Is farming an imbalanced method of earning ingame rewards?

[DrBasics]

There is no farming in this game.

 

However, Farming does exist in other games. Lord of the Rings Online has a great farming job skill you can take. Also, Wildstar had cool farming plots. Guild Wars 2 had some weird version of farming that went hand-in-hand with their cooking skill.

 

I would, however, be highly in favor of a farming system implemented in this game, though I would imagine it would be a nightmare to code.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

The goldilockes zone for loot rewards should always be aimed at pug groups doing actual social group content.

Um..Sorry. I've only ever played CoH, so I'm not certain I understand what this means. 

If you're suggesting that pug groups should get better rewards vs solo players - they do already. A team of 8 gets an XP bonus that a smaller team or a solo player doesn't get. At least - that's what one of the "tips" in a loading screenshot stated. 

On the one hand, I think I understand why you think a team should get better rewards than a solo farmer - but can the game make the distinction between solo farmer and solo player? I work remotely. There are times, where if I were in an office, I would simply be off-line. Or have a character/farmer in a map with burn on auto. But, I'm home, and tabbing out is rather simple. It would be rude of me to team during the week, most of the time, so I don't. Well, only rarely. 

If I understand you - you're suggesting that because my character can handle a solo map, due to my experience playing my character, my reflexes, my ability to understand the NPCs and what they can and can't do - my rewards should be less than that of a full team? Is that what you're saying? 

I should get more rewards on an MSR when I just have an attack on auto while I scarf down lunch, intermittently casting a heal than if I'm in my own map, laying waste to the Positron Automaton Elite Boss? Personally - if that's what you're saying, you'd need to defend that statement with a reason why I should be denied the same opportunities as everyone else who may not be as capable. The very fact that folks team suggests that they either like the chatter, or they aren't very good at doing it alone. I only occasionally like to chat, and find a group slows the game down to a crawl. If I'm the mood, fine. But if not, I'm going to solo. To not get the same merits, the same drop pool because of that doesn't seem right to me. 

I get that at least half, if not more of the player base views this game as revolving around a teaming experience. I don't. More often than not, it's for a badge. It really is that simple for me. If I can do it alone, I generally do. Sometimes just for the challenge. Other reasons are because I'm not terribly pleasant when faced with roleplayers, folks who would zone in, but take more than 30 seconds to get to the mission door, or take 2 minutes to zone in because they're playing on a flip phone or a toaster oven powered by a starved ferret. Or anyone else that wastes my time. Hey you! The guy who shows up to a task force without enhancements at level 35, because they got PL'd there with 2xp/no inf, and can't afford any - you're the primary turd I'm trying to avoid! Or the one with a bodily waste function referenced in your name - I don't wanna think about that when I look at the team roster. FFS, do better than that in the character creation stage! 
So, yeah - that probably says more about me than anything else, and I'm okay with that.  But I'd vote no  - if I understood you correctly. 


 

[Col. Kernel]

2 hours ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

This actually is something that matters to actual game devs quite a lot. For example over in Path of Exile, they have a setting for solo self found only. Doing this actually makes it so a player can not trade with others, and is entirely dependent on their own loot drops. It increases their chance for good loot to drop by a very large % but RNG being RNG still means getting the uniques they may need for certain builds much less likely. It exists however to help balance the game for those who do not want to engage in player trade.

 

In DDO they have struggled for years to find a way to not let guilds who raid together and happily share raid loot to quickly get entire top tier BIS gear kits have an overwhelming advantage over those who run as pugs with each man for themselves. From a dev pov loot sharing like that in such a guild borders on exploiting the system, and for sure see it as a real balance issue. Because when a small % of players can reliably always get BIS gear kits quickly and then over power the current content, how does a dev design for them to be challenged while not punishing the players with average gear? In pen and paper dungeons and dragons its sop for a DM to regularly have such super loot stolen from characters to depower them if they are too out of sync with the group.

 

CoH has a pretty flexible dif system, but we still are all aware of how a perfected toon basically breaks the game these days. Anti farming mechanics are a real need, and honestly at this point I think it should be something as simple as make inf earned from the AH go into its own storage and put a cap on how much can be withdrawn each day. It does not have to be anything too low, but keeping it to like 500 million a day would at least discourage that kind of behavior a bit. And yes it is behavior we should want to see discouraged.

 

The goldilockes zone for loot rewards should always be aimed at pug groups doing actual social group content.

 

90% if the issues with the market would go away if it were impossible to flip items.

And to the flippers in here, there are easier and more productive ways to make Inf off the market than flipping.

[Ukase]

1 minute ago, Col. Kernel said:

 

90% if the issues with the market would go away if it were impossible to flip items.

And to the flippers in here, there are easier and more productive ways to make Inf off the market than flipping.

I agree with the second line. I dunno about the first. 

 

[Col. Kernel]

2 minutes ago, Krimson said:

I've met marketers with so much INF they made mules to carry it, but yeah being able to pound out a billion in four days of dedicated solo farming is bad. 😄

 

When do they sleep?

 

I make 20 mil/run Inf + drops farming.  Say it takes 45 minutes to run the ComicCon cave firefarm, so average 100 mil Inf per 3 hours (counting drops), you'd have to farm 6 - 9 hrs a day to do that.

[Yomo Kimyata]

15 minutes ago, Col. Kernel said:

 

90% if the issues with the market would go away if it were impossible to flip items.

And to the flippers in here, there are easier and more productive ways to make Inf off the market than flipping.

 

I make well less than 10% of my ill-gotten gains from making markets, and I will stop "flipping" the instant noobs stop selling me things to flip.

[Snarky]

20 minutes ago, Col. Kernel said:

 

90% if the issues with the market would go away if it were impossible to flip items.

And to the flippers in here, there are easier and more productive ways to make Inf off the market than flipping.

I think one of the richest players ( definitely two of the richest i know) have various buy cheap sell at market value strategies 

 

whether this is ethical, whether it pro ides a service by keeping the flow going, whether they do any converting or upgrading before relisting is not important

 

the simple point is they do make a gigantic haul doing this that dwarfs farming

[lemming]

43 minutes ago, skoryy said:

 

I'm still amazed commons sell for under 250.  I always list mine at 249.

If I'm clearing space on a char, I put my common & uncommon salvage up for 16.

[skoryy]

Just now, lemming said:

If I'm clearing space on a char, I put my common & uncommon salvage up for 16.

 

You'd get more selling it at a vendor, though.

[Bill Z Bubba]

41 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I make well less than 10% of my ill-gotten gains from making markets, and I will stop "flipping" the instant noobs stop selling me things to flip.

 

But I enjoy selling all my recipes at 111 inf, be they purple or otherwise, so that someone else can spend the time and effort to get rich their way. I get to spend more time murdering my enemies and getting rich my way!

[Blackbird71]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

That number is also irrelevant. My point was I could buy a horde of something, sell it elsewhere for profit, and yet, the market magically carries on. Again (gets out soapbox) THE LONGEST I HAD TO WAIT FOR A BID TO FULLFILL WAS ON LIVE. Time and time again people who are willing to dump hundreds of millions in terms of currency into their builds are fully admitting it being cheaper to pimp out a build on HC versus live, and yet, oh noes farming is doing harm to the game. The market prices are TOO DAMN HIGH!

 

If it's irrelevant, then why cite it as part of your argument?  You based your whole premise on the idea that "it doesn't matter what I do, because compared to the stuff available, it's a drop in the bucket," when the reality is that the bucket is much smaller than you make it out to be.

[Neiska]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

These players that complain about farmers seem to have differing objections. 
1. Reduced teaming pool - if they're farming, they're not teaming. 

This comment won't earn me any points, but if you have another player on your map helping you clear, you're not farming, you're teaming. I am referring to folks who solo the maps repeatedly. These are the players that this segment of anti-farmers want out of the farms and into the pool of available teammates. 

2. The ability of the farmer to tackle +4/8, seemingly without risk, doesn't seem fair to your average defender, who has to wait 30-45 seconds for their nuke to recharge to tackle 0/8 to +2/8 mobs, depending on the build. But they'd never be able to do this afk-style with any level of proficiency. A blaster can fare better, given the vast improvements to HP and the sustain toggle (if you choose the right secondary, lol), but they're not going to be able to afk either.  Over time, given the contrast in ability for the farmer to solo these settings, they will eventually earn all the investment back. But - even this takes time, depending on what the player does with drops. Just selling stuff - it will take much longer. Crafting, converting, selling drops - it will require more tedium, but the recoup of investment will be sooner. It's all a function of how much time they want to put into it. 

3. A perception that the drops earned - more influence, what's done with the salvage and recipes, catalysts that drop on the farmer - impact the prices of IOs. More specifically, the perception that a farmer's activities impact their ability to afford what they wish to buy from the market. They seem to think the farmer, by listing an item for X inf is responsible for the sale price of that item. Rather, it's the player that saw fit to pay that price that sets the value. And the farmers get blamed for this. For some reason, it's always the farmer that is accused of paying these higher prices - but the farmer doesn't need these pieces. If they did, they wouldn't be selling them! The market is blind. We have no idea who's doing the buying. We can guess in some cases (thinking of you, Yomo) but we never really know for sure. But the ones that vocally complain about this, somehow, they know! They assume only the farmer can afford such things, and yet - marketers that market daily have far more influence than farmers who farm daily. 

In summary, no, it's not balanced. But, there's a ton of time that goes into earning the inf/merits to make a farmer. It takes time to recoup that investment. Let's not forget also, that while some find farming relaxing or fun, most folks find it boring. We put up with the boredom to fund our alts. I see no reason why others can't put up with the same boredom. If they don't want to, nothing wrong with that, but it's not my problem. 



 

 

 

Thank you for your thought out and composed reply, but I still disagree. 

 

1. People compare farming to teaming, while ignoring raiding, soloing, or the most impactful, playing the market. If money was the sole concern here, then the anti-farmers aim is misdirected as those who play the stock market simulator make far more money in far less time than any farmer is capable of. But the "stock players" are unseen, and as far as I can tell, no one topic was made to discuss such.

 

2. I disagree that "farmers take so much to make." When you can make a farmer fairly cheaply who can run level 50 content with minimum effort, and upgrade to higher difficulties as you go. To make a famer who can go all out on any map type on +4/8 with elite bosses enabled, sure, that's an investment. But anyone who is fully t4'd, and fully geared up, is an investment. Farmers are hardly unique in this regard.

 

3. Sure, some farm builds can go afk. But so can others. Brutes and Tankers are the most common, but I have a MM that can go AFK, as well as a Crabbermind that can both go fully AFK with 1 power on auto and go do dishes and clear a map with the highest difficulty settings. Again, farmers are not special in this scope.

 

With regard to the "if they aren't farming, they aren't teaming" point you made, on that I fully agree. I do believe that is the core of their argument. Take all contexts and put them aside, it is one group of players doing something that another group doesn't like, and are complaining about it. I don't like or enjoy PVP, but I don't make threads asking for its removal. I don't particularly enjoy the gogogogo mentality of random teams either. I solo more often than I team. I might join a PI group to help heal, or might go on a roleplayed mission, or do a random TF if I am feeling particularly adventuresome or bored, but for the most part the majority of my time is alone with my 3 box team. And I would rather play entirely solo, or move onto another game entirely, than have resource generation nerfed to the point where Teaming was the best or only, option, which is what I suspect many are hoping to push as the new "normal."

 

Essentially I see it as one child looking at another child playing with a toy. The first child doesn't like the toy, but doesn't like the other child enjoying it either, and cries to the parents to have that toy taken away. (I am not insinuating anyone is a child or anything, only illustrating as an example.)

 

People are free to play the game as they like. This includes the farmers, even if some people don't personally agree or like it, its still "valid" game play. It isn't cheating. It isn't breaking any rules. Anyone and Everyone can do it if they want to. I would call that "fair". Just as I am fine with not getting every badge or accolade by being more of a farmer. If someone doesn't like it, or doesn't want to put in the time, effort, or resources, then fine. But stop torpedoing those that are, will, or did. And just because someone personally doesn't like it, because it takes time, or "a lot of inf", or its "boring", doesn't make it unfair, if everyone has the same access.

 

I simply choose to use a tool and method available to me. Others may not. Calling that unfair for a decision on their part is disingenuous. 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Neiska
spelling

[Grouchybeast]

15 minutes ago, Neiska said:

1. People compare farming to teaming, while ignoring raiding, soloing, or the most impactful, playing the market. If money was the sole concern here, then the anti-farmers aim is misdirected as those who play the stock market simulator make far more money in far less time than any farmer is capable of. But the "stock players" are unseen, and as far as I can tell, no one topic was made to discuss such.

 

What effects the game economy isn't individual players amassing inf, it's the generation of inf from thin air, and even more so the ratio of inf generation to generation of recipes and salvage.  If inf generation rapidly outpaces recipes supply (as it did with AE farming on live) prices will spiral.  On HC, a combination of normal drops in AE missions and plentiful converters keeps prices remarkably stable for an MMO.  Converter roulette is a self-regulating system for turning trash recipes into desirable recipes.  It's as though the recipe drop rate constantly adjusted for demand, and is why you don't have to pay 75 million for a LotG +rech on HC.

 

On HC AE farming isn't fundamentally different to regular content, it just happens faster.  If the ratio of inf:recipes is balanced in the rest of the game, it's also balanced in AE.

[Hew]

4 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

(remembers when people farmed before AE existed)

portals, demons, demon portals, giant earth digging machine drill things, forcefield bots, bridge people locking at (what, 42?)...

[Without_Pause]

2 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

 

If it's irrelevant, then why cite it as part of your argument?  You based your whole premise on the idea that "it doesn't matter what I do, because compared to the stuff available, it's a drop in the bucket," when the reality is that the bucket is much smaller than you make it out to be.

The size of the bucket doesn't matter. My point is, what I did didn't mater. I pulled hundreds of salvage off of the market and could easily continue to do so with no real impact. Other long time players admit to there being a lower cost to building a character. Your point seems to be I say things wrong, which doesn't really support you being right, or the fact that your data can't really be shown and has to be kept super secret for reasons, which again, it doesn't mean you're right.

 

Are builds easier to pimp out on HC as compared to live? If true, then maybe farming isn't the super terrible thing to worry about and lead to multiple threads on this forum. Also true with ebil marketers. One estimated some players could have in the range of 300 billion which was gotten by a heavy dose of using the market. Please tell me how faming is the issue if a stat like that is true?

 

FYI, back on live I used crafting and selling common IOs as a way to build my income. I can't do that now as the market for them has bottomed out. That's real data I can point out and you can verify. Just like you can go on the market and still buy common salvage for 100 or even lower despite my efforts to pull as much as I could.

[Col. Kernel]

5 minutes ago, Hew said:

portals, demons, demon portals, giant earth digging machine drill things, forcefield bots, bridge people locking at (what, 42?)...

 

Drek Freak farm...

[Neiska]

4 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

What effects the game economy isn't individual players amassing inf, it's the generation of inf from thin air, and even more so the ratio of inf generation to generation of recipes and salvage.  If inf generation rapidly outpaces recipes supply (as it did with AE farming on live) prices will spiral.  On HC, a combination of normal drops in AE missions and plentiful converters keeps prices remarkably stable for an MMO.  Converter roulette is a self-regulating system for turning trash recipes into desirable recipes.  It's as though the recipe drop rate constantly adjusted for demand, and is why you don't have to pay 75 million for a LotG +rech on HC.

 

On HC AE farming isn't fundamentally different to regular content, it just happens faster.  If the ratio of inf:recipes is balanced in the rest of the game, it's also balanced in AE.

 

I would agree on your general point, but I disagree that farming is the sole root cause. If they want to remove inf from the economy, simply making more money sinks would be more prudent. Upkeep on base costs/parts for an example. A change that I suspect would be unpopular, but if a stale market (more money added then removed) is the concern, then farming is also a drop in the bucket. I would argue there isn't enough uses for INF largely aside from enhancements, there is little other uses. When any character once they are fully geared up can accumulate an infinite amount of INF regardless of activity, only the speed/rate at which it does so changes.

 

If people want to change that, there has to be more INF dumps than simple enhancements, as that only goes so far. I mean there is what? 80 slots on a character? Even if EACH slot was 20 mil per that is still 1.6 billion inf to fully gear, a laughably small amount in a characters possible accumulation. 

 

More moneysinks would be more efficient at curbing inflation than removing/punishing aes/farmers.

[Yomo Kimyata]

45 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

But I enjoy selling all my recipes at 111 inf, be they purple or otherwise, so that someone else can spend the time and effort to get rich their way. I get to spend more time murdering my enemies and getting rich my way!

 

Clearly, *CLEARLY*, the Z in Bill Z Bubba stands for Znoob.

[arcane]

Seems like this is one big nonissue now that the one poster with a giant chip on their shoulder has stepped out of the room.

[Grouchybeast]

2 minutes ago, Neiska said:

I would agree on your general point, but I disagree that farming is the sole root cause. If they want to remove inf from the economy, simply making more money sinks would be more prudent. Upkeep on base costs/parts for an example. A change that I suspect would be unpopular, but if a stale market (more money added then removed) is the concern, then farming is also a drop in the bucket. I would argue there isn't enough uses for INF largely aside from enhancements, there is little other uses. When any character once they are fully geared up can accumulate an infinite amount of INF regardless of activity, only the speed/rate at which it does so changes.

 

HC seem to be committed to exploring both inf supply reductions and inf sinks, which is good.

 

Back when they last released data for playtime, farming was about 30% of total playtime, and 45% of level 50 playtime, so I suspect that farming is actually responsible for a significant proportion of de novo inf generation.  However, as long as the market is performing reasonably well, and prices aren't rising too fast, it doesn't really matter.

[Bionic_Flea]

8 hours ago, Blackbird71 said:

my tracking of enhancements I frequently trade in over the last 6-8 months has shown a 200%-300% increase in price.

Would you tell us the actual increase?  Because going from 1,000 inf to 3,000 inf is a 300% increase, which is negligible.  I would even consider 10x or 100x from the starting point to be negligible as well, but some may not.

[roleki]

It's hilarious to me that there are numerous people in these forums who proudly identify themselves as market manipulators, and yet folks continue to lay the blame for the high cost of everything at the feet of the farmers... whose only involvement in this scheme is the delivery of more product for the marketeers to fiddle with.  

 

"If we only cut off the supply, everything will be cheaper!"  

[Without_Pause]

4 minutes ago, roleki said:

It's hilarious to me that there are numerous people in these forums who proudly identify themselves as market manipulators, and yet folks continue to lay the blame for the high cost of everything at the feet of the farmers... whose only involvement in this scheme is the delivery of more product for the marketeers to fiddle with.  

 

"If we only cut off the supply, everything will be cheaper!"  

Ebil marketer or farmer?

[ZacKing]

14 hours ago, Col. Kernel said:

I can make about 30 million inf/hr (give or take) just running the WST, and I'll be having a lot more fun doing it.

 

If you're running the same content like WSTs over and over, you're farming.

[tidge]

48 minutes ago, roleki said:

It's hilarious to me that there are numerous people in these forums who proudly identify themselves as market manipulators, and yet folks continue to lay the blame for the high cost of everything at the feet of the farmers... whose only involvement in this scheme is the delivery of more product for the marketeers to fiddle with.  

 

"If we only cut off the supply, everything will be cheaper!"