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I don't believe this is an accurate statement, at least the context of farming in general. There have been farms in the past where those characteristics you described are quite true (bruiser, monkey, etc). Those farms were labeled as exploitative and were fixed by the devs in short order. However, in other farm maps whether it is TV farm, Liberate farm, or Fire farm, the possibility of being defeated is very real. Of course, there are builds and strategies one can employ to make themselves *nearly* unbeatable but then again, that is no different from the approaches one can take toward any other piece of game content. I can take a Electric Armor brute into LGTF and plow through the entire TF without so much as breaking a sweat. I can take a a Shield Defense or Invulnerability brute into ITF and do the same. In essence, the "exploitative nature" to farming you mentioned is in fact not restricted to farming at all. It is also prevalent in most other game content, most of which designed by the devs to be that way. |
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
You can't say that deliberately setting up a situation where you can defeat hordes of enemies easily while it is virtually impossible for them to effectively fight back isn't a little exploitative. Not with much credibility at least.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
It's not nearly as exploitative as taking advantage of unbalanced rewards in AE, not by a long shot, but it's not even close to a fair fight either. It's like taking an M1 Abrams tank to a gunfight. And things like that are a little exploitative.
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I agree. However, why is exploit considered a dirty word? It isnt.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
All farming in this game is exploitative to some degree. Granted, the type of farming the devs generally leave alone is definitely the least exploitative variety, but there is still some exploitation present.
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Lets take your point a step further and say that using any knowledge you have about the game and using it to your advantage is exploitive to some degree. I dont think there is anything wrong with employing the greatest possible advantage of your strengths to the mobs most obvious weakness. If that is wrong, why use anything but brawl. To say leveraging your stengths it is not fair, and gives an undue advantage, I say read Sun Tzu. We as a species have been doing it for far longer than computer games have been around.
Doing it from under the map, where the mob can't actually touch you is an unethical exploit. Standing in the middle of the spawn getting hit while you do your thing is not. If one cant tell the difference between the two, one has bigger problems than worrying about who is getting xp faster.
My point is that exploiting is not as dirty of a word as it is made out to be by some folks. In fact, once upon a time, it was considered smart gaming.
Controversial statement follows:
All farming in this game is exploitative to some degree. Granted, the type of farming the devs generally leave alone is definitely the least exploitative variety, but there is still some exploitation present.
You can't say that deliberately setting up a situation where you can defeat hordes of enemies easily while it is virtually impossible for them to effectively fight back isn't a little exploitative. Not with much credibility at least.
Think about how you build a farming character and how you choose what you farm with them. Fire farms are set up in AE with custom enemies who only use fire damage, and are run with characters that are virtually impossible to hurt with fire. One of the more popular normal game farms is still Battle Maiden. That one is usually run with a Fire/Kin/Earth Controller softcapped to S/L defense....fighting enemies with nothing but S/L attacks.
It's not nearly as exploitative as taking advantage of unbalanced rewards in AE, not by a long shot, but it's not even close to a fair fight either. It's like taking an M1 Abrams tank to a gunfight. And things like that are a little exploitative.
I don't see many people farming Carnies with their Fire/Kins or SS/Fires, people who have those characters choose to farm fire enemies or S/L enemies, because those enemies are completely ineffective against them. I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty exploitative to me.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything particularly against farming other than that I find it boring. But I think the people who insist they aren't exploiting anything when they're farming things that can't effectively fight back are deluding themselves a little bit.
The fact that there is at least small amount of exploitation present when you're farming makes it very unlikely, in my opinion, that the devs will dedicate a forum to it. I don't know for sure, but it seems fairly reasonable to assume that the devs are seeing it in a similar light.
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.