AFK Farming is terrible for all Servers.. Allowed or illigal?

General Discussion
81

AFK farmers are lazy, dishonest, disingenuous and entitled players with ZERO regard for legitimate players. Their argument about mechanics allowing this abhorrent behaviour is false justification for cheating.

My favorite spot to farm for Monstrous orbs has now been occupied continuously on a 24/7 basis forcing me to find other places where I have no where near the productivity and it thus penalizes me by taking far more of my time than it used to.

This is COSTING me time. Their actions that cost them no time whatsoever now impinge upon my time. I never okayed anyone to waste my time, let alone a bunch of cheats.

AND… now the paths leading to my spot are filled with teams farming so that even a circuit is becoming futile.

I am a PC gamer. I cannot AFK for more than 20 minutes before the game terminates me, so how is this fair to me? IT"S NOT FAIR WHATSOEVER!

Until the playing ground is levelled to allow me to do the same as AFK’ers, I will continue to protest this blatant violation of the terms as set out in the EULA. NetEase needs to recognize the disparities and smarten up. Blizzard needs to pass on these highly critical remarks and make the developers aware that a majority of players DO NOT support AFK farming.

Moderator, DO YOUR JOB and report this issue.

6 Likes
82

Just go to do Verge solo. You can easily get like 2 monstrous essences in every 3 minutes on average.

This is how i farmed my monstrous essences nowadays.

Running verge solo gives me BP points, runes, legendaries and monstrous essences. All in one content.

1 Like
83

What line of the EULA is broken by AFK farming, if you do it without macros or 3rd party software? My suggestion is join the farming. Do semi-AFK farming where you check in every 5-10 mins to pick up loot and monstrous essence. It’s far more lucrative than doing all night farming.

84

Back in Post 33 of the thread, there’s literally a screenshot of the relevant EULA section…

No, thanks. I want cheats to be banned, not to join forces with them and become one.

4 Likes
85

The image you shared referred to software, hardware, or bots not authorized by Blizzard. I am not using any of those things nor is anyone else I know. Perhaps you think that what people are doing is “exploiting bugs,” meaning that you are making the judgement that the skills, set items, familiars, and gems people are using to AFK farm are somehow “bugs.”

But contrary to this view, those skills and items are working as intended. The golem lasts until destroyed as intended, the skeletons summon themselves as intended, the mage summons itself when the character enters combat as intended, the shield refreshes itself when mobs are killed as intended, health is restored when the shield is refreshed as intended, and the Duskprowler shields the character when entering combat as intended.

For non-necros, familiars can be set to be aggressive and attack mobs as intended, Void Spark, Starfire Shard, Stormvault, and Maw of the Deep can be triggered by an attack by the familiar as intended. 6-piece Vithus helps heal the character as intended. Helpful class skills like Undying Rage are behaving as intended. Runes that provide extra healing and shields are working as intended.

There is no unauthorized software or hardware being used, and there are no bugs being exploited. Therefore, the section of the EULA pictured is not relevant.

Now, you may come back to argue that while there is no specific bug being exploited, the entire concept of AFK farming as a whole is an unintended consequence worthy of being called a “bug” that people are exploiting.

But is this really true? People have been at least semi-AFK farming for more than a year. Blizzard had an effective means of stopping pure AFK farming by causing a poison to appear at players’ feet if they stood still too long in an unsafe area. But the developers made the decision to remove that poison mechanism from the game. They also made the decision to add runes that provide health regen and automatically trigger shields. They added permanent golems, self summoning mages, and self-refreshing shields. They made legendary gems that can trigger without human input. They have also greatly expanded the number of locations in the game that can be used to AFK farm effectively. Heck, World Crown and Sharval Wilds seem to be zones specifically designed with AFK farming in mind.

But it’s not cheating, so join us. Or don’t. That’s your choice. Just understand that it is a choice you’re making. One can also choose not to run trifts, because one might not think they’re fun or rewarding.

86

I had a lot of conversations with Meteorblade in early March in this thread. You can see it if you scroll up. I said something similar to what you said.
Your discussion will be probably a parallel line that is not narrowing down.

87

There’s still the issue that PC players can NOT do this. Because of the AFK auto-kick. So, no matter if it’s breaking the EULA or not, it’s still an unfair advantage. And as such, it shouldn’t be allowed, IMO. Not everyone have phones capable of running this game.

88

That’s not an opinion I share on this, so you do you and I’ll do me.

89

Yes, I appreciate your suggestion. But what’s still missing is:

  • Frequent loot and material drops from blue, yellow, purple and orange elites.
  • There are no mining nodes.
  • There are no goblins.
  • There are no spontaneous quests to kill 6 spawned mobs.
  • There are no power ups or shrines to increase my speed, provide protection, electrocute mobs or recharge my ultimate.
  • There are no treasure chests ot similar items on the ground that provide a bit of loot.
  • There are no nearby Hidden Lairs

While I was doing the Stormwind keep run, I had all of these frequently in addition to my orbs. I could also count on kill streaks of 1000 each before my pet had to salvage or I’d have to port to town to cash in my Monstrous orbs. I get none of those with Verge. And I certainly don’t need to worry about a killer fog rolling in and killing me every 3 minutes.

AFK farming has robbed me of a lot of enjoyment in the game and Verge isn’t a suitable replacement.

2 Likes
90

Maybe I’m wrong, but the perma-banned risk if you “created primary attack auto-click with two finger click” doesn’t exist any more? …
cfr Shouldn't these afk autoclicker characters get banned out of the game?

91

You never play Verge?

There are plenty of Blue, Yellow and Orange Elites in Verge and they drop loot.

I mined all nodes on Monday and the rest of days on Verge Farming.

Why do you need those?

Verge drops weekly gems too and it shared with Hidden Lairs. Unlike Hidden Lair, Verge is accessible any day any time.

Let’s not pretend that those will drop any significant. Plus, it was a random spawn while you are guaranteed additional loot when your score reaches 1k, 1.5k and 2k.

Verge is always accessible and no player will interrupted your farming. While you are looking for spot farming, I probably have clear like 3 or 4 Verge runs by the time you found the free spot farming, and that assuming no people come and share the spot with you on that time frame.

Verge gives fast monstrous essences, 10+ Battle Points for your weekly BP, guaranteed runes every 5 or 10 runs, consistent crafting mats and legendaries, and weekly gems under 3 minutes on average.

But if you want to do overworld farming, it is your choice then, but just don’t complain or rant that you had to SHARED with others because it won’t make your problem go away.

2 Likes
92

I would also add a bit about mining, you get iron, silver and occasional Rhodolite from Terror Rifts too and you have to do TRs for the Terror Essence. So hunting for mining nodes isn’t necessary to max out your weekly caps.

Thus not getting those from Verge isn’t a meaningful loss.

2 Likes
93

But he’s not sharing the farming spots with other players. He’s having to contend with good farming spots being occupied 24/7 by heroes that are very specifically not being controlled by players, i.e. AFK farmers.

94

While I agree that AFK farming is a genuine issue which should be dealt with, Kilometer is still correct that there is a valid option where no other player can interfere with your farming and that is the Verge.

For me AFK farmers are an annoyance basically only when I’m doing bounties and they are located at the same spot as where the AFK farming happens. That can stretch the bounty completion time but it’s tolerable.

1 Like
95

I grind out play almost every day. So, when I can’t collect bounties or sometimes can’t even function properly because of latency at the server, on account of AFK’s farming, I get upset. Knowing I’ve spent literally $$Thousands$$ of dollars on my players and can’t play because of players who are occupying space while they’re sleeping or working… I get a little upset. And because the software is designed and functions as created automatically, doesn’t mean it’s ok to leave a player unattended. It is Robotic in nature and puts other players at a disadvantage who are actually paying for services and putting in the work. Just because something is allowed or legal doesn’t make it right.

96

Question for the Community Manager…

If a hero is killing monsters overnight to earn loot / gold / materials / XP whilst the account owner is fast asleep in bed does that count as the account owner playing or not?

1 Like
97

It’s definitely not the account owner, they’re asleep. Their account is playing, then it becomes the Pilot. Not allowed.

98

And isn’t this exactly what this thread is all about? You said it yourself. Why should I be forced to do Verge because others cheat?

1 Like
99

I’ll say the same to you that I said to Kilometer. Why am I forced into a single place just to acquiesce to cheaters? No amount of cajoling will convince me to accept a downgrade in my playing enjoyment.

Alternatives exist but they shouldn’t be forced upon us.

1 Like
100

I’ll say something.
I understand you guys to some extent, but what is the damage that is so great that you should complain so much?
Did they steal your money? Did they direct-damage your character?
For reference, I’m not an AFK farmer. I hate standing in one place and farming for a long time.
I’ve never felt disadvantaged or uncomfortable in a game because of AFK farmers.
Whether they’re AFK farmers or awake farmers, if they take a spot in the open world, the people who come thereafter usually go to another spot. Awake farmers who farm in one place for a long time also occupies a part of the open world just like AFK farmers.
The map is large and there are many monsters. If someone occupies that spot first, go somewhere else. Could I tell you some good spots?
For bounties, mix in with them and kill monsters. The number of monster kills is shared. The game is old, but don’t you know? Also, if an elite monster appears, you can ususally run to it right away to take it first. AFK farmers are slow to react.

Be understanding, give in to each other, and have a broad mind.
And don’t be obsessed with small gains and losses, and play roughly.
Playing too roughly is also bad, but we can tell people who are too sensitive and detailed to ‘play roughly’.
If you think it together with life or the real world, AFK farmers are people who play inefficiently for small gains in the game.