AE Farming Option

[R1LE27AS]

Lets say an AE Farmer starts a team and he goes and defeats all the enemies while everyone else stays back. The AE Farmer clears the map completely, but what if the AE Farmer had the option to recreate every last enemy he just defeated so he wouldnt have to reset the mission over and over and over and the rest of his team could stay right where they were?

[arcane]

I farm, and your idea may sound cool, but, just thinking about the various devs the game has had since 2004, I don't think the general point of most changes has been to make farming easier just to make farming easier.

[Rudra]

Yeah... no. Just... no. AE farming is already extremely easy to repeat. Open mission/arc at terminal. Turn around and step 10 feet to talk to contact.  Enter mission/arc conveniently right behind contact. Repeat. No need to run across zone(s) back to contact. No running from door to door to door. Everything is right there, all in a convenient to access group/area.

[Glacier Peak]

1 hour ago, R1LE27AS said:

Lets say an AE Farmer starts a team and he goes and defeats all the enemies while everyone else stays back. The AE Farmer clears the map completely, but what if the AE Farmer had the option to recreate every last enemy he just defeated so he wouldnt have to reset the mission over and over and over and the rest of his team could stay right where they were?

You can already do this in the AE mission testing mode. Now if you're looking to get any xp or inf out of it too, then I'd say that's not how the game was designed and AE already gives players plenty of leeway.

[Black Zot]

Ambush farms did something similar back in the day - not enough enemies in the map?  Just spawn more.  But all those extra enemies spawning in put a ton of strain on the servers, so they killed it dead with nerfs.

[Zeraphia]

I read this ready to downvote it but... I actually think this would be a nice change. I understand the counterargument that it's already easy enough to just walk out but there are people who have limited resources with regards to their computer setup (mainly going zone to zone could be extremely long for these players and as such just resetting the enemies may save them a substantial amount of time.) 

 

I'd be in favor of the suggestion, I think people could be a little more open-minded. 

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I read this ready to downvote it but... I actually think this would be a nice change. I understand the counterargument that it's already easy enough to just walk out but there are people who have limited resources with regards to their computer setup (mainly going zone to zone could be extremely long for these players and as such just resetting the enemies may save them a substantial amount of time.) 

 

I'd be in favor of the suggestion, I think people could be a little more open-minded. 

I for one am plenty open minded, but like to pay attention to historical facts.

 

”Let’s implement this change that does literally nothing but make farming easier because we strongly feel that farming needs to be easier” is about as consistent with anything any CoH dev has ever said as “We will relentlessly buff regen every patch.”

[Zeraphia]

2 minutes ago, arcane said:

I for one am plenty open minded, but like to pay attention to historical facts.

 

”Let’s implement this change that does literally nothing but make farming easier because we strongly feel that farming needs to be easier” is about as consistent with anything any CoH dev has ever said as “We will relentlessly buff regen every patch.”

But what you are describing is a quality of life change. Is it necessary to make the game function? No. Is it anywhere near the pressing degree somethings should be addressed? Probably not. But I see how it can be helpful to people with less resources. 

 

I've adopted the mindset that farming is just the way the game is. You can't really stop it unless you remove AE and allowing level 1's to group with level 50's. If it helps them farm more efficiently to get to do the content they actually want to do, then so be it. With the suggestion, he'd still have to actually kill minions, he'd just skip the zone load times and character dialogues most farmers don't even care about reading.

[Marbing]

49 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I read this ready to downvote it but... I actually think this would be a nice change. I understand the counterargument that it's already easy enough to just walk out but there are people who have limited resources with regards to their computer setup (mainly going zone to zone could be extremely long for these players and as such just resetting the enemies may save them a substantial amount of time.) 

 

I'd be in favor of the suggestion, I think people could be a little more open-minded. 

I get what you are saying, but the game is already easy enough. Why make it easier? I think @arcane is just trying to point that out. 
 

Not that it would make a huge difference and break the game, but I don’t see this being implemented purely on the basis that it’s not really a problem that needs fixing. IMO.

[arcane]

56 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I've adopted the mindset that farming is just the way the game is. You can't really stop it unless you remove AE and allowing level 1's to group with level 50's. If it helps them farm more efficiently to get to do the content they actually want to do, then so be it. With the suggestion, he'd still have to actually kill minions, he'd just skip the zone load times and character dialogues most farmers don't even care about reading.

All I’m pointing out is that, if you think the devs will want to make farming easier in such a way *that does nothing but make farming easier* and thus with *the only purpose of making farming easier*… you haven’t been observing the devs of live or HC since 2004.

 

I could care less if they make farming easier. But it’s silly at this point to dream that that’s a dev goal.

Edited April 10, 2022 by arcane

[Ghost]

One step closer to creating the character, and then simply choosing how much influence to start with, and at what level.

[TheZag]

Endlessly respawning enemies is a bad idea.  Even afk farming requires a person to play eventually to reposition and reset a mission.  Imagine rejecting most recipe drops and then setting this up when you go to sleep.  You wake up with 5-10 purple recipes and 700 million inf.  

 

Even if respawning the enemies took a few clicks,  there are auto mouse clicking programs that can do it and you can afk farm forever without ever being at the computer.

[Rudra]

Agreed. The fact some players' machines may take longer than others to load zones or instances is not justification for this. This is not a quality of life improvement. This would effectively kill content use. Why bother doing content when you can just sit in a single AE mission and keep hitting respawn to level up or gather inf' and recipes? AE farming is already used to power level new characters straight to 50. It does not need to be any easier to do so. Hard NO on this.

 

Edit: To be clear, I am not against players power leveling using whatever means they choose. I am against this suggestion.

 

Edit again: For this to be a quality of life issue for players with slower machines, then it would need to address all loading issues, not just the ability to keep sitting in a mission until you're richer than God.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Rudra

[arcane]

52 minutes ago, TheZag said:

Even if respawning the enemies took a few clicks,  there are auto mouse clicking programs that can do it and you can afk farm forever without ever being at the computer.

Or, alternatively, it would be simple enough that I could get my cat to trigger the reset.

 

*Starts leaving treats on select hotkeys*

Edited April 10, 2022 by arcane

[Darmian]

As someone who doesn't farm but does play SFMA AE arcs, and writes them, what the hell would this do to a story arc?  Sure, farmers probably won't play my arcs or anyone else's (generalization here, simply going for "farmers farm") but the implementation would cut across all AE because it would have to. That sounds like a whole heap of nonsense to me.

[Ston]

I had an open mind about this suggestion but I'm going to have to give a hard pass.

What would stop someone from using this on the meteor map across several accounts to generate influence 24/7? 

[Black Zot]

9 hours ago, Ston said:

I had an open mind about this suggestion but I'm going to have to give a hard pass.

What would stop someone from using this on the meteor map across several accounts to generate influence 24/7? 

 

Same thing that bottlenecks bitcoin miners: fried hardware.

[UltraAlt]

On 4/9/2022 at 11:39 PM, Glacier Peak said:

I'd say that's not how the game was designed and AE already gives players plenty of leeway.

 

I'd say that the DEVs told everyone that they would ban accounts that built easy-to-kill farming missions with a 40-ton ban-hammer and then lost their nerve and deleted all their posts about banning players for abusing the AE.

The AE already gives TOO MANY players TOO MUCH leeway to abuse the game.

[so much so that between AE Babies, non-stop farming maniacs, and microtransactions that I quit my subscription almost exactly a year before the sunset]

 

But this is Homecoming and, if players want to waste their time sitting at doors and killing the same mob over and over again without the need for an skill or challenge then that is their bliss, but I still think it's pretty Geordi in the Holodeck and shouldn't be worth real "City" world xp or influence.

 

If the AE was working as it was intended to create stories and adventures to provide additional content similar to what already exists in the game, I wouldn't have a problem with the xp and influence gains.

[Darmian]

5 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

If the AE was working as it was intended to create stories and adventures to provide additional content similar to what already exists in the game, I wouldn't have a problem with the xp and influence gains.

We do try! Honestly!

[UltraAlt]

18 hours ago, Rudra said:

Why bother doing content when you can just sit in a single AE mission and keep hitting respawn to level up or gather inf' and recipes?

 

Why bother leveling-up and gathering influence and recipes just to sit in a single AE holosuite Mission for eternity and ignore the actual game?

 

 

Sorry. I'm a never-farmer.

[UltraAlt]

2 minutes ago, Darmian said:

We do try! Honestly!

 

I know some players do. I do so as well.

But I always keep my mask on, so you have to find my missions.

[Luminara]

On 4/9/2022 at 9:54 PM, R1LE27AS said:

Lets say an AE Farmer starts a team and he goes and defeats all the enemies while everyone else stays back. The AE Farmer clears the map completely, but what if the AE Farmer had the option to recreate every last enemy he just defeated so he wouldnt have to reset the mission over and over and over and the rest of his team could stay right where they were?

 

Don't they already just stand there while the farmer does everything?  What is it, two mouse clicks, one to exit the mission and one to enter, that's the sum total of effort they invest... and that's a hardship?

Man, I feel sorry for those people.  We really need to do something to help them.  Maybe we can talk the HC team into randomly assigning a different AE building as the entrance for every mission.  That would help them get some wrist and finger exercise so they'd be healthier and wouldn't be struggling with two mouse clicks.  Our health is all we really have in this world, after all.

[Oklahoman]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

Don't they already just stand there while the farmer does everything?  What is it, two mouse clicks, one to exit the mission and one to enter, that's the sum total of effort they invest... and that's a hardship?

Excuse me...

1. Exit the mission
2. Rate the mission
3. Accept new AE message with TP options
4. Enter the new mission

That's assuming they've already checked the autoaccept level invitations setting. And they still have to go sell stuff at some point, even with double XP turned on. We're talking about significant effort here, dude.

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Oklahoman said:

Excuse me...

1. Exit the mission
2. Rate the mission
3. Accept new AE message with TP options
4. Enter the new mission

That's assuming they've already checked the autoaccept level invitations setting. And they still have to go sell stuff at some point, even with double XP turned on. We're talking about significant effort here, dude.

 

Steps 2 and 3 are the farmer's responsibility, you can't just foist that off on the riders, they could suffer exhaustion or something!  Think of the children!

[biostem]

I'll go with "is it really that difficult to just stand there and basically do nothing already" camp...