FeRixia

Well, there are still more steps involved like actually starting the mission, collecting things every minute (both so clone doesn't kneel and collect life support) so I would say there is STILL interaction with the game. It's not like you sit there for an hour not touching anything, so it's not "true" AFK. I'd say setting up these strategies to accomplish some goals is well within playing the game, as part of it is coming up with your own builds for what you want to do. As long as this sort of strat isn't the dominant way of getting things (it isn't) and isn't more rewarding than more active methods (it isn't) then there is no issue imo. I'd say the devs nerfed him enough for those things and what you still can do is a fair tradeoff these days. In addition, Octavia exists and scales way better into higher levels anyway. I support players experimenting with strategies to get what they want out of a mission.

I don’t think you have the authority to tell me what I find fun or not. You can have your opinion but you can’t tell me I don’t have fun getting some progress in while doing something else.

Players can play the game in different ways, and chill to me means low apm/relaxed gameplay. If it’s not fun to you, cool, but it’s fun to me on occasion. And it is playing the game as you are controlling the character still and doing the mission objective.

Levels of engagement differ from player to player, and the beauty of it is you can choose how much you want to engage with against the reward (fun or loot). Yes the game is a chore sometimes so it is up to you to decide how to handle them. There is no definition of what “actually playing” is and there is no wrong way to play (as long as you aren’t disrupting others etc). The devs can play whackamole with this concept as much as they want but there has to be some point which it’s not worth the effort compared to making new content or improvements elsewhere. Again I highly doubt they would start banning players for playing how they don’t want you to play (whole other can of worms about them dictating how you get to have fun), but yes they could nerf the strategy, but in such a game there are many ways to lower engagement with such a variety of items. In the end you can play how you want and if you want to do this or not won’t affect me end of the day.

Fair enough, I know what you mean. A lot of grinds I like to distract myself because WF is insanely repetitive sometimes and I would go crazy if I was only on the game and nothing else on the side. Actually bought a second monitor partly because of it. That’s just the nature of MMOs, not the developer’s fault. Other times I like to get something done while watching videos.

Well back in the infinite ammo days it was widely popular and while disliked, not bannable as it is simply using the tools provided to you. This strat also does not get you a ton of resources or let you stay for multiple hours so it is well within normal parameters anyway. Many players also use Octavia to farm SE in much the same way. Maybe some people don’t like the gameplay but it’s all done solo and you don’t have to if you don’t want, just providing an option.

Why isn’t it a good idea? You can have fun relaxing watching a video and grinding like this the whole time. Not everything has to be 100% focus.

I did mention it was not efficient, but more about the chill aspect of it. I have done this and never gotten banned, and there are zero macros or exploits involved. You are still controlling everything yourself, so this should be perfectly fine. The intention is that it will help someone out who is too busy to completely focus on playing but still needs to farm some relics. Of course there are much faster ways as you pointed out for more effort.

This may not be the most efficient, far from it, but if you wanted to sit back and farm some relics while doing something else, here is a strat that works well enough. Go into solo normal starchart with Wukong, and Kuva Tonkor. Ani Void is good, and try to get the wide open room. Hide under the place beneath the stairs and let the clone kill everything. Every rotation will drop Aya or a Relic, and you need to check back every minute or so to collect life support. I recommend healer specter for protection and for subsume, can use Roar with Augment for more range. This will work up until 40+ minutes but could be pushed farther with a coordinated team. Happy farming!

This comment (and others like it) don't help solve the problem of the player not enjoying or wanting it in the first place. Many quest cutscenes are skippable in the first place so why is NPC dialogue not skippable also? Players can play for actual missions, not to sit there listening to some dude we don't care about to monologue over a story we don't care about. If you enjoy that type of thing, cool. But don't assume everyone also wants to. Adding options to skip (and making it not easy to accidentally trip) fits both parties and is something already in the game for other cutscenes.

There's no harm in putting a skip button in. Until then, I suggest just tabbing out to not waste your time. For the quest, you can also use Nightwave menu to skip dialogue though this is unrelated to the annoying forced cutscenes. Players enjoy the content in different ways and can still respect it without being forced to listen to boring lore they don't want to hear. Giving options for players to do this is not a bad thing. The lore is not needed at all to enjoy the gameplay or progress the account. Such a small qol is definitely not amiss.

Well think of it this way. There are certain grinds or missions you don't like. So you do a low effort setup to clear them without thinking or "work" so you can get the rewards you want to enjoy other missions. As long as it's not purposeful leeching and you contribute reasonably, it's fine imo.

Let me rephrase that I would rather just keep running past the eximus rather than engage if I don't have to or it happened to not die in the aoe (why switch and keep aiming if I can just keep going). And "not glancing up from the minimap" is more like keeping everything else in peripherals because minimap is important for targeting and movement to find out where to go next and I can generally aoe the enemies down barely looking at them. It's not a problem. It's a valid playstyle choice I've chosen and found to be more efficient for my time. And afaik, it's not just me that's doing it. You need good map reading skills to clear fast missions with Titania and such. I almost always get top damage/kills every time so clearly it works. This is a thread about how to do that sort of run and boom playstyle effectively post changes again and I am hoping others will take some advice and enjoy it again. Of course you can be "careful aiming and swap weapons if necessary" like how it is "intended" or you can have more fun (depending on the player) doing it this way and possibly outkill everyone easier.

Thanks for the responses thus far, though I don't agree with some of them. I just think one of the aspects of the nerf should be toned down, be it firestorm, ammo pickup, or ammo max (such as merciless bonus). Right now we have a few options: spam with no conditionals with Tonkor/Envoy, use EM and spam with Zarr/Ogris/Bramma, or use mutation/scavenger/carrier instead and be a little more careful. I rarely bother switching to other weapons for lone enemies or barely glance up from staring at the minimap so these ways are the most comfortable. I've also found Primary Tombfinger to have big aoe with unlimited ammo and fast recharge though the damage is more lacking and it has an annoying fire mode. I really don't like the implication that the devs want you to switch weapons per enemy and would rather keep spamming the same weapon. Another suggestion is make ammo drops consistent in all size squads. I have no issues maintaining Bramma ammo in a solo SP survival but all full team exterminate has problems. For AFKing I can use tonkor Wukong or Octavia and that's fine.

Maybe also consider why players would rather go afk. Boring enemy and mission design like Mirror Defense. Objectives boiling down to nuke enemies and go to extract or camp a corner and kill things. Sure they "fixed" the aoe problem and you can still afk to an extent, but the problem is most missions simply aren't engaging or remotely interesting to veterans regardless of what gets nerfed or not. It's a valid way to play if that's what you care about, getting rewards without having to get insanely bored of repetitive content which is at the core of the game anyway. Heck I'd rather sit on an Ivara wire and hold mouse button on a Shedu rather than engage in what seems to be purposefully soul sucking mission types like survival or mobile defense. Also, aoe of any sort is apparently "disruptive" because that is what you sign up for when going public. WF has been for ages a race to nuke everything first and run to extract. And with all the powercreep, that won't be changing. No matter your viewpoint, players (me included) will find the best way to nuke content for the best rewards if we want to (which was what Whispers turned into even because of the simplistic missions yet again). Is efficiently clearing hordes in a public match with endgame gear disruptive? Is throwing Mallet once a minute and standing there an invalid way to play a survival? Well that's up for debate. I'm saying the nerfs were too harsh and not to completely reverse but tone them down a little.