The Farm Report: An anti-farmer goes farming. [LONG]

GW is not about items. It's never been about items. The difference between a +20% damage customized melee weapon and a +15 damage bump (35% total) is really nothing. A couple points. Even if you have a stat of 16 with a bump of +1 @ 15% chance... it's still so neglible that it gets lost in the weapon's variable damage. This has been tested by many people, including those who code things like GW Weapon Damage Calculators. We know this.

OK: So it's not about items.

Multiple times it's been pointed out to me that I shouldn't care so much about farmers, that it doesn't affect me, etc. And it's true. It does not affect me. At all. It was just a pet peeve. I can't get mad about it anymore - I'm so over it I can't remember why it made me mad in the first place. (re-reading my old posts now ) So in my new enlightened state, I decided I wanted to understand it. OK and I'm kinda bored with GW PvE stuff so I'm looking to add to my entertainment when the PvP crew isn't around.

I converted my monk into a soloing smite farmer and went to try the usual spots. I did the Perdition Rock run, the Twin Serpent Lake run, the Riverside run, various griffs and elementals around the Crystal Desert, and a couple of places I am not sure if they are commonly farmed. (I've played through all the PvE 4 times now, I have some good ideas of my own.) And I must admit - the farmers I once dismissed have some valid points. Even with the drop nerfing and mob adjustment to curtail botting over the last couple patches, there's still reason to farm.

From what I can tell, there's five things farmers farm for:

1) Money - While I'm not really good at it, I made about 12k an hour. And this is selling only to the merchant! (I never once tried to sell an item to a player, just salvaged or sold to the merch. The economy is screwy enough.) It could be argued that you could find one etco an hour in UW to offset that, but as all of you know nowadays finding even one etco in multiple UW passes is a /dance occasion. Yes I know money is useless, but that's not the point. If someone wants money, even just to hold it... this works.

2) Items - What can I say here? Kill monsters, things drop. Kill multiple monsters and you being the only player - lots of things drop. Again, I didn't sell anything to other players but BOY I COULD HAVE. This was great in that respect, and this is also the one and only time I found an offhand item better than my preorder item. In 400+ PvE hours I had never found something it's equal, in 2 hours of farming I found something better? No, GW is not about items and this is only slightly better... but that is the point - this is why they item farm.

3) Getting / unlocking item upgrades - One thing I found interesting is that farming weaker stuff for massive amounts of drops doesn't hurt you at all if you are looking for or unlocking weapon upgrades. Who cares if it's 0 XP and 12 gold when the sword is 9-12 but it's got a sundering 10/8 on it? A great way to get any bowstring or haft you want, just go back, way back into the really weak mobs and play God.

4) Unlocking runes - I have no doubt that farming is the way to go, here. You can't possibly earn enough faction to unlock the same amount in the same timeframe. I've got over 400 PvE hours in GW and in about 2 hours I unlocked 3 superiors and 8 majors I had never found in normal play. The randomness of drops says you should farm for unlocking the majority of your stuff, then hand-select the last few with your faction points.

5) FUN! - You want to know the scary part? Farming can be fun. No, not the items or money... after a while it's kind of a burden. You want to just leave it on the ground and take the good stuff only, but you can't. Too brainwashed from all the other RPG games. No what's fun is trying to survive. There's only a certain way you can take on a cluster of Mahgos and survive. Or rounding up 12 Caromi / 4 Skales / 4 Gargs and firing off your sequence before you get pummeled. Rounding up a seriously lethal set of Avicara and using terrain to block the Fierces while you dispatch the Braves, let your skills recharge, maneuver in a way to force those arrow birdies to cluster up... and try to take them down. It's some of the most challenge you can have in GW PvE. I guarantee you'll die a lot figuring it out, when you start farming for a challenge. You become acutely aware of casting patterns and interrupt/knockdown attacks.

I did hit what I think is the anti-bot code a couple times, where the items dried up or the drops became only collector bits and gold for the whole zone. I could just be bad luck, but I doubt it. I've heard mention of a anti-farming popup but never saw one. I wasn't repeatedly farming the same sets with any speed; like Twin Serpent Lake I would kill everything up to the Mantle sets on both passages, this takes 10 minutes itself. Still, I found a way to "reset" it so that the next time I came back I was getting purples and golds again. I'm going to keep that to myself because it wasn't hard to figure out and I don't want to assist botters. I'm sure you'll find a way if you're into farming.

Well I have a better understanding of why farmers farm now. I'm very strongly against automated bots and selling ingame money or items for real world currency, but then so is ANet and they'll ban em. So it's all good.

Go farming! =)

Average run Twin Serpent


Dry run Twin Serpent


Ember Base Camp is 90% Chinese at certain hours.
bie zhe yang! (stop that!)





(Much love to ImageShack for the space.)

Sure, everyone loves money, but I agree wholeheartedly with you hear.

Unimpressive rares, that are very rare to start with.. what's the deal? Let's make these uninteresting rares more "common" by cheating the system and DIY those mobs!

The crux of the issue is.. rares are too rare for the kind of attributes they have.

I like that you decided to 'try and understand it' before making a permanent opinion. I was somewhat anti-farming too, mostly because I never really felt I had to (I didn't desire the FoW armor in the beginning, and I had made a good amount off of lucky finds through regular playing), and because I never really tried it.

However, now that PvE content is over (I've done all the missions, all the quests, went back and picked up the newly added quests, etc.), and I'm only kinda into PvP (plus, PvP can go on for hours if you are in a good group, and sometimes I only want to play for 20 minutes)... I tried to farm, or I went back and did the old Ascalon missions for fun, and being able to kill so many things and almost instantly, seeing them fall at the same time, I forgot how fun that was.. even if items aren't great, and you aren't making a lot of gold per hour.

Basically, I'm not so anti-farming anymore either.

[Heh , i'm chinese but my chinese ain't good, i just got back from ember camp and there sure was loads of chinese, i don't understand what they're saying, are they bots or..?]

some of them kept on spamming that they're buying gold items. I tried to trade with them but they wouldn't take my rare gold firestaff of pruning

Yeah, they're probably bots. There's tons upon tons of chinese sweatshop bots in the heavily farmed areas. Hundreds in a single district in some places, and they randomly shout stuff to seem more like real players.

Anyway, I've also been toying with farming the last two days, and have the same experience as the original poster - I've found more and better stuff in the last two days farming than I did while doing all quests and all missions and ascending. I've also found dozens of types of items I've never had drop during "real" gameplay, e.g. I'd never got an aegis shield or a flamberge sword in the game before I farmed, now I have a gold max of each, and I've lost track of all the crap I've unlocked. Plus it's fun, it IS a challenge, and a very different one from the ordinary PvE play.

come on tell us how to reset it :P those drops seem might good...if you dont wana tell to everyone pm me

my friend and I did a 2 man smite run and he ended up getting 4 ectoplasms in that run and I only got a highly salvagable eternal shield Still dont know if I should salvage it.

Farming does provide awesome single player entertainment, when you are out of missions, quests, and skill points. I farm and do homework, one group, one problem, one group one problem.

I am glad that you have found that being a farmer does not automatically make you a bot running sweatshop owner.

If only we could get A.Net to eliminate the bots, get the gold off ebay, and open up the farms for those of us players that are farming for our own good (item unlocking and skill points).

P.S. due to the favor problems, grouping problems, and idiot problems associated with the UW/FoW, I am able to get far more skill points from farming than with either of these two options.

Yep. this is what it's about for me. finding ways to smack down those pesky mobs without dying. So far the griffon run has been the single most impressive piece of play i've seen. kiting all those griffs and minos along and then WHACK. beating every single one of them down. It almost made me want to make a W/Mo just for that run I just tag along with a guildy when he goes on the run instead with my necro and cast a few spiteful spirits and marks of pain in there instead

It is the most fun you can get out of the game IMO.

As you said GW Monkey, gold is useless. Face the facts, a weapon with 10% damage will do a point or two less against one that does 15%. Basically you'll be fine with that less than perfect item. The only reason you need gold is to buy 15k or FoW armour, or a stupid Crystalline sword, Chaos axe... etc. which are in no way better than normal stuff you can find at any point later in the game.

I wish this game would be more about skill than looking good. Geez, imagine what would happen to the economy if you could customize the appearance of your stuff.

Thank you!

I am so happy to read this post. I don't understand why people hate ALL farmers so much. I think it's fun. What can I say.. D2 was a good game for me and I enjoy farming.. I as well have 4 characters and all I'm really doing now is trying to find that PERFECT drop, the weapons that I can afford but are so rare that it's impossible to find one at the right time.

That is my goal. It isn't even about what is better. It's about the customization that I am looking for.

Also.. it is FUN. :P When you're frustrated with PVP or fiss/uw runs it's nice to take a break and kill a bunch of sick hydras or drakes or whatever. It's loads of fun. I enjoy it.

AND to those who say we mess up the economy? What about those of us who gives away decent weapons to newbs in ascalon, or who sell for FAIR and reasonable prices, or just salvage etc.

I'm not ripping people off. Nor am I messing up the economy big time. I'm not flooding of any particular item in general... why? Because the items people are looking for are QUITE rare.

Even with farming the best stuff doesn't drop very often. Farming is a HUGE challenge with GW and anet. It's FUN messing around with skills to see what you can come up with.

I don't understand why they nerf, but to be honest.. I don't think they nerf. I really don't. I think they want us to farm, and I think they don't want it to be easy or predictable.. and honestly.. whether they want that or not that's the final result and I totally love this game for it.

Another reason why I've been played this way too much the past few months.

Welcome to the team

Indeed Farming is a lot fo fun - i love goign outside elonas and stalking Drakes, watching them run into my traps... *watches as another few drakes collapse on the ground in flames*

Nice post! alos im not so sure about farmign nerfs... 2 purple max damage weapons, and a purple max energy scroll cant be be nerfed. (note that was in a row... 3 mobs, 3 purples)

Yeah, there is value in farming, but it's all in the way you go about it. The main problem that players and a.net(in my belief) frown upon are the hundreds of bots focused solely on this. What else are you going to do upon completing the game with several characters and unlocking all the skills? Well, I find it very hard to believe that you also unlocked every rune and upgrade component. How else are you going to afford that fissure armor? Well, the most logical answer would be farming.

I like this post very much.

With my monk I can solo griffs the way it's not even funny. I can't die. With 105 HP (sup runes rule) and Protective bond + Mending, it's almost impossible. The first 10 times it was fun. I laughed how stupid these birdy-beasts are. Then I got tired, I wanted real challenge. I went to the Ice Floe to check if I could solo Mursaats. I died 100 times, trying to build a character that could handle them. That was challenging...and FUN! I still play GW only because of this.

Hahaha, that's exactly what I've been doing with a couple of my chars. Mursaat are sickening.