Luminara

No, the point is that multi-boxing is teaming. You stated that team-oriented characters are up shit creek when it comes to farming, I'm reminding you that a team is a team is a team, and it doesn't matter, from the game's perspective, if the team is you plus you plus you, or you plus me plus whoever posts next, it's still a team. You can team with other players, or you can team with one or more dummy accounts. The play style is teaming in both cases. Granted, one could posit that the farmer, utilizing a hyper-specialized build and pitting it against carefully selected foes in order to maximize defeat speed and minimize risk may have an advantage in speed of inf* generation. However, even multi-boxing, very few farmers are exercising the same wide variety of power usage that ordinary players cooperating on teams do. Said farmer doesn't have a companion character using Radiation Infection or Disruption Arrow. That farmer doesn't have a scrapper or blaster pumping out damage by the truckload. The farmer's team with one actively controlled character and 2-7 other characters using a single auto power apiece is not, in truth, as efficient as the team with two or more organic brains directing characters. The advantage is not so obviously with the farmer, when we look at these factors, because no matter how well designed his/her team can be, the team with players controlling every character will always have access to more powers, more relevant and useful powers and ultimately better speed and efficiency. The one point in the farmer's favor is that he/she is in complete and absolute control of the team, whereas a real team can have differing goals, poor communication, mistakes, et cetera. Therefore, the most accurate conclusion we can draw, with the information we have thus far, is that a farmer's multi-box team is more efficient than a bad PUG, but less efficient than a well-coordinated team. Finally, you also state that the rewards are skewed, but the only evidence given thus far, in another thread, showed that to be untrue (the opposite, in fact). If you have more data, present it. If not, then you have no supportable claim that farming is "arbitrarily rewarded more". Information, not supposition, is how we address problems, whether they're perceived problems or real problems. Guesses and assumptions creating an anti-whomever movement isn't addressing a problem, perceived or real, it's forming a lynch mob. We're better than that. This is Co*, not WoW.

Accounts are free. Even low end computers can run two clients simultaneously, so anyone can make their own team to farm and achieve the same results. Additionally, my TA/Dark could farm at +2/x6 ten years ago, and we all know how bad TA was then. I don't think the range of suitable "toons" is as narrow as you suggest.

I'm not. 😛

Earth Mastery has three AoEs (Salt Crystals, Quicksand and Stalagmites), all of which have -Def. But it is Earth Mastery, so you'll still feel dirty. 😁

When's the last time you cleaned out the CPU and GPU heatsinks and air channels? Sudden and frequent crashing can be a sign of something overheating.

Provide data, please. Farming is not power-leveling. Power-leveling is not farming. They are two distinct activities, neither reliant on nor requiring the other. A player can power-level to 50 by side-kicking with teams running story arcs at level 50. A player can farm with a level 50 character and no sub-50 characters on his/her farm. Conflating the two is a mistake. Data required. Can you provide any evidence that farmers would team with you and play through your preferred activity if you take away their preferred activity? Those restrictions didn't farming in the past. Again, farming isn't power-leveling, power-leveling isn't farming. Also, accounts are free now, and Gmail accounts are unlimited, anyone could set up ten or twenty or fifty accounts to farm and/or power-level and easily work around your restrictions. Do you have any data to support these assertions? Magnificent. You're perfectly positioned to provide exactly the type of information necessary to determine the impact of farming on the game as a whole. Everyone reading is dying to see real evidence of anyone pulling down 3,000,000,000 inf* per hour farming with a single character (one hundred times the 30,000,000 inf* someone can make playing the ITF for an hour), and you just volunteered to provide that evidence. 👍

I'd sell all of you into the most debasing forms of servitude for a Rueben. Stop talking about rye bread before I go looking for a buyer.

Not enough. At least, not until there are Co* dance videos to this song.

You meant "alleged high costs", then?

Do it right. Get some wind in that character.

Farketeer.

What high cost?

Your comparison was implied to be a triple-box farmer versus an unstated number of players on the ITF. This is from your first post in this thread - Do you frequently have issues recruiting yourself for your solo endeavors and presume that to be the norm? No? Then that reference to recruiting indicates that the ITF runner in the comparison is on a team. Your own words, quoted above, clearly state that the person going through the ITF would be doing so with the expectation of having a team assembled, having had to "spend tine (sic) recruiting". You failed to specify the number of teammates the ITF runner would have, but as it happens, that number is irrelevant because the math, which is based on the results you provided, indicates that the per player per hour inf* gain is equivalent between the activities in question. Of course, having had your conclusion proven erroneous, again, by the figures you submitted as proof of that conclusion, you're now attempting to change the conditions of the comparison, restricting the ITF runner to a solo environment, disregarding that the multi-boxing farmer is engaging in the equivalent of teaming, and in spite of having previously stated that the ITF runner would not likely be solo. Yeah... no. Yet, you believe you can compare the inf* generated by a triple-boxing farmer to a solo player's results. Because how else are you going to prove yourself right, if not by arbitrarily altering the parameters and deliberately trying to skew things in favor of the farmer so you can portray said farmer as a bad, bad person? It's not really a team, just because it's three characters on three separate accounts, so why not pretend they don't exist (except that they're receiving extra inf* and drops and typically aiding the farmer in some way, such as spamming a heal or Speed Boost), right? Right? Wrong. Because none of what you've been saying makes sense when examined? Because none of what you've said has actually been correct? Because you're pushing a personal vendetta against farmers and accusing them of causing inflation despite the game showing the opposite to be true? Because you've resorted to changing the parameters of the comparison to "win"? A team comprised of a farmer plus two dummy accounts is still a team. The characters on the secondary and tertiary accounts are still teammates, receiving inf* and drops of their own which is in addition to the farmer's inf* and drops. The farmer is not creating more inf* than anyone else, as demonstrated in other posts in this thread, he/she is simply keeping more inf* than players who team with other players. Some farmers might be generating inf* above the curve, others are generating less, just as some *F runners put together optimal teams and blitz through *Fs at blistering paces while others take a more leisurely approach. It averages out over time. None of them are generating inf* in such excessive and enormous amounts that the economy is endangered, the farmers are only generating more inf* for their own personal use than the average player, not more inf* than other players can generate via other methods, and that is also not endangering the economy. Any three characters working in concert can make 100,000,000 inf* per hour. The farmer keeps all of it, the team players share it. That's the only difference. Whether it's divided three ways or all goes into one pocket isn't relevant. See the paragraph above. Yet you felt that non-inf*/non-vendor rewards were important to include as part of the reward structure of farming, to such a degree that you actively disputed every reminder that non-AE content offers more rewards than AE content, or than farming in general. You made it a point to dispute the claim that farmers couldn't acquire all of the same rewards by farming. It was important enough that you addressed that more than once. But having merits rewards for completing *Fs/trials/story arcs raised as an example of a reward unobtainable by farming, since farming doesn't complete *Fs/trials/story arcs, requires them to be excluded (now that there's a value attached to those merits). They're no longer relevant, now that they're relevant. Yeah, that's definitely not a transparent and feeble scramble to maintain an untenable position. But, hell, let's run with it! If you want to move the goal post from Hackensack to Kolkata, fuck yeah, let's do it! We'll remove the ~6,000,000 inf* for merits from the earlier calculation. That still equates to more than double the net earnings for the TF runners when compared to the farmer's earnings in the same time period, 240,000,000 versus the farmer's 100,000,000 after one hour. That's 30,000,000 inf* per hour per player on the TF (as originally noted by @Bionic_Flea), and at three players, we achieve equilibrium with the triple-boxing farmer. 3 characters on each team, equivalent inf* generation. Do you want to change the conditions again? What you consistently fail to accept or admit is that it's not how much a farmer generates, it's how much everyone generates that matters. Farmers don't park themselves in the AE and farm the same map over and over again because the inf* generation is higher in AE farm maps, they do it because it's easy to build for those maps and the inf* they generate doesn't have to be split 3-8 ways. It's not more inf* overall, it's more inf* for them, and it doesn't impact the economy to any measurable degree because it's just not relevant in comparison to the vastly greater amounts generated by significantly greater percentage of the population doing everything else. But you categorically refute that because you're completely focused on the individual gains. The big picture doesn't seem to exist for you. You just will not see it. You're so determined to prove that farmers are a cancer that you've thrown away all reason, logic and credulity in pursuit of that goal. You've consistently failed to do the most basic math to support your conclusion, and you really should've done that before you posted the first time; your attempts at defending your position have been tantamount to "Nuh uh" and "I'm rubber and you're glue"; you display no facility for deductive or abductive reasoning; and you clearly have a personal agenda warping your perspective on the subject. You're a threat to yourself, not to me. I don't farm. I mention that in this very thread, but apparently even the effort of reading the thread in which you're posting is too much research work for you.

I tried that once. I made it through one mission and respeced back into CJ. I'm not me without my boingboing. I like Combat Teleport, but I like bouncing more. 🐰

If you scroll up a bit, you'll note that @macskull expanded on my post with additional calculations and information. In that post, using the numbers you provided (plus some which you omitted), the team of eight players generates the same quantity of inf* in ~15.62 minutes that the farmer needs an hour to generate. We can also extrapolate that it only "requires" two players to equal the farmer's inf* generation rate per hour, as opposed to "an entire team of players", based on that same analysis, which, again, uses the numbers you provided. You proved yourself wrong. You're so focused on forcing everyone to accept your assertion that farmers cause inflation that you're overlooking, or deliberately distorting, facts which refute that assertion. Farmers might gross more than individual players, but the economy isn't based on the actions of individuals, but the sum of all actions of all players. What farmers do is, in reality, a drop in the ocean, because they don't comprise a significant portion of the player base and their best efforts are only really impressive when viewed at that individual level. I and others have looked at your numbers and come to the conclusion that the math, based on your numbers, completely disputes everything you've said. The evidence you're attempting to support your position with has had the opposite effect. Let it go. Is not condoned by the HC team and will, eventually, be addressed. Chill, they're not damaging the economy in the least. You can put the pitchfork and torch down.

The foundation of your premise is flawed from the outset. For example, your hypothetical comparison of a farmer generating 100,000,000 inf* per hour versus 10,000,000-12,000,000 inf* per hour for a "kill most ITF" doesn't clarify the conditions of the comparison. A farmer triple-boxing versus a single character on a full team is what your suggested comparison implies, and that would grossly skew the metrics involved to make it appear that the farmer was generating ten times the inf*, when in actuality, the inf* generation would be equivalent for the activities, with the difference being the ITF inf* split eight ways, rather than all going into a single pocket. Your comparison fails to account for the 26 merits rewarded for completing the ITF. Yes, the farmer can collect Empyrean merits for achieving veteran level milestones and exchange those for reward merits, but the character on the ITF can acquire those Empyrean merits as well and the ITF reward merits in addition. That equates to roughly ~6,000,000 additional inf* for every character on the ITF, and potentially more, depending on how they use those merits, that wasn't included in your comparison. That increases the average inf* generation from 10-12,000,000 inf* to 16-18,000,000 inf* per participating character, netting a total of 128-144,000,000 inf* for completing that TF (28-44,000,000 more than the farmer generates). You're throwing out numbers with no qualifying data, and either failing to account for all variables or deliberately obfuscating the results. People here actually look at the facts. People here test things. And people here have had this discussion numerous times in the past, so they're not easily hornswoggled, or unlikely to notice that you missed some very obvious points. If you'd like to be taken seriously, post some real data, not wild guestimates presented as gospel or deliberately disingenuous comparisons intended to incite FUD.

The Ouroboros Initiation. Fifth mission. Pandora's Box, Episode 2. First mission.

Those Romans are as fast as lightning. @Bill Z Bubba says they're not very frightening. @Cobalt Arachne replied with expert timing. Wait, are we singing the Carl Douglas version or the Tom Jones version? Because if we're using the Tom Jones version, I can add a couple more names in the next bit. Then @BillyMailman Dropped a numbers bomb, And @Bopper jumped on in And moved the thread along. I know. It's a gift. No applause, just throw money. Ow. OW. I said money, not nickels! OW! STOP!

Just had an opportunity to test something: in mission maps, when the last few critters are shown as red arrows on the mini-map, they're selectable as waypoints.

Right-click on the mini-map to set a waypoint marker at the critter's location, or set a waypoint at your current location and run to the critter.

I see a string of words, but they don't make sense. Is this another language? Have I developed aphasia?

That pun is atrocious. Well done. 👍

I only use sets. I don't farm.