Wesband, MP dungeon-crawler (now for Wesnoth 1.9.14+ !)

[Brian_A]

Farming style gives a lot more profit than fast killing. Thats why it should be adjusted.
There is two way of farming xp in Wesband:
1) Keeping enemy alive.
Ways of adjustment:

• You can set levels of all units to 0 (it's not good solution, but it is easy to implement.)
  You can force player to spend xp:
  • xp-draining attacks of enemy (or even of player)
    using xp as energy to cast spell
  You can reduce amount of healing done to units. (remove regeneration from game or alter it)

2) levelling enemy and killing him.
This case of farming sometimes very challenging. Some enemies too weak to survive levelling, some too hard to kill while levelled.

After all you can force player to deal as much damage as possible. Use "spawn-points" instead of placing enemies. When player comes enough close to it, spawn point will start to produce enemies until player dies, or spawn point get destroyed. But this will produce enormous amount of loot. You can remove loot from spawns (and give it to spawn-point), make it cheap to sold or reduce droprate. But it's another topic to talk.

Just because you can get more XP with one method doesn't mean that "it should be adjusted". Just as (in)validly I could claim that because it takes more real-world time to farm XP than to fast-kill to get it... then fast-killing should be made slower.

Each style of playing has it's good and bad points - you can't make blanket statements without ignoring that.

[Xudo]

Just because you can get more XP with one method doesn't mean that "it should be adjusted". Just as (in)validly I could claim that because it takes more real-world time to farm XP than to fast-kill to get it... then fast-killing should be made slower.

If you play farming, your character becomes overpowered against all NPC's on this and 5+ dungeon levels further. This is why it should be adjusted.

[zaimoni]

Farming is a symptom. The most glaring imbalances for a hotseat game (four Dwarven soldiers and four white mages) are:
* 100%+ blade and pierce resistance for heavy-armor fighters. It doesn't matter how large the attack is, it's still only 1 hp per hit afterwards.
** above can be done with just iron plate and iron greaves.
** cap resistance at 70% to 85%?
* Berserk, while it may have role-playing flavor, is not a clear upgrade over Rage.
* Starting about DL 12, we have instant-death monsters like the level 6 Devling Stapler.

[Xudo]

Add to this list:
*lack of blow resistance. Try to kill 2 Giantstool's at once by melee-specialized character.

[Brian_A]

Add to this list:
*lack of blow resistance. Try to kill 2 Giantstool's at once by melee-specialized character.

Sounds like there are people who disagree about the balance not only of individual elements within the game, but of the game itself.

I prefer a game that doesn't make it so that your character can die at any moment because the NPCs are always just as powerful as your team. After all, there may be a weaker team, and there may be a stronger team - each with their own strategy.

Presuming that a team should look a particular way... would ruin the game for most players who like to play via several different styles.


And removing any boundary conditions that a player could use to farm... would require making the game a lot less enjoyable to everyone - except for those who play only the style that you've decided is the style of play.

[zaimoni]

Add to this list:
*lack of blow resistance. Try to kill 2 Giantstool's at once by melee-specialized character.

This isn't a problem by itself (as opposed to having a pack of this type spawn in range of the up staircase on DL 13). They move slowly, so usually they can be spotted by proper scouting movement.

[Xudo]

And removing any boundary conditions that a player could use to farm... would require making the game a lot less enjoyable to everyone - except for those who play only the style that you've decided is the style of play.

Farming is not "style of play", it is exploit.

[Brian_A]

And removing any boundary conditions that a player could use to farm... would require making the game a lot less enjoyable to everyone - except for those who play only the style that you've decided is the style of play.

Farming is not "style of play", it is exploit.

Troll acknowledged.

[Shinobody]

Firstly, xudojnik (and not only him) has pointed out several issues with balance when someone farms. None of these were countered otherwise than calling farming "gameplay style".
Secondly, show me ONE multiplayer-based rpg where any kind of farming is called "legitimate strategy" rather than exploit and bannable offense.

[Gambit]

Troll acknowledged.

Ad hominem is bad, mmkay?

It looks like both sides have presented plenty of conjecture. All you can really do is wait for the current maintainer of the add-on to respond. Breaking down into an insult-fest isn't going to do anything. Except perhaps draw the Wrathful Eye Of The Powers That Be™ towards you.

[Brian_A]

Troll acknowledged.

Ad hominem is bad, mmkay?

It looks like both sides have presented plenty of conjecture. All you can really do is wait for the current maintainer of the add-on to respond. Breaking down into an insult-fest isn't going to do anything. Except perhaps draw the Wrathful Eye Of The Powers That Be™ towards you.

I wasn't attacking the man - I was pointing out that co-opting the idea of a "computer security exploit" - which is where the link led to - to label "farming" as "bad" was identical in form to an intentional troll.

Granted, it wasn't an obviously intentional one, but given the apparent desire to force everyone to play "fast kill" style - without any due discourse of the "run away if you're faster and keep them running while you heal, letting them heal as well" style [which can also be labeled 'farming' with the same validity].... without any other discourse, and it looked exactly like trolling from the 80's, 90's, or last decade.

An ornithologist can call something a bird, I can note that it looks like a troll.

[Shinobody]

Still no response at the fact that no multplayer RPG likes farming.
It is valid for single player based games, since it allows you to adjust difficulty according to your likes.
But in MP it forces everyone to farm or they'll be undepowered compared to you.
Actually it is glitch-exploit, not a feature - it is side effect of Wesnoth behaving different than roguelikes it is based on. While there were roguelikes where you get some kind of experience from fighting, they also made fight more dangerous and made sure reward for killing outweighed the benefit from exp-farming.
IDEA: Maybe just double kill-XP using WML, and double all XP-related values at the same time? This would make farming effectively 2 times slower.

@Brian_A

As for "ornithologist": I thought you couldn't.

[zaimoni]

Still no response at the fact that no multplayer RPG likes farming.
It is valid for single player based games, since it allows you to adjust difficulty according to your likes.
But in MP it forces everyone to farm or they'll be undepowered compared to you.

In MP they must cooperate to let you farm XP at all. So farming is really only a single-player balance question.

Also, there are enough large-damage impact and arcane monsters at depth (DL 9 and lower) that the "underpowered" argument is nearly meaningless.

Actually it is glitch-exploit, not a feature - it is side effect of Wesnoth behaving different than roguelikes it is based on. While there were roguelikes where you get some kind of experience from fighting, they also made fight more dangerous and made sure reward for killing outweighed the benefit from exp-farming.

Actually, XP-farming in Angband and variants requires breeders; there is no experience for merely wounding a monster.

IDEA: Maybe just double kill-XP using WML, and double all XP-related values at the same time? This would make farming effectively 2 times slower.

Edit:As farming is a micro-optimization enabled for monsters with inappropriate weapons, I do not expect making it slower to discourage it.

[Sapient]

Actually, XP-farming in Angband and variants requires breeders; there is no experience for merely wounding a monster.

Sounds like you found a possible solution right there. Take away attack XP and give only kill XP.

However, if you look at the popularity of the Survival Extreme games on the server, where units acquire ridiculously inflated stats that render them nigh invincible, I think you will find that this is a popular play style for some people. Is that an example of farming XP? Close enough.

[Brian_A]

Still no response at the fact that no multplayer RPG likes farming.
It is valid for single player based games, since it allows you to adjust difficulty according to your likes.
But in MP it forces everyone to farm or they'll be undepowered compared to you.

This is the first time the distinction was made between solo games and MP games. The prior discussion and claims prior were overly broad statements. If anyone had said "in MP games this style is bad", then I'd have not even responded.

But since you seemed to be asking me to respond to the claim that 'no MP RPG likes farming'

* We're only talking about Wesband - per the title of the post - and if I were on a team where only one person wanted to farm, then that's a team-attitude issue, and not necessarily a game balance issue. The solution there is to explore the dungeon, and if you find a person farming... steal their kill. If they've cornered the last monster of a level, and no one else can get to it... well it does take your cooperation, since it's a turn-based game. If I were in that situation I'd just quit the game after a single turn of farming - if I hated it so much. But then, there are active groups of games that use it.
* While in any other MMORPG "farming" is Bad... Wesband is not an MMORPG - so I'm unconvinced that any style of play is damaging in Wesband just because it's bad in MMORPGS.

More importantly, in order to respond to the claims against "farming", then I'd have to see a good definition for when something was farming.

I can easily agree that the following is farming:

* surround an NPC that heals itself N each turn and do less than N damage each turn.
** variation: pick an NPC that doesn't level past 2 - which I don't agree to be a "glitch", but would call a design imbalance. A glitch might be if you surrounded her against a wall, and each turn everyone was fully healed and there was no attacking... the PCs got experience as if you killed her. I'd use 'glitch' to describe a programmatic bug - not a potential game imbalance. Likewise I'd call an "exploit" the intentional use of a glitch in such a way that no one could tell you had used it after the fact.

But I wouldn't agree that the following is farming:

* equip the weapon to do minimum damage, and run away between each attack to have time to heal if the PC is too damaged.
** variation: pick a self-healing NPC.
If it's the last NPC, and I'm faster than they are - with a healer, then the outcome is the same. But I would disagree that it was a Bad Thing.

@Brian_A

As for "ornithologist": I thought you couldn't.

I sit corrected -thanks for the reminder.

Finally, to quote the game creator of Wesband When some others were complaining about an issue they perceived as a game balance issue (note #2):

IPS: This is not how you propose a change to the balance of mainline factions.

#1. This belongs in the multiplayer forum.
#2. Stating X units have problems versus Y units isn't any kind of proof. It's not something the developers should take seriously. Even providing replays of yourself having trouble isn't good proof. You need to post replays of yourself defeating others by using this exploit (if it really is one) when it's clear that both of you have about the same skill level.

And that, according to The Powers That Be, would prove it an exploit and would get it taken seriously.

I'm gonna go have some fun now. Have a good weekend.