Really, devs? REALLY? AFK farming is ok?

Okay, I understand the reasoning behind MARTy.

The game is susceptible to buff stacking until it's broken. I get that.

But the AFK PVP IO farming?

That Is Utterly Egregious. (Look up the damn word if you have to.)

People are making STUPID levels of rewards, WHILE THEY ARE ASLEEP. The most profitable way TO PLAY YOUR GAME, is to do it while you're sleeping.


Really Dev's? Is this the play style you WANT to promote?

DO SOMETHING.

Despite the serious QQ going on here, I have to agree that it is a little disappointing that the main reason I can't keep up in this game is because I don't AFK farm.

This should have been fixed YEARS ago.

I was looking at this like what else is new? PVP afk farming has been there since the start, its not new and apparently is ok with the devs.

My thoughts on AFK farming? It's a necessary evil to keep the market share of pvp IOs at a reasonable price. If AFK farming was blocked the +3 def would go from the 2.25 billion it goes for upwards of 5, 10, maybe 20 billion because of the shortage it would create. The others that go for purple prices would now be 3-4xs what they are fairly easily, why? Because everyone would be using merits to purchase the most expensive ones to either keep or flip.

In the past you needed to pay for multiple accounts to be able to do it, however with freedom that's no longer the case. A person can run something like 11 accounts at once and only pay for the IO license on one of them. If the devs wanted to prevent this they could have made PvP zones VIP only, it's not like PvP is popular and with free players it's potentially game breaking (think of someone with 10 accounts, all defenders buffing 1 other account).

It honestly doesn't hurt anything however from a game standpoint. Marty was put in to catch exploits and AE was changed to smooth the leveling process to a more reasonable level because exploits and AE both effect other players play experience. The game isn't balanced around IOs so the base play experience isn't effected by the AFK farmer.

Does it suck that I wasn't the first one to think of exploiting this? Sure, why not. I could have more than I ever wanted, needed, or deserved, right?

Does any of this really affect me? No, not in the least.

While I understand that some people's OCD demands having the absolute "best build", sparing no expense for a mere percentage or two of gain here or there, afk PvP IO farming hasn't affected my gaming experience at all. I have made many characters that function as well or better than builds that probably cost ten or twenty times as much influence. To quote Eric Clapton, "It's in the way that you use it, boy don't you know?".

With Hero/Villain merits, Reward merits, and Astral/Empyrean merits, any IO recipes I could ever want are within reach if I choose to put in the time to get them. As far as purple and pvp IO's go, I don't use them unless they are random drops, or are relatively cheap(confuse purple set, 2 pieces of the purple pet set). It's not important to me if someone looks at my stats, doesn't see "Ulitmate PvP Whatever x 5", and tells me that I suck without them. Hopefully the way I play will make them think, "How can he possibly be so good without Ulitmate PvP Whatever x 5?!?!".

Maybe it's just that money in a game isn't important to me at all. If I can scrounge up half a billion influence, then I've got more than enough for my next project. Everything else I'll need will come from doing TF's, Hero Tips, SSA's, and Incarnate Trials.

Would it be easier for me to find a way to cheat the system so I can have infinite money and best of the best IO's? Sure, but why stop there? Why not farm all of my toons to level 50 before I play them, fill them up with purple/pvp sets, and then realize that I'm not happy with how the toon performs because I have precious little experience playing it? How much money is enough? How many IO'd toons do I really need to be happy while playing the game? At what point am I just collecting really expensive relics that do nothing but collect dust?

I guess it all depends on what reason a person has to play the game. Some play to impress others, I play to have fun. I pug as often as possible from level 1-50 so I can meet the broadest range of players, and I have rarely been disappointed with what I have found.

There are many exploits used by players in this game, but PvP IO farming is just the tip of the iceberg, in my opinion.

Just to beat that dead horse a few more times...I agree that pvp io farming isnt good..but, will teh devs care? A big fat NO.

Actually, I totally should not claim they dont care about farming. When it suits them. Look at the +45 content hero side. Unai has about..10 missions that are good farms, with a mix of baddie types to suit any 'farmer.' How many does redside have? The 2 tv farms, with any veng stacking Nems, or the boat scientist farm..with a ton of mez and debuffs.

To further talk about blue vs red...anyone recall the snake egg farm? Sure, took awhile, but it got nerfed. What about the barracuda 'farm' doing the arc from Divined Maros? The ability to kill a lvl 25-21 AV over and over..until the mission holder outlvls it (this was back before we could set to +4). And this got nerfed to. Because..we all know, the devs are SO strict on farming.

Well..until the genius who redid Marias arc, thought it would be a GREAT idea to give people a pet Hero class npc that can one shot mobs with FS. But hey..no one would ever farm that??

Given the above examples, I can almost be shocked that Marty does not only work redside.

It's slow, inefficient, and its only virtue is inflating supply. Learn to use the market. Farming's for chumps.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I totally agree it is inflating the market for those IOs Talen but...your argument is..stop farming, and play the market?? So..stop actually DOING things in 'game', neglecting the fact that powers will just be on auto fire or whatever, and instead, stand still and play the market?

Tell me..if the farmers stop farming..where are the market players going to FIND those IOs listed? Because it wont be on the market(Nevermind that a lot of the big money pvp IOs get sold off market, because its a rip off).

I don't really like farming. I don't really like people playing the market. It all comes down to (I think) which hurts other people? The farmers, who spend their own time getting IOs, to use or sell...or those market hacks who go and buy up all the type of a common salvage, just to fleece other PLAYERS so they can feel all happy about making money? (instead of, ya know, playing the game and earning the rewards)

Lol the devs seem to have changed to loveing farming. Look at their shiney new end game as proof. I-trials are all about farming. The drop rate for PvP ios is such that I can afk farm for 18-20 hours straight and I usually get 0-1 so nerf it and all the PvE's precious 3% procs will explode in price. Personally I only sell the procs everything else goes in my base for future toons and afk farming is litterally the only way to get enough of these to io a PvP toon now.

I never PVP. After reading the OP, I guess I don't get the anger. I never even knew this was going on.

...question is, how the heck does this affect anyone else? I don't get it. Does the OP have a PVP IO on the market that he can't get his 2 billion from or something?

How does one PvP farm?

The OP is not against pvp io farming hes just angry he cant do it.

Who cares its not that much. I did it for a year. Made my 100 bill or whatever worth of IOs. Kept what i wanted. Sold what i didnt. Put it on toons i wanted them on and built a couple sets for bins for toons in future.

Well its been about 2 years since i did that and i never used the ios in the bin. Still dont need em. Except for the rare toon to pvp with. Purples and regular ios are much better. MUCH!

The reason for this to be allowed is cause pvp sucks. And no one does it. And by no-one i mean only 1% of player base which is not worth investing more time in for a development team.

So only way to make them is to pvp io farm.

AFK farming is pretty obviously abusive.... but it doesn't keep us non AFK farmers from being able to afford our new shinies. Quite the opposite. It's the only reason we can hope to ever afford to buy PVP IOs on the market.

Which actually means there's 2 things that need fixed.... PVP IOs need to drop more frequently and AFK farming should be made impossible.

I always wondered if it was such a massive problem... Why doesn't anyone roll up some toons on some servers and go looking for these afk toons? There is a limit to places to hide... After all, it is PvP...

I considered it myself, then realised that the only IO I'd ever need would be a +3%Def IO, and even then only as a luxury. That wasn't worth the hassle of rolling up (& levelling) or transferring toons to the lower population servers to go hunting.

As other posters have said. Farmers = more availability to the common player which is a good thing. Maybe it isn't such a big problem.

-H

Surely the problem is that the rarity of PVP IOs makes this pain in the *** method the best way to obtain them? Make it so being on a TF doesn't keep you from automatically logging out and make PVP IOs much more common. Problem solved... ???