My Beef With Farming, In all games.

so I just be playing Elden ring, and as most noobs who never played a dark soul game, I got my ass kicked.
so yeah farming guides.

it degenerates the game to basically be a farmer, instead of a cool fighter who tries to survive and do whatever in this cool setting.

everything in the name of aquiring more power, even for the sake of ruining the whole point of the game!
did you know in some guides you don't even have to kill anything, you just drop from a stupid mountain glitch and

Bash like crazy for 20 min to get insane amounts of cash(which is what you need to level in that game).
thankfully, I'm not that stupid to even try it.

still in D2, we go by farming as a method of the chase for power. and we forget that the purpose is to enjoy the game-the gameplay. NOT the farming, that is a completely different experience, and cheesy one at that.

so yeah, I'm done with farming. I'm playing for fun, and yeah i might look into guides of easier mobs to get more cash/xp, but no straight ahead farming(in Elden ring).

I don't know how you guys do it. I mean when you have to get keys, you have no choice, or if you want to get that HR doing countess runs, yeah. or rune farming in general.

I mean even as i write it, it seems stupid. if you get the rune, you get it. if you don't- at keast you enjoyed the game. why put yourself in a cage arena with the same stuff and bore yourself to Death? what's the point really, besides the chase for power, and then the game is ruined, cause you finished it.


anyway, I don't expect everyone to get what I'm saying. it just bothers me, and I will not be part of it.

(i know, whatever man)

rikus wrote: 1 year ago

still in D2, we go by farming as a method of the chase for power. and we forget that the purpose is to enjoy the game-the gameplay. NOT the farming, that is a completely different experience, and cheesy one at that.

Careful with that "we".

There's plenty of people who play through D2 to clear, without specifically farming along the way.
Some are done after that. Others go after a self-picked endgame that has them wanting to optimize their characters.

The latter will need some way to get gear, naturally. And in any game ever invented (at least that I'm aware of), that way - whatever it may be - will ultimately be repetitive one way or another. That's a simple fact, brought about by content not being infinite.

That doesn't mean you have to bore yourself farming the same place over and over again though. Using D2R specifically as an example, sure, you can build an optimized farmer for one optimized farming route and bore yourself to Death (though some people even enjoy that). Or you can just play through on multiple characters. Or do a variety of zones on one or more characters. Either of those will also yield drops. It may take a bit longer, sure, but it is perfectly viable.
Or you can just use the couple of bits you found on your first play-through as a jumping off point to get into trading. Or you earn your way to Wealth via the plethora of streamer activities nowadays. Or you join some pvp tournaments for rewards. Or .... really, the options are quite varied even though at first glance it may not seem like it.

Take me as an example..I've gotten 1 of each to full top-end BiS plus one more per ladder season and have hosted giveaways that probably add up to another 4-5 comparable chars overall (quite probably more rly). And yet, I would say I barely actively farmed.
Sure, I run the occasional CS or cows or

Baal or keys or the like but that is nowhere near as much as "real farmers" nor is it ever something where I feel I have to, I just run what I feel like when I feel like it. I'm the kind of guy where when I read these "I did 5k trav runs and this is what I got" topics, I kinda just go "yeah...god no...never".
You have options.

The only exception for me personally is usually the first day or two of ladder because I just personally hate that "complete lack of gear" stage when playing anything other than a sorc. Sorc tends to be done enough to 'just play' by the time she gets through hell. Other chars do make me actively farm for at least a few hours to get them to a better starting point. But even that wouldn't strictly be necessary..that's just a me thing.
(Thankfully, that's already done with again for this season ^^)

There are definitely enough options now in D2R, unless you are experiencing a complete lack of mood. I am doing

Terror Zones with a friend, just for the fun.

I didn’t say there’s no other way to play but farm.
I said that kind of play style is abusive to me.
And I do runs usually with new chars or old chars.
Simple as that. Same with Elden. They designed these games to be challenging. If you skip that you miss the point.
Of course this is just my opinion. And some others as well

My beef is those who do nothing but farm and get a world-beating character in record time... only to complain that it was a boring, grindy game. Of course it is when it's played that way.

In D2R, as long as you are killing stuff, there's always a chance for something good to drop. With

Terror zones, you don't even have to rely on

Baal to get the best items.

So I do whatever the mood strikes me. Sometimes it's trying to shave a few seconds off my

Key farming route. Other times it's just mucking around in pub games and helping other players out.

And sometimes I play a meta game where I try to get good gear without playing D2R at all... by trading.

You have so many game genres to pick yet you come arguing how the most grindy genre requires grinding, seriously?

You don't have to grind in most platformers, maybe try this one? I don't play games I don't enjoy, and if I will be bored with Diablo I will just pick up another game.

The trick for myself is "magic find". Load up on that (600%+) and things become challenging to the point where I never feel like I'm farming.

If you really think about it d2r and d2 are just big experiments in crypto-currency and effects of addiction on the brain… I was thinking of making a whole topic on this… but you know

I think the best way to play D2R is... the one you like.

Slow play.
Rushing.
Trading.
Optimizing.
Homemade builds.
Farming.
...
And many others.

Pick the one you want when you want, as all are acceptable ones, as long as you enjoy that.

If you hate farming, don't do it. This game can be beaten all the way from level 1 @ Normal all the way through

Baal @ Hell in a couple of hours SSF, just look at the speedrun top lists. That's pure gameplay and using game mechanics to your advantage, it's about playing smart. You can play the same way without necessarily speedrunning it, and add additional rules too if you want. You're limiting yourself if you think you must farm in this game or that you must play a certain way - ignore what others do and just play the way you want to, the way you enjoy it. If others enjoy farming, for whatever reason, that shouldn't even matter - you can make your own experience. Same with Elden Ring - that game can be beaten without using any guides or without farming, so don't read them - it will just take much more practice as well as trial and error. Learn the game naturally by just playing it.

Totally agree with ShadowHeart. Also I think using guides is totally fine if that's what you really want, but it kinda seems to have become the default for many players, right?

The difficulty of Souls game is notorious because of the enjoyment of solving it yourself. You got your ass kicked, that's the first step on a long journey, that ends with you proudly thinking "it was not so hard after all, just had to learn the game".

Anyway, was there no "normal" guides for Elden Ring? A farming guide seems kinda extreme for a first playthrough.

The nice thing about an older game like this is that you can define your own endgoals because there weren't very strict guardrails put in place to confine you to a certain activity. However, that also means you have to find something you enjoy doing, and that's going to be different for everybody.

Let's be honest here, the main campaign of this game is not that difficult. Even in areas that are more challenging at a lower level, grinding levels and a little bit of forethought and creativity can get you through some of the more difficult challenges.

Beyond that, much of the game's content or means to an end are entirely optional. You don't even need to bother with Nightmare or Hell difficulty if you don't want to.

As far as the chase for more power, I did that through trading. It's the most efficient means of getting what you want, because you've got this pile of stuff and other people have their piles of stuff. I have what you want and you have what I want, so let's trade. I'm leveraging the farming power of the entire community because I don't consider getting everything I want on my own to be a realistic goal for myself. I have other things to do with my time outside of this game.

This is one of the reasons why D4 had zero appeal to me with its restricted trading, and why I quickly got fed up with D3 once they removed the auction houses (namely the gold one). I'm not wasting my time self-farming a legendary item that has a 90+% chance to still roll as a piece of shit because there are too many variable stats on the item, and in D3's case, might not even roll with the primary stat for my character class, therefore making it effectively useless.

That's the awesome thing about D2: you don't HAVE to farm. You can play the game the way YOU like. Other games like Path of Exile, you HAVE to farm because you can't handle endgame content solo, full stop. But D2? Even a funky variant build like an untwinked SSF spearazon can get to Hell

Baal eventually.

ShadowHeart wrote: 1 year ago

don't do it

as I said- I don't. unless it's fun. and I mostly didn't farm alot in the first place. i'm just dazzled how people can grind same place for hours, and be disappointed. as if it's not their choice.

Voltage wrote: 1 year ago

grindy genre requires grinding, seriously

because there IS a difference between grinding and farming.
hack hack hack slash boom crash, is fun. mindless killing and item finding. this I like. the fact of being caged in a certain area for hours to farm some computer RNG item..not my style.
I'm just amazed how people do that and actually have fun. I'm truly wondering how is that possible, and i doubt it is. I think they suffer in the hopes of getting it, much like las vegas luck machine coins..to me the point is to enjoy the game. if you can do it when you farm- great.
if not-then why do you even play. the point is to have fun at games.

rikus wrote: 1 year ago

as I said- I don't. unless it's fun. and I mostly didn't farm alot in the first place. i'm just dazzled how people can grind same place for hours, and be disappointed. as if it's not their choice.

Well said, there is a choice for sure.
I can't speak for others, and I certainly don't farm the same way as some do. As I said, everyone should find their own way to enjoy the game I never do only the single same area over and over, I rarely farm for more than an hour at a time, and I vary my routes a lot. I used to farm mostly to be able to find and/or trade for stuff that I could use to try new builds out on NL. I'm wealthy enough (not super rich though, there's a difference) on NL that I don't do that anymore though - nowadays I mostly play ladder because I've found that I like the idea of starting fresh and having to deck out your new characters from scratch. I also always get a dclone killer up ASAP on ladder so I can farm annis and also help other people out with that. Helping people is rewarding. But my ladder play usually dies off after 1-2 months of a ladder, cause I'm all decked out, and I'll play something else entirely until there's a new ladder.

For me, it's all about the mix. I really enjoy doing some dedicated runs (

Lower Kurast for example), but mostly it's for half an hour or so before it becomes boring, then I do something else. Either farming another area or playing with a new character or something like that. Doing the exact same thing over and over surely gets tedious over time. But it seems that some have a higher "frustration tolerance" than others. While I can farm for half an hour before I have enough of it, you have enough of it before you even started. It's fine

You struggle and die, die and struggle. And finally, a breakthrough. And your reward? An item that would have helped with the previous struggle, but is not a sufficient enough item that you will need to go forward. So you struggle and die, die and struggle.


That is pretty much all RPG games.

How about farming in this game?

The same as Diablo, just you don't hack & slay demons, but cabbages.

Snakecharmed wrote: 1 year ago

How about farming in this game?

Sirius Delta wrote: 1 year ago

The same as Diablo, just you don't hack & slay demons, but cabbages.

Or cattle... if you're farming beef!