we might have to play through an entire arc of 5 missions, which seems much more in line with the normal game content.

Normal story-based MA arcs should probably not be affected too terribly by this suggestion since they would presumably have a reasonable amount of AVs in a single mission. "Real-world" content should not be affected either since those AVs shouldn't drop this temporary power on us.


Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

 

Posted

*sigh*

/em hands Fredrik a fire-proof suit.


 

Posted

Why do people seem to be begging to get MA missions nerfed?

Heck, let's just get it over with and have all rewards in MA reduced by 75%...


 

Posted

Your avatar fits your post.

What is a reasonable amount of AV's per mission? Suppose somebody decides they want to make a mission where you take on the Freedom Phalanx.

From what I gather, you've already considered this and think that because of the possibility of exploits, this problem should be dealt with. My worry is that when all is said and done, we will be left with a shell of what could have been.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Your avatar fits your post.

What is a reasonable amount of AV's per mission? Suppose somebody decides they want to make a mission where you take on the Freedom Phalanx.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what is reasonable. That would be better answered by the devs, if they decide to implement this idea, by setting the scale of the reward reduction of the temporal power. I would hope they could figure out what a reasonable reward reduction would be, and how long duration the power should have.

If someone decides to make a mission where you take on the entire Freedom Phalanx, and they aren't doing it for farming purposes, then the reduced reward would of course be annoying but since it would only affect the AVs in the mission it would still yield a sufficient reward to be considered "playable".

[ QUOTE ]

From what I gather, you've already considered this and think that because of the possibility of exploits, this problem should be dealt with. My worry is that when all is said and done, we will be left with a shell of what could have been.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm merely making an observation of what I thought was an unreasonable use of the MA, or at least why filling a mission with high-yield AVs leads to unreasonable rewards which we can't get in "real-world" missions with the same frequency. I then proceeded to suggest a solution for this particular kind of farm.


Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

 

Posted

Break out the whips and the hairshirts

Somebody made a story that gives good rewards


 

Posted

This is exactly the kind of thing the devs will crack down on if it gets out of hand.

If it does, then I'd very much prefer something like Fred's suggestion over some of the more ham-fisted "solutions" that could be devised.

The devs do like their fists o' ham, it seems.


The Cape Radio: You're not super until you put on the Cape!
DJ Enigma's Puzzle Factory: Co* Parody Commercials

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Break out the whips and the hairshirts

Somebody made a story that gives good rewards

[/ QUOTE ]


You're not reading properly. This wasn't "good rewards". This was ridiculous, completely bad-wrong-bad, utterly insane, terribly unbalanced and probably exploitable, three-hundred-seventysix-fecking-thousand xp for five minutes of entirely safe buttonmashing. If you think this was merely "good xp" then you are a spoiled MA farmer.


Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

 

Posted

show us pics of the 376K xp or you sir are lying. i have yet to see anything of this magnitude in the ae. in fact there aren't even any av's in the game that i know of that give that much.


 

Posted

Lord Recluse gives the amount of xp/inf the "devs" decided was the right amount. They "KNOW" how much he gives. In addition to that there is a reason he gives high rewards, because he summons ridiculous amounts of boss level minions and is "WORTH" the amount of xp/inf in the devs eyes.

Make no mistake this is not a Rikti Comm officer situation or even close.

In conclusion, we are allowed to have an ALL whatever map filling the number of spawn points on the map.

pohsyb wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

Q:Is there a limit to how many AVs/EBs can be in a mission?
A:Yes, the amount of spawn placements on the map.


[/ QUOTE ]

It had a story and no exploits WAI.


The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]


As terrible as it seems to me, I think what is needed to keep MA missions in check is a "cool-down period" on AVs and other highly rewarding enemies. After killing an AV in a MA mission we could get a temporary power which would reduce the rewards from killing other AVs within its duration. This temporary power would stack with itself so the more AVs you kill and the faster you kill them, the less reward you would get from each. The reward should not reach zero, but it should be discouraging farms like this. Instead of getting from level 49 to 50 in a single mission we might have to play through an entire arc of 5 missions, which seems much more in line with the normal game content.


[/ QUOTE ]


*cough/jrangercough*

I have an idea that will smooth everything out. How about everyone just gets 100xp/hour just for being logged in, with no other way to gain xp? Then your ERP will be just as rewarding as anything else in the game! Awesome!


 

Posted

Oh for the love of....

We already have 5 other threads about or related to "farming" in this stupid forum. I wish everyone would just give it a freakin' rest!


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
It had a story and no exploits WAI.

[/ QUOTE ]


No, it had a "story", but that's not the problem. I don't even care about farms here, this would have been equally ridiculous in a dev-created "real" mission. The difference is that the devs wouldn't create something like this.

The potential exploit in this case is the ability to gain access to this villain type faster than you ever could in the proper game outside the MA. 7 or 8 of them in the same mission, no TF, no story arc, nothing to prevent you from finding and killing LR over and over all day long. In the "real world" missions you would not be able to reach this xp/hour in this manner because you would be forced to play through several missions of normal enemies before you found even a single AV. That would slow down the process enough so that the final xp/hour would be more reasonable.


Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

 

Posted

What does not make any sense with your position is the fact that you still have to kill him. If this were a situation where there were some exploit that allowed you to get that kind of xp/inf with no risk involved then you would have a point that most would support.

The fact of the matter is, it does not matter to this point that killing AV's including LR for every spawn point on the map is a problem for the "devs". The fact that "you" have a problem with it is the only issue at play here.

I would suggest that you stop worrying about what kind of xp/inf someone "else" is getting for the risks "they" are taking and do "your" thing. This is not an exploit.

ANY mission can be run repeatedly for whatever the reason, not just because of the high "risk" or high reward.

In the end if you really think there is something wrong with the mission use the "in-game" mechanic provided for same, anything further looks like attention grabbing in the current atmosphere here in the forums as the issue in various incarnations has been beaten to death many times.


The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.

 

Posted

Fredik, as I read your post it sounds as if you played this thing through (because you found the 7 or 8 AVs) ...

From this, I assume you benefited from what you thought was a farm ...

... and now you come here to complain about it.

Did you report this farm? That would be the "least intrusive" way of dealing with this rather than come up with "solutions" to the farming problem and start flame wars here.

What is this number of this arc? As you know, there are so many anti-farmers in these threads that merely by listing their numbers, you can contribute to their demise.*

No need for "least intrusive" ideas that hurt everybody. There is a system in place. Use it.


* of course, by doing this, you will be showing your prejudices of "what a farm" is ... and then can be marked as a griefer if your idea isn't everyone else's idea as well.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Fredik, as I read your post it sounds as if you played this thing through (because you found the 7 or 8 AVs) ...

From this, I assume you benefited from what you thought was a farm ...

... and now you come here to complain about it.

Did you report this farm? That would be the "least intrusive" way of dealing with this rather than come up with "solutions" to the farming problem and start flame wars here.

What is this number of this arc? As you know, there are so many anti-farmers in these threads that merely by listing their numbers, you can contribute to their demise.

No need for "least intrusive" ideas that hurt everybody. There is a system in place. Use it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Fredik, as I read your post it sounds as if you played this thing through (because you found the 7 or 8 AVs) ...


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[ QUOTE ]

From this, I assume you benefited from what you thought was a farm ...


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, except this isn't what we currently think of as a farm. The mission was actually NOT set up to exploit several known problems and yes, we did have to work to defeat the AV over and over. Once we almost wiped. That's not what my original post is about.

[ QUOTE ]

... and now you come here to complain about it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I came here to point out a way that MA missions can provide access to certain high-yield enemies FASTER than the normal game does. In my opinion too fast and too easy. I didn't report the mission since it was not technically a farm the way I understand the term. I didn't note the arc ID either. It seemed pointless. I wasn't going to write about this particular mission after all.

This is a general problem with how MA missions can be designed in a seemingly perfectly non-exploitative way, while still providing rewards an order of magnitude greater than anything we can find in the normal game. That is the problem. That is what I'm trying to provide a solution for.


Winner of Players' Choice Best Villainous Arc 2010: Fear and Loathing on Striga; ID #350522

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess the P.S. of my note was lost on you. Pity.


 

Posted

I think if a team fights one or twenty AVs, they should be properly rewarded to do so.

An AV's exp shouldn't be inflated because it is normally a harsh journey to get to it. The harsh journey exp should be inflated or the completion of said trek.

I don't think a cool-down is a good way to handle this. Legitimate stories would be punished. Also, if I setup a fight where you are forced to fight two AVs at once, I want a higher reward, not a lower one.


Freeedom
H: Victra Defile (Rad/Dark) & Hot Hits (Fire/SD)
V: Spike Cream (NW) & Crescent Wind (Nin/Storm)
Sub Hero Inc ARC: 1541
--If you don't like what I have to say, it was probably a typo you are refering to.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess the P.S. of my note was lost on you. Pity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess timestamps aren't your strong suit.

Nice try though.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Fredik, as I read your post it sounds as if you played this thing through (because you found the 7 or 8 AVs) ...

From this, I assume you benefited from what you thought was a farm ...

... and now you come here to complain about it.

Did you report this farm? That would be the "least intrusive" way of dealing with this rather than come up with "solutions" to the farming problem and start flame wars here.

What is this number of this arc? As you know, there are so many anti-farmers in these threads that merely by listing their numbers, you can contribute to their demise.

No need for "least intrusive" ideas that hurt everybody. There is a system in place. Use it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

[/ QUOTE ]

Reporting an AE farm isn't griefing.


 

Posted

Can you pm me a the arc id, id like to throw a team together and test it.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]


Reporting an AE farm isn't griefing.

[/ QUOTE ]

When there is no definition of what a farm is and mish's get banned without any human evaluation, it most certainly is.

By even the most expansive definition of farms, what teh OP describes isn't one. If it meets your own personal standard, which exists only in your head and you get it banned for that reason, that's griefing in my book. It lets the lowest common denominator decide what's a farm. To prove a point, maybe I should start reporting anything that gives more xp than a map full of rikti monkeys as a farm.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for suggesting that he grief other players. That's very constructive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess the P.S. of my note was lost on you. Pity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess timestamps aren't your strong suit.

Nice try though.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. I forget how fast-paced this forum is.

Original post: 9:57
Edit to original post: 9:59
Response to oritinal post: 10:00
Bickering over a few minutes timing: Absolutely Priceless

SPOILER BELOW ...

....

....

....

....

If you really want CoH fun, try "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" #1224. For everything else ... there's MasterCard.