FARMING - What's the big deal?!

[biostem]

I wonder how much of this is that many people who have stuck around, have basically gotten it "out of their system" to rush-rush-rush to 50, so don't really feel as big of a push to run or get on a farm...

[Frunobulax]

4 hours ago, biostem said:

I wonder how much of this is that many people who have stuck around, have basically gotten it "out of their system" to rush-rush-rush to 50, so don't really feel as big of a push to run or get on a farm...

There are lots of players like that. If you do KM's you'll probably meet quite a few people who are very obviously done needing or worrying about anything, and are a farm unto themselves wherever they go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ukase]

On 11/10/2024 at 8:20 PM, wmtyrance said:

But now asking to get on a farm to power level is like a crime or something. I

Understand that I'm only speaking for me. 
I have never bashed anyone in tells or over a channel that begging/asking to get on a farm was a no-no or a crime, or even something to be discouraged. (But I might have thought it!)

I've played this game so many different ways. 

I often "challenge" myself to make my characters independent. I recall clearly being on an ill/rad controller, just got out of the creator, spawned in Atlas. It was before Excelsior existed. 
Some guy was recruiting for a farm. I already had one 50, and this was a concept I'd done on retail, so I knew how to play it. And I knew how I'd slot it, too. 

So, I get in there, and get a nice bump to like level 23 or something. 
And...now I'm looking to slot...and I'm essentially broke. I know my alt has funds, but even then, it wasn't a huge stack. We were all just starting out.

And here's my point. A new player isn't going to know what to do at this point. Even a returning player is going to have a rough time because the game and the market has changed so much. This is why on my side of the keyboard, I'm screaming in my head, "No! Don't do it! Do DFB, do Posi 1!" 

At least with posi 1 & 2 you get reward merits and can do something with those reward merits. You get out of AE, and yeah, you might have 4M or so, but in your 20's that's not going to get you very far, even if you just use SOs. (I knew at least to craft those recipes I got, and convert them. But even the 25M I got wasn't enough to get the stuff I wanted for my controller. In fact, I ended up deleting it. I remade it later, on Excelsior. Shout out to @hazygreys who asked for the name from the controller I ended up deleting. Hope you're doing well. (knew him from retail, a sharp player.) 
 

Next thing you know, these players are 50, and they're just guessing what goes where in their builds. If they were lucky, they might be teamed with another sitter who has a better grasp of how things work and can give advice about various rules of 5, etc. 
But if they're not lucky, they're 50 and don't know much at all. 

Is this really how you want new players to experience this game? See, I want new players to suffer! Like I did, but not like this. 
I want them to try and tackle some Vahzilok and then suddenly the Abomination they just killed gets rez'd by the Reaper and then they get clobbered! I want them to learn target priorities. I want them to DFB so they can learn how to avoid that green stuff so they can know how to avoid other green stuff later. 

Now, if they want to just sit in a farm - I'm cool with that. But stay there. Don't leave. At least, not until you've solo'd content enough to learn at least some of the lessons we've all learned by leveling outside of a farm. 

If that makes me a jerk, than I'm a jerk. I'll own it and wear it with pride. 

[Octogoat]

I don't know if it's considered farming and in the grand scheme I really don't care but in the early mornings I set my difficulty on x8+2 and mow down radios on my mm. Different strokes for different folks and being as this is not live and if it's not disrupting anyone I think we can let most farming slide.

[Teklord]

53 minutes ago, Octogoat said:

I don't know if it's considered farming and in the grand scheme I really don't care but in the early mornings I set my difficulty on x8+2 and mow down radios on my mm. Different strokes for different folks and being as this is not live and if it's not disrupting anyone I think we can let most farming slide.

I believe what most people are calling farming is doing an AE fire farm with a character that can do it while AFK. They passively just kill the zone and check in occasionally to exit and restart missions.

[Neiska]

You do your thing, I’ll do mine. They aren’t the same? Who cares. Nothing says we have to play together or enjoy the same things.

 

Do support a boot timer though. I’ve returned to ae over the period of a few days and still see the same guy there firing off his auto power.

[Without_Pause]

In the day and age of people working from home, there is zero surprise with the movement towards AFK gaming. 

[Maelwys]

6 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

In the day and age of people working from home, there is zero surprise with the movement towards AFK gaming. 

 

To be fair, I've had a copy of Progress Quest running for longer than I've been playing CoH... 🤣

[srmalloy]

20 hours ago, biostem said:

I wonder how much of this is that many people who have stuck around, have basically gotten it "out of their system" to rush-rush-rush to 50, so don't really feel as big of a push to run or get on a farm...

There were and are a lot of MMOs where grinding to level cap was just that, the grind, and the game didn't "start" until you got to raiding, which was the primary focus for a majority of MMOs -- and when CoH got people coming from other MMOs, they had it fixated in their minds that everything before level cap was basically a waste of time, so diving into the AE building and not coming out before they're 50 was, from their point of view, the most effective way to play their character. Unfortunately, CoH had always been set up so that the vast majority of the story occurred while you were leveling, with a relative paucity of "end game content" as seen in other MMOs. But we're still going to get people who want to recreate another character they had on Live, and we'll continue to get people from other games that see the 1-50 period as something to be rushed past to get to the "good stuff" that doesn't really exist here... and then quit because "there's so little content".

[Octogoat]

16 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

There were and are a lot of MMOs where grinding to level cap was just that, the grind, and the game didn't "start" until you got to raiding, which was the primary focus for a majority of MMOs -- and when CoH got people coming from other MMOs, they had it fixated in their minds that everything before level cap was basically a waste of time, so diving into the AE building and not coming out before they're 50 was, from their point of view, the most effective way to play their character. Unfortunately, CoH had always been set up so that the vast majority of the story occurred while you were leveling, with a relative paucity of "end game content" as seen in other MMOs. But we're still going to get people who want to recreate another character they had on Live, and we'll continue to get people from other games that see the 1-50 period as something to be rushed past to get to the "good stuff" that doesn't really exist here... and then quit because "there's so little content".

 

And that's how we had fully enhanced level 50s asking how to get to kings row for rikti invasions.

[tidge]

I gave @Ukase post above a 'like', because that's pretty close to how I feel... I don't (internally) judge a player for wanting to farm, for any reason. I am especially appreciative of farmers who dump all the drops on the market, as that makes the game better for everyone. I definitely don't want to yuck in the yum of those who get personal satisfaction from playing a farm!

 

Those things being written: A new player, or a player new to the combo they have built (AT, Powers) probably is better served by playing content... solo or not, the levels 1-10 can go incredibly fast (even without XP boosts, or START goodies), and with the lowering of level gates for things like travel powers, T7-T9, Epic/Patrons I find that pretty much all my characters 'feel' like they are getting to where I want them to be by level 17... even without soft-capped defenses, nukes, flawless attack chains, etc.

 

There are game mechanics that I feel players won't pick up (and might not understand when they are explained to them) without actively playing different content (solo and teams). For example: Aggro management (despite 'fire farm builds') isn't something that can be appreciated without playing on a team, especially with allies that grab aggro. Sentinels really should have figured out to use Opportunity. Dominators kinda have to understand what Domination can do, and how to be ready for the times when it isn't active. Masterminds need to understand controls of the henchmen. etc. etc.

[Ukase]

A while back, this post asked the question about if it was okay to not play well. 
Opinions varied there, as we would expect. 

Is farming in some circumstances resulting in rude play? Perhaps. 

Or perhaps we're all being a little too self-absorbed. Or maybe it's just me. 

I do think that players who play well tend to discover who else plays well. And who doesn't. And they find themselves teaming to together more often than not. And not teaming with those they deem rude, and/or not playing that well. And the players that don't play well, they still find Snarky, right? 

So, ultimately, other than becoming famous in Snarky's wonderful posts, there really isn't a downside other than a lost Master's badge every now and then. 

[jprewitt73]

On 11/13/2024 at 1:26 PM, Maelwys said:

 

To be fair, I've had a copy of Progress Quest running for longer than I've been playing CoH... 🤣

I had never heard of this before, so I checked it out and now I have it running as well. 

 

[Troo]

On 11/4/2024 at 7:53 AM, Laucianna said:

Unless that multiboxer is affecting your experience I am not seeing an issue here?

 

On 11/3/2024 at 6:22 AM, Seed22 said:

What impacts farming is whatever the devs cook up as an excuse to take a whack at farming

 

On 11/2/2024 at 10:46 AM, Troo said:

If YOU like to farm, other farmers who abuse and exploit are actually the ones who impact your farming, not anyone complaining.

 

When changes come out that are designed to curb farming excesses perpetrated by a few and those changes affect others, that's what I dislike.

 

My point has always been farmers who abuse (excessive use) and/or exploit (use something for your own benefit) are actually the ones who impact the more casual farming done by those who do not abuse and/or exploit.

 

[High_Beam]

On 11/10/2024 at 9:20 PM, wmtyrance said:

But now asking to get on a farm to power level is like a crime or something.  I don't get why the community is turning this way. It's almost toxic how new players are treated now. Most people I knew who played this version have left with a bad taste of the sudden change in the community.

Farming and powerleveling is far more tolerated and accepted on Homecoming than it ever was on live.  There were going to be changes to AE that would have severely hindered the farmers.  I think you don't realize how good farmers have it on Homecoming.

 

As for powerleveling being a crime.  Well, The Babes of War, back on live on Freedom had three hard and fast rules.

 

1. Must play a female characters.

2. Don't be Creepy.

3. No Powerleveling.

 

We straight up kicked out members who we discovered doing it.  You may not like that idea, a lot didn't, and that it fine.  But that was our decision and it worked out pretty well for us.

 

What we didn't do was go around trying to push an anti-PL agenda nor did we engage in hyperbole using falsely applied words like toxic.

 

Player please.

[Ghost]

[Yomo Kimyata]

Farming and necromancy:  what's up with that?

 

 

[skoryy]

Farming and necrotheads?  What is the deal?

[Troo]

4 hours ago, High_Beam said:

Farming and powerleveling is far more tolerated and accepted on Homecoming than it ever was on live. 

 

I agree.

It is one of many ways to play.

[Troo]

57 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

John Ratzenberger says he travels around expounding the value of shop classes "we are running out of people who know how to use tools", if so, we might run out of farmers.

[arcane]

Did something happen to the farmers? 🫠

[Octogoat]

34 minutes ago, arcane said:

Did something happen to the farmers? 🫠

Bad harvest?

[Andreah]

On 6/9/2025 at 11:46 AM, Octogoat said:

Bad harvest?

Harvest of Shame and Tears

[Seed22]

On 6/9/2025 at 10:52 AM, Troo said:

 

I agree.

It is one of many ways to play.

If it were more tolerated this thread wouldnt exist

[Troo]

3 minutes ago, Seed22 said:

If it were more tolerated this thread wouldnt exist

 

Okay.