Farming & PL'ing - Designed by Devs or Unintentional By-Product

After much time musing to myself and generally pondering the above I have decided it is time to ask the question...

Are farming and PL'ing merely a by-product of the way the game has changed or is it engineered carefully by the Devs for some reason as yet inknown?

My reasons for wondering this are pretty simple. I do not want this to descend into a 'farming/pl'ing is bad vs good' debate, nor turn into a flame-fest of epic proportions - it is merely a question raised when I couldnt sleep last night

Farming didn't exist (in any great way) until IOs and Auction House appeared. As soon as costume part recipes came onto the market and started costing 50million inf+ to buy the need for more inf arose and farming became mroe prevalent. then with the introduction of Purple Enhancements costing anywhere up to 150mil inf each this requirement grew again and farming really came to the forefront of the game as people wanted to make there character then best they could do. Next came PVP enhancements costing (iirc) up to about 500mil inf each. No casual player could even hope to spec out their character(s) with a few sets of these without farming influence/infamy. This has all become easier with AE and with the SSK system coming in i16 will be easier outside of AE too.

In the same way in a real world economy, when prices for things that people want or feel they need gets too high then there are people who will turn to alternate methods of getting enough cash to buy - it is the same in CoX - people dont have enough inf to fully kit out a character they will farm to get what they need.

Therefore this could have been prevented or the perceived need lessened in a few ways which on the surface seem simple enough. Introduce a price cap in AH/BM. Set it so nothing can cost more than 10mil. Yes it will mean that 'everyone' can afford high end enhancements which wasnt necessarily the Devs intention, but as everyone wants these anyway and a lot of people farm to be able to afford them, reducing the price will have the same end result - people will be able to afford them but won't have to farm - this would hopefully mean less people will feel the need to do AE farms and more people will be back to normal game content or will use AE for its true purpose -playing individually generated content and arcs.

PL'ing is slightly different, however it feels (from a personal viewpoint) that a lot fo the newer content (RWZ revamp, Cimerora and new TF's) is all higher level - 35+. Again personally, after a few years in game I do find a lot of the lower level content tedious and look forward to getting to lvl 20 (stamina), lvl 22 (SO's) and lvl 35+ (RWZ etc) and have no qualms in speeding through the lower levels to content I enjoy. Everything the Devs have done so far to prevent PL'ing or farming seems to have been half-hearted and has made no difference at all. Are the Devs really powerless to stop it and are just letting it ride, or are they not doing anything much to stop it because it was secretly intended to occur.

Remember, I have no good, bad or indiffernet views on PL and farming - people pay their money and should be allowed to play how they like as long as it doesnt adversley affect others or break the EULA - I just wanted to post this before it keeps me awake tonight

I tink you start from the flawed position that farming and PL'ing were not truly present in the early years of the game.

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Originally Posted by Baby_Phoenix After much time musing to myself and generally pondering the above I have decided it is time to ask the question... Are farming and PL'ing merely a by-product of the way the game has changed or is it engineered carefully by the Devs for some reason as yet inknown? My reasons for wondering this are pretty simple. I do not want this to descend into a 'farming/pl'ing is bad vs good' debate, nor turn into a flame-fest of epic proportions - it is merely a question raised when I couldnt sleep last night Farming didn't exist (in any great way) until IOs and Auction House appeared. As soon as costume part recipes came onto the market and started costing 50million inf+ to buy the need for more inf arose and farming became mroe prevalent. then with the introduction of Purple Enhancements costing anywhere up to 150mil inf each this requirement grew again and farming really came to the forefront of the game as people wanted to make there character then best they could do. Next came PVP enhancements costing (iirc) up to about 500mil inf each. No casual player could even hope to spec out their character(s) with a few sets of these without farming influence/infamy. This has all become easier with AE and with the SSK system coming in i16 will be easier outside of AE too.

If your character needs Purples - you aren't a Casual Player.

Yes, costume pieces were very pricy at the beginning - and the Devs increased drops of those recipes to lessen those proces, to good effect.

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In the same way in a real world economy, when prices for things that people want or feel they need gets too high then there are people who will turn to alternate methods of getting enough cash to buy - it is the same in CoX - people dont have enough inf to fully kit out a character they will farm to get what they need. Therefore this could have been prevented or the perceived need lessened in a few ways which on the surface seem simple enough. Introduce a price cap in AH/BM. Set it so nothing can cost more than 10mil. Yes it will mean that 'everyone' can afford high end enhancements which wasnt necessarily the Devs intention, but as everyone wants these anyway and a lot of people farm to be able to afford them, reducing the price will have the same end result - people will be able to afford them but won't have to farm - this would hopefully mean less people will feel the need to do AE farms and more people will be back to normal game content or will use AE for its true purpose -playing individually generated content and arcs.

We need Smurphy in here, stat, to explain how price caps DO NOT WORK. But the short answer is that if you place a cap in the official mechanism, then a true Black Market springs up, as players circumvent the system to buy & sell outside it. Can't get it at the market? Buy it off the street.

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PL'ing is slightly different, however it feels (from a personal viewpoint) that a lot fo the newer content (RWZ revamp, Cimerora and new TF's) is all higher level - 35+. Again personally, after a few years in game I do find a lot of the lower level content tedious and look forward to getting to lvl 20 (stamina), lvl 22 (SO's) and lvl 35+ (RWZ etc) and have no qualms in speeding through the lower levels to content I enjoy. Everything the Devs have done so far to prevent PL'ing or farming seems to have been half-hearted and has made no difference at all. Are the Devs really powerless to stop it and are just letting it ride, or are they not doing anything much to stop it because it was secretly intended to occur. Remember, I have no good, bad or indiffernet views on PL and farming - people pay their money and should be allowed to play how they like as long as it doesnt adversley affect others or break the EULA - I just wanted to post this before it keeps me awake tonight

More low level content wold be fantastic. They have added low level content rather recently, by revamping the Hollows and Faultline (frequently overlooked in these types of threads) - but more is always good when you are talking about content.

I don't want to get into the debate about the pre-Stamina level (I enjoy them personally). SO's are less important because by then I am starting my IOs. RWZ content actually kinda bores me, so I don't share you love of getting a character to level 35.

I think our Devs have a clear view of the MMO that includes "some" farming and PL'ing behaviors - because there are some players whose enjoyment of the game is just that aspect. Why drive away those paying customers? We had people farming in I2 just because that's what they enjoy - setting a map and zerging thru it again & again.

Our Devs are trying to balance between extremes. Some may see that as wishy-washy. I see it as practical. YMMV.

Farming and PowerLeveling are not the same thing. Pick one or the other to complain about.

Yeah I bet the devs are like:

Dev1: "How's the new features coming?"

Dev2: "It's going great, we just got the new zone ready, new enemies that appear in a new taskforce, and a new reward system that lets players with level 50 heroes get better by doing heroic things!"

Dev1: "Alright... so, what can the players exploit?"

Dev2: "No, they can't exploit anything, as this is a time based system that rewards regular, active playing in the City than AFKing in an AE farm. Our playtesting has showed that this is actually wo..."

Dev1: "NO! BAD! Make the enemies reap huge rewards if you're bunny hopping behind a phone booth! At least 5 Purple Recipes every 100 hops!"

Dev2: "B-but why would we want players to do that?"

Dev1: "There are casual players that want to purple out their Warshade, we must give them a chance! Now GO GO GO!"

My own thoughts on this.

The devs dont' want people to PL. The quick ways to do it have gotten nerfed one by one, and the new super-sidekick system pretty much eliminates the last remaining loophole. They feel so strongly about PLing that they have banned accounts following the AE debacle, and the only metric they announced publicly was "time to 50." There may or may not have been other factors, but that was the only one they came out and said they were looking at.

Farming is another matter. They seem to regard it as something they can at least tolerate. They've nerfed the most outrageous farming maps and tactics (for example, giving all critters ranged attacks) but have never come down with excessive force for simply farming. I believe that they see farming as "something some people enjoy" and not as a deadly sin.

PLing destabilizes the playerbase. People hit 50, wander around bored or get into groups where they have no idea what they're doing. All the complaint threads about the bAEbies should have been a sign that people were getting PL'd, but never learned to play. People like that are unlikely to stick around long: they "won" and then they get bored and leave.

Farmers don't much affect the playerbase directly, except that the best farmers are those with a lot of experience and playtime under their belts: the people who have already shown that they are going to stick around and keep paying the monthly fee. Farmers incidently create wealth, both INF and the things to spend them on, which acts as a stabilizing force for the markets. The new difficulty slider changes seem to be aimed at helping farmers do exactly what they want; play their maps without bothering anyone else. Seriously, getting fillers for a map is annoying for the farmer, annoying for some of the people asked to fill, and in general didn't help anyone. The new difficulty sliders eliminate the last real problem people had with farmers: the tells for fillers.

Farming has existed in this game as long as I remember, if players did not farm for kill badges, they farmed for Influence, even back in the SO days (Including daily Hami raids). To their credit, the devs have taken steps to reduce the need to farm for certain badges, example the Carnie Illusionist badge reduction.


I've never seen anything official stating that purples were designed for power gamers or they were not intended for casual gamers. What's the definition of a casual player anyway? I think items like purples were intended for anyone lucky enough to find one; anyone interested in maxing out certain bonuses; or anyone with enough funds to purchase them.

The time a person devotes to playing increases the ability to purchase/find purples but has nothing to do with their desire to obtain them. Casual or power gamer, no one has a "need" for purples; it's purely a "want".

No they weren't.

PL'ing is the efficient pursuit of XP.
Farming is the efficient pursuit of drops.

In the 'real' world these occasionally overlap, but generally speaking an optimum environment for drops does not generate optimum XP, and vice versa.

The 'problem' with MA from the dev perspective is that tickets allow players to achieve something close to optimum XP and optimum drops simultaneously.

I'm sorry, OP.

After you said farming didn't exist until IO's and Recipes, I was unable to take your post seriously. Do some homework before posting.

Farming existed way before IOs.

Used to run 4-5 Hami raids a week on Champion pre-I9, sometimes several in the same day depending on respawn.

Dreck used to be a prime ground for influence farming, as we needed around 5,000,000 inf per alt for Single Origins. People sold Hamis as well in the day...needed a bunch of inf for those Micros and Ribos.

Devs know about farming. Their badge requirements pretty much guarantee they encourage it: 500 decoys, 10,000 (now 1,000) Rikti monkeys, millions of damage taken, etc.

Devs seem to dislike PL more than inf farming as they really want to keep people logged in. Not going to do much as we're always going to find the most efficient XP benefit, super-sidekicking or no.

Lastly, price caps are terrible. If you can LOTGs at 5,000,000 people will just sell them to each other for 70-100 million and no one will list them on the Market.

The Markets create a kind of meeting point between buyers and sellers. It isn't perfect because you can tweak the last five, but there it is.