2x Experience Weekend is farming for people that don't admit they farm
By
Amy_Amp,
Posted on: 2010-03-08 14:44 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I wasn't around much for 2XP this weekend - and when I was, I was mostly doing non-DC/HoF/GA arcs in the AE 
@Golden Girl
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Ok seriously . . . . .waaaaa? 
Playing through missions is NOT farming.
Farming is REPEATING a mission over and over.
It is playing through the game at a faster pace than intended yes but your still PLAYING THROUGH the game instead of repeating a mission over and over and over.
Sorry but i dont see any reason why this should be an issue.
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Um, I've never played like that during 2XP Weekends in any game I've played. I've always just enjoyed the game as I usually do - relishing more people to play with more than the double xp - not "farming" or anything of the sort. Heck, I spent Thursday and Friday working on an MA arc XD I don't change my playing style at all.
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Mm. I think it's not as simple as dividing people into "farmers" and "not". People decide what to do based on the rewards they'll get, in terms of XP/inf/drops and in terms of enjoyment. During DXP, the rewards for grinding increase to the point where people who normally don't feel it's worth the trouble will change their evaluation. That's pretty much all that's happening here.
Generally, I don't PL people. During DXP, I PLed some friends, because I only had to do it half as long for the same benefit. Now that DXP is over, I'll go back to casual teaming and hanging out.
Of course, if you (rhetorical you) actively decry farming/PLing as immoral most of the time, and then do it during DXP, that would be hypocritical. But people changing their activities in response to a changed reward structure is not in itself a sign of eroding public morals.
@SPTrashcan
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Double XP is about progressing without feeling you are farming or grinding IMO. It's playing the game and going "Ooh, I dinged again. Nice."
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But if you are grabbing Radio missions and chugging them as fast as possible without any regard to their stories...|
Originally Posted by EU_Damz
Ok seriously . . . . .waaaaa?
Playing through missions is NOT farming. Farming is REPEATING a mission over and over. It is playing through the game at a faster pace than intended yes but your still PLAYING THROUGH the game instead of repeating a mission over and over and over. Sorry but i dont see any reason why this should be an issue. |
or if you are doing one arc after another for the XP and have no regard for the setting or scenery...
or if you are rapidly pounding out Task Forces and skipping the clues because they bog you down...
... and all of this is brought on by the lust for XP brought on by Double Experience weekend? It seems to me that it's the exact same mentality as farming and that differences are irrelevant semantics.
To clarify, I don't consider farming a bad thing, nor do I partake in it most of the time. Just food for thought that think farming is the anti-game.
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My thesis and theory is that some people are doing this.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Of course, if you (rhetorical you) actively decry farming/PLing as immoral most of the time, and then do it during DXP, that would be hypocritical.
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| But people changing their activities in response to a changed reward structure is not in itself a sign of eroding public morals. |
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Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
But if you are grabbing Radio missions and chugging them as fast as possible without any regard to their stories...
or if you are doing one arc after another for the XP and have no regard for the setting or scenery... or if you are rapidly pounding out Task Forces and skipping the clues because they bog you down... ... and all of this is brought on by the lust for XP brought on by Double Experience weekend? It seems to me that it's the exact same mentality as farming and that differences are irrelevant semantics. To clarify, I don't consider farming a bad thing, nor do I partake in it most of the time. Just food for thought that think farming is the anti-game. |
Thats what i do 70% of the time when i play as it is. I know the story of the game and i do prefer certain arcs at certain levels but doesnt REALLY bother me.
Surely the argument you have here is people who like to read the stories over and over against people who [like myself] prefer the nonstop carnage
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I'm a villain. I just prefer the carnage without context, either way. Then, I'm simultaneously Role Playing and farming!
I don't flash my body any more on Mardi Gras than I do any other day of the year, and I don't play CoH any more during double xp than I do the rest of the time. The differences are that on Mardi Gras I get beads for my public nudity, and on double xp weekends I get more teams that are lusting for xp.
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The term 'farming' has in the past been generally used to describe repeating some activity over and over again specificy for the benefit of drops not for experience or levelling. It came into use in the early days of MMO's when only specific mobs dropped rare and valuable loot and those mobs tended to only spawn in one place and be on a regular timer - so you would camp the mob and farm it for the drop. While the term has widened to include repeating more general content for drops it is not really accurate to use it when you are focusing on XP and levelling rather than drops. Especially when it comes to paper/scanner missions - yes, you are repeating similar content over and over but in order to be truly farming it really should be the exact same content. e.g: farming the demon map, farming a possessed scientists map, or farming some other easily farmed map by repeating the same mission over and over again without actually completing it. |
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
But if you are grabbing Radio missions and chugging them as fast as possible without any regard to their stories...
or if you are doing one arc after another for the XP and have no regard for the setting or scenery... or if you are rapidly pounding out Task Forces and skipping the clues because they bog you down... ... and all of this is brought on by the lust for XP brought on by Double Experience weekend? It seems to me that it's the exact same mentality as farming and that differences are irrelevant semantics. To clarify, I don't consider farming a bad thing, nor do I partake in it most of the time. Just food for thought that think farming is the anti-game. |
So, while you can certainly refer to repetitively running paper/scanner missions for XP as 'farming XP' it would be more accurate to call it power leveling rather than farming. Especially for those of us who chose to PL through non-repetitive content. For example, I leveled an earth/fire dom from 13-22, my fire/shield scrapper from 31-35 and my bane spider huntsman from 46-48 over the weekend but the only scanner missions I did the entire weekend where just the minimim necessary on the dom to get the villainside contacts - instead I ran several TF's and a number of story arcs both blue and redside. So while I definitely power leveled I certainly did not farm.
Mind you, both our arguments are mostly semantics but when trying to communicate information accurately semantics are fairly important.
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I didn't change my style of play for x2 xp / reactivation weekend. Actually, with the increased number of players, I was hoping to get more TFs in than I did. (Just managed to snag a Posi, a Synapse, a Renault, and a Sewer.)
However, even though I found myself in the unusual position of soloing actual canon content heroside (Ubelmann the Unmighty, or whatever), I didn't read the stories because of "..." (insert usual rant about how terrible the stories and the storytelling is in CoH, and how we needed a progressive revamp starting about 5 years ago).
And did the OP actually mention reading the stories for scanner / paper missions? LOL
As for x2 xp weekend being like officially condoned farming ... I'd have to say it has always struck me as being in that vein. Of course the practice of x2 xp was created before xp smoothing, patrol xp, and debt relief and all the other things that made the game go so much faster. I'd say x2 xp weekend seems much less significant than it was before.
Kinda wish I could "Search/Replace" Farming with "Power Leveling" now. For the integrity of the conversation, though, I'll just have to hope people read to this post where I state that I am corrected. 
Right... It's power-leveling, not farming.
People frequently misuse the term Farming for the other...
I suppose I could say, "I do not think that word means what you think it means".
Even if you're not leveling per se... it is still the term... Power-Earning, maybe?
Hehe... Anyways... yeah... Nothing's gonna change my world... Nothing's gonna change my world...
[EDITED: because as soon as I hit post, I found I had more to say!]
@Zethustra
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So, if you don't read the dialogue for the missions, you are admittedly farming or power leveling?
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
This specific weekend, was a reactivation weekend and I was so enjoying playing with a few old friends who are on a break from the game I forgot to read a lot of the mission text.
Forgive me Marcian, for I have pharmed....
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Radio missions have the most paper-thin stories in the game. They're filler.
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Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
But if you are grabbing Radio missions and chugging them as fast as possible without any regard to their stories...
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The ones with a kidnapped Mazzy Stardust always make me laugh though.
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Originally Posted by Godpants
Radio missions have the most paper-thin stories in the game. They're filler.
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Or the rescue Jake Emmet one |
Originally Posted by Jophiel
The ones with a kidnapped Mazzy Stardust always make me laugh though.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Re: Radio/Newspaper missions have no stories
Then wouldn't chugging those en masse be power leveling, anyway? Where is the line between the dreaded racial slur of Power Leveler and those that play the game "right"? Is it simply a matter of efficiency?
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Generally, PLing (the kind that some people dislike) is the kind that expressly targets getting maximum xp without all the characters getting that xp participating. Padding, bridging, just having characters wait by the door, targetting enemies who give the most xp with little risk etc...|
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
Re: Radio/Newspaper missions have no stories
Then wouldn't chugging those en masse be power leveling, anyway? Where is the line between the dreaded racial slur of Power Leveler and those that play the game "right"? Is it simply a matter of efficiency? |
I'd call just playing through a bunch of short missions/TFs with friends/PuGs is just called levelling (or possibly, playing the game). Whilst I do like to read the story most of the time, sometimes you just want to enjoy the actual gameplay of being a team (or being solo) and fighting some stuff. And theres nothing run with that, its a fun game.
Always remember, we were Heroes.
...DXP is the only time farming is ok
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You seem to be looking for dividing lines in continuums. Terms like "power leveling" and "farming" have clearly defined extremes, but not clearly defined boundaries. Looking for the precise point where "playing normally" "becomes" "powerlevelling" is like looking for the precise point where red becomes orange on a color chart.
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Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
Re: Radio/Newspaper missions have no stories
Then wouldn't chugging those en masse be power leveling, anyway? Where is the line between the dreaded racial slur of Power Leveler and those that play the game "right"? Is it simply a matter of efficiency? |
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That's sort of my ulterior motive to this thread. I'm trying to prove that the lines are blurred enough that maybe those that think Farming and/or Power Leveling are bad should just, ya know, calm down a bit, since they probably do it, too, to a degree. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You seem to be looking for dividing lines in continuums. Terms like "power leveling" and "farming" have clearly defined extremes, but not clearly defined boundaries. Looking for the precise point where "playing normally" "becomes" "powerlevelling" is like looking for the precise point where red becomes orange on a color chart.
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Just a random passing thought, I'm not sure even I believe it.
It does seem to have a lot of parallels, though. Few read the story during 2x weekends. They pound down Newspapers, Radios, and Mayhem/Safeguards like they are energy drinks that will keep Doctor Destiny away from your dreams. They just sit there and do simple missions yielding high gobs of Exp into our waiting mouths like waffles on Easter morning.
But this... this is okay. Shame on farmers, who ruin the game by sitting in one place jamming on the attack button to level their characters much faster than intended. In fact, I will rant about them to my team mates this double experience weeke-oops, they just kicked me for weighing down the team by stopping to talk.
There are so many parallels, yet we, at large, embrace 2x Experience Weekends like they are the promised day, simultaneously lamenting that farmers are ruining this game.
Thoughts?
Edit: My current theory is that it's like Mardi Gras. If you flashed your body to anyone at any time during the "Real world", you'd be a terrible scandal maker of a person. On this fat Tuesday, though, you're a prude if you don't earn those beads.
Maybe it's okay specifically because it only happens once in a while, and we are indulging the way we break our diets for Thanksgiving.