Be Excellent To Each Other: A Farm Party Story

[HakuroDK]

Okay, this one is less for the devs/community team, more for the players within the community.

I was in a Ramuh EX pony farm yesterday. Got my pony on the second run, stuck around anyway. No one talked to each other. Everyone seemed way too focused on getting runs done as quickly as possible, and people joined and quit so often, it almost made my head spin. Eventually, the party disbanded. I was glad in a selfish way because I got my pony, but annoyed at the same time.


Then a few hours later, I was viewing party finder and I kept seeing other Pony Farms that said things like "First Come, First Serve, Lootmaster" with, like, five or six people in them. Not wanting to wait eight hours for my chance to lot on a pony, I started my own Garuda EX Pony Farm with "Greed Only" rules so everyone had a fair shot, regardless of when they entered the party.

Now, my personality when I'm farming is usually one of sincerity, politeness, and generally having a jovial attitude. The farm party didn't fill up terribly fast, but when it did, everyone was having a good time. People were talking, we congratulated people who got their ponies (I didn't even care so much that I rolled single digits on three pony drops, a 4, 1, and 9, in a row), everyone who got Xanthos stuck around (except one person who we all quickly forgot), and even a couple people who got both Xanthos AND Nightmare in the same party stuck around.

Long story short, the Ramuh EX Pony Farm was cold and impersonal. And it fell apart quickly. The Garuda EX Pony Farm was warm, inviting, and everyone stuck together and had fun.

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The moral of the story is this. Be friendly, be social, and your farm party will want to stick around.

Also, as a personal request from a current pony farmer, don't do any of that First Come, First Serve Lootmaster bullcrap. That's not fair. Normal/Greed Only is the best way to go.

[RiceisNice]

Okay, this one is less for the devs/community team, more for the players within the community.

Farm parties have always been a tricky thing to handle, at least for me and my server. It's from both a environmental thing and courtesy thing. When I did farm parties pre 3.0 (meaning it was always need/greed). I made sure that everyone was contributing to the relatively fast clears. I make it clear on my PF description that I expect everyone to know their job, not do less than darklight DPS and still get something out of the party (especially when they're in full ironworks). Sure they'll get angry at me, but these people are usually the ones that like to sneak into farm clears or expect to be able to do 3.0 EX primals/savage without knowing their job anyway... I'm not sure if its just my realm or it's an occurance on others, I get incredibly miffed by people who loot n scoop their ponies, especially if they are typically the ones that slack or die to the first mechanic. It's not to say need/greed is bad (i still think it's the better one between the two as far as random is concerned), but it's common courtesy to work for your cut rather than slack off, and often it's 1-way trip to my blacklist if you're gonna contest me in my own PF about it when it does happen.

The first-come thing only has merits if it's a small party of 4, or at least in a way that people can be held accountable (which is never, especially with the lack of regulations and player influence allowed).