DEBATE: Solo-Farming

As everyone else here, I am FOR solo farming.

What I really like about RPG's is that there's ALOT of stuff to get and that's what keeps a game going for me. The hunt for items is great for me. I've completed the game and I don't feel like doing anymore missions and PvP isn't really me (atleast not now) so I hunt for items to make my character cooler to look at. I already have gear that can take down most enemies, so power isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for items and gold to BUY items that make me look cool. That's why I like solo farming. It's time consuming and keeps me going for a long time.

I understand that the 11/10 patch was an A.I increase but I'd rather have it as it was. Now I can't solo farm as well as I could before. Of course there're different places, but that's not the point. The point is that Anet wants to fix the economy; that's a very nice idea. Do that. However, I feel this update ruined the economy completely. Why? I'll tell you. Before the update, Fissure armor was hard to get, yes, but possible. Now, casual players like myself have absolutely no hope of ever getting that much money now that farming has been ruined. The prices of ecto's are sky-high and everything is going berserk. I'm in a sorta newbie-ish guild, they're nice, but not very experienced. They used to look in awe at my 15k armor and asked me how I got that much money. "Farming", I told them. Now, fast-paced farming is gone and we only have slow farming. It works, but it's very time consuming and many people don't have time for that.

Instead of fixing the economy by removing the money-vulture bots ability to get tons of cash, they made it virtually impossible for casual players to get anything close to 100k, unless they spend most of their time farming the new places.

I just think they made people go to the last resort; buying money online. That's even worse.

I am for solo farming.

1. People should be able to play the game they way they feel like it. Nobody needs to farm in this game, so leave the people alone who still WANT to do it. Gold and items don't make you superior in any way in GW.

2. Solo farming is a welcome change, especially when no guild mates are there.

3. It's the only way to ever get Fissure Armor or even 15k sets. Yes, you still don't NEED those, but some people want them.

4. It's the only way to get nice weapon mods (which you of course don't really need) when you don't want to pay a trader.

5. It's fun. Yes, you might hate it, but I don't.

6. It doesn't hurt anyone. No other players, not Anet, not the economy. Why should it be forbidden, only because there are some people who can't understand why GW should cater for other playstyles than their own?

At the same time I am also for measures directed against bots and ebayers as they are hurting the game while solo farmers are not. Some measures by Anet directed against the bot farmers weren't exactly helpful, particulary the constant nerfing of drop rates in certain areas. It hurt group and honest farmers a lot more then bots. I wish and hope that they are more careful with these things in the future. Kill botting, not farming!

I am for solo farming.

I like finding an item - blue purple or gold and iding it and checking if its "perfect". I solo farm because the chances for me to get this is higher.

The thing is, if Anet wanted to nerf solo farming, the simplest way would be to make it such that more items drop when you are in a bigger group than opposed to a solo. Or at least, even the odds a bit. Like if there were 8 players in a group, 8 items drop from a mob, instead of just one. That way, if a person solos, he only gets 1 item instead of 8.

Method to stop botters and proffessional farmers? Make an incentive for the regular players to report these guys. If say a player is compensated for taking the effort to actually report these botters/farmers, then perhaps these farmers would be eliminated easily. Is it ripe for abuse? yes it is. But that's where Anet needs to investigate this claims and check the accounts and the statistics with them. I.e. Is there large frequent currency movements to random accounts for no apparent reason?

i am for solo farming up to a reasonable level.

solo the highest most difficult areas planned for a group of 8 players or a group of 5-6 very good players not just no but ...............double no

For solo farming, with caveats...

For areas like UW and FoW, no, solo farming shouldn't be possible. Anything else is fair game, IMO.

My biggest complaint is that if you play in a normal 6-8 person party, chances of you getting a gold drop is poor during a high level run. For 4 months, I played PVE almost exclusively, running different characters though the game. Before the 105/55 monk became widespread, I had only seen a superior vigor drop ONCE, and it wasn't for me. Same with the Superior Absorption. Those two runes were almost impossible to get, and reflected in the insane amounts of gold the trader wants for them - and even then, it's not unlocked for PVP players.

Once I started farming, I started to unlock runes much faster - not just the vigor's, but other superior runes as well. I wasn't so much into the money aspect, I was more concerned with being able to apply the better runes in both PVE and PVP. Solo farming allowed me to do that quicker.

PVP players can unlock a sup vigor within an hour of tombs play. PVE players in a 8 player group may NEVER unlock one. Want to make that perfect sword for PVP? Takes only an hour or two of faction "farming" to unlock the mods you want. Want that perfect weapon for PVE? EBay, buying in game for insane prices, or spending all your time in groups farming - and you'll still never find it unless you're extremely lucky.

Even bosses drop crap. Bosses should be the end all be all cool item drop in the game. Some might argue that elite skills are the "drop" - but after you've run the same mission or farmed the same area once, and capped the skill, the area is worthless for a party.

For example, I was partying in the frozen forest, in a skill capping group. In the hour or so we were wandering around, I saw two gold drops. One was a major rune of beast mastery, the other a gold raven staff requiring 9 curses with 10% fast cast for earth magic.

As I said, in normal PVE (non farming) I've seen one superior vigor drop. Solo farming allows players to unlock runes faster, but it's still a crap shoot what you get. You might need a superior domination rune, and get nothing but an earth magic rune. PVP players can unlock the exact rune or mod they want within the same amount of time a group does a mission in PVE. It's not really "fair" and nerfing solo monks just makes it worse.

I am for solo farming.

Not that I can myself... I've never bothered to come up with the build to do it. But I can't really think of any reasons why it is a bad thing. Plus, it's nice to be able to afford things.

Solo farming isn't a problem. The problem is the army of people using the "1337 'sploitz" found on the net. Sure, if you found something ingenious, you deserve all the spoils you get. But does every single person who finds the build on the net deserve the rewards?

I'm having hard time finding Gaile's post in Nov 10/11 patch but she mentioned about hardest levels of the game are not meant to be be soloed.

Also from head developer interview they have nothing against farming, it becomes an issue when someone able to farm more then anyone else.

Talks in length about farming here: http://www.guildwars.com/community/f...-friday61.html

Mike O'Brien, head of the Design Team
I wanted to point out what Anet's current state of mind is on this topic.

That being said, over farminhg doesn't affect me for the most part. The reason is I have no problem with the collector items, and and can get drarknor's armor with money earned in game just fine. The high prices deter me away from some runes (depends on profession), and Fow is not even a goal for me anymore.

Again I wanted to point out what Anet official feels.

For farming ...as I said.

I think alot of people confuse farming with somehow exploiting the game. Of course if people figure out ways to exploit the game mechanics in a way that is unfair it should be changed. But the irony is that there is exploiting (or what I would consider exploiting) that is deemed 'ok' by anet so the line is blurred.

I think the fact you can have special farm build for the character just adds another dimension to the game. If someone wants to just be a solo farmer that's almost like a character class. Seems to me the debate should not be about solo farming but what they farm and why the need for people to hoarde gold.

Farming, from my experience, is done in most MMOs mostly for crafting components. But since there is not really any crafting and people can equip anything, the high level farmers can take advantage of not as high level players (and charge whatever they want).... that is the problem IMO

I am for farming since after you beat the game you have nothing else to do if you dont like pvping constantly.....also how do they expect us to buy 15k or fissure armor or get that max weapon everyone always wants.....or to buy those skills that now cost 1 plat each?

For the most of it I'm for it

UW farming doesn't really do anything to the economy - the drops are just spread between 1 person rather than 8, that said.... I don't think Underworld should be soloable, the fact it is is bad design on their behalf.... making things whack for more damage just cries out for skills like protective spirit.

I farm myself - but if they make griffin farming harder, or even not possible to do I wouldnt really oppose it, I'm not going to deny that it's pretty much exploiting a dumb AI - changing it so you can't seems sort of reasonable to me, though I think it's also reasonable to take advantage of while it is... dumb - the fact that there are bots in augery which are scripted to farm griffs shows how silly it is (I oppose augery international districts)

As I prevoisly stated I am for Solo-Farming.

I would like to point out that the reason that bots can Solo-Farm so well is because Monester Postions are so predictable. If Anet Could change this so monester could be in different spots so a Human Farmer could just look to where the griffons are but a Bot would just go to the same area but relilize there is no griffons and just stand there then Bot Farmers would die.

Woot I'm on the High Council

<scratches head>
Not much of a debate here, is it?

I grew up on rpgs like FF series, Suikoden, and many others where all the characters can level up to 60-99 if you grinded at certain monster spots for hours. These grindy rpgs are what I've gotten used to, so naturally I would turn to farming as a duck to water. But eventually I learned to like the PvP aspect as well, thanks to that no-good Diablo 2 game that got me hooked on it.

hehe...not really.

before i explain completely i think i would like to give some of my background in this game. i have played since release and beta of june 04. beta and release were totally different of course.

first day in the game i created my own guild and grabbed my brother, freind, and random people we met in game. about 2 weeks into the game one of our members had beaten the game and started farming. i decided to make some kind of build that would be able to farm with him. my first character was a monk so i decided to go with that class. the monk provided me with the best chance of survival with less party members. i discoveredpro spirit and its implications for myself and thought of ways of how i could use it. my pro spirit was finished with in a week. i loved the build b/c it was a challenge and was not always full proof. in june i joined this forum and found the "less is more" post. it was using the same method as me except with pro bond. after i got pro bond and started soloing everywhere including UW and FOW (yes it can be done and still can be). i got so bored out of my mind b/c it was no longer any challenge.

i accumilated so much gold during those first few months of GW that i had nothing to do with it. my guild mates and i even had races to 1 million gold. i thought to myself that i guess gold really isn't that important as seeing how its so easy to get. then BOOM pro bond was nefed. i fell back to my pro spirit build and kept farming as usual. nothing changed just not 100% like pro bond was.

after seeing the mo/w in riverside and elona out number every other class in the town, in every dist, i felt something was deffently wrong. i did not like the pro bond nerf at first. i had the same reaction as everyone else when a nerf happens. i hated it that they killed my build just b/c i got alot of gold. i may not have liked it but i knew deep down it had to happen for longevity of the game.

the devs never planned for soloing. it was not suppose to be apart of this game. the game was suppose to be about teamwork. instead everyone went to soloing and barely played with other players. the orginal econemy was not built for soloing and eventually crashed twice. soloing cause inflation to accelorate so fast that they devs now have to tweak prices at merchants so it doesn't get out of hand. the econemy was suppose to be completely player controlled but now the devs to have to step in every now and then.

we have seen skill nerfs, price inflation, skill price increase, and econemy crashes caused by soloing in some way, shape, or form. many gold sinks have been put into the game to suck up some of the gold players have from soloing. for these reasons i no longer solo. my monk is only used for helping guildies through missions.

i have since taken all the money i had and reinvested it in players. i helped some new guilds i've met get their sigils for hall. gave most of my gold to new players just starting out for their armor (recommend collectors for weapons still). i could't do anything with it so why not help other's

my stance on solo farming is i'm against it. it hurt this game in many ways and warped the original vision the devs had for the game. it went from team game to a single player game. i do not condem group farming. that's how the econemy was designed for in the first place. i think this should be improved to encourage people to party instead of soloing. adjusting drops for the number of people in the party would help to improve team play. more people in party more drops (henches would not count for this). less people less drops. this would keep the current low drops we have now enforced on solo farming while giving some benifit to being in a party.

While it's reasonable to nerf solo-farming "exploits" (though the very definition of "exploit" is debatable) - it's not worth the time or effort to discourage it altogether. No matter what you do there will always be people who will spend a ton of time researching into builds that will allow them to solo-farm some area of the game - if just for the bragging rights and the ability to post their achievement for others to comment in awe. Isn't that part of the enjoyment of the game?
Some people can boast about winning a collection of celestial sigils because they've spent their time refining builds and strategies for winning HoH. I, for one, can't - but I can solo farm and that's not much different. I wouldn't complain that the champions of HoH unbalance the game by having all the sigils and best drops.

If I couldn't farm effectively I would never have been able to afford a guild hall. I had to pay over 80k to buy one at a time when HoH winners were hoarding sigils.

Then by that token they should get rid of henchmen as well.

I am confused about one thing, is it really solo farming that is bad, or what people getting in the drops? Seems to me adjusting the drops will only make solo farmers need to farm more to get what they want. Some people don't wanna hastle with going to get a party everytime they want to farm. Also what if a player just wants to farm some char hides, do they really need a party?

I just feel discouraging a solo player is just one more thing to take away rather than allowing people to be more creative in the game.... which is usually sorta part of the rp experience. I'm sure Anet wants to attract players. Yes they need to get rid of botting, but that's thier problem.

I agree with him

lol your right all we're getting is.
For,For,For,For, For,For,For,For,For,Against,For, For,For,For,For,For

I don't mind it. But I do think it's stupid that supposedly hard places, such as Grenths, Sorrows, UW and FoW are solo-able. These are supposed to be tough, level 20 challenging areas. If you can solo that, its not tough. Considering this is supposed to be a 'team' game then there is clearly something wrong with the difficulty.

Methinks they need to make it so *most* areas are soloable. But that in a team of 1, only 1 item drops from a monster. In a team of 4, 3 items drop and in a team of 8, 5 items drop from each monster. Even if thats just 5 lots of gold. So the bigger your team, the faster you kill AND the more items you get. And if, as a team, you suck, you get nothing But if you don't want to team, you can still go out and hunt for items (but not in the 'tough' places)