FF#61 - farming

As far as I know it is as effective to farm with henchman as it is with players - you still get the same drop algorithm. Unless each mob dropped the same number of items as you have players, or you severely nerf drops, it's always going to be better farming with the fewest number of players you can. I see no reason that henchies shouldn't take thier drops otherwise there would be little grouping going on in many/most areas.

I seriously doubt it - the number of complainers is pretty constant. It would be just different people complaining over different things (such as maybe "why do I always get one drop every 10-15 mobs I kill no matter what - I worked much harder and it took more skill to solo that area, why am I not reqarded for doing so?"). Not to mention botting would become MUCH more easy and profitable - I suspect that would *really* screw with a lot of things. I haven't seen anyone complain about my farming build above - they complain about things that are pretty much obvious exploits.

Drops are pretty good now and is pretty much the standard system for most games for a reason.

That's a matter of opinion, I enjoy the farming. I even do it in single player RPG's that I can cheat and get everything on also. Heck, I spent months getting all my characters (including the secret ones) in Final Fantasy III(US) to level 99.

Really, other than cosmetic or because you enjoy it there isn't much use in it in this game. And no matter how easy farming/money becomes they will still have something that only a small percentage can purchase - prices will just inflate for those items.

Farming and challenge typically do not go well together anyway. I highly suspect that if you got what you wanted it wouldn't be all that good. You would then always get crappy common loot (either because they would have to nerf drops or "uncommon" would quickly become so common that it is then considered crappy common loot - either way crappy common loot).

the sources i put down MAY have been wrong, neither one of us really has any way of knowing, but at least i did put something, you have no sources what so ever,

i am sure that they arent paid much, what i am saying, is their pay cant really be compared to what someone in america, or some other country whose money is worth alot is being payed, someone who makes 50 cents an hour in the USA is pretty well screwed, but for someone in a poorer country that is not quite as extreme(look at how many people cross over here from mexico, hoping to find a fast food job, or landscaping, i am sure those arent exactly thier dream carreers)

also they arent in a highly dangerous job, they are on computer, they may have long hours or something, but its not like they are running heavy machinery, or sewing machines, or working in a coal mine, were it something like that, then yes, i would be quick to agree that it is a very bad thing

Yes, but the algorithm is based off the assumption that you can kill monsters 8 times as fast with 8 party members - which of course is not even close to true. All I'm saying is that there needs to be a curve for drop rate to player count, so that 8 players get more overall drops (with any henchmen still taking the appropriate percentage) to match their reduced killing efficiency.

But they should... it's a game design flaw. You should be rewarded for taking on challenges, not punished.

Or maybe I'm just after cash to get something rare, like fissure armor. Right now, there's only one way to get that - figure out a good solo build and kill the same weak, boring monsters for a few hundred hours (preferably in one of the ToA areas to get Ecto/Shard drops). Which is the real reason few have it - not because it's so hard to get, because it's not fun to get.

Actually, I like the idea of hiring the henchman for x plat, but their contract includes giving you all the loot.

Anyone else remember when the traders reset and prices were 100 gold for everything from Ectos, to Rubies, to Superior Absorption?

I think A.Net really let us all down there. We are still trying to recover. Don't believe me? Go check the price of a Sup Absorption. Or an Ecto. Then think about all the people that were rich already and filled thier storage with these things only to wait till the price went up.

THANKS A.NET

I just bought a Superior Absorption, for 100K. Yes I am still pissed that it costed that much, but only because it was 20 times more costly than your average superior, 50 times more costly than a Major Absorption and a little less than twice the price of the most popular rune in the game Superior Vigor.

Now for spending over a million in gold on Ecto? No thanks. And my 150 plus runs to the UW have netted me 4 Ecto. If they un-nerffed the UW fine, but where is my payback for not getting anything down there?

All in all it is about the boredom.

You solo to try and get wealth or find a perfect drop. The irony is that you get rich pretty quick sor you get bored pretty quick. So once you reach you 1.4 mil in gold (with no PvP specific toon) then what? You either have to buy ectos, shards, jewels, or perfect weapons. But their values are not static so your "wealth" may take a hit. A vicious circle. When you have that much then what?

I have the gold, I have the ectos, the shards, the weapons, the armors, the gems, so now what?

Basically I have been chest farming, looking to see what I can get from them just to get a little excitement. Mostly it is a purple junker, but once in awhile you get something decent.

So when the boredom gets to you, you HAVE to do something different.

I even made a masmer to try pvPing. Since I figured with the shut downs they possess they would be popular. Not really. SO I now have thattoon taking up space more or less, but my girlfriend plays here so I keep her around.

Once you get everything you want,. and have as much money as you can hold,you have to CREATE your own excitement. Either by playing the game, helping people in early stages, or chest farming or boss hunting. If those things aren't exciting or don't do it for you, then you probably have to stop.

Being rich isn't that great, it is actually pretty boring.

Basically all I can donow is look for the new update to come out and hope that they have gem based (rubies/saphires) armors in it you can craft. Then if I like how they look I will get a set or two. If not I won't even be able to sell the ones I have hoarded because I can't hold anymore money.

So it is a wait and see and hope sort of thing.

phew.. so many large posts its all too much for me.

The only thing I would say is that Arenanet have taken on a HUGE responsability by making their game completly global and its good that they consider these possabilities even if they sound impossible.

Strange things happen in this world.. especially when money is concerned, they must gaurd themselves from any possability of such things happening, especially as the game expands more into the global community.

Remember they are implementing new languages at the moment.. most likley ready for launch in other countries.. so I guess they must consider every angle when planning its release.

One thing which did shock me was this...

"75% of all active accounts have fewer than 20 platinum pieces"

No wonder I cant sell anything!..everyone is skint! lol.

Hmm, time to drag this one up and kindle the fire.................

yup, all the warnings were given. slow down you farming or we will be doing something about it.

it was said perfectly clear in that message. they gave use info on what helps our econemy and what hurts. people just never listen and only think of themselves.

I don't know why everybody overlooked the following:

Question: what does the average player earn in gold? About 1k an hour, perhaps 1.5k doing missions and quests?

1 ecto an hour (at current prives) plus garbage, or a fast Griffin farming build easily makes (made) over 15k an hour.

So do we have a problem, do we need "to adjust the game to bring wealth distribution back into normal ranges", according to ANet??

In their own definition: yes.

That's a bit of a personal opinion.

When I was 12 I got plenty of homework, still do now. Get it almost every lesson.

In my mind you keep nerfing farming activites and specific areas, you push people to use ebay gold. You argue that farmers drive up prices, preventing common players from buying what they need, and so the nerf stick needs application. I would argue that the nerf stick is overly broad and catches the average joe THAT LIKES TO FARM, or someone that needed to get some quick cash SO THEY CAN GET BACK TO HAVING FUN, just as it catches the botters/slavers. The botters will just keep coming, buying new accounts when old ones are gone, and in the end what is the result?

Is the average player now suddenly able to buy things? well no.
Did the botters go away? well no.

All you did was slow down the rate of gold acquistion, which GREATLY impacts average players and only has marginal impact on the botters/slavers that just apply more people/bots to the problem.

I like to farm. I like to run missions. I like to pvp. I like not having to worry about gold. I don't have uber l33t high end items but I do have nice things. I don't see how I drive prices up since I don't activately buy/sell anything, instead giving away raw materials and decent stat items to friends.

My guildie friend put it best...
Anet stop nerfing areas/skills and add more content.

Thanks.

This is the problem as regards Anet. Or A problem anyway. They cant do what they state as their goal above. Its simply not possible. Not one MMORPG has managed the above. There's always going to be players trying to find a way to get ahead. There's always going to be players that play with more efficiency or have more time so that they do. There's also already players that have gone beyond that point.

In my opinion they are now making it much much harder for the players they were trying to help than it was before they released the patch aimed at helping. Remove (or try to) basic solo farming (ie not UW) and you remove the primary income source for the majority of players in the game. Prices dont drop and disparity increases.

I'm willing to bet as well that this is also the faming (again, not UW) that places that eBay gold use for their income. If they have all that time to farm 24/7, making farming harder or take longer doesnt cause them the least bit of trouble. They're the ones that can adapt to continue doing it. Casual players just get frustrated with it.

It isnt even about disparity anyway (or shouldnt be), since what then is the purpose of wealth or gold in a game? Players wish to earn it, save it, etc. The problem is more income generation. This is the reason farming happens. That and PvE-wise there is little else to do unless there is new content. There's less of a problem when things are expensive but a casual player can see a reasonable amount of play time and saving will acheive their goal. There's more of a problem when there's less of a means to do so.

Let's say they are succesful at what they are now trying to do. Let's say they remove all farming somehow, at least as we currently think of it, assuming they go even further than this current patch did. Let's set aside, for sake of argument, some sort of wealth estimation as it currently stands per player across the spectrum (theirs uses gold in storage as the key, but that is not indicitave of what you actually own, ie is pretty much meaningless). Let's say then that makes everyone now more or less equal (doesnt really - again due to items owned). Let's say that somehow brings the prices down (ok this is a big one - how Anet thinks that will happen is beyond me).

Is everything now good? No. Why? There's always going to be players who are casual players, players who are more than casual, players that read forums to get ideas, players that pretty much dont read anything at all, players that play 24/7, players that play when they feel like it, ad infintum.

That's my only point really. I'm not supporting or against farming per se. Its simply that they cannot and will not remove disparity and no matter how ideal a concept, I dont think they can tinker and discover the magic formula that creates economic equality when the very act of playing the game either different ways and/or different amounts of time encourages the opposite.

happily they will go further than they have and after this mess is straightened out it will be the tinyest ripple compared to the next one.

making the enemy move out of a firestorm is raising a howl?

WAIT UNTIL they have the (for example) 6 skeleton rangers follow you around a corner instead of stopping to shoot the wall you are behind

as for farming you are mistaken that they are trying to stop people from farming. they are only trying to stop the most botlike activity.

go solo into top area kill good loot dropping mob zone and repeat

I thought this was nerfed a long time ago.

The more you go into the same area, the less value of the drops.

Well, since farming is taking much longer now and less "pleasureable", I switched my focus to doing something a little different to break up the monotony. I actually decided to finish the game (I've had 3 characters with over 200 skill points at the Ring of FIre for months). So in this sense, perhaps the end will finally be near, and unless there is new content, I just might end up spending my time doing something else.

As a side note, though, w/o AoE nuking being effective, the skill level of players in PVE has to improve. Tanks don't work as tanks especially if they aren't smart and chase after the fleeing mobs after someone set up an AoE. The groups break up and if the soft targets don't react correctly, the party perishes. I was stuck doing Ring of Fire and Abbadon's Mouth each one for an entire night over the weekend. Forming a team is darn near impossible since there's hardly anyone there to begin with. And some how, there are still people showing up w/o infused armor and or really don't know what they are doing, even if they are level 20, and drop connection the moment they die (huh? I guess they don't understand that there's nothing humiliating about dying at this level, yet). I was eventually able to complete both missions after being finally lucky enough to be grouped with some really good people and had help from friends. I guess in this sense, Anet got a few more hours out of me. I would tend to agree with other posters that the new nerf made the game much harder for newcomers. Henchies don't work anymore. While I used to be able to fight and clear through the Lornar pass with pure henchies, I could not use them to complete the Ring of Fire now. Something always go wrong and the entire party die. I only tried it a couple of times and was able to capture my skill so I just gave up on that idea. Still, after I complete the game, w/o a reliable way of farming to get nice goodies, I cant imagine wanting to play much more. PvP is only a diversion, it rarely kept me interested for more than a hour or two. It's just too competitive and people seem to get mad too easily, and you don't get any goodies!

Lol. I'm not sure I would mind that so much, provided we can break aggro at a reasonable point. But anyway, I get your point and agree. We're probably seeing but the tip of the iceberg on AI "improvements".

Its nice to be mistaken once and a while. In this case I hope I am, though I am not really sure. If its bots they wish to stop, there are better ways. If its 24/7 farming by human players that have achieved Shangrila and have turned for all intents and purposes into bots, hmm, probably there are also better ways. They just need girlfriends lol.

Seriously though, in either case it still seems by both Anet's quote from 10/16 and Gaile's from a couple days ago that farming in general is indeed the target, solo farming in particular, bot or no, with economic equality as the goal. I wasnt meaning to ring a bell of doom. Simply reading those two quotes caused many comic/manga "?"s to float above my head until I posted an in effect "huh?". I'm an idealist, so sure, I see what they are saying, but I also dont see it working as desired in the context of this update. Income generation in the game is difficult for all but a fairly committed player and, given differing levels of commitment, the noted disparity arises, farming or no.

You know, I've got my Gf sitting beside me and was talking to her about this. This idea of redistribution of wealth or making it "fair" is a marxist ideology. It is strange that a game is somehow trying to incorporate this in. Considering that over 100 years of its existence the victory of Capitalism undeniable. Problem with Anet is, trying to create economic equality within a certain world where people operate they forget that it is still operated by humans. How can there be an economic equality if people sell off their stuff to other playerS? As long as people sell off gear and stuff for extreme amounts, there would not be econmic equality because one guy would become richer(in terms of plat) and the other poorer.

Moreover think of it this way. What makes the staff at Anet better than the board of economists sitting at a Government meeting planning policies and budgets? Even the communists countries themselves, are not economically "fair". There is no such thing as economic equality.

True, actually there has never been communism, it all wen tfrom anarchy to dictatorship, and anarchy adn communism will never work. the reason d2 lod is still running is because they med it so each type has powerful builds. the nor is to nerf each tactic that is stronger than another into oblivion, equalizing and re-equalizing, until the game is nerfed into oblivion. SW: Galaxies, EQ2, plenty of games have suffered it. if they made each type have a superpowerful strategy, the game would rock, but instead it is joining others in bland, nerfed, crapitude