Farming and Power Leveling in CoX


Ad Astra

 

Posted

I'm a fairly long-time MMO(RPG)er, and I have been wondering about this for some time. Why does it matter if people are farming or power leveling? I remember in the old days of EQ or SWG, where there were no instanced missions, that it could be a pain in the butt. I hated when all of my mobs were being wasted by high-level 'toons teamed with my-level 'toons. Although, for some reason, camping a spawn location was common and was considered to be okay. That always seemed strange, to me. And who remembers how big of a problem mob stealing used to be? In fact. . . I remember reporting players to the mods, because they stole the mobs that my group was clearly camping. The good ol' days. Heh heh.

Anyway, with all of the missions being instanced in CoX, those kinds of concerns really don't exist. So, where is the harm in making farming missions? I prefer not to power level, myself. But a 'toon that gets to lvl 50 in 3 days isn't any different to my game experience than one that gets there in 3 months. Or 3 years, for that matter. 50 is 50, however he got there. Seems to me that it should be okay to farm, if that's the kind of experience that the player wants.

I know this is still a sore spot in MMO communities, so I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks. Or if there's some technical reason that it's frowned on. Chime in, if you want.


 

Posted

Wow, this is like the deadest of dead horses.

Some people like to farm. Some people don't.
I honestly dont think it matters.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Wow, this is like the deadest of dead horses.

Some people like to farm. Some people don't.
I honestly dont think it matters.
Yup, sums it up nicely.


 

Posted

I honestly don't know Dave...why do people ***** and whine about anything in life?

IMHO I think people ***** just to *****.

I look at it this way,I don't care what you or anyone else is doing,if you wanna farm go ahead,if you wanna pvp,rp,or pretend your Barney the Purple Dinosaur...then good for you.You know why?Because,YOU pay for your fee every month and it is what you want to do.

Some ppl are jerks and think that they have the right to tell ppl what to do...just say what my pappy used to say "**** 'em".


 

Posted

Farming and power leveling are fine as long as you learn how to play and don't subject others to will full ignorance.

Exploiting is bad though.


 

Posted

Farming and PLing are more of a concern for the Devs than the players. They do not impact your gameplay *directly*, like the spawn camping you mention, but they do impact the game, and letting them go unchecked is bad for the overall health of the game.

1) Farming: Too much farming means too much game currency in rotation, which means higher prices. Also, farming is used by RMTers, and curtailing farming is one way of cutting down their profits. (Not all farmers are RMTers, but RMTers get their currency from either farming or scamming.)

2) PLing: Too much PLing means more clueless high-level players and more people going "I got to level 50 in two days and found there were no WoW-style raids, this game sucks and I'm leaving". Also, again, PLing is a service the RMTers can sell. (Again, this does not mean everyone who PLs is a RMTer.)

That's just a brief overview of the subject. It's a complicated problem, which, as you noted, causes a lot of heated discussion. (Sidenote: posting topics that "you know will cause heated discussion" is frowned upon by some posters and moderators.)

It all comes down to the fact that ever game designers' "X is a reward for Y" is some game players' "I hate that I am forced to do Y to get X, I *want* X so clearly I am entitled to some way of skipping Y so X can be mine".




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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Wow, this is like the deadest of dead horses.

Some people like to farm. Some people don't.
I honestly dont think it matters.
Short, pithy and on target.


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Posted

It shall ride again!


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
Farming and PLing are more of a concern for the Devs than the players. They do not impact your gameplay *directly*, like the spawn camping you mention, but they do impact the game, and letting them go unchecked is bad for the overall health of the game.
Agreed.

Quote:
1) Farming: Too much farming means too much game currency in rotation, which means higher prices. Also, farming is used by RMTers, and curtailing farming is one way of cutting down their profits. (Not all farmers are RMTers, but RMTers get their currency from either farming or scamming.)
The bulk of income generated by farmers comes from sales, not from inf earned through kills. The farmer will probably destroy that much inf earned just listing the recipes on the market.

RMT will find the most efficient way to earn inf on the market. Is usernames do not appear on WW/BM, I cannot see who is selling items. In other games, I could and it was very clear that the RMT'ers were very active on the market, and used this tool as the primary source of income.

For the effort invested, using the market is more profitable. Therefore, I would suspect that RMT'ers also actively use the market. I cannot back up my statement because I'm not a RMT'er, nor do I know any. However, it seems reasonable that as it is their business to produce in-game money, it is likely that they study what is the most efficient way to generate inf. From my experience in the game, and the corroboration of others in the forums, using the market is the best. This isn't to say that they don't farm. I suspect they do this as well (I mean, how else would they PL).

I would also argue that RMT'ers make up a significant minority of both Marketeers and Farmers. The average person you see at the market or farming probably hates them just as much as you do.

Quote:
2) PLing: Too much PLing means more clueless high-level players and more people going "I got to level 50 in two days and found there were no WoW-style raids, this game sucks and I'm leaving". Also, again, PLing is a service the RMTers can sell. (Again, this does not mean everyone who PLs is a RMTer.)
PLing does not necessarily imply they are clueless. While this may be the case of some, this game is easy to learn, and once you understand how your powers work, in a few hours of gameplay, I think you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference if you didn't peek at the badges.

Quote:
It all comes down to the fact that ever game designers' "X is a reward for Y" is some game players' "I hate that I am forced to do Y to get X, I *want* X so clearly I am entitled to some way of skipping Y so X can be mine".
It's not about skipping the process between X and Y, but finding a means on how to get to Y faster.

While your moral argument may be compelling, your practical argument is false.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
Farming and PLing are more of a concern for the Devs than the players. They do not impact your gameplay *directly*, like the spawn camping you mention, but they do impact the game, and letting them go unchecked is bad for the overall health of the game.

1) Farming: Too much farming means too much game currency in rotation, which means higher prices. Also, farming is used by RMTers, and curtailing farming is one way of cutting down their profits. (Not all farmers are RMTers, but RMTers get their currency from either farming or scamming.)

2) PLing: Too much PLing means more clueless high-level players and more people going "I got to level 50 in two days and found there were no WoW-style raids, this game sucks and I'm leaving". Also, again, PLing is a service the RMTers can sell. (Again, this does not mean everyone who PLs is a RMTer.)

That's just a brief overview of the subject. It's a complicated problem, which, as you noted, causes a lot of heated discussion. (Sidenote: posting topics that "you know will cause heated discussion" is frowned upon by some posters and moderators.)

It all comes down to the fact that ever game designers' "X is a reward for Y" is some game players' "I hate that I am forced to do Y to get X, I *want* X so clearly I am entitled to some way of skipping Y so X can be mine".
Good points that I had not considered. I hope those farmers are not the reason that I can never afford anything at the markets. . . I might have to change my mind about this issue. At any rate, there's a lot of discussion on the MA forums about how the MA was nerfed to prevent farming missions, so it seems like it's still topical.


 

Posted

Look, this topic is old.

There's a bunch of people who don't want to work for drops/money in this game and think it should be handed to them on a silver platter.

Then, there is a bunch of people who work for their drops and their ingame currency.

That is how it is. There is no discussion beyond that.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonality View Post
For the effort invested, using the market is more profitable. Therefore, I would suspect that RMT'ers also actively use the market.
I have no more experience with how RMT operations make their influence than you, but I'll note that using the market is not as easily automated as farming.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonality View Post
PLing does not necessarily imply they are clueless. While this may be the case of some, this game is easy to learn, and once you understand how your powers work, in a few hours of gameplay, I think you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference if you didn't peek at the badges.
Which is why I said "too much PLing" and not "any amount of PLing at all". The lower the barrier to entry to PLing, the more people will find themselves using it instead of playing the game (where they perhaps really should have played the game instead).

As the AE farms showed, if the PLing is profitable enough and easy to access enough, it creates a vicious cycle where everyone is PLing because nobody else is doing anything but PLing.




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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Look, this topic is old.

There's a bunch of people who don't want to work for drops/money in this game and think it should be handed to them on a silver platter.

Then, there is a bunch of people who work for their drops and their ingame currency.

That is how it is. There is no discussion beyond that.
I appreciate your input.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by David_Scorpio View Post
I appreciate your input.
What more do you see to it?
I mean this thread is doomed.

It will just start the NORMAL arguement between the IWANTITNAO people and the people who are like, then pay the IWANTITNAO price.


 

Posted

this thread again, eh?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
What more do you see to it?
I mean this thread is doomed.

It will just start the NORMAL arguement between the IWANTITNAO people and the people who are like, then pay the IWANTITNAO price.
Noted. But, respectfully, the thread isn't "doomed." It's just short. And I got out of it what I wanted, so I would consider that a success.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by David_Scorpio View Post
Noted. But, respectfully, the thread isn't "doomed." It's just short. And I got out of it what I wanted, so I would consider that a success.
What did you want? To know if farmers supply the market?
To know if you think you should blame them for the current pricing of items?
To know if people pew pew PowerLeveling/farming?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
What more do you see to it?
I mean this thread is doomed.

It will just start the NORMAL arguement between the IWANTITNAO people and the people who are like, then pay the IWANTITNAO price.

You of all people shouldn't be trying to dictate the posting habits of another.


 

Posted

For me; the issue of farming has not been the act of farming, or the people who farm, but the kind of content that promotes/encorrages it. Such content is invarriably broken; either with actual bugs, or with a borked reward metric. Such content also deforms the game around it, depending on how much more rewarding the 'farm-promoting' content it, people will feel 'obliged' to farm because thats what will get them the loot/level/rewards they want, rather than doing whatever they would rather be doing (because the rewards are so much lower).

Of course no game is perfect, and there will allways be content that is seen as more rewarding than other content, what it boils down to really is by how much; and if that disparity is enough to influence players to do things they would otherwise not do.

(I could go on; there is a lot more nuance and complexity to this, but my time is finite, and the above sums things up)

(it should be noted I do not currently see a farming issue in this game, as I fail to see any particular 'farm-promoting' content that offerers a large enough benifit over other content to affect a large amount of player behavior)


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Clouded View Post
You of all people shouldn't be trying to dictate the posting habits of another.
This thread along with it's clone in Suggestions, are just fun.
I am not dictating anything, but I fail to see why we needed another thread, going over this again.

This thread isnt even as much fun as the one over there in Suggestions.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
What did you want? To know if farmers supply the market?
To know if you think you should blame them for the current pricing of items?
To know if people pew pew PowerLeveling/farming?
Yes.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by David_Scorpio View Post
Yes.
Well, I farm. I power level. I sell junk on the market. I keep all my good drops build them and stick them in the base, for future uses on unknown characters.

There are alot of people who feel very strongly about this topic. There used to be an official power leveling thread, that thank goodness disappeared.

For me it all boils down to 1 thing, and 1 thing only.

If a person is not breaking the TOS/EULA of the game, it is None of Anyone elses buissness how someone who is paying their own $15.00 per month plays the game. If they play standard or uniquely. It is up to them. I will never complain about someone who wants to RP that they are a Fox with a big bushy tail, and they only want to play with other manimals.
I will never complain about someone who farms. I won't complain about people who PL.

I don't pay their subscription fee, so what they do doesn't bother me.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Larker View Post
I look at it this way,I don't care what you or anyone else is doing,if you wanna farm go ahead,if you wanna pvp,rp,or pretend your Barney the Purple Dinosaur...then good for you.
You've just gone too far!! You are Evil, despicable, and I hope that damn song gets stuck in your head for all eternity.


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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Wow, this is like the deadest of dead horses.
zombie horse can not be killed with stick!

URRRRRRR!


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