In Your Opinion, What is a "Farm"?

I agree that it's easy for a vet to get to portal corp rather quickly with all the tp powers that vets now have access to.

But the SG base entrance is in Portal Corp. If you enter an SG from another zone and take an SG teleporter it leaves you standing by Crimson on the little island past the ferry and Ghost Falcon. Minor quibble, I just wanted to be accurate.

Disclosure: I enjoy farming. I am also not accusing anyone of these positions.

Extremist Farmer Views:

1) My behavior harms nobody.
- Except those cases when a farmer encourages powerleveling. When this happens to a new player and the player learns nothing about the game, there is potential for lost revenue when the player wonders exactly what the point of this game is.
- Except if you are farming for inf/drops as a RMTer. But, you don't hear from these guys on the forums for obvious reasons. They are also nearly universally hated by farmer and non-farmer alike.

2) I don't care what Positron or the EULA says. I do what I want.
- This is not to be confused with trying to understand the degree of what Positron meant in his post. Rather, this is open defiance.
- This position is going to be taken by someone who has no problem seeking ways to exploit the game, such as the hamidon map.

3) There is no such thing as a farm map.
- Just as somebody can design a character suited for farming, so can someone now design a map suited for farming.
- Puleease. I have made maps with the intentions of maximizing reward/time.

4) Anti-Farmers want to force their playstyle on me
- Anti-farmers are typically more concerned with the community environment, which is why they have brought their complaints.

5) Anti-farmers are horrible people
- This is the undercurrent of a lot of posts on AE threads. By dehumanizing players, calling them the purity police or content cops, we're discounting the reasons why they feel threatened. This in turn leads to more division in the game. Until the AE firestorm, the morality farming wasn't frequently and openly debated like this. It's a divisive issue.

Extremist Anti-Farming Positions:

1) Farming is an Exploit:
- No, using an exploit map is an exploit. The you-know-it-when-you-see-it may be a weak position, but I'm fairly certain just about anyone would consider the lvl 49 hamidon of times past an exploit.
- As always, there are shades of gray.

2) The Devs hate farmers:
- I'm fairly certain Positron bears no ill toward someone like Perfect Pain.
- I haven't gotten any hatemail from Positron yet.

3) Farmers are RMTers
- This one annoys me. I hate them too.
- Most farmers have nothing to do with this, and in fact often have a negative impact on RMTers.

4) Farming is ruining the game:
- No, rampant powerleveling and lax SK rules has changed the environment of the game. My opinion would be that it has not been for the better.

5) Farmers are why we pay ridiculous prices on the market
- Farmers increase availability of items. Yes, there is inflation as they also generate inf in the process. Finding new inf sinks would help a lot more than anything else.
- Farmers also tend to use the inf sinks more than other players, often tweaking difficulty settings for each map, selling more items on the market with their fees, etc.
- Neither is it the fault of marketeers. If influence was harder to come by, prices would be lower.

6) Farmers are horrible people.
- You don't usually hear this outright, but you run across this sentiment if you are in an AE thread long enough.
- For example, one person posted about one of their story arcs getting banned on the forum, and asked a question about the review process. Almost immediately, you begin seeing posts like "serves you right" and "TY POSI". This is anything but productive. We tend to forget that there is a person at the other end of the internet.

Now, depending on your bias, you might look at one of those positions and think it isn't that big of a deal. However it becomes painfully clear when you have both positions on the forum actively posting, especially in the same topic. In a lot of these points, there can be found a grain of truth to them, but they have all been exaggerated, hence my point about extremism happening on both sides.

We don't "make" any maps.
As with everything else in MA, they were created by the devs and made available to the players.

There are obviously maps preferred by farmers, but they were created by devs, not farmers.

Quote:

4) Anti-Farmers want to force their playstyle on me

Not seeing how this is an "extremist view" when you basically admit the truth of the statement.

Quote:

5) Anti-farmers are horrible people

One, it's Kontent Kops.

Two, while I am a live-and-let-live guy by nature, when others intrude on my borders I react badly. Feel obligated to lecture and tut tut and wag your finger at a playstyle I enjoy?
Better snatch it back quick, because I bite.

The "divisiveness" isn't anything you can blame on farmers with a straight face. It began and has been perpetuated mainly by the guys on the other side of the fence.

Any particular reason that you're being intentionally obtuse?

"Make map" = design an MA mission -> choosing a map that allows high mob density, maximum # of spawns, minimum travel time; populating that map with large amounts of the most valuable mobs you can kill easily; populating that map with NPC buffers to keep you from ever being threatened; etc.

i.e, rigging an ideal situation for maximum XP+Inf/hour with minimum risk.

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It's especially silly that you're attacking one of the more balanced entries in this thread, which acknowledges that both sides of the arguement are engaging in massive hyperbole.

That was a very poor sidestep. A farm map in AE is intentionally designed to maximize rewards and minimizing risks for the mission creator. Furthermore, a farm map will typically ensure that every spawn point is used. If it is used for leveling, the SK system will likely also be designed to provide the maximum XP/time for the lowbies on the team.

I am well aware of how to design missions to maximize rewards in AE. Considering I have leveled toons 1-30 in a single run in about 30 minutes, I think I know what I'm talking about. Before anyone asks, the methods I used were not exploits, as far as I am aware of. Oddly, once you do it enough, leveling loses its luster.

Now, if you'd like to tell me that the devs designed the powersets I'm using, go ahead.

Don't worry, I've never been one for petting zoos or goats. You also seem to have missed when I said I was a farmer. It would be hypocritical of me to criticize your playstyle when just this evening I ran Grillo's snake mission 3 times before I grew tired of it. I'm on infinity's farming global channels. Half of my active globals are farmers.

That sounds a lot like "He started it!".

You really can't be serious about ANYTHING you just typed.

I sell all my purples for prices higher than the farmers do.
I don't buy any.

And the changes are on-going. Every change to the AE because of the exploiters caused me to have to make changes to my non-farming/pl'ing arcs.

I agree that Nethergoat is fond of saying don't encroach on his game playstyle. At the same time, it is obvious that he could care less when his game playstyle affects others.

The difference between me wanting the AE farmer/plr's to stop exploiting the game isn't a matter of not wanting them to stop doing what they want to do -- it is a matter of stopping them from exploiting the game which cause changed to the game that effect my gaming experience because of their actions.

Even more so, I will also note that Nethergoat relies on directly insulting individual and groups of players in order to try to get a point across.

If Nethergoat is utilizing exploits in the game then he is cheating. So is everyone else that uses them. Doing things that are against the rules is cheating. The EULA is clear that we are not to use exploits; therefore, utilizing an exploit is cheating which means that anyone that is using exploits is a cheater.
This isn't harassment. It is a fact.

If you think that cheating is wrong, don't cheat.

Cheating affects other players.

Cheating is not a valid playstyle; if it was "valid" it would not be against the EULA.

You say that as if farmers do not play regurgitated content; like the same map over and over, ad nauseum.

Oh I agree. Not more tells. YAY! I personally don't farm and, don't really care if you (generic you) do. Not having to be interrupted when I am doing what I want to do will be a heaven sent.

You say this as if I care what you have. I'm not competing against you and never will be. Makes absolutely no difference to me if you have purples IOs, TOs, or anything in between.

--Rad

The problem is you continually equate AE farming and powerleveling with exploiting/cheating.

It isn't.

Myself, and many others, openly post about what we've accomplished time/level-wise in AE and are not ashamed of being good at what we do. To date, I do not know of a single instance of a non-exploiter being punished by the Devs for doing what I so openly post about.

I haven't received so much as an email or PM to suggest what I am doing is "against the rules". I'm not hiding, I'm not being vague, and I'm not being shady about it.

I PL the living crap out of every alt I make in the AE/PI farms and nothing has ever, will ever, or should ever be done about it because as long as I pay my sub fees and use nice language on the forums they value me as a customer.

Just like they value you, and Nethergoat, and TonyV, and Perfect Pain, and cute lil Rachel - they want our money and could care less about our opinions. Quite frankly I think they like all of us bashing heads on the forums, Mod8 might not at times, but it means we have a vested interest in the game regardless of stance. And with that vested interest comes our cash.

And there goes another $.02 from me.

Doom/Batman in 2012

The Resistance has boobs too, and better hair!

Oh my god, I'm a gold seller!

You used tools provided by the devs to maximize your rewards.
This is 'making' something in the same sense that using legos to build a car is 'making' something. You can certainly take credit for building the most sleek, elegant car possible with the Legos, but your creation is severely limited by which blocks you've been given. You can't put a flamethrower on the hood unless you were given a flamethrower.

This treads closer to semantics than I usually feel comfortable venturing, but I feel the point is important enough to warrant a brush with the pedantic.

So, yes there are maps that are better for farming, and yes you can arrange for them to be densely populated. But neither of those circumstances originate with the farmer, they originate with the developers. If they developers don't like it, they can change the system.
Absent changes, some players will continue to seek rewards in the most efficient way possible.

I'd say optimizing a character for farming is fundamentally similar to optimizing a map for farming.

Will you be including optimized builds in a revised list of "extremist farmer behavior"?


I didn't miss it.
But saying you're a farmer doesn't automatically validate your logic.


Again, under the heading "extremist farmer behavior" you list farmers taking exception to the moral crusading of the Fainting Couch Social Club.

Defending yourself & your culture from assault is hardly extremist behavior.

I feel the same about nearly everything you say.

And yet, I'm sure you are.

If the devs don't like it, they can change it.
It's their system, their tools, their NPCs, their game.
Players can only achieve what they are allowed to achieve by the tools they are given.

Why do people talk trash about farmers? Look at your own post. Durrrr...

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

And the devs *have* been changing it (slowly) to close up loopholes, restrict exploits, and limit behaviors they don't approve of.

One of the ways the Devs find out about these things? By people debating about them on the forums, and/or reporting things in game.



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"Farming" (and/or "grinding") is a time honored RPG/MMO occupation. (I've done plenty of each, in games from Ultima 1 to Final Fantasy 8 to WoW) Exploiting/cheating, however, shouldn't be. Figuring out where exploiting begins is, of course, the challenging part.

True, but you can swim all the way to portal corp easily and never get near a mob. There is zero difference in safety in that then running to the AE building in Atlas Park. The only difference is in PI you have to go a farther difference.