Recently I saw a ss of someone with 20k Heartstoppers (HS) in stock. I thought about it for a bit and it seemed a bit absurd to me that afk farming stoppers are allowed in this server. Spoiler: My personal relation to this topic Personally I do not have a 4th job mage since I thought they were hella boring to start with. And after learning a few aspects about how the server economy works, I saw that I could make mesos in more efficient ways then leeching/farming. Having said that, I have never been able to earn more than the super hardcore farmers like that one player who farmed 5000 oa int 60%'s during the new source. While I'm confident I can make more money than anyone in an avg hour by merching/scrolling (at least when fm merchants worked ) my method could only be applied at max 3 hours per day. So I always thought it was fair that the ones willing to bear with the excruciating farming for many hours per day would be richer than me. Afk Hs farming on the other hand seems to me unfair to both the merchants who use their knowledge as well as the manual farmers. A player literally just needs to press 1 button once every 2mins and 40 secs and they can make something like 25m an hour. At least in my book, "playing" 1 second out of 2mins and 40 secs isn't considered playing. I just cant seem to justify that people can be working at their job, watching videos, doing homework, surfing the web, cooking, working out, basically anything, and as long as they have a computer near them they can be making 25m an hour without actually playing the game. 25m an hour is also just during normal seasons. During event's such as the anniversary event, afk Hs farming also yields a bunch of event items such as the maple leaves which can yield them twice as much money. Sure just about anyone can make 25-50m an hour, but the problem is that afk HS farmers can do it without actually playing the game. Kind of seems like a spit in the face to those who actively make mesos. Afk HS farming can also be done alongside playing by mutli-clienting. This yields an extra 25m+ per hour over anyone that doesnt do it. That's already a pretty insane advantage if you ask me. Maybe some of you might just tell me to go do it if I believe it's so incredibly advantageous, but thats not the point here. If having a 4th job mage makes the difference of having an extra 25m+ an hour either when im multiclienting or just doing something else irl, thats basically telling players to make a 4th job mage or don't bother trying to be competitive. I don't think it makes sense that I have to grind a class to 4th job that I may not be interested in and have to minimize my screen every 2 mins 40secs or lose out on an insane advantage. But I don't know, I guess if you believe that pressing a button once every 2 mins and 40secs is playing then I must sound crazy to you. What do you all think?
As someone who actively earn mesos (via leeching and farming), I do understand how unfair it is to be able to gain 25m an hour just by pressing one button every 2 minutes 40 secs. However, I don't think this should be disallowed. I personally tried farming heartstoppers once in old source, and I find it irritating when I have to (1) find an empty map, (2) someone steals map ownership simply by killing a monster, (3) having to respond to every person who asks if you're a.f.k. Perhaps I'm not a multi-task kind of guy, but I find it distracting to have to press the button while doing something else. Also, mages usually watch videos while they sell leech/farm, so in a way, this is similar. Also, with apq temporarily unavailable, heartstoppers have a high demand. Without these heartstopper farmers, there won't be enough supply. Note: I'm not a buyer/seller of heartstoppers so my above opinion is not affected by selfish intentions on the economy. I do, however, own a bishop.
I've done it, and I've chosen not to do it, several times. I 'afk farmed' while I was talking to friends on my NL. I tried to do it during krex (didnt work out so well because I get distracted too easily). I've tried to do it while doing other things. My end opinion? Who cares. Why does it matter so much that someone, who worked to get their character up to at least 12x or 13x - enough to have points in maxed summon - chooses to use that character for farming 25m/hour? They could, instead, level up that character a bit more and make 3 times as much by just leeching or grinding somewhere like ulu2. If you want to add selling leech, add another 50m to the ~50m/hour from NPC drops. Add in the possibility of a perfect craven - and then you see the gap drastically changes. I worked hard to get both a bishop and an arch mage leveled from 14x to 16x. Prior to new source, I could: Farm cravens at Ulu 2 Sell leech at petris Farm drops at Gobies Sell leech anywhere else like Skeles with bishop Stopper farm (which I never even sold, only used them all because NL life) Or on my NL I could: Zak and sell helms/books Zak and hope for Gene HT and sell drops BG and hope for gold emerald earring drops Anego with hopes of a godly YSS On any character I could APQ for money, too. Plenty of options, heartstopper farming is just one. Even in New source there's plenty of options to make money. Heartstopper farming is just one of those, and if you take away one after already taking away another (APQ being limited), then you're severely affecting attacker classes who use the heartstoppers. Voodoos weren't even a good training place anyway - high HP, high KB, they were only good for clerics since they could spam heal. I've said it several times: Stoppers are currently the main attack pot that any attack class will be using. (Mostly) No one is going to willingly use apples knowing that there's the chance to d/c. And when the d/c is fixed, people will be much more conservative about appling because they're already 20mil each. (Which btw, would equal to about 40 to 60mil per day assuming you got at least one apple every 4 hours at APQ- which, technically, is just slightly more work as stopper farming in the end. It's easy as hell.)
Good points. Imo I think the cons are quite small compared to the payout. As for watching movie while leeching, I find that's different since its way more than pressing a button once every 2mins 40 secs, a leecher still has to actively participate in the game constantly.
Your right that you can make way more money by leeching/ apq, but my point was that afk HS farming can be done alongside that. It's basically a +25m while doing anything and everything else in game. And hs farming can be done while your main focus is outside the game, while even leeching requires you to be mainly focused and actively engaging in the game. Your also right that stoppers are currently the main attack pot, but I'm more looking at the game in general rather than the current unstable situation
That's also assuming that the person has more than one mage/bishop. Which is then twice the amount of time to make those characters too. If I remember right, Ifrit 30 is only from GPQ - so it's hard to get. Elquines I believe is a petri drop, so that's easy - but on the trade off F/p mages have the worst 2nd job ever. Bishops have it easy but if they want to sell leech in the same places as mages, they require much more funding to 1 hit them whereas arch mages can 1 hit with blizz/meteor 30 much sooner. (with the same gear, my bishop can't 1 hit ulu 2 at lvl 168, whereas my ice lightning mage was able to 1 hit by like level 140). I feel like in the end, the amount of effort put into the 'afk farming' characters makes it just as equal as other ways. If you want to APQ more often, you make APQ characters. If you want to zak more often, you make another attacker. (Also bishops were OP at gobies in old source with SI. 80m/hour easily). People who want to farm stoppers more, make another mage/bishop/Bowmaster to do so. I dont know if I'm making sense, because I need sleep.
Your making sense no worries XD. In my perspective though, the effort required to make a 4th job mage doesn't seem very significant compared to the everlasting side payout, especially since mages are generaly by far the easiest to lvl. I think the problem for me with the other "equivalents" you mentioned is that those things require active play (apq, zaking) so they are different things imo in comparison to an afk HS farming character.
Yea, my point is just that while it isnt active participation while farming - it's still making use of the character you worked on to get to that point. My opinion is that if you make the character, you should have the right to do whatever you want with it, within the rules. Whether that's just for HS mule/door mule, stopper farm, APQ mule, leech only... etc. Stoppers are used frequently, especially now with apples being much harder to get. And anyone who's farmed thousands...I wish you good luck in selling them and actually making the profit you're thinking you will make lol. Just like no one will willingly trade MW20 for 4300 stoppers... It will take you much longer to sell that many stoppers, and in that time you could've made more money by leeching or doing something else.
I agree that people have the right to do whatever they want with the characters they made as long as its within the rules, but I actually never thought hs farming was against the rules. I just think it needs to be changed so its not so easy. Alot like how the fm button was removed so players could no longer have easy access to all their buff mules. It was never against the rules to do so, but the button was removed so players wouldn't have it so easy anymore. When things are back to normal where boss dcing, population rises, and fm merchants are back, stoppers will probably be much easier to sell than now. Plus even if they cant sell fast enough, hs farmers can also use them too which gives them a huge dmg advantage over your typical adventurer. I believe hs farmers using HS for a basically infinite 60 atk boost is just as big of a problem as them selling them for money.
You make "afk" farming sound like the easiest thing in the world, while to me atleast, it requires quite a bit of effort. Just having to time your summon and constantly move your character to the center of the map, aswell as (in old source) having to find and keep a map, makes stopperfarming actually require a decent amount of effort. Even more for every additional stopperfarmer one may choose to keep active. All that just for a 10m/char/hour boost (atleast what i get, i might just suck though) is only decent for the amount of extra effort it takes on top of doing anything else. You mentioned the game is telling players to make a mage or don't bother trying to be competetive, but thats really the case for most of the good strategys in this game. Having an se mule is just a click every 5 min for a huge damage boost, same for si mules for warriors and echo mules. A simple click can also give 50% more exp. Having a mage or archer does give an advantage, yes, but thats just one of the advantages those classes have over other classes.
Good point about the se/si mules, although imo using heartstoppers for an atk boost is much less restrictive than having to haul mules everywhere. Isn't 10m/hr on the extremely low end for most hs farmers though? especially considering that there are other things beside stoppers that can be gained.
Is stopperfarming really a problem though? It has existed since forever and plays a significant role in contributing to a stable supply of attack potions. If I'm not wrong, you are referring to @Muya 's stash of heartstoppers but I believe that he has been farming since near the start of new source so it's not like it's an overnight effort. As contributors above me have mentioned, summon farming is not as easy as it seems. I myself am well aware of the advantages of summon farming but rarely practice it simply because farming while you are doing other tasks can be distracting and annoying. Tldr: stopper farming does not really provide any unfair advantages andI don't see this issue to be a problem
I disagree. If you train there now with halfway-decent equips, using the heartstoppers that you get (I was never in a deficit), then it's perfectly viable starting around 45-50. As a matter of fact, it has been my best training spot since those levels, and, trust me, I have tried to get away from it. But if you're unwilling to buy heartstoppers (like I and many others are), then it is the best place to train because they drop them. Just my opinion. In regard to the original post, as someone who actively trains at Voodoos, the AFK farmers can be irritating, but I have yet to run into a situation where all channels were taken. If that were ever to be the case, I hope some measures would be taken to thwart it because it does impede lower level progress. You can't be thinking end-game, "I worked hard for this 1xx character" all the time. You have to be conscious of the little guy.
@Caedes That's fair, using the heartstoppers that drop I can definitely see it being viable. But if you intend to train there to sell them, it'd be harder I'd imagine, because of their higher HP. I remember trying to train there as a sin and I ended up moving elsewhere because I couldn't KB them that well. I think Truckers are better for grinding as well for best exp/hp ratio. But I've tried to help lower level guys that come in the map when I was farming, I either let them have the map or suggested a better place to train. Though I know that's not the case for everyone.
I don't understand. Why don't you just afk farm heart stoppers too since it's so OP and requires so little effort instead of complaining. lol
Summon farming can be tedious I understand that, but it's just a bit tedious at worst. I've trained there with my sin in the old source and never had any problems with all channels being taken and I've checked in the new source and finding a map isn't a problem at all. Tping to the middle of that map takes just an extra split second and its so easy that ppl seem to do this with multiple characters simultaneously. Especially for those who are used to doing it, its all a very simple process. Also I don't believe that just because something has been around for a long time that it can said that it is ok. Fm button, monsters dropping smega, gobies farming, are all examples of things that were around for a long time but had to be changed. as for the contributing attack potions aspect, apq was an attack potion contributor as well but ended up getting nerfed so i don't see why hs farming can't be nerfed for the same reasons
Ive already addressed that in the opening post, would appreciate it if you at least read through the first post if you intend to reply. To further elaborate, everybody doing "OP" things doesn't make it any less broken, and in the end is still a problem that needs to be fixed.
I would argue that it isn't OP at all, in any case. It's a much valued attack potion for people of all levels and nerfing it won't do anything but harm the economy and bossing players. APQ was only 'nerfed' because it was never meant to be unlimited. Smegas were removed from monsters because it was only in the beginning meant to allow players to socialize easier. Removing it became a meso sink. There's no benefit to anyone to nerf hearstoppers to the effect you're thinking of.
well the "OP" part was referring to him in general, I didn't mean to say hs farming is "OP" since thats still debatable. And your right there's no benefit to anyone by nerfing heartstoppers, but there was no benefit to anyone by removing the fm button either. Its not quite about the benefit to anyone from my perspective, but more about the balance of the game.
