What ever happend to camping for xp?

Arazale · March 2015

Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by Arazale
Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by Arazale

Uhhh yes the fuck it does.

I think it's important note that those people who do "mob grind" carefully plan out, within the games that support it, each area, what mobs they need to kill for how long.

It's not really "the norm". You get someone in game and tell them to mob grind you will see it doesn't work.

I was doing this in Aion and for the heck of it did a quest and it was faster to kill the 10 mobs and get the quest experience for the amount of xp I got for the quest.

Same in Lord of the Rings Online.

I know that someone has figured out a way to do it in ESO without questing but you need to know this exists and you need to follow it.

It's possible such a thing exists in Aion and LOTRO but I've never heard of it. His question was legitimate.

Your response was a bit overkill no?

Except you're wrong. You don't need to plan anything out. It's as simple as always fight mobs at least x levels above your level. That's it.

Sure, it helps if you know ahead of time where "caster mobs" are in the level range you want ahead of time, but its not like its some EVE Online level planning that takes more than a moments thought which you can easily think while you're grinding away at w/e current mobs you're fighting.

I don't believe I'm wrong at all. since my first instinct is to grind mobs my experience with the games that I play is that questing is a lot faster.

So there's got to be more to it than that. The only recent exception, at lower levels, is final fantasy 14 which I noted had a decent progression.

As a point of note, I tried it in wow at lower levels and questing was faster. Upper levels? Can't say I don't have experience with that but that would just point to it being for specific and special cases.

The only time questing > grinding mobs in WoW lower levels is back years ago like before MoP or maybe before Cata even. But by far and large, dungeon running is superior to anything else 1-80(so long as your group didn't suck). Even more so with heirlooms. Trust me, i've leveled a new alt during MoP doing quests for loremaster and it was soooooo slow compared to grinding mobs 4 levels higher than me while waiting for dungeon queue, sometime i'd gain 3 levels in like 15 mins of killing waiting for queue, then get another 2.5 levels in dungeon then go back to grinding mobs.

krabboss · March 2015

Camping mob spawns exists in FFXIV. It's not for job experience though, it's for grinding materia. It's not fun. It's repetitive and it's not like anybody is socialising in the farming party while it is happening. People socialise in their guilds or whatever group of friends they have pulled together in a private chat. If you feel lonely in an MMO, play one that 1) isn't dead and 2) find yourself a guild with people you can tolerate.

WW4BW · March 2015

Originally posted by Flyte27
Originally posted by Uproar
And now for my add to the conversation....

A couple of you touched on it just above, but I'd like to highlight the point, that is, that ever since items become bound (typically as a factor of level); camping and slow game play died.

The hunt in the past was not about leveling (at least not for the given character to be enjoyed). Leveling was about proceeding to greater content; this allowed you both to explore new areas, traverse old areas with less risk, and most important of all hunt for powerful items.

Today's games share that in part, but the spirit has shifted. The items that are useful only at high levels mean you end up running out of items for your character -- up until the cash shop or next paid release hits. It's an endless wait on devs and money.

Old games differed in that you sought out powerful items for your main, but also for your alts, your friends, your lower leveled guildies, your pride, etc.

Items mattered well beyond your own character's acquiring of them.

High level characters could even simply buff and help out lower level characters; keep trash mobs cleared etc.

The old scheme of unbound items enabled all of the fun we seek now and do not find.

Why does it not exist?

Idiots complained at first. But then I suspect the devs released that removing these from the game made us much more dependent on them (course they neglect the boredom factor). We must keep buying all the new crap to keep happy or we starve to death.

That's a new insight for me -- connection between bound items and the shift away from cooperative gameplay.

I believe the reason they started binding items was because there were so many of the same item in the game at some point.

It's a bit ironic because now everyone gets the same loot through quests. I prefer the old system, but it's hard to make it work without having some kind of item decay that eventually destroys the item and creates the need for replacing it. It is especially important if crafting is a big part of the game.

People used to randomly give me items in EQ in vanilla before the bind on equip happened. In truth the equipment didn't help all that much due to it having such minor improvements. Often it would be something like 2 AC more, 2 damage more, or a few points of delay faster. Considering how hard the mobs hit it wasn't a whole lot of help in most cases.

Also with item binding, everyone was forced to play the same way to get the same items.

Everyone is now forced to go to the same places, do the same quests, and kill the same mobs. Instead of people playing the way they did best or preferred.

Maybe you prefer soloing or you just hate fighting underwater. Or maybe you just want to focus on PvP and not bother with running dungeons.

Only problem is when drops are camped by one group of people 24/7 and they wont ever let those, that want to, do the encounter for themselves..

If there is no community etiquette or ways to either train/grief/pvp, so people can dispute camps, then the game is made smaller for everyone.

If you can book a camp or you can contest it ingame though... then we get a much more dynamic game that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Axehilt · March 2015

Originally posted by Flyte27
I understand what you are saying and you might have a point if there were no GPS and tutorials in games. Once the GPS is added that variety just turns into following a linear pathway from the start of the game to the end of the game. You barely get to enjoy a zone before you are done with it and moving on to the next. It doesn't really matter if the quests contain variation of minor differences if they are almost exactly the same and all be completed just by following the GPS around and doing what exactly what they are told to do.

No, it is variety. You're doing different things. There's no "might", and there's no "if". A GPS does not magically cause a kill quest to be a crop-planting quest. You're still doing different things.

If anything, you might dislike variety. You literally just criticized moving between zones too frequently, and that's variety. (The lesser "what you see" kind, not the "what you do" kind", but it's still variety.)

So you need to piece together what you actually dislike and stick to that. Because the variety of what you see and do is clearly much greater in a quest-based game, so you're obviously not after variety.

iixviiiix · March 2015

Originally posted by WW4BW
Originally posted by Flyte27
Originally posted by Uproar

Also with item binding, everyone was forced to play the same way to get the same items.

Everyone is now forced to go to the same places, do the same quests, and kill the same mobs. Instead of people playing the way they did best or preferred.

Maybe you prefer soloing or you just hate fighting underwater. Or maybe you just want to focus on PvP and not bother with running dungeons.

Only problem is when drops are camped by one group of people 24/7 and they wont ever let those, that want to, do the encounter for themselves..

If there is no community etiquette or ways to either train/grief/pvp, so people can dispute camps, then the game is made smaller for everyone.

If you can book a camp or you can contest it ingame though... then we get a much more dynamic game that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Hey , i ready don't like item binding. It kind of forced when all of item from low to high level get bind .

And about the camped 24/7 for drop , some old game have system that spawn random mob in all map so there are always change for everyone.

The boss also random spawn , it take a lot of time to find boss for quests .

In those kind of game , there are some place called hell spawn that spawn large number of monster at same time and with very fast rate . More monster spawn mean more change to get monster with item you want but you can easily get wipe out by waves of monsters.

Zontas_Hierospirit · March 2015

Camping for monster xp was not just no longer forced, it was purposely gotten rid of by modern devs. This is evident in the other choices the devs made. The group was also made smaller, and by doing it there is an actual penalty as not all monsters drop *good* magical loot, only certain ones like bosses, but bosses also drop the same as the regulars, and if any epics, the drop rate for it would be almost none. Next to that, gear has been made very plentiful, so there is almost no reason to group at all now.

In the days of Dark Age of Camelot, you were lucky to have even one magical item. The rest were grey or white items from your shopkeeper, who players no longer visit anymore except to hit the sell junk button, and you also had very little to no money. It was fun, but it was also not a generous system. But it was also not a forced system.

Rift's system was excellent. I had a blast playing with other people in that. But Rift was also like WoW in that almost no thought or planning was needed in grouping. Aggro used to be tricky to do correctly. People just simply wanted their time and their lifes back, but people also want the game to still be in their lives. You kinda can't have it both ways with these kinds of games.

boxsnd · March 2015

I loved camping for mobs in DAoC. I made so many friends and had so many great discussions with people. By far the best part of MMOs for me. Sadly it was killed by WoW and antisocial players. It is the main reason why communities are terrible in modern MMOs.

Rydeson · March 2015

Different stokes for different folks.

Linear Quest XP = You go from hub to hub, taking "task orders" in order 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5, so on and so on.. Sure this is great for the person that just wants a solo console type experience.. I personally don't like it in a MMO, because more often then not, the man on quest 14 is not going to group with someone on quest 6.. Quest lines IMO actually are anti social and keep people from grouping up (generally speaking)..

Camping XP = You go to a location and camp/farm that area for XP and maybe loot.. What I like about this type of XP is that it's social.. It doesn't matter if you are new to the zone or on your way out.. People in general have no quest line restrictions to keep people saying, "no thanks, already did that quest".. etc etc.. Plus.. Do people really like running back and forth to talk to a NPC just to get "new" orders, often taking you back to the same location.. I sure as hell don't..

Instance XP = This grind is either doing dungeons, which I find anti social and pain in the ass at times, especially in OFF hours in a low population server.. .. One could do PvP grind, which is ok if that is what you are looking for.. but don't expect PvE minds to accept that and like it.. I don't like dungeon grinds because the group normally stops if there are any downtimes like bathroom breaks or phone calls or whatever.. dungeon mobs don't respawn, and you always have to move from one location to the next in dungeons.. (normally)..

I personally like camping.. I like the idea of doing multiple things in the same area without a lot of running around.. Example would be camping the "crocks" in upper Guk.. I would kill the 3 crocks hoping and waiting for the ancient one to spawn so I have a chance of looting the leggings.. But while I waited for the respawns, I would practice my swimming skill and fishing as well.. LOVED it.. I can't do that if I'm doing the quest or instance XP grind..

Gravarg · March 2015

I miss FFXI sometimes for this. It was so fun going to an spot for hours and chillin with friends while killing stuff

nennafir · March 2015

Camping mobs is the single most sign that an MMO is a time waster. If you miss it, then you have too much time in your life (poor you!) and miss being able to waste it...

Octagon7711 · March 2015

I just did some xp camping. ESO starter dungeon. I circled the area til I was level 5 with a full inventory and nearly every weapon you could think of as well as a full outfit. Those who just quickly went through were level two or three. Grew up doing it so now it's natural to me.

Flyte27 · March 2015

Originally posted by Axehilt
Originally posted by Flyte27
I understand what you are saying and you might have a point if there were no GPS and tutorials in games. Once the GPS is added that variety just turns into following a linear pathway from the start of the game to the end of the game. You barely get to enjoy a zone before you are done with it and moving on to the next. It doesn't really matter if the quests contain variation of minor differences if they are almost exactly the same and all be completed just by following the GPS around and doing what exactly what they are told to do.

No, it is variety. You're doing different things. There's no "might", and there's no "if". A GPS does not magically cause a kill quest to be a crop-planting quest. You're still doing different things.

If anything, you might dislike variety. You literally just criticized moving between zones too frequently, and that's variety. (The lesser "what you see" kind, not the "what you do" kind", but it's still variety.)

So you need to piece together what you actually dislike and stick to that. Because the variety of what you see and do is clearly much greater in a quest-based game, so you're obviously not after variety.

It's really not all that different in the end since the task will just require a few clicks at x point where you are told exactly what to do at y. There is little difference between clicks to do a trivial task and clicks to kill a mob. They are all fairly mindless tasks that string you along from the beginning of the game until the end of the game. There isn't any choice you have to follow whatever the developers set before you. Choice means you are dropped in the game and you go and do whatever you want to do.

Robsolf · March 2015

I dunno if Fistorm is serious. Either way, it's funny that people agree with him.

But seriously, love of camping for XP for the sake of social interaction is like praising the DMV "for its ability to bring a community together".

Zontas_Hierospirit · March 2015

Originally posted by nennafir
Camping mobs is the single most sign that an MMO is a time waster. If you miss it, then you have too much time in your life (poor you!) and miss being able to waste it...

What would the world do if we were not all like Tom Sawyer who wasted his life fishing on a raft down the river instead of finishing painting the eternal fence so that when we die that fence will still be there? We need all those chores finished, right? Instead of teaching people how to be at peace. How else are we gonna get any wars fought? What ever shall we do. You're right, we all are guilty of laziness, and I just plead the blood of Jesus Christ. I say, may grace superabound, because there are people who have spent far worse amounts of time in these games.

You have a good eye though. It's not about camping making the mmorpg more social. That's just an extra benefit of the design. The intent is that we are designed by God to be free, so when mmorpgs start to take stuff away because the players wouldn't be forced to behave, you end up with players moving on with their lives. Any other way to put it without invoking God as the sole reason is meaningless to me, but you can go ahead and try. Reasons like that we want to be social will just end up with people saying too much social we want less social now. The genre should be treated like it is alive, and if not, then like anything else, it might just die, so I thank God it hasn't yet.

cmorris975 · March 2015

Originally posted by Flyte27
Originally posted by Axehilt
Originally posted by Flyte27
I understand what you are saying and you might have a point if there were no GPS and tutorials in games. Once the GPS is added that variety just turns into following a linear pathway from the start of the game to the end of the game. You barely get to enjoy a zone before you are done with it and moving on to the next. It doesn't really matter if the quests contain variation of minor differences if they are almost exactly the same and all be completed just by following the GPS around and doing what exactly what they are told to do.

No, it is variety. You're doing different things. There's no "might", and there's no "if". A GPS does not magically cause a kill quest to be a crop-planting quest. You're still doing different things.

If anything, you might dislike variety. You literally just criticized moving between zones too frequently, and that's variety. (The lesser "what you see" kind, not the "what you do" kind", but it's still variety.)

So you need to piece together what you actually dislike and stick to that. Because the variety of what you see and do is clearly much greater in a quest-based game, so you're obviously not after variety.

It's really not all that different in the end since the task will just require a few clicks at x point where you are told exactly what to do at y. There is little difference between clicks to do a trivial task and clicks to kill a mob. They are all fairly mindless tasks that string you along from the beginning of the game until the end of the game. There isn't any choice you have to follow whatever the developers set before you. Choice means you are dropped in the game and you go and do whatever you want to do.

Yeah, that is my experience with questing as well. Just mind-numbing kill and/or fetch quests one after another. I guess there might be variety in the art between different locations, but even that is meaningless because you can just warp around the map at will. It all feels so flat and pointless. Chasing markers and filling kill quotas at the most efficient possible speed. And so easy. I only did a little of it while trying to like WoW and its clones but never again.

Give me a group where we crawl into a dangerous dungeon, camping spots here and there, with real risk (like XP loss and corpse runs) any day of the week. Maybe some chance PvP if we really want to up the ante. And for God's sake, give us a little downtime! Not much, but enough so we can socialize, plan strategies, catch our breath for ten to thirty seconds. If it gets slow, then move spots or push in further. That's how we did it back in the day and it was a blast. The rewards had a rare chance of being good and the risk was real with XP loss and corpse runs.

Camping a mob for ten hours, yeah some did that. The rare times I did it it was in a very dangerous spot with the anticipation of getting a very powerful and rare item. Big risk of losing a lot of XP and potentially all your gear made it intense. And I enjoyed the hell out of it, but for obvious reasons this was the exception and not the rule. More often then not, we camped spots for a half hour or hour and then decided what we wanted to do next. NPCs weren't telling us what to do except on the grandest of quests for the best items in game.

simsalabim77 · March 2015

Go "camp" asteroid belts in EVE Online with friends. It's basically the exact same thing. Difference being, that the "mobs" (gankers), will blow you up and take your stuff, so it's slightly less boring. Let me know if you want help picking a good belt.

Magiknight · March 2015

Originally posted by fistorm
What I miss the most in mmorpg's is the ability to sit for hours with three other people and camp xp mobs. Where is the new games with this in it?

Is this a thing of the past and never to be found again?

It's gone from MMOs. I gave up.

Arazale · March 2015

To the people who keep trying to advocate that you can't camp for exp anymore efficiently. I hereby offer you a challenge. Since you keep trying to claim that its a "rare occurence" when camping for exp is better than questing, then i challenge you to a level race so to speak. In any of the following games:

WoW

Tera

Rift

LOTRO

(I'd say FFXIV ARR but you're forced to follow the main storyline to unlock many things like chocobo/airships/class/job skills)

Aura Kingdom

Eden Eternal

ArcheAge

I think this list is sufficient enough to prove my point that it isn't "rare". We can either play only as the other plays, or just go at our own pace and compare our /played at max level or something like that.

So who's willing to actually put their word to the test. I for one am sick of seeing threads like this pop up when the people who write them are downright blind. Very few things about the old times are truly missing. The only things that are missing are more forced grouping(which was NOT a good thing no matter what you say), public dungeons(which again was NOT a good thing because you're only focusing on the fun you had and not the annoyances), and truly epic quests since there were so few compared to todays number.

You still have the option to camp for xp. It's still the best in many many games, most games even. You have the choice to socialize with whatever group you're in. Most of the options were put into the players hands, and the players act like they just completely evaporated when if they were to just look down the bridge of their nose they'd see it right in their palms.

loulaki · March 2015

Originally posted by fistorm
What I miss the most in mmorpg's is the ability to sit for hours with three other people and camp xp mobs. Where is the new games with this in it?

Is this a thing of the past and never to be found again?

well those who were able to do it, grew up make children and got responsibilities ...

Rydeson · March 2015

Originally posted by Arazale

You still have the option to camp for xp. It's still the best in many many games, most games even. You have the choice to socialize with whatever group you're in. Most of the options were put into the players hands, and the players act like they just completely evaporated when if they were to just look down the bridge of their nose they'd see it right in their palms.

Yeah, if you like to hamstring yourself and become annoyed.. There are multiple reasons why your post is flawed. When you made your post did you take into consideration that mobs are on a leash and you're unable to pull mobs in WoW to a camping location.. Generally speaking, in games like WoW you only have a handful of mobs to really sit on, and the respawn time on those isn't fast enough to warrant viable XP/hour.. Then did you take into consideration the loss of gear/reward when you refuse to do quest? Giving up the gear, coin, and XP reward on quest does have a deep impact to ones character over the course of time.. Denying that would be silly..

So in conclusion, the XP reward gain between the aren't remotely close to each other, after you get past the honeymoon stages of the game.. Plus.. one more thing.. Have you ever played WoW with a group of five in the open world mobs? OMFG, besides named mobs, a group of 5 against open world mobs is silly stupid.. As a Warlock I can't even cast my second spell before the mob is dead..

Antiquated · March 2015

Originally posted by Robsolf
I dunno if Fistorm is serious. Either way, it's funny that people agree with him.

But seriously, love of camping for XP for the sake of social interaction is like praising the DMV "for its ability to bring a community together".

It's just associative. We see it on this board aaaallllllll the time.

"When I was younger, I played [x] with a lot of good friends and had a great time. Game [x] had feature [y]!

Therefore, the great time I had must have been due to [y]." (glaring logical flaw, hidden under warm fuzzies).

Great time probably came from those friends, yas? And any other game feature [z] [w] [q] [t] would also be similar great fun in the presence of those friends?

"But feature [y] is the only way I could make friends!" would be a completely inaccurate statement.

"But feature [y] built communities!" is probably (at best) a partially accurate statement.

Sovrath · March 2015

Originally posted by Malabooga
Originally posted by Sovrath
Originally posted by Arazale

Uhhh yes the fuck it does.

I think it's important note that those people who do "mob grind" carefully plan out, within the games that support it, each area, what mobs they need to kill for how long.

It's not really "the norm". You get someone in game and tell them to mob grind you will see it doesn't work.

I was doing this in Aion and for the heck of it did a quest and it was faster to kill the 10 mobs and get the quest experience for the amount of xp I got for the quest.

Same in Lord of the Rings Online.

I know that someone has figured out a way to do it in ESO without questing but you need to know this exists and you need to follow it.

It's possible such a thing exists in Aion and LOTRO but I've never heard of it. His question was legitimate.

Your response was a bit overkill no?

Of course you have to know where and what to camp, its SAME as old school games. Its not the norm since vast majority of people find it mind numbing and prefer other methos over "best" one.

grinding mobs to reach max level was norm in early LOTRO. i dont know when you played it, but they had to add actual content because people crapped all over that little fact that there was no content just mob grind in Angmar.

And there were also grind spots for lower levels, that was true well beyond it went free to play. Dont mention LOTRO since you could grind mobs for leveling just fine.

I played lotro since closed beta and played continuously up to moria. Even though I normally would grind on mobs there were plenty of quests around so that's not my experience. as the game progressed I found the quests gave more xp.

Sovrath · March 2015

Originally posted by Arazale

The only time questing > grinding mobs in WoW lower levels is back years ago like before MoP or maybe before Cata even. But by far and large, dungeon running is superior to anything else 1-80(so long as your group didn't suck). Even more so with heirlooms. Trust me, i've leveled a new alt during MoP doing quests for loremaster and it was soooooo slow compared to grinding mobs 4 levels higher than me while waiting for dungeon queue, sometime i'd gain 3 levels in like 15 mins of killing waiting for queue, then get another 2.5 levels in dungeon then go back to grinding mobs.

I'm not talking about Dungeon running which, though I've never done a "dungeon/instance" in wow, I believe is different than killing mobs in the open world.

My last experience in wow was after all those expansions, alliance side, low level, stopped around some murlock area. it seemed to me that quests gave more xp if you did those continuously over killing mobs in the open world.

Aren't dungeons instances in wow or are they something else? I think there are open world caves and such with mobs in them "around" or adjacent to where I stopped (I remember some mine) and i hung out there for a while but after, I took a quest, and for less time got more xp for similar amount of time.

Vesavius · March 2015

Originally posted by Antiquated
Originally posted by Robsolf
love of camping for XP for the sake of social interaction is like praising the DMV "for its ability to bring a community together".

It's just associative.

No, it is not. Game community is fundamentally effected by the design philosophies and the core game systems in place.

People that are pro static camps are really just pro slower tactical based co-operative play systems.

"But feature [y] is the only way I could make friends!" would be a completely inaccurate statement.

"But feature [y] built communities!" is probably (at best) a partially accurate statement.

I would agree, apart from the '(at best) partially' part anyhow. Many of of the systems in a game like classic EQ were responsible for creating community, not just static camps, but static camps certainly played a considerable part.

They were never the only way to make friends, but, yes, they were definitely a key building block in what encouraged and enabled community in that game.

Nightbringe1 · March 2015

Originally posted by Tibernicuspa
And a huge part of the appeal of mob grinding (not camping, that's a whole different issue that it seems only EQ1 people fondly remember), is how social it was. Sharing dungeons and spawns and forming groups so you can kill faster and harder... that's not possible in LotRO because it's almost entirely a solo game through and through. The quests actively discourage grouping, and other than quests, there's nothing else to really do in LotRO, or most other modern MMOs.

In EQ, getting a group together, traveling to the dungeon, fighting your way down to the named, and staying until everyone had the item they were looking for was the quest.

The difference was, the quest did not come from an NPC, it came from the players.

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What ever happend to camping for xp?

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"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey