Steampunkette

I realize that people farm.

For some it's just the thrill of taking on a large mob with AoEs, for others it's the joy of finding purples or rare recipes. And for others it's a tool to powerlevel teammates.

The only real issues -I- have with farming are the effect it has on the market through inflation and the annoying omnipresence of 'LFF! Level 50 (insert AT here) LFF!' And the wide variety of 'Farm Meh!' arcs in the Mission Architect.

So here's a solution to all three problems!

First issue. The Influence glutting the market. Let's make a 'Farming Mode' accessible through the options menu. Either there or by hitting up a trainer or something. Don't call it 'Farming Mode', of course! But that's what it really is.

In Farming Mode you gain 0influence from enemies defeated, but you still gain the influence from mission completes. In exchange you can set yourself to be a team. Forcing the missions to spawn as if you were on a team with up to 7 other people.

In exchange for your 0 influence gain you get an extra 10% chance of a drop from opponents. So now you're fighting more people AND getting more drops per farm. The Market isn't being glutted with more influence and the supply and demand rules can apply without farmers throwing the influence inflation further out of whack.

Now for the mission architect create several folder tabs with different designations.

Story Driven
Character Driven
Comedy
For Fun
Character Story
Canon

You could even add in some more!

Clones
Zombies
Time Travel
Mutants
Magic
Science
Tech
Natural

However many you want.

The point is you now have all the various arcs organized and separated into folders. For Fun could be the home of Farming Arcs. Doesn't get rid of them, but sure gets them out of sight (and mind) from players who don't want to see them or play them.

Now... We need to limit Farming Mode to keep people from hitting it, then stealthing a map, turning it off, and gaining full Influence/Infamy/Rewards. So let's DEFINITELY make it something you have to talk to a level trainer about, make it apply only to -your- missions, and have it auto-reset missions in progress. If someone is currently ON the mission they are immediately booted by the reset.

Seem Fair?
-Rachel-

Not to derail the thread... But A Point of Order?

My SR Scrapper can walk through multiple sets of caltrops without taking any damage when Elude is up. They are not auto-hit.

-Rachel-

I wouldn't mind account transfers if there weren't ANY hackers on the interwebs.

What happens if you get your account stolen and someone figures out your master password, then starts yoinking characters off your account because THEY don't have a level 50 blaster on Triumph?

-Rachel-

I still wanna see guys running around in 'Tights With Skin' options and a bulge-slider. =-P

-Rachel-

I'd actually be pretty okay with Costume Change tokens being sold for MERITs, but not influence.

Influence could be traded. So I (36 month vet) could make an alt, sell all her tokens for inf, and transfer it to another character. Lather rinse repeat.

Merits, however, cannot be traded. And so long as the merit trade-off is small (2-3 merits per token) you won't be able to get a Random reward roll based on costume-token merits alone.

-Rachel-

Keep the buildings.

And then add a terminal to the D! I wanna do cross-faction teaming at level one, darnit!

-Rachel-

The original idea for the Prestige Buy was an influence/infamy sink for supergroup members.

It failed, massively. The price just wasn't worth it at all.

The game needs more influence and infamy sinks, not Vanguard Merit sinks.

-Rachel-

This will be my last post in this thread.

Farming is exploiting the system.

When people farm they look for an enemy that is little threat to them with a high reward value.

An Example would be:
Fire tankers look for foes that are not highly fire resistant but deal damage they are resistant to.

They then look for these foes at level 50 and exploit the system by repeatedly 'almost' clearing the mission in the hopes of rare drops. Then they restart the mission, pad, and repeat.

High rewards, Low risk.

You can apply this to any Farming build. Find a foe who cannot resist your powers and is less of a threat to yourself than others: Defeat, reset, defeat rinse repeat.

This is an exploit. Hence why the developers put a maximum aggro cap (Warwolf dumpster diving, anyone?) and diminishing returns. The game provided no challenge yet the rewards were being delivered as if a high risk situation were put into play.

So I'll tell you what. I'll /sign on this idea.

Provided that the Devs have some way of determining what powersets a player has and scaling all rewards (drops, influence, XP) against their foes. So someone with High Energy Resistances who fights a (primarily) energy damage using foe will get less rewards based on the lowered risk he's under.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
Ultimately, farming being 'bad' or 'good' is relative. Its a perspective issue and everyone has their own.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the Developers have made motions to stop it, they're constantly pulling farming missions off the Architect. They've stopped the 'easy' enemies from being created.

So yes. It's a matter of Perspective. But the perspective that matters the most is the perspective of those who write the game. Change their perspective from Bad to Good and then we'll talk about it.

The OP listed 3 'Pros' and 0 'Cons' for his idea. This obviously shows that it was less than fully thought out.

Here are some Cons for you.

1. Economic crash. As the Influence/Infamy farms expand further by the ease of farming caused by this change far more influence and infamy will hit the market. Inflation will skyrocket.

2. Social interaction will drop off. At least with the current situation of 'forced teaming' the farmers have to invite people to the team. Which means at least NOMINAL interaction.

3. Purples and Rares will become more common. Not really a 'Con' to most farmers, but it's really bad for the game when you think about it. Without challenge what's the point? Ever beat a game solely on the basis of having cheat codes? Ever play it again for more than five minutes?

4. The Gulf of Haves and Have Nots becomes Larger. As it is some people will turn people down for teaming unless they have specific power choices or IO sets to boost their abilities. Expand that further by the perceived 'requirement' of farming for inf/IOs.

5. Boring. Farming is an incredibly boring CHORE to some people. Doing the same thing over and over for no reason is work, not play. It becomes stale and dull. This could (and likely would) lead to a drop-off in players once the economy gets to the point of farming being required to buy set pieces (Thanks, Inflation!)

So yeah. You're looking at an economic crash leading to the eventual death of the game through a logical process of perceived need through the implementation of your idea.

-Rachel-

Nowhere have I stated that the Developers have ever said 'Farming is bad, M'kay?'

I have pointed to the variety of anti-farming actions they've put into the game.

Want another one? Merits.

Sure, Merits are 'Farmable' But you can earn merits WITHOUT farming and get almost exactly what you want without flooding the market with millions of Influenece you acquired while farming for purples.

The Devs don't like it. The Devs have made an effort to get rid of it in many instances. The Devs will not, likely, make it super-easy o farm just to stop the spamming (which is already against the EULA)

-Rachel-

The problem with your point is that you're asking the Devs, who are AGAINST farming and low-risk/high-reward situations (as made evident by the decisions already noted) to make a move in favor of farming. To increase the farming. To make the farming easier. And your only consolation towards the downsides of this suggestion which goes against the Dev's model and intents is:

At least it'll be less annoying to others for me to farm.

It's not a good idea. It will not be a good idea. Argue 'til you're blue in the face (which, while typing, is incredibly hard to do!)

But until you manage to convince the Developers that Farming (Exploiting the Reward System they've put in place) is a good thing you're wasting your time and anoying the Forumites who realize that farming is a surefire way to ruin the economy (what there is of it) and half the reason that we have RMT spammers.

Players need influence and infamy to purchase in game enhancements and alter their costumes. By farming and increasing the supply of Influence/Infamy you're devaluing it massively. The less value individual points of inf have the more people will need to farm for their ability to buy things.

RMTers thrive in this environment BECAUSE they farm inf for sale.

By making Farms EASIER you increase the amount of product RMTers have. You increase the costs of all in game items sold on the market. Even though you're increasing the SUPPLY you're also creating MASSIVe amounts of inflation.

The gulf between the haves and have nots expands further and further.

Ultimately? The Devs are doing their best to squash Farming. But it requires datamining to do. Wouldn't shock me, terribly, if the ITF and Posi TF and others get massive overhauls which make them more difficult by splitting damage types, resistances, and so forth.

Ultimately: Farming is bad.
-Rachel-

Yay! *flings worms all over the place, then throws the Can before leaving, shaking her head*

-Rachel-

Getting new items WOULD be getting better! Except for the constant rise of inflation from Farmers making, literally, millions of in-game currency on a single run.

Printing more money so that you can afford higher priced items just makes the value of the money itself lessen. And that's what farmers are doing when they farm for hours on end, days on end, grabbing up purples and rares and millions of influence/infamy. They're printing more money into an already bloated economy that will, inevitably, fail. At some point you'll be required to farm for a week to buy the purple you want on the market.

Or you can turn to the merit system, which requires no farming, and purchase what you need as you level up.

Sure, you can't BUY Purples, but they're -meant- to be a rare commodity. Flooding the market with influence in order to put an extra 12 purple recipes on sale is not sound economic ideology.

Read This then think of the monetary scale entering the market compared to the amount of purples entering the market.

-Rachel-

The market does not get 'better' because of Farming. It gets new items, yes, but it also gets millions more influence and infamy, which cause further inflation even though the supply of the pieces in demand are higher.

-Rachel-

They've also made TFs once per day events. Can't get the same reward twice in a day.

They've also been asked in interviews how they'll stop exploiters (which is what farmers are) from gaining max reward at minimum risk.

You can no longer spawn snake eggs in MA arcs.

You can no longer spawn Vampyri Generators in MA Arcs.

You get no salvage or recipe drops from MA arcs.

All custom MA enemies must now have at least 1 attack based set.

All of these things were put in place to AVOID farming of 'easy' content with high rewards.

The Devs are against Farming.

The market does not get 'better' because of Farming. It gets new items, yes, but it also gets millions more influence and infamy, which cause further inflation even though the supply of the pieces in demand are higher.

This is still a bad idea.

-Rachel-

And perma 12s and 14s, and 1s if you like.

They've also made TFs once per day events. Can't get the same reward twice in a day.

They've also been asked in interviews how they'll stop exploiters (which is what farmers are) from gaining max reward at minimum risk.

You can no longer spawn snake eggs in MA arcs.

You can no longer spawn Vampyri Generators in MA Arcs.

You get no salvage or recipe drops from MA arcs.

All custom MA enemies must now have at least 1 attack based set.

All of these things were put in place to AVOID farming of 'easy' content with high rewards.

The Devs are against Farming.
-Rachel-

I'd love it if they somehow went backwards and made costume-change emotes for the Cyborg pack, as well!

-Rachel-

This was a bad idea the first time it was posted.

This was a bad idea the last time it was posted.

This is still a bad idea.

It will continue to be a bad idea.

Farming throws off the market. It exploits a very small amount of content with low risk/high reward ratio. It annoys people who don't farm or dislike the idea of it when they get tells asking to farm or pad or bridge.

Farming is not suggested by the Devs. Farming is not a well liked practice and, for that reason, the Devs have consistently altered the way things are handled to -avoid- farming.

Asking the Devs to put something in the game solely for the purpose of farming when they have time and again shown that they don't condone the act is a waste of time. I'll be bookmarking this response to copy-paste to all further farming threads.

-Rachel-

This was a bad idea the first time it was posted.

This was a bad idea the last time it was posted.

This is still a bad idea.

It will continue to be a bad idea.

Farming throws off the market. It exploits a very small amount of content with low risk/high reward ratio. It annoys people who don't farm or dislike the idea of it when they get tells asking to farm or pad or bridge.

Farming is not suggested by the Devs. Farming is not a well liked practice and, for that reason, the Devs have consistently altered the way things are handled to -avoid- farming.

Asking the Devs to put something in the game solely for the purpose of farming when they have time and again shown that they don't condone the act is a waste of time. I'll be bookmarking this response to copy-paste to all further farming threads.

-Rachel-

Wings aren't a physics object in the same vein as capes. The Bolero is like the Tuxedo Jacket or the Trenchcoat. You can wing it up.

-Rachel-

[ QUOTE ]
Farming is not prohibited in this game, and a normal game function, and you were just foolhardy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Farming is not prohibited, but neither is it encouraged or required. When the Mission Architect was being built there were several questions about exploitability.

Hence why all custom critters must have an attack power set. Hence why Snake Eggs and Vampyri Generators are currently unusable by the playerbase.

Asking the Devs to make farming EASIER when they're trying to remove exploitability is foolhardy.

Glad I moved primarily to Pinnacle, then. I HATE Getting random group invites and tells asking if I want to help someone abuse the system.

I've one-starred the thread. And now I'm leaving it.

-Rachel-

They made farming incredibly easy by adding in the architect... Except that you don't get randomized drops. Which means no Purple drops for level 50 farmers.

They made it 'easier' to farm for XP, I suppose. But without mission or arc complete XP it's actually a little slower... Though PLing a team of lowbies is probably easier if you'd a 50 doing a 45-50 arc and no longer need bridges.

But that's not the point.

The Devs didn't intend for the mission architect to be farmed. It was made so players could create missions for themselves and the community. Inferring upon their intent otherwise is foolhardy.

As for the power scales and datamining skew... I suppose you're 'right' in that you'll just flag yourself and all people with similar builds for instant nerfing when, solo, you wipe 8-man spawn maps consistently. But is that really something you -want- to be right about?

So yeah. Whatever. I still think this is a horrible idea. And what servers do you play on primarily? Gotta avoid them...

-Rachel-

Once you enter a Map all of the variables save spawn size are set.

Each map has a unique identifier with a specific number of possible spawn locations given it's size and structure.

The moment the map is set you could have the spawn percentages set. Defeat 85% of the spawns on a map with 100 maximum spawns, for example, would require you to take out every member of 85 different spawn groups. They wouldn't count the group until the last member of it was defeated.

Could work.
-Rachel-

Overall... This is a retarded idea.

Not meaning to flame you... but the Devs aren't trying to make Farming easier. It's not part of the numbers they use and it skews power scales and datamining. So asking them to let you set spawn sizes larger for farming purposes is a surefire way to get ignored by the Devs (and most of the more notable forum posters) completely.

-Rachel-

Alright... After twelve different Epic Archetype ideas for the Vigilante.... I'm gonna say 'No'.

I think the awesomeness of playing a Vigilante (as outlined herein) is good enough WITHOUT adding in another Epic Archetype.

If another Epic MUST be added to the game I'd prefer The Movement Master be given to ALL sides. Vigilantes, Heroes, and Villains.

-Rachel-