Whats so bad about farming?

Some of you are probably going to say "god there are hundreds of these posts" but I am going to post this anyhow. I don’t mean to start a flame war and you may choose to just ignore me but if you are going to argue with me, at least try to see my side a bit?

A few facts first:
I like "farming"
I am a "normal" player

I see no reason why the game devs are so against farming.

Does farming contribute to the grind?
A: I dont think so. First of all, many people farm for fun. Its like gambling. There is that slight chance for a slight reward that makes it so nice. Do people farm to get an advantage over other people therefore making the other people grind? No, if there is some nice weapon upgrade or such that a person wants, it will take the exact same amount of actual time to get it as someone who does quests normally. The monsters also drop the same exact amount of drops for everyone. Sure the time period over days might be different but the actual time spent to get the items would be around the same no?

Normal players cant farm so therefore its unfair!
A: This is untrue as well. I am a normal player and I farm maybe 30 mins a day jsut to get enough gold to get by to buy armor and dyes, materials etc. I find farming much more enjoyable than doing some crazy quest sometimes. It’s nice to get a break from doing an objective just to go and get some items and gold.

Farming is harmful!
A: I sometimes farm for items that I would otherwise have no way of affording. These items include the infamous dragon sword. Does it create an imbalance in the game when one finds it from farming? No, in fact it is worse than many other swords, it just looks better. So why is everyone against me farming for the tiny chance to get them? All I want is some nice looking item that has no impact on actual gameplay. Some might say that only farmers can get those rare items. Well I can’t really dispute that but why it is a bad thing I do not understand. The swords just look different for god sakes. There are some of us who play just for pve. Looking good in pve means something (I know some of you will be like “stupid pve idiot”) Unfortunately, farming is the only way for some of us to get items such as the dragon sword and 15k armor. What is wrong with farming for 15k armor? If you took away farming, there would be NO way to get 15k armor. You can no longer sell runes for gold so that gets rid of that option. Pvp yields no gold gain other than celestial sigils which nobody will be able to buy anyhow except those who already have a ton of gold. This essentially makes the 15k armor the property of those few who have already farmed. This is fine except for the fact that now nobody else can get the armor. I just don’t see what the game is trying to reward by making the 15k armor so rare anyhow. Is the game trying to reward pvpers? No. Is the game trying to reward people who play the pve game? No. The 15k armor was made for those wanted to spend the extra time to look a little different. This is why the armor values are the same as their 1.5k counterparts. PvP people won’t even care about 15k armor so why worry about pve people farming in order to create the funds to make an armor set that just looks different?

What I am trying to say is, why has the guild wars dev team started a crusade against farming? There are some of us who like to farm for fun. There are some of us who actually want the 15k armor and special looking items not for an advantage in pvp but just to look good.

From what I see, there are no disadvantages from allowing farming. Sure some of you might think there are no advantages either but that is no reason to eliminate it. I may have missed some disadvantages so if you see any, please post them so I can comprehend them and respond to them.

Farming is boring and repetetive.

Farming provides a completely random chance of an unfair advantage in PvP.

Well maybe to you. You could just not farm you know :P Just because it is boring to you doesnt mean it should be eliminated.

Not sure what you mean by that

oh wow, that is almost exactly the way I see it. Which is why I'm kinda cheesed off. I had JUST finished getting a character to Thunderhead Keep so that I had everything I wanted to farm some guys in Talus Chute so I could build up gold for the 15k armors for my characters, (while putting the extra gold in the 'guild hall we'll never get' fund, we're a casual guild, group of friends rather, not hardcore PvP'ers)

Then I went to kill some of the monsters and.. I wasn't even getting drops from some of them, like, not just one guy didn't drop something here and there, 3-4 of the 5 or so I would kill wouldn't drop anything. That is the only thing about this update that has annoyed the *profanity* hell out of me. They kicked me in the arse.

Farming provokes jealousy. For MANY different reasons.

Having more health than your opponent is unfair. Getting a superior vigor rune unlocked is random. Therefore, it is an unfair random advantage.

The fact of the matter is farming is not the way the developers want you to play the game. Its pretty much abuse of game mechanics and a mockery of the game itself. Saying that, I am an avid farmer However, I do not enjoy farming and wish there was an alternative. Nerfing farming is fine with me, but not providing a reasonable way to get the same loot from actually playing the game is not. If I wanted everquest i'd play it. (note, I posted more on this in "Huge nerf to entire game."

This Game is designed for casual players, so there should be no benefit for playing more hours a day.

If someone farms 5 hours a day and another guy can play 1 hour a day, the farmer has an advantage because he got more runes, money, skill points, etc.

It is clear that someone who plays more will have some benefits, but in GW these benefits are as small as possible. Today a casual player will get many minor runes and a few major runes (not sure about superior ones) so the benefit is mainly the money, not the runes. That is so great about GW. Therefore farming threatens the game balance. I think it is good. Because to get a serious advantage you have to work hard.

The way I see it, farming doesn't affect PvP in any way. Sure, they might get some better items, but since when has battles in Guild Wars been based on who has better items and stats? If I am correct, this is why we have a level cap of 20. That way, battles aren't determined by who outlevels who.

This goes for items as well. Don't believe me? Grab a weak sword and head into battle. Sure, you might not get the same type of damage you do, but if you use your character more skillfully than your opponent, you will still win. Remember, Guild Wars is based on skill. Not, stats.

And I kind of have to agree. There shouldn't be a need to put down farming either. After all, I doubt many of us would save enough gold from doing all the quests, playing the game straight through, and have 80k to spend. Not gonna happen especially since I reached Droknar's Forge my first time through with only around 20k spent. :P

actually they did say that they have provided a way to get the same loot and are still working on too

..."it is our intention to address the larger issue of the need for farming by assessing how players acquire and unlock items, runes, and skills, and then by taking steps to ensure that players can acquire and unlock these things through normal gameplay. We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game. You can expect to see the first meaningful changes towards this goal next week."

Are they just going to start handing out free gold? Completely ignoring these 'huge benefits', how do I, the person who couldn't care less about PvP right now, acquire this massive amount of gold needed to get the shiny new armor that I want?

If it's really that harmful to the game, they should remove the areas completely, or make it so you can't re-enter them after going through them once. Not leave them there so the next time you run through you kill all of the monsters in the area and get a whopping 600 gold. (not talking about Old Ascalon)

farming accelerates the introduction of items/gold into the games economy, thus throwing it out of wack and driving the game closer to D2...a way to maintain balance in the economy is to elminate the accelerated introduction of things into the economy...ie...nerfing farming areas

its all for the better

I really hope they do something. I see how some of you can say that farming provides an unfair advantage in pvp. If that is really true, then all I can say is DAMNIT because I don't care all that much about getting crazy runes or crazy items. All I want is some unique looking stuff like the ascension armor. It just kind of sucks that farming was eliminated because now, I am super jealous of those that did farm before and have the money to buy 15k armor because it looks so nice. Sure the game is based around pvp but that does not mean that they should totally ignore those who want to play pve to its fullest (I mean, after all, they did create a pve side of the game.) Why did the devs put 15k armor in the game in the first place? I am starting to think they just put it there to torment people because the armor goes against all the actions they have been doing.

Some people will prefer to do this then to play with others. and for them that's all great... If that's what you like then by all means do so. Its just a thing that is often frowned on. However the way the game is currently designed... its is a necessity. what people do not like is the framers that turn around and sell that stuff on EBay or whatever.. then it brings a nasty aspect into the game. CHEATING!!! People willing to buy game gold and items for REAL money. that's just sick. what happens is it becomes a business outside the game, and that is Very much frowned on, because one its against the EULA, and two it ruins the game by giving people unfair advantages over others playing the same amount of time.

So as long as your doing it for you... go for it. but if your one of this organizations that I DO NOT CONDONE that do nothing but Farm for runes gold and upgrades just to sell it for profit... then it will in the long run result in accounts getting banned from the system. there is already companies popping up doing this garbage which RUINED most of the other MMORPG games in a matter of weeks. Guess what. unfortunately GuildWars is going through this as we speak. and developers are monitoring those activities and BANNING accounts when they have the proof they need.

So word of warning... If someone is whispering you for invoice number and receipt number to get in-game items or gold, your prob going to get yourself banned...

Oh BTW, do you realize that many pieces of max armor classes are available from collectors. I told that to a ranger recently that had been framing for gold for weeks trying to get 15k armor pieces, and I told him I got mine for free from collectors and showed him where they were by taking him there. he about went nuts... But hey, that's the breaks... play the game and you find there are not the extreme barriers that there seems to be for stuff...

It does effect it. I agree that items won't just give you a win, they make a significant difference. Would you rather do 106 or 82 damage with your lightning orbs? Thats what a superior air rune does. Roughly 20% extra damage for a roughly 15% health reduction which can be mitigated with extra runes.

I agree totally that the selling of items on e-bay and such is horrible. Unfortunately for me, there really are no more spots to farm anymore haha.

Those who pvp look forward to gaining rank and celestial sigils. Those that pve look forward to getting unique looking items (basically the equivolent of rank.) The main end item is the 15k armor. With the elimination of farming, those that have not farmed before have no way of getting this armor. Sure we can sell the items we have picked from before. But in truth, the same amount of gold will get added to the economy "driving it wack." After I get my ascension armor, I wont care about farming anymore. I will probably just go back and help out people in need. However the way it is looking right now, I might just have to go back to ascalon city and run through all of the missions over and over and over just to get one piece of 15k armor.

I addressed this in another post but the problem is that there is no solution now and there this no garuntee that the 'solution' will be sufficient.

Farming distorts the entire game. This month's "Computer Gamer" describes Chinese farming sweatshops where they work 12 hours a day farming and then sell those things for cash. Do you want to reward such behavior ? To take out losers like that, you "normal" farmers are going to have to be taken out with them.

Thats like saying so and so furniture stores use child labor so therefore all furniture stores must die.

*sigh*, I can't even think of anything to say to that.

I agree that farming should be available and not required. However, we should all keep in mind that this is still a game in development and is only 2 months old. At 3 updates since I joined only 3 or 4 weeks ago, I'd say that we can expect the next 6 months or so (till the expansion) to be regularly tweaked...

supposed to say that you support making farming not a viable for something like that...

Farming is part of every RPG massive or not, they should stop calling it a role-playing game if that’s not what they wanted it to be. HL2= no farming, NwN= farming, it’s as simple as that. (Well NwN gave the DM tool that you could just create your stuff but that was optional to the play not forced on them) GW started out as an RPG on release and evolving into a PvP action game. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing, just a thing

Then don't do it, and stay the **** out of these threads.

Edit: The point is... farming introduces new items to the market. I'm GLAD I was able to buy a major fire in ascalon for 1k. All my minors I've bought, 200g. If there were no farmers, my game would be that much harder.

You're not FORCED to farm. You can make the money to buy farmed items by just playing the game normally.

If you want to pvp though, well sit down, shut the hell up and bite the bullet like all the other pvp'ers and farm. It's not like you have been singled out.

You know I find this an interesting topic. Do I mind farming? Nope. For that matter do I mind level "Grindining"? Nope. Do I mind essentially doing the exact same PvP type games? Nope. Anything in this game will become repetitive eventually. What I find interesting is the people who say farming is repetitive, boring, and gives an unfair advantage in the PvP arena think that for some reason if someone is able to spend hours upon hours of play in PvP, getting experience on what works and what doesn't, this somehow isn't boring (come on how many times can you actually say PvP changes?) and not unfair advantage (most folks don't have a bazzilion hours to invest in practice in PvP). These tend to also claim that Guild Wars isn't about PvE (this one I am trying to understand. If it had nothing to do with PvE, why do we have like 40 missions and who knows how many quests? Its supposed to be a balance between the 2, a taste of both worlds were one shouldn't have to spend their life on either side to enjoy the game). On this I just love the answer "The game name is Guild Wars." Well if you read the manual, you will notice that guilds seemed to refer to more like Kingdoms or Races (like the Char) that were in conflict and not necessarily small band of friends.

You see its all in how you intrepret things. Why is that so many believe that the way they play is the right way and no other way could be a possibility?

The whole point you don't seem to understand that this is a GAME that is supposed to be FUN! Why should people have to grit their teeth and "bite the bullet" and engage in repetitive, mind-numbing actions just so they might get randomly rewarded with a rare item? The whole mindset that farming is a necessary chore is just so wrong - playing a game should be fun, not a chore. Competition should be based on skill and not who can endure the longest mindless grind.

There are plenty of other MMORPG you can play if you want that kind of grind, but the whole point of Guild Wars is that it is meant to be different. You are simply approaching it from your "traditional" way and then trying to impose your narrow definition onto the developers. Well, the developers know what game they want to make so let them make it. If you don't like it then play one of the other identikit MMORPGs that are out there. However, DON'T try and make GW fit the narrow mould of your pre-conceptions. It's different; let it be for those who want their games to be fun and based on skill, not a mindless slog.

I agree with you, but alas, the majority of people who post here will not admit that they do the same

I just finished my farming character. A couple of days ago.

Since then I have concluded that I still need to unlock, one minor, several major and most of the superior runes.

My guild is NOT heavily PvP, but we all want to PvP as a guild. That said I need to unlock the runes.

What has happened, is those that started farming days after release, (I know there are several), have what they need.

Just shortly after release they cut back the rare drops, so those that came in right after that were SOL.

Recently, they upped the drop rate slightly.

The end result, those that started farming early, unlocked their runes, and ammased a huge bank of gold and platinum are at a severe advantage to this game vs. those that started a non-farming build, PvP or PvE.

I cannot fully express how much this game has gone downhill since the BWEs.
I wonder if it can ever be fun again?

I know it would still be fun if I had unlimited money, or a way to grind for it, and had already unlocked the runes for PvP.

If you have already farmed till you are blue in the face, unlocked your runes and have money to throw into fake beer, consider yourself lucky.

How true! I have not even had the guts to go try any of the dwarven ale because I need all the gold I have in order to get just one piece of 15k armor. It seems we have three different type of players. People like me who want to get nice looking items but now have no way, people who are already super rich that therefore dont give a crap about the farming nerf and instead applaud it, and those who are pure pvp and think farming is boring (because "pve is boring") Althought it might not seem like it, there are many people like me. It just so happens that we dont complain as loudly as the pure pvp and super rich people.

I'm tired of posting reply's and my thoughts on farming. It's so annoying yet it is necessary. I've said this repeatedly that games are a balance between things. If a game is to succeed you need to appeal to more than just one type
(i.e. PvP). If anyone thinks this game will out last most other MMORPG's or even if you want to call it an CORPG, better luck next time. The population of PvP might be large but a games success comes from multiple spectrums. If GW could succeed solely in PvP they wouldn't have had a RPG (PvE) side to the game really. By nerfing things such as farming so that it is near impossible or making it so it is pointless that game will suffer. Some will disagree but look at the big picture. First you nerf farming so that it is not possible or extremely hard or no rewards for doing it. What do you do then? Yes you can PvP then, but majority players are not hardcore PvP. So what else besides PvP will keep you playing? You might help your friends or guild a bit, then what? Well you certainly won't play the game through again for the story. Even if you make another character 99% of the time you skip cinematics the 2nd time unless you're forced to watch again. Now that your tired of PvP, you can't farm, you don't want to help anyone right now, the story sucks, what the hell will you do for the next 6 months til a new expansion? Leave the game or stop playing. Log on everyone blue moon to see what's going on. Everything works together and if you take one piece of the foundation out the rest starts to fall. People will begin to leave, then more and more will leave. Soon we'll find another game to hold us over because all our friends are leaving or gone. Other games lasted because you had farming, you had a grind (some ridiculously stupid like FFXI others not as bad), you had PvP, you had friends and clans/guilds. People complain and bitch we want PvP better, we want PvE better, but fact of the matter is in order for a game to succeed it will take both sides. I can honestly say that if I can't farm, I certainly won't help friends every waking moment, and PvP will get old after awhile. (Phantom Force exits to new game). We've all played numerous online games, and we enjoyed the ones we got to play for a long as time. We don't want games that last less than a year, maybe slightly if expansion comes relatively quick to buy the company more time.

Farming who needs it? PvE + Anet + PvP
PvP who needs it? PvE + Anet + PvP
PvE who needs it? PvE + Anet + PvP
Game Success = PvE + PvP balance (Yes Anet is working on this but by ruining PvP or ruining things in PvP we'll all be searching for a new game)

/sigh Hoping we find a balance to have a game that I can enjoy for 1-2+ years

Even without farming (as in, obliterating ANY type of farming) there will be gold introduced into the economy. So don't give me any more farming ruins the economy BS. If a player just leeches, or plays a character that does not require much gold to operate, and hordes his gold, sooner or later he will have an excess of gold.

Farming only speeds up the inevitable. Inflation is inevitable. Gold sinks solve inflation. I believe with the proper gold sinks that farming will be a tolerable part of the game. Unless Arenanet truly meant for NO FARMING WHATSOEVER in the game, then who am I to argue that?

Gah, you guys act like they killed farming.

They didn't, I don't care if you farm all day from morning till night. Farm away, farm till you have full accounts, destroy your stuff and farm some more.

This patch did nothing to slow your farming even a little bit. It's not going to drive prices through the roof or force them to drop through the basement.

The sky isn't falling that was acorn that hit your head little chick

People aren't sick of you farming, they're sick of all the whining about this patch. Here's a secret, I wasn't going to buy anything from you 3 days ago, and I'm not going to now. Things are easy to get and this patch won't significantly change that.

Oh, you can still farm, but the fields are full of salt. As far as I can tell, people aren't farming for gold, they are farming to unlock items for themselves. The actual items found are more of a byproduct of farming.

The campaign against farming is ridiculous if you ask me, I agree with the original poster- farming is fun, because seeing that gold item pop up on your screen is nice. Farming hurts pvp IN NO WAY AT ALL. The purpose of farming was to get the BEST equipment, lets say for instance a superior vigor rune and a weapon with +30 life. I personally just like having perfect stats, and farm for that 30 hp bonus to my weapon. However, if you do not like to farm, then go buy the +28 life additive for like what.... 1k? Or go buy a bloody regular vigor rune, you lose what, 20 life? Go cry more, its doesn't even give you 1 extra hit. You act like the farmers are all godly and have such a HUGE advantage, when its totally team based and not item based. A team of 4 guildies with crappy weapons, and ascalon armor can easily beat a "godly" team of farmers. The farm should have been left in for those of us who like having a perfect character, and wanted something to do other than just pvp.

I think the problem is, you guys are making this game to be an economy-based game.

The problem is, it IS with respect to unlockables. But, therein lies the issue. The only real trade in big cash items is/was unlockable armors and runes. But why are we working around this? The developers seem so hung up on keeping that one flaw, that they'll disrupt other players' playstyles in PvE to do it.

Why is it a flaw? First of all, the idea that PvE needs to unlock items for PvP is completely contradictory to the stand taken by anet that this game is based upon player skill and not hours spent. If this is untrue, then why do we need to play a great deal of PvE in order to maximise PvP? Why not have everything unlocked to begin with for PvP players?

So what? There'll be complaints that it's "too easy"... but wait... didn't you guys say that it's skill and not items that makes the PvPer? Ponder that...

The economy of MY game is selling items to vendors, getting an aesthetically different but identical piece of armor as a cheap piece, and placing the money right where it came from--back into the game.

What does nerfing farming do? With the basic flaw of unlockables still in place, prices and demand are going to stay the same for unlockable items, yet supply is going to decrease. What effect does this have on the "ecenomy" that we seem to be trying to preserve? Little or none whatsoever. Money still remains, the only difference is that the basic source of cash flow into the playerbase is sligtly decreased. Remember that inflation isn't considering the money that's in circulation, but the money that's coming INTO or LEAVING circulation, and affecting prices.

People like me are left with the short end of the stick here. With a severe disappointment in aesthetic variability in armor, I -want- the 15k armors. I have no effect on the economy--my money goes in and comes out of the game. The only difference is that if I really want to get these items I need to push further into my endeavors and keep doing more of what I was doing to get the 15k which hasn't changed.

Anet had it right on with the rune trader. Take money out of this "economy" and put it back into the game, while taking the reliance upon other player characters for runes and lessening it. But we've got to remember, if it's PvP that's the issue, we're trying to work around a flawed basic premise.

I have no problem with farming as long as it is you who is doing the farming, not a bot or program. I assumed that Anet is changing these areas to stop botting not to stop people from farming. If you play more, you are going to have more gold and be able to buy better armor. If you play more, you are also going to be better because you have more practice. If I play once a week I don't expect to be just as good as someone who plays every day; thats just not how things work. If you are going to kill things yourself to get rich, you deserve it. Yes it's boring, yes in the end it will give you better stuff for PvP, but if you did the work you deserve it.

The argument that farming makes the game unbalanced because the casual player won't be farming is ridiculous. The casual gamer relies on farmers to get their things because if there is no farming there is nothing to buy for cheap.

Yeah if I farm, its definately going to be me. Botting totally ruins games, it makes everything too easy and the rewards become bitter and pointless, why even play the game when a program can do it for you?

What you want is essentially a cheat code that takes 6 months to type in. It's still a cheat code.

And HOW is farming cheating?