Can someone explain farming?

It seems like it has multiple definitions. I'd just like to understand what people mean when they say they are 'looking for a farm' so I can decide to join the group or not.

Is there a specific way to set the MA up with specific mission difficulty combined with certain maps that are good for farm leveling? Or are people farming for Salvage to make money - thus running the Dev approved MA missions that will drop standard rewards?

Thanks for any clarity. I do not want to be the 'noob' who gets on a team and does not know what the team's assumed goals are

Farming can mean many different things in this game, which is probably leading to some of your confusion. When it comes to the MA, usually people are farming for two things: tickets and XP. Tickets can be used to buy recipe rolls or salvage rolls, which can earn you some good influence, and the XP should be fairly self-explanatory.

The MA does allow you to choose enemies which deal damage that you are well protected from, which can speed up the process (say you're a Fire Armor Tanker, with 90% resistance to Fire damage. If you're fighting enemies that deal only fire damage, or mostly fire damage, you can take on more enemies at once than you could if they all dealt Energy damage). The more enemies you can kill in the same timeframe, the better off you are in terms of farming.

Farming is a repeated action done to gain the desired reward.

One can farm the ITF for shards since you are most likely to get shard drops from it.

One can farm for purples by running missions on x8 with mobs that have level 50 drops.

One can farm for tickets by running AE missions at x8 although the higher the diff setting the quicker it is to hit the ticket cap, 1.5K for a mission. Any build can farm for tickets. The only difference is the speed in which it is done.

Power Leveling(PL) gets lumped in with farming because it is basically farming for exp, +4x8 with bosses being the ideal since the lower level character will be facing +5s. If you see a non-level 50 asking for a farm, they are doing so because they want to get PLed. Sure, they will get tickets as well if it's done via AE, but that's a secondary goal. A smaller number of builds can PL others, but the current king is a SS/fire/mu brute. It is a common practice for the farmer to even take payment for them to farm other players(not saying it's right mind you) and certainly in cases where it's a private farm. A private farm is where the number of players getting PLed is on the lower side and ideally it's just two people doing the mission since they will get far more rewards for doing x8 sized mobs versus an 8 player team doing it. Players can set up trades which means person A farms person B, and then they switch.

As much info as you'll ever need on farming is found in the brute forum via three threads, "Very Best Farmer?," "Lowbie Farming Map," and "Cebr." There's even walk through videos on how to do it. "Very Best Farmer?" covers the debate on which brute really is king and why. "Lowbie Farming Map" is based on how one can farm tickets and PL oneself using low level maps. "Cebr" is covering low level maps, but specifically with a Claws/elec brute.

My official opinion on farming is...it's an option. I wouldn't do it if I was a new player since they would have too much to still learn about the game. The game doesn't need more AE babies. I didn't break down and try self PLing a character until I was nearly a 6 year vet. I'm not even doing it for the currency it can generate since I have generated around 6-8, or so billion from the market. It was merely done because it's one of the only things I haven't done in game.

It's been an interesting experiment and I'll leave it at that. Some days I have no problem going through a 5 mission arc and burning through the tickets I get for it. Some days I nearly cringe at the sight of an AE building. My level 50 SS/fire feels like it still has it's training wheels on because about the only thing it is currently good for is ambush farms. Once I get it IOed, then the real fun begins. It's interesting to think I have a level 50 and yet there is no story of going to level 50 outside of ambush farms. Compare that to my other 50s and I can tell numerous stories about their journey to 50. My Earth/storm had teammates chanting her name. My SS/fire has people asking if I'm running any farms even if I say nothing. Like I said, it's an option.

Since your question re: farming is specifically related to broadcast messages like "looking for a farm," you are really seeing requests to join a powerleveling team. Powerleveling, or PL for short, is what Aett refers to as an XP farm. A level 1 character can make it to level 25 in under an hour via powerleveling methods. Often, the "looking for a farm" will be accompanied by an offer of influence/information/infamy to join the farm, or farming characters will advertise their farms in exchange for inf payments (or in some cases, for free). Incidentally, a farmer offering a free farm is likely just running a farm map in AE for the AE tickets Aett mentions. These can be exchanged for valuable salvage or recipes.

Basically, if someone is asking to join a farm in Atlas Park, you can be 99.99% sure they are a low-level character looking to be powerleveled by joining a Mission Architect farming team.

Thank you! That clears up a lot. I have a 50 fire/kin and I'd love to run missions with lower level toons to help them out - I enjoy it if it is helping them get some quick levels. I just did not know what to set the AE for to best help them.

I am not sure what x8 means, but my guess is I set my difficulty to 'fight enemies +0 to me' so I can quickly and easily kill them and set myself to 'I am equal to 6 heroes' to get the big spawn. Then invite a few lower level friends and have fun.

That right?

Also, should I pick just any mission, missions that give 'standard rewards', or are their keywords to help me find the right one?

I am googling the threads you suggested now - thanks so much.

Again, thank you. I love this community. I'll have to go check out Unai Kemen. I did not know you could go back to old contacts after 50 and run missions more than once.

You either a) got a bad farmer or b) got an AE baby farmer that just recently hit 50. Freedom has a picky enough clientele that only real beggars will take anything less than a +4/x8 farm and most of the farmee's will drop team if its taking too long to finish.

One way is to combine all non red insperations into red to keep damage bonus at max.
You can also use one to target only the bosses and let your damage aura take out the minions.

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Originally Posted by Jagged <noob question> How do macros help? </noob question>