Why do people farm level 54 bosses? I think it's slow.
By
Barata,
Posted on: 2009-08-04 13:27 in Mission Architect
Its mostly for the same reason teams back in radio pug days insisted on fighting +4 and +5 mobs no matter what the team makeup is. Some people just cant get it through their skull that 5000 exp from every mob but taking 2 minutes to kill them isnt faster than 2000 exp from 10 mobs you can kill in 1 minute.
In short. People arent very observant if it isnt blindly obvious. 5000 exp vs 2000 is all they see. Same as a Bubbler defender isnt as hailed as an empath simply because you can see green numbers, you cant see numbers for deflected damage
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I'm not sure why either. Some people like the challenge maybe? I like playing blasters, so I like my enemy spawns to be a mixture of different mob types: bosses, lieutenants, and minions. I like seeing some enemies fall quickly under my assault. A boss four levels higher than me doesn't fall quickly. Even though I win, I don't necessarily feel powerful when I have to spend an inordinate amount of time on every single one of them.
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Take a Lv50 PB, Lv50 WS (both TriForm) and a bunch of lowbie Controllers and you'd probably be set. 
Kidding aside though, I was on such a lowbie team with my Lv50 PB and a couple of Controllers who may have been of lower level, but definitely knew what they were doing. I would combine together two enemy groups and pack them around me, the Controllers would lock'em all down (Grav/Earth) and everyone else, including me (in Nova form) would blast'em to bits. When I had both Dawn Star and Photon Seekers up at the same time, it'd usually be game-over for the Bosses before they were released from the first lockdown.
It was fast XP for sure, but you're right, we weren't farming Lv54's, we were farming Lv52's 
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I was wondering that myself. Bosses are good exp but only if you could down them at a fast rate. I was making more exp doing War zone missions than i did on that 'farm' that and I wasent bored out of my skill (also was working on the costume pieces!!)
Boss on farm i killed: 4k sometimes 5k
Warzone Mob: normal 1k, Lut about 2k, boss: 8-9k
Boss on farm was about 2-3 minutes to down
Warzone mobs in order: Norm 10-20s, Lut, 30 sec to 40 Boss: about 1 minute
on top of this I get the 'mission complete' alot more often at about 15k
I really dont see the benifit. I use AE for getting tickets and checking out player made missions, I dont see it as a more efficent way to get exp.
I've been 3-boxing crab spiders and so far my results indicate that farming +3 lieutenants is the sweet spot for xp/min. I do believe there are teams that can farm higher levels just as effectively - for example, Smurphy's fire/kin corr + ss/fire brute combo with outside /kin support was farming bosses pretty nicely. But for most teams I agree, +4 bosses are just too slow to be worthwhile.
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I'm guessing that if you have a well-built team without useless lowbies and people auto-skd to where the purple patch is making them useless, +4 bosses are the only thing worth fighting. This is just a guess, since I don't AE farm, but I have been on teams that annihilate an Invincible spawn in less time than it takes to run to the next one, and I have fought +4s and +3s in the RWZ, and found that even solo, +3s go down pretty fast.
Of course, everybody thinks that the "best way" for team that is built to handle it is the best way for everyone. It's like those people who insist on stealthing a task force when no one has stealth, because "it's faster." In both cases, it isn't.
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Where I see some benefit to leveling in the AE is at lower levels when you don't have access to the really good places for non-AE levelling (like the RWZ) and don't want to do story arcs that require you to travel all over the place, especially on blueside where your contacts seem to LOVE perez park. Also, being able to stock up on insp's between missions has opened up several AT's that I had trouble levelling prior to stamina (corruptors and defenders mostly due to end problems). I can only do paper missions for a little while before I become bored and even with them there is still travel time to consider, so AE is a nice alternative. |
Originally Posted by Zanthar
I was wondering that myself. Bosses are good exp but only if you could down them at a fast rate. I was making more exp doing War zone missions than i did on that 'farm' that and I wasent bored out of my skill (also was working on the costume pieces!!)
Boss on farm i killed: 4k sometimes 5k Warzone Mob: normal 1k, Lut about 2k, boss: 8-9k Boss on farm was about 2-3 minutes to down Warzone mobs in order: Norm 10-20s, Lut, 30 sec to 40 Boss: about 1 minute on top of this I get the 'mission complete' alot more often at about 15k I really dont see the benifit. I use AE for getting tickets and checking out player made missions, I dont see it as a more efficent way to get exp. |
Now, if the character I am working on is capable of going through standard story arc content set at a reasonable level and speed I will happily do it - especially since careful choice of story arcs blueside will net me enough merits for one of the really good IO's by mid 30's (either the numina or miracle unique or a LoTG +7.5% rech) which I could pretty much never get before since I don't do TF's and won't pay the going price at the market for them (not that I thought they where to expensive - it's just that for the same price as one of the unique's I could easily get 4-5 full sets of crushing impact for my scrappers and would much rather do that), but pretty much only scrappers, blasters and certain controllers solo non-AE content fast enough to keep me happy and since I solo 99% of the time that left other AT's in the dust (blueside) before MA came out.
In summary - lack of travel time between missions and access to a vendor to stock up on inspirations at low levels when you are sucking end like crazy is what keeps me in the AE at times. Usually by the time I have stamina and SO's with pretty much any character I leave it behind except when I need tickets for various things (love those random salvage rolls - I can get the stuff I need without hassle and generally sell the excess for a tidy profit).
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Some teams can clear level 54 boss missions faster than most *normal* teams can clear level 52 boss missions. I've been on plenty of them. Generally it involves 2-3 brutes, 1-2 kins, a dom or two but it can vary. As long as you keep the mobs bunched up, you can clear them fast with enough FS (or -res debuff) and AoE DPS. With teams like, you might as well run level 54 bosses since level 52s would be far too easy.
Its a spin off of certain farms that people found, the boss's are wrong. I have my 54 boss farm i run with a brute friend in rwz between him and me on my f/k we down 8 man 54 spawns in approx 3 min a mob. The speed of it is typical, but its more dependant on the TYPE of boss you choose; and yes there is a difference.
But, for the normal PuG, exploits and loopholes aside, the average 54 boss is not the most exp, normally 52 maybe 50 bosses are decent, those along with lts
Some people, maybe not most but certainly some, get very myoptic when it comes to experience.
I had a "So bad it was funny" experience this weekend. I was on my level 34 willpower/mace tanker, and advertise that I was looking for a team. I get invited into a group of six and we dive into the AE. I started to get a bad feeling when the leader and someone else got into an arguement that it was better to have six than a full team because some had told him that that's what best for optium experience.
I see a sea of purple 54 bosses, I didn't even look to see what I was bumped up to. I knew I would be folding quickly unless I had some expectional support. But, I hope for the best and dive in, and as expected promply die. I hopital and come back, and we try again with similar results. The leader starts mocking me for my "interesting tanking strategy, lol". I tell him that the bosses are all purple, and get "They're supposed to be, that's the best exp, lol." I say that level 30'ish tanks generally don't do well against 20 or so purple bosses without the support of a some buffers or debuffers. "This team size is best for exp, lol."
Ok, I'm annoyed. I've never liked the "lol" thing. I wonder if people who do that are really laughing out loud like idiots after everything they type, or if they just want to give the impression that they are. In this situation, it just seemed like the guy was talking down to me. "I don't feel like dying repeatedly because you're afraid of having a full team, lol. Bye." He has time to respond with a pithy "..." while I one star and note him before I quit out.
Ya, getting a big fat chunk of experience is nice, but not if the team had several wipes and took over twenty minutes to get it. Even without the wipes, sometimes the higher level mobs just isn't going to be worth the trouble.
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Hehe, I sympathise tea leaf. That 6 man setup was from Robotech Master's now outdated guide I believe. It was true when radio missions were what people were running non stop (a la AE) back when they were introduced, and people were crying that radio mishes were killing the game.
EDIT: I also think this was pre IO days too since those made bosses, and a lot of them, a relatively insignificant obstacle.
On topic, the correct combo, on the correct 54 boss mob, will wipe them out like nothing. At that point, spawn to spawn time and reset time is the only thing cutting into xp/time. If you are not at that point though, using Lts or other means may indeed be much better xp/time.
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Yeaaaah. I love those teams. especially when they wipe and then suddenly start screaming at us controllers and defenders for heals or speed boost (note: the team had me on a sonic resonance controller, and a storm summoning controller)
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Originally Posted by Tealeaf
Some people, maybe not most but certainly some, get very myoptic when it comes to experience.
I had a "So bad it was funny" experience this weekend. I was on my level 34 willpower/mace tanker, and advertise that I was looking for a team. I get invited into a group of six and we dive into the AE. I started to get a bad feeling when the leader and someone else got into an arguement that it was better to have six than a full team because some had told him that that's what best for optium experience. I see a sea of purple 54 bosses, I didn't even look to see what I was bumped up to. I knew I would be folding quickly unless I had some expectional support. But, I hope for the best and dive in, and as expected promply die. I hopital and come back, and we try again with similar results. The leader starts mocking me for my "interesting tanking strategy, lol". I tell him that the bosses are all purple, and get "They're supposed to be, that's the best exp, lol." I say that level 30'ish tanks generally don't do well against 20 or so purple bosses without the support of a some buffers or debuffers. "This team size is best for exp, lol." Ok, I'm annoyed. I've never liked the "lol" thing. I wonder if people who do that are really laughing out loud like idiots after everything they type, or if they just want to give the impression that they are. In this situation, it just seemed like the guy was talking down to me. "I don't feel like dying repeatedly because you're afraid of having a full team, lol. Bye." He has time to respond with a pithy "..." while I one star and note him before I quit out. Ya, getting a big fat chunk of experience is nice, but not if the team had several wipes and took over twenty minutes to get it. Even without the wipes, sometimes the higher level mobs just isn't going to be worth the trouble. |
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Not automatically. It depends on the foes and the team. The reality is that teams who can push their peak XP/hour out to level 54 are probably not that common. I know some pretty good PLers/farmers, and they tended to use level 51 bosses.|
Originally Posted by Fury_Flechette
I know that the obvious answer to my semi-rhetorical question is because of the belief that farming the toughest critters in the game yields the most xp. But does it really?
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A small team or even a large team with no buffs or debuffs is probably going to do better facing lower-level foes. A large team with significant mitigation and damage multiplication is probably going to do best with high level foes.
For "mythical average players," if you plotted XP rate versus foe level, you'd probably get something vaguely like a bell curve propped up on the left side - a graph that starts at some non-zero baseline, rises a bit, and then collapses rapidly, especially above +4. Foes get increased resistances to effects and increased damage output as levels increase over yours. These combine to give a very nonlinear fall off on the progress rate as levels increase. Eventually you're doing worse even though each foe may be worth more.
"Superteams" can widen the hump in that curve, and/or shift it to higher levels. With enough mitigation going on, you can largely ignore the increased foe damage output. This leaves the increased foe resistances reducing your damage delivery, but this can be at least partially countered with damage multipliers. Even such teams though can only push the curve out so far - the "purple patch" accelerates rapidly above +4, and eventually no amount of buff we can achieve is going to be practically useful.
The examples of teams given in this thread sound like people who heard about well-honed teams getting great XP on level 54 bosses and concluding that the level 54 mobs were the silver bullet. It's really nothing new, people have been making the same kinds of claims about 8-man teams and Invincible/Relentless missions as long as I can remember, citing that other people do it while sometimes failing to see that it's hammering their own reward rates.
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It's not just about exp, but actually challenge for good team. Meaning you can actually die. Lvl 53's are pretty easy.
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Originally Posted by Fury_Flechette
I know that the obvious answer to my semi-rhetorical question is because of the belief that farming the toughest critters in the game yields the most xp. But does it really?
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I ran into one of these groups today.
The leader was forming a high level group with the stated purpose of farming lvl 54 bosses but then as everyone enters he fills the last spot with a lvl 29 alt of his on a 2nd acct..
At this point you know there will be hell.
Add to that the group makeup was
50 SD Tanker (Group Leader)
50 WS
50 Scrapper - me
50 Scrapper
50 Blaster (energy attacks no less)
50 PB
29 alt Doorsitting, contributing nothing.
See any problems with that group makeup?
Well I decided to see what they could do even without a controller, defender or healer of any sort... As you would expect, disaster.
The tank kept trying to pull way more enemies than his agro cap would allow and of course the extras would swarm everyone else in the group.
The Blaster and PB kept knocking the mobs all over the place wrecking any chance to try to take them down efficiently and I ended up tanking as many as the Tanker just to try to keep everyone alive.
Needless to say, after the first few pulls people started dropping out of the group rather quickly...
... and get this, when the Tank asked why everyone was quitting and I told him that it was because this was frankly a terrible group for attempting this map, he told me to "F" myself and kicked me from the team..
/facepalm
Some people just don't want to learn...
Quote:
Yeah, all of the hardcore PLers/farmers that I know cite similar things. Two of them (RL couple) even have graphs and a Powerpoint presentation done to illustrate this in four games (here, EQ1, EQ2, and WoW), comparing and contrasting. When I was designing my personal mission, they gave me a lot of recommendations to make it lucrative xp wise, while still adhering to the story I was putting together. The key thing to remember is that, due to the ticket cap, completion is more important now. You'll hit the ticket cap fairly quickly (not even halfway through most boss missions) so scaling down so that more of the mission is completed before actually doing the primary objective, garners you more xp and tickets (from the end of mission bonus). Lower level bosses make the mission more widely accessible (in other words, even non-optimal teams can do it) while still maintaining challenge level.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Not automatically. It depends on the foes and the team. The reality is that teams who can push their peak XP/hour out to level 54 are probably not that common. I know some pretty good PLers/farmers, and they tended to use level 51 bosses.
A small team or even a large team with no buffs or debuffs is probably going to do better facing lower-level foes. A large team with significant mitigation and damage multiplication is probably going to do best with high level foes. For "mythical average players," if you plotted XP rate versus foe level, you'd probably get something vaguely like a bell curve propped up on the left side - a graph that starts at some non-zero baseline, rises a bit, and then collapses rapidly, especially above +4. Foes get increased resistances to effects and increased damage output as levels increase over yours. These combine to give a very nonlinear fall off on the progress rate as levels increase. Eventually you're doing worse even though each foe may be worth more. "Superteams" can widen the hump in that curve, and/or shift it to higher levels. With enough mitigation going on, you can largely ignore the increased foe damage output. This leaves the increased foe resistances reducing your damage delivery, but this can be at least partially countered with damage multipliers. Even such teams though can only push the curve out so far - the "purple patch" accelerates rapidly above +4, and eventually no amount of buff we can achieve is going to be practically useful. The examples of teams given in this thread sound like people who heard about well-honed teams getting great XP on level 54 bosses and concluding that the level 54 mobs were the silver bullet. It's really nothing new, people have been making the same kinds of claims about 8-man teams and Invincible/Relentless missions as long as I can remember, citing that other people do it while sometimes failing to see that it's hammering their own reward rates. |
Also, familiarity factors in HUGE. People who have played together alot (even in other games), tend to perform better than those simply trying to familiarize themselves with others' playstyles.
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Personally, if I ever farm every now and then, I'd prefer level 54 bosses. Not cause it's better XP, but cause it's more challenging. And I find challenge fun.
I'd happy give away some of my XP/Minute if it meant I could have some fun while farming!
It's just a beautiful sight when you see a team of well-coordinated players devour armies of purple bosses like they were Rikti Monkies. :P
Yeah, nothing new about people not understanding that increased XP/mob doesn't equal increased XP/minute. I've been on many pickup teams that insist on running on Invincible and fighting +4 mobs, and wind up getting wiped every other spawn.
It's more XP only if you don't die and waste time running back from the hospital. Or worse, lying there uselessly on the floor asking "do u have a rez?" when everyone already said no and told you to go the hospital.
The fastest way to get XP is to play SKed to people who know what they're doing and have the courtesy to not waste your time. It doesn't matter what content they're doing -- AE, radios, whatever.
Personally, I find doing regular missions solo on Invincible with Patrol XP gives pretty respectable XP/minute. I have a lot of alts and play at odd hours, and it feels almost like Double XP weekend every day. And when I run with my regular crew that knows what they're doing, Patrol XP really makes the levels come fast. Since you don't use Patrol XP in AE, it's really questionable whether trying to muddle through +4 bosses is getting you XP faster than frequently rotating among alts and accruing Patrol XP.
I know that the obvious answer to my semi-rhetorical question is because of the belief that farming the toughest critters in the game yields the most xp. But does it really?
I've been on a number of AE farm pick up groups, and I have to say that the farms involving high level bosses are actually pretty slow xp-wise. Usually, they have a setup where you have a tank spamming AoEs and some sort of healing AT keeping him alive. The rest of the team contributes however they can, but usually the contribution will vary quite a bit. It's worse in missions where the mission auto-sks anyone below level 47 to 46 (presumably to max out the xp).
To be fair, the xp for a sub level 25 player is actually pretty decent in that sort of setup, but past that, I wonder how truly optimal boss farming really is. I know for example that AE missions that are setup to farm high lieutanants can yield phenomenal xp rates, and is far less reliant on tanks. I even contend that doing radio missions, even accounting for travel time, can be very lucrative as well too. I've taken a group of level 20 somethings who had mostly done AE missions to Talos Island to do rugged (challenge level 3) radio missions and they were surprised at the xp gain on a well built team.
And yet farming bosses seem oddly popular. This sort of reminds me when Kraken farming used to be so popular in Perez Park. People would form teams beating them on the lake but never bothered trying to take out the large groups of Skulls and Hellions around the perimeter. It didn't matter that quickly downing mobs of white/blue/green Skulls yielded far better xp than the purple conning Krakens. The very idea of farming less than white con critters was met with scorn and derision.
Perhaps, the reason may be that boss farming doesn't require much thought in team building. Get a tank, get a healing AT and a bunch of whatever. Sure, I see some folks try to optimize this setup. I see them looking for a kin and a bunch of damage. I've been on those types of teams too, and they still kill too slowly for my liking.
Anyhow, this isn't yet an another thread condemning / promoting AE and the farming issue, just a personal observation that I see a lot people not really optimizing the very thing they're trying to achieve.