Comparing the Farming Zones (Basin, Refuge, Prime, Ebon)

[ElectricPotato]

Active farming zones: Celestial Basin, Moon Refuge

Autocombat farming zones: Prime Egg, Ebon Realm

 

Celestial Basin: Outdated. The unique, randomized(from a pool) objectives were engaging.  Autocompleted, currency was dropped into your total with no hassle.  Separate mobs/bosses, weather events, and special rewards from such were enjoyable.  Good quest/currency style, but likely unapplyable over multiple farming zones.  UI was a little clunky covering up  normal quests.  Separate objectives/good channel limits ensured reasonable mob density.

 

Moon Refuge:  Clunky quest acquisition/completion.  Static quest options creates competition for higher density areas.  Poor respawn.  Timed event(murk dragon) rewards are soso.  Raccoon panda village is a fun/worthwhile diversion for active players.  This area feels nearly along  the lines of one of the autocombat area, but with bad mob density/respawn, and autocombat disable by default.

 

Prime Egg: Split into 4 separate zones, overall high mob density/spawn rate(some of the areas are less bountiful relatively).  Good rare drop item(dead end pet gem), engaging selection on vendor.  Monsters are non aggressive, although many have aoe attacks that will tag a unengaged player moving by, putting one in combat.  Not interesting currently for a player actively playing.

 

Ebon Realm:  Poor density/spawn rate, aggressive monsters, much of the map is entirely empty.   The low density/spawnrate causes autocombat players to wander quite far, causing weird overlaps of players parking in the same spot.  The large roaming travel increases odds of getting stuck on a rock/terrain and bugging out the autocombat.  Rewards are kind of odd and unexpected (a way to preview items in chests would defray some of this) as mid-low tier un-upgradeable items.

 

 

Increasing engagement:  The autocombat zones are kind of boring.  I feel like the panda cache village is a great style of random event.  Such portals being generated I feel would be a very positive interaction between autocombat and active players.  The weather bosses from basin were great timed events with a predictable cycle(murk dragon was never desirable enough for me to bother finding out if it was discretely timed or not).

[Shekinah]

Can only agree. Autocombat zones are boring.

Basin was the only good zone that was fun playing and entertaining. Everything that came afterwards is just a huge dissapointment.

[Rmccn08]

What a great post. Now that you point it out, I do remember having a good time farming in celestial basin. I could turn on a live stream and sit for hours trying to farm those BT badges. Though I do like the idea of turning on auto combat and leaving my computer to farm for me, it would be nice if they added more features to these 2 new areas. The things you brought up about the Ebon Realm are extremely crucial and I hope ncsoft reworks that zone a little bit. Once again, great post. 

[Casscindre]

Yea, knowing I wouldn't be able to upgrade the  weapon would have been ever so slightly useful BEFORE I bought it.

[JoannaRamira]

Autocombat is basically killing the open world theme... like what point of those wonderfully crafted zones when everyone not seeing them.   and not to mention... no more feels of playing MMO's.