Farming & PL'ing - Designed by Devs or Unintentional By-Product
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2009-08-25 06:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Or very fond of costume contests or socializing in game. I did have a friend in game that liked to log in while he was at work, but his PC would crap out during missions so he spent hours BSing during the work day.
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Originally Posted by MissInformed
Unemployed?
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Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
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They could have just as easily put IO recipes in stores, thereby allowing just as much if not MORE customization options. Everyone really could have gotten whatever they want to make a particular build work for them, without resorting to a market at all.|
Originally Posted by Panzerwaffen
And without a market and 'loot' system this game would be dead in the water. There is a large subset of MMO players that enjoy tweaking and developing their characters. At the time they were introduced, the market and invention system were necessary to the continued health and growth of this game. Without them, there would have been less new players, as well as less players staying around long-term. I know I would have grown
bored fairly quickly and moved on, and I'm very confident most of the players that I consider in-game friends would as well. |
I think that the customization options in this game were one of the greatest reasons it did and continues to do so well. Adding IO's was a great way to enhance the customization options the game already had. It's just too bad the devs decided to make rare = powerful, because that really does result in the situation of the best, most dedicated players getting the best, most powerful rewards and widening the gap between them and the "casual" players.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
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Does that mean if a casual player manages to buy a purple/get a purple drop, they're exploiting? |
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
By BaB's basically posting a joke about Casual Players purling out their warshades, I think it's safe to assume that the devs did not intend something ULTRA RARE to be for casual players. I tend to take the devs at what they post and not some lala land fantasy.
Other's MMV |
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That's the nature of MMO's. The carrot on a stick at the end of a treadmill. They are designed to keep players subscribed and chasing the carrot.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
They could have just as easily put IO recipes in stores, thereby allowing just as much if not MORE customization options. Everyone really could have gotten whatever they want to make a particular build work for them, without resorting to a market at all.
I think that the customization options in this game were one of the greatest reasons it did and continues to do so well. Adding IO's was a great way to enhance the customization options the game already had. It's just too bad the devs decided to make rare = powerful, because that really does result in the situation of the best, most dedicated players getting the best, most powerful rewards and widening the gap between them and the "casual" players. |
Removing any relationship between rarity and power creates an unbalanced game. If everyone has easy access to the most powerful items, the game then becomes boring and a joke. Google "Monty Haul Campaign" if you are not familiar with the term. Making them readily available in a store would create just this type of environment.
You also have to take into consideration, there is a certain sense of competitiveness among a subset of players. They enjoy working towards creating a character that is more powerful than most. These types of players are often the long term subscribers that MMO developers love.
Syndrome: "I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super--[chuckles evilly]--no one will be.
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Mind unblown, since by my definition you're not a casual gamer. Your knowledge of the game, veteran status, and time spent on the game even when you're not actually playing it (ie, using the forums) puts you far above many many players, regardless of how many hours a week you play.|
Originally Posted by Calash
Sorry but making up different definitions or twisting out of context dev quotes to fit your argument does not make it a reality. Casual is exactly what it sounds like. No hidden meaning, no secret qualifications. It means you play ...well...casually. Generally this falls into the 10 or so hours a week category but that is not even a solid definition. A person who logs on for 8 hours a day and chats with friends while running sporatic missions now and then is...wait for it....a casual player.
Ready for me to blow your mind. I am both a casual gamer and a farmer. Boom! |
Until the devs step up and give us their definition of "casual," my definition is just as valid as yours.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
There are 3 things.
Teams share drops with each other. I don't care if you do 1 map 1000 times or 1000 maps 1 time each. If you are ON A TEAM with other people, You are teaming.
Power Leveling is when someone gets a bridge and hooks a lowbie to the bridge and proceeds to kick *** and take names so that the lowbie gets exp as fast as possible.
Farming is done alone. Farmers dont share their drops. It is a TOTAL WASTE of TIME for a Farmer to run their Farm map with other HUMANS on that team. It defeats the PURPOSE. The purpose of farming is to get the FARMER all the drops/money. Farmers dont want YOU to get any drops.
But if you go back up there to "Teaming" Teams LOVE it when people get good drops. That is part of TEAMING.
When you are seeking badges, that to me is called Badging. Not farming. You are doing stuff in the game to get your desired badges. So thats badging.
Sometimes TEAMS of people go after the same BADGE... Then you are Teaming and Badging.
While you are badging and teaming, and possibly power leveling a FARMER has completed 25 runs of their farm map... alone... and is completely happy with all their drops.
That is how I see it, thats how everyone I know sees it.
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It is a common misconception that one opinion is as good as another.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Until the devs step up and give us their definition of "casual," my definition is just as valid as yours.
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Yep, that's why people keep disagreeing with me |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
It is a common misconception that one opinion is as good as another.
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Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
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Or just hunt Striga when everything cons grey to you so you can wipe them out with like 1-2 hits. But on topic. Power leveling has been in this game since day 1 and while the devs have made an effort to remove the more blatant forms of it as long as sidekicking exists in this game PLing will too.
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Originally Posted by Mirai
You can finish up those badges fairly easily with Maxwell Christopher's arc in the lower 40s, if you don't mind waiting that long.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
It is a common misconception that one opinion is as good as another.
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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Yep, that's why people keep disagreeing with me
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You two stop making sense about opinions! This is the forums where it is all about the
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AE current situation + no nerf to fire/kin + I16 features are a direct acknowledgment by the Devs team that they are not going to prevent people to farm & PL.|
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? |
I believe it's bad MMO practice but in the end, it's their game.
After 5 years of unstopped subscription, I believe it has come to such an extent that it's starting to impact my ingame experience. It's becoming increasingly harder to find people willing to participate in teams other than AE farms. Badly built toons are everywhere with no sense of what's wrong with them.
There are still some amazing people on the forums & ingame but I am afraid that come a new superhero MMO, those will flock to the newness at least for some period of time.
I believe some Devs have been doing an amazing job on balance & features but what CoH is seriously lacking are new zones to explore and new layouts for mission maps (office building maps are seriously getting old). Simply adding new elements to existing layouts would go a long way (just like they did by adding tunnels starting from office maps (RWZ arcs) and sewers to tunnels connections (Croatoa arcs AFAIR)).
When there is no new content to explore/play with. Little to no new TF every issue. There is only rerolls that keep the game fresh. And people farm them at huge speeds. How long is this situation going to last until someone fills up all slots?
If the new way of playing CoH is to make a fire/kin or fire/fire tank and go farm maps alone... then I don't see why I would bother with making support toons or ST focused damage dealers.
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You are wrong.|
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain
There are 3 things.
Teams share drops with each other. I don't care if you do 1 map 1000 times or 1000 maps 1 time each. If you are ON A TEAM with other people, You are teaming. Power Leveling is when someone gets a bridge and hooks a lowbie to the bridge and proceeds to kick *** and take names so that the lowbie gets exp as fast as possible. Farming is done alone. Farmers dont share their drops. It is a TOTAL WASTE of TIME for a Farmer to run their Farm map with other HUMANS on that team. It defeats the PURPOSE. The purpose of farming is to get the FARMER all the drops/money. Farmers dont want YOU to get any drops. But if you go back up there to "Teaming" Teams LOVE it when people get good drops. That is part of TEAMING. When you are seeking badges, that to me is called Badging. Not farming. You are doing stuff in the game to get your desired badges. So thats badging. Sometimes TEAMS of people go after the same BADGE... Then you are Teaming and Badging. While you are badging and teaming, and possibly power leveling a FARMER has completed 25 runs of their farm map... alone... and is completely happy with all their drops. That is how I see it, thats how everyone I know sees it. |
Farming
The act of repeating an action a number of times for the purpose of earning something from the repeated action. In City of Heroes this most often involves resetting a mission a number of times in order to earn something out of the mission multiple times. Things earned vary from experience, to influence/infamy/prestige, to badge credits.
A team can reset the mission 100 times over for simply the influence/prestige gain, and would therefore be classified as farming.
@Psycho Jas
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So getting good at a game over years immediately makes you a power gamer? Yeah........no.|
Originally Posted by Eva Destruction
Mind unblown, since by my definition you're not a casual gamer. Your knowledge of the game, veteran status, and time spent on the game even when you're not actually playing it (ie, using the forums) puts you far above many many players, regardless of how many hours a week you play.
Until the devs step up and give us their definition of "casual," my definition is just as valid as yours. |
It is not up to a Dev to define the English language. These are common MMO terms that have existing definitions.
You are apparently trying to twist the idea of a casual player to exclude set rewards. The fact is that any player can gather enough money to purchase any reward in this game. To use an out of context dev quote in my favor...time=reward. Given enough time any reward can be gotten. That has nothing to do with being a power gamer or a casual gamer.
Again I have to ask what does spending time on the forum have to do with the game? Have you actually read my posts here? 80% have to do with pie. Hardly power gaming material.
This thread is fun.
To the main topic I think farming will ALWAYS be a part of mmos.
The new option to allow farmers to set their missions to up to 8 man difficulty I don't think will hurt anyone, and will actually help with the "can you fill plz?"
IMO, If those farmers weren't farming they would not be playing with you (in general), they probably would have quit already.
The content of PI has not changed in . . . well ever.
Which I think is one of the reasons why AE is so much fun to some, that and the relative ease of getting bronze rolls, which sell really well.
In short, Farming and Pl'ing weren't designed by the devs. They came about because . . . it's an mmo. 
Winter Lords, Hydra, Dumpster Diving were ALL here waaaaay before issue 9. Once, again the the market and inventions existence has NOTHING to do with the level of PLing in game.
Mob collision changes, changes to fire tanks, AOE targetting etc were implemented by the devs in direct response to pling/farming. That's enough to tell anyone (well anyone who did their research) that it was just as prevalent BEFORE inventions.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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So running missions is farming?|
Originally Posted by SoulTouch
You are wrong.
Farming The act of repeating an action a number of times for the purpose of earning something from the repeated action. |
Some of these definitions are hilarious.
Do y'all think about things before you post?
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Apparently if I select 3 Newspaper/Radio missions in a row, where it's Council as the enemy group in all 3 I'm farming.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
So running missions is farming?
Some of these definitions are hilarious. Do y'all think about things before you post? |
Nevermind what the maps or story is in those missions, I'm farming.
I agree that some hilarity is ensuing.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
I'm in a similar boat as Calash.
I don't have gobs of time to play anymore, maybe 1-2 hours 3 days during the week and a handful of hours during the weekend. To me, I play this game leisurely or casually.
But.
I like IOs. I don't have any purple sets slotted but I do have 10 50s (over 3+ years), and 8 of those are heavily IOed with Sets and Uniques. I use the market and my drops to my advantage since making Inf in this game is ridiculously easy.
I'm a casual player by my inability to play more often but I could be considered a min/max or hardcore gamer by others.
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The way I see it, yes. Not only are we farming by the very nature of playing this type of game but the devs are farming us for real world loot.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
So running missions is farming?
Some of these definitions are hilarious. Do y'all think about things before you post? |
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Originally Posted by Clouded
I'm in a similar boat as Calash.
I don't have gobs of time to play anymore, maybe 1-2 hours 3 days during the week and a handful of hours during the weekend. To me, I play this game leisurely or casually. But. I like IOs. I don't have any purple sets slotted but I do have 10 50s (over 3+ years), and 8 of those are heavily IOed with Sets and Uniques. I use the market and my drops to my advantage since making Inf in this game is ridiculously easy. I'm a casual player by my inability to play more often but I'm a min/max or hardcore gamer at heart. |
The thing of it is, Purples are not the epic hard-core gamer only loot some people are making them out to be. They are standard, though extreamly rare drops for a level 50. By that very fact they are geared toward the casual gamer who does not participate in large scale raids or complex end-game content. They drop during basic missions. Nothing hard-core about that, they just take time to gather.
As I said before the closest we have to true power gamer loot is PVP drops. HO's can also be seen as this thanks to the revamp of Hammi, but with the lack of bonuses they tend to be viewed negatively by the general population.
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I feel like you contradict yourself when referring to Purple IOs vs. PvP IOs. Both can be had with enough money and time. There are players that 'casually' pvp as well. |
Originally Posted by Calash
The thing of it is, Purples are not the epic hard-core gamer only loot some people are making them out to be. They are standard, though extreamly rare drops for a level 50. By that very fact they are geared toward the casual gamer who does not participate in large scale raids or complex end-game content. They drop during basic missions. Nothing hard-core about that, they just take time to gather.
As I said before the closest we have to true power gamer loot is PVP drops. HO's can also be seen as this thanks to the revamp of Hammi, but with the lack of bonuses they tend to be viewed negatively by the general population. |
This is why labels fail.
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Well I just love how you are twisting what I said. No running missions is clearly not farming. No one on these forums claimed that. Repeating a mission 100 times over or whatnot with or without a team IS farming. Fact.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
So running missions is farming?
Some of these definitions are hilarious. Do y'all think about things before you post? |
And not my defintion. It's paragonwiki's definition.
@Psycho Jas
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I was not thinking market, rather acquiring the items naturally. You are correct however and I should have been a bit clearer in my post.
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Originally Posted by Clouded
I feel like you contradict yourself when referring to Purple IOs vs. PvP IOs. Both can be had with enough money and time. There are players that 'casually' pvp as well.
This is why labels fail. |
I think that the reason there is so much hate and arguing over these definitions is that everyone is so binary in their definitions of casual vs hardcore.
I think, particularly in this game, the line between the two is much fuzzier. I also think that many players will wane from one end of the spectrum to the other.. I just did this recently. I went on a business trip and had a lot of free time on my hands after work. I played, farmed, crafted, and flipped for 5-6 hours straight during my business trip.
Since I've got bcak a week ago, Ive logged in once and did one mission. Then spent about 10 minutes at the market doing my rotations.
In this game, I believe that farming, crafting and loot is much more available to all players than in other MMOs of the past. TYpically, these were things that defined hardcore only.
Some folks say that since I farm, craft and flip, I am automatically a hardcore gamer.
If thats true, then explain this
I just got my first 50 EVER about a month or two ago. So am I hard core or am I casual? I could argue from either direction.
I think part of the issue is also that the devs have said you don't need to touch IOs or the market to enjoy the game.
Inventions are completely 100% optional.
NOTHING in game has been made harder to compensate for IOs.
There are even tool tips on the loading screens that say exactly this.
I think for the devs the true casual play involves SOs.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Casualadjective
- without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand;
- seeming or tending to be indifferent to what is happening; apathetic; unconcerned
- irregular; occasional
HardcoreadjectiveWho do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575