a fun discussion about farming (a thing no one should do)

[11:02] Jebdm09: A KoL Facebook ad got me back here for the last couple of days.
[11:02] Cindipool: Some people don't use Facebook.
[11:02] Jick: Nice, Jeb!
[11:02] Jick: Our targeting worked!
[11:02] p4n1q: I like how some of the fb people said KoL is "too hard." wth were they doing that was too hard
[11:02] Fireproof Cheese: I dont use facebook, twitter, instagram, any of that crap
[11:03] Riidi: Ultra bleeding edge diamondf ascension, p4n1q
[11:03] Prima Vera Angelhair: A KoL facebook ad killed my dog. That's pinpoint targetting. -hic-
[11:03] Solve_Omnis: there was some stuff in the old days that was kind of obtuse if you didn't go in the chat or on the wiki
[11:03] Loathmast: Basementing, Panic? 5-Kiss dread?
[11:03] Friederike: it's hard being an awful newbie, panic
[11:03] Solve_Omnis: that's... completely gone? almost gone? i think you just can click your way through now.
[11:03] Loathmast: There are a crapton of difficult things in this game.
[11:03] Jick: I mean, a lot of people get overwhelmed by the pace that new stuff gets added,
[11:04] Jick: and they burn out and think "the game was fine when I showed up, but too complicated now."
[11:04] rOcKy: every newbie vants to beat SLAW
[11:04] Prima Vera Angelhair: Yeah, a lot of the obscure and unusual's been weeded out so that there are still lots of fun references but you don't need to know them to get by.
[11:04] Jick: But that's more about how people work than it is about the game.
[11:04] Jebdm09: I think if you want to "keep up", it can be difficult. If you don't mind not playing optimally (I don't anymore) then it's not really hard.
[11:04] Fireproof Cheese is eating a fried bologna sandwich that he topped with a clove of garlic for no particular reason
[11:04] Jick: That's a good perspective, Jeb. :)
[11:04] Boesbert: That's funny, I can't wait for new content and am all bothered by old stuff that doesn't change.
[11:04] Friederike: a raw one?
[11:04] Boesbert all hot and bothered
[11:04] Prima Vera Angelhair: See, I see new stuff and think "ooh, new goals to pursue."
[11:04] Cindipool: Optimisation is for /hardcore.
[11:04] Jebdm09: I bet a lot of it had to do with getting jealous of the stuff people are talking about in the chat :)
[11:04] Loathmast: I think it has more to do with how the quests are so different then from like 2010.
[11:05] p4n1q: Does anyone ever complain about how the game is inaccessible to the illiterate.
[11:05] Friederike: not in chat
[11:05] Jick: Yeah, a lot of the most visible community stuff is super alienating.
[11:05] Jebdm09: I know I do sometimes. But it's better not to try to keep up with the Joneses.
[11:05] Solve_Omnis: hey you want a really weird experience?
[11:05] Prima Vera Angelhair: Right now I am about 10 days out from getting a full Collector's Score again. I look forward to new stuff to chase.
[11:05] Cindipool: They try to, but nobody can understand the complaints.
[11:05] Jick: The forums make it seem like the game is written in some insane math language.
[11:05] Jick: Even /r/kol is just madness if you don't know what the terms mean.
[11:05] Riidi: It is.
[11:05] Solve_Omnis: there's a japanese bookstore in san francisco's japantown. probably similar things other places. literally every book in the place is in a language i can't read.
[11:06] Loathmast: Solvy, that place is awesome
[11:06] Friederike: game talk sounds insane even without math
[11:06] Fireproof Cheese: Sokath! His eyes uncovered!
[11:06] Solve_Omnis: it was as close as i'll ever get to having the experence of being illiterate in a bookstore. super-weird.
[11:06] Cool12309 waits for Jick to make the tickle-me-emilio tradable
[11:06] Cindipool: Unlike RKoL, which is all madness, all the time.
[11:06] Jick: Have you seen the Codex Seraphinianus, Solve?
[11:06] Prima Vera Angelhair: Any game that runs long enough is going to develop its own jargon, though.
[11:06] Loathmast waits for Jick to implement a boat familiar
[11:06] Prima Vera Angelhair: That's not something you can easily escape.
[11:06] Jick: Sure, Prima, but you don't need to know it to play the game.
[11:06] gaga654: spork
[11:07] Prima Vera Angelhair: True.
[11:07] Fireproof Cheese: but is the hatchiling a boat or a mystery box?
[11:07] Jick: But as soon as you go into chat, you're bombarded with people speaking this insane language.
[11:07] gaga654: whoops wc
[11:07] exTynT: me?
[11:07] Ezandora: solve: wait for another world event to train up your language ability
[11:07] Jebdm09: I think a lot of people come at it from a science/engineering sort of mindset, which lends itself to tons of vocabulary and formulas and stuff like that.
[11:07] Cindipool: Spades and mafias and spleens.
[11:07] Fireproof Cheese: Shaka when the walls fell. :(
[11:07] Prima Vera Angelhair: That can be daunting at first, working to figure out the flow of things.
[11:07] Jick: Yeah, absolutely.
[11:07] Solve_Omnis: i just googled that. looks fascinating!
[11:07] Loathmast: Jick, do you plan on adding a channel for clan recruitment?
[11:07] Jick: But the community forums attract the most hardcore of dudes.
[11:07] Jick: And those dudes make the game, which is very silly and very friendly, seem really intimidating.
[11:08] Jick: There's nothing for it. It just is what it is.
[11:08] Jick: But when I talk to new people I always hear the same thing.
[11:08] Jebdm09: Personally I have to find a happy medium... the text is interesting but not necessarily enough to keep me coming back by itself, so I need to do *some* optimizing to keep it fun.
[11:08] Cindipool: Fumigation.
[11:08] Jick: Which is that looking at the forums made them feel like they'd never understand the game.
[11:08] Jick: Sure, Jeb.
[11:08] Jebdm09: But I don't mind optimizing just with the bounds of the stuff I know. I try to avoid heavy research.
[11:08] Jick: I think that's how I would play.
[11:08] TheNuge: maybe there could be a "welcome to the kingdom" post on the forums that's universally stickied
[11:08] Riidi: Optane.
[11:08] Solve_Omnis: in my experience it takes like three months of reading the forums to even start getting the jargon down.
[11:09] Prima Vera Angelhair: Hmmm. Yeah, I can see that, especially if they dive right into the forum on rules discussions, which IS the topmost forum.
[11:09] p4n1q: There should be a quest where you don't read the forums.
[11:09] Jebdm09: It's actually kinda like Pokemon in that way. You can basically just use a really simple strategy and mash buttons for a long time, or you can really geek out on the strategizing.
[11:09] Loathmast: There should be a quest where you infiltrate the dimension of GD
[11:09] glebs: Instead of having actual forums, what if kol had a more-advanced-than- forumwarz series of randomly generated forums
[11:09] Prima Vera Angelhair: I suppose if you wanted you could move a more community-oriented forum to the top, but that has its own problems.
[11:09] TwirlyRotini: I referred to the wiki constantly when I first started playing.
[11:09] Cindipool: I can understand why we only let players in the chat, but it would be a better starting point for newbies than the forums.
[11:09] Riidi: but for real has anyone been keeping up with Intel's liveblog
[11:09] Jebdm09: And I think there's a similar divide in that community.
[11:09] glebs: Then you could generate forum threads based on player experience.
[11:09] Loathmast: And the final boss is the Hinchdra.
[11:10] exTynT: this game ill be migrated to westofloathing.com?
[11:10] Cindipool: "Saw a rdagon, punched a rdagon, 10/10."
[11:10] p4n1q: You already could do like 3/4 of GD with randomly generated forum threads. It's the same eight things over and over again.
[11:10] LadyJ: I just think newbies need friends, but thats my method of keeping players. -hic-
[11:10] Loathmast: You should name a Bagon that, Cindi :P
[11:10] Prima Vera Angelhair: Plus my recipes. heh.
[11:11] Cool12309: Iotms, challenge paths, pvp seasons, complaining about type69, complaining about Crimbo
[11:11] Cool12309: boom
[11:11] playultm8: sorry Jick. you made a very compelling optimization problem -hic-
[11:11] playultm8: and you keep changing it with paths and IotM
[11:11] glebs: farming thread
[11:11] playultm8: it's going to attract nerdy puzzle solvers. =)
[11:12] gaga654: choker of the u
[11:12] exTynT: i luv those stuff like they shave few turn in a specific quest... unless my run are hugher than 1000 turns :)))
[11:12] p4n1q: The r/kol farming threads are so depressing. Noobs using all their turns every day for 300 mpa.
[11:12] yojimboS_LAW: I agree, paniq.
[11:12] Jebdm09: All that said, I was thinking of applying this Bayesian global optimization system to see how well it could do at solving KoL. It seems like potentially a pretty great fit.
[11:12] yojimboS_LAW: thankfully reddit has started ascending.
[11:13] Friederike: i farmed cuddlefish for two days once. i'm still not rich.
[11:13] Loathmast: Reddit (#2106326)
[11:13] Loathmast: You mean him, Slaw?
[11:13] yojimboS_LAW: sure, loathmast.
[11:13] p4n1q: How do you tell someone their farming is so bad they should stop doing it?
[11:13] Cindipool: You know you've made it into the big leagues when we get Twitch Plays KoL.
[11:14] Friederike: what it they enjoy themselves?
[11:14] Cool12309: "you suck please stop"
[11:14] p4n1q: I can tell you right now that method does not work. -hic-
[11:14] Wishbot: Explain to them the strong farming strategy of ten dollars.
[11:14] greybobcat: Link to [link] http:// forums.kingdomofloat hing.com/vb/ showthread.php? t=203245
[11:14] TwirlyRotini: Well, how else are new people supposed to farm? It's like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
[11:14] Cindipool: Some enjoyment shouldn't be put on display.
[11:14] Cool12309: It would be really interesting to place a really advanced AI into kol and see how/what it does
[11:14] Loathmast: Farm like the thread Greybobcat displayed, Twirl?
[11:14] p4n1q: New people are not supposed to farm. That is the point.
[11:14] TwirlyRotini: If you don't have the meat for better gear, then 300mpa might be good for you.
[11:15] Friederike: wasn't there some sort of ai bot at some time way back in the past?
[11:15] Neotrup: I have a clanmate with a stocking mimic who is annoyed by Mr. A prices because they don't think that it's possible to meatfarm enough
[11:15] greybobcat: The hard part is knowing what gear you should actually buy, out of the thousands of things in the mall.
[11:15] Cindipool: There's something rather silly about /hardcore defending sub-optimal strategies.
[11:15] Cool12309: The problem is the AI would have to be extremely advanced, otherwise it wouldn't get far
[11:15] p4n1q: If 300 mpa is good for you then you should just give up and stop forever.
[11:15] Cool12309: Unless it focused on just one aspect
[11:15] Cindipool: Have we forgotten who we are?
[11:15] TwirlyRotini: I agree that new people should be exploring, not farming.
[11:16] BabyScarface forgot the face of his father
[11:16] Friederike: i think it was meant to just ascend, and it was before ns13
[11:16] Loathmast: Twirl, you can farm about 1k mpa using that thread
[11:16] Aryk: "give up and stop forever"...and then we wonder why the game has trouble attracting new players
[11:16] Jebdm09: Well, KoL maps really well onto the generalized multi-armed bandits problem, and there's a ton of research into that
[11:16] p4n1q: Also that farming thread is outdated.
[11:16] TwirlyRotini: You get to know the game, get a sense for what things cost, what things are worthwhile, you ask questions...
[11:16] p4n1q: You're better off buying one-day passes for Barf Mountain.
[11:16] Friederike: but maybe it was just a dream
[11:16] Solve_Omnis: if you're going to buy your class skills, you're going to be doing some farming.
[11:16] Jebdm09: Especially something like farming, but maybe even ascending.
[11:16] exTynT: sea farming become a thing froma range enough high
[11:16] greybobcat: The hidden city farming is not the BEST in the whole game, just the best that can be done easily,
[11:17] greybobcat: It's a really good balance between "good enough to be able to buy stuff" and "easy enough that I won't burn out doing it what the hell is that thing you are talking about".
[11:17] TwirlyRotini: I wouldn't tell someone to give up, just that they should get more permed skills and experience first.
[11:17] p4n1q: If you are using all your turns every day to farm a pathetic 300 mpa, your game experience is so unnecessarily restricted and shallow, that you would be better off doing something else with your time.
[11:17] exTynT: 60 mils day farm are enough good?
[11:17] Boesbert: p4n1q, what if you just automated all those turns? :P
[11:17] Solve_Omnis: tjat
[11:18] TwirlyRotini: Like, playing the game?
[11:18] Friederike: panic, i should mail you all my session logs to give you nightmares. :)
[11:18] Cool12309: Well if a newbie is throwing themselves into terrible meatfarming why not force them away from vanilla kol too?
[11:18] Cool12309: -boes
[11:19] Jick: p4n1q, you absolutely don't tell somebody that.
[11:19] Jick: That's the kind of shit I'm talking about.
[11:19] Jick: It is so, so lame for you to basically just make fun of new people for not being as good at the game as you are.
[11:19] Jick: Give them suggestions, sure.
[11:19] Jick: But the attitude that new players are somehow fucking up by not eking every bit of value out of their turns is so, so poisonous.
[11:20] Solve_Omnis: i did that kind of farming myself as a newbie. all about that cobb's knob treasury!
[11:20] Cindipool: Now this is sounding more like /hardcore...
[11:20] Loathmast: Welcome to /hardcore
[11:20] Jick: Exactly.
[11:20] Solve_Omnis: never could have bought "saucestorm" without it.
[11:20] Friederike: luckily, none of us are hanging out in /newbie.
[11:20] Jebdm09: Yeah, the point of a game is to have fun, and if you don't know you can do better and you're still playing, you're probably having fun :)
[11:20] Cool12309: Hehe, I remember farming the treasury for a while
[11:20] Jick: Learning how to improve is 100% of the fun of the game.
[11:20] greybobcat: farming the treasury to buy your level 5 skills is perfectly acc