Farming: A Critical Look
So, I decided that I want to start taking critical looks at all of the skills of RuneScape.
My first will be Farming.
Farming is one of the hardest skills to train in RuneScape, as it takes much time and effort outside of Farming to get seeds, and then it takes much time and effort inside Farming to get levels. If you can get a high level in this skill, I respect you, as should the RuneScape community. That being said, I still feel as though the skill is useless.
1. Farming is a way to make Herblore easier. I know, most of you don’t remember a time before Farming, but for those that do, Herblore was much different. Not many people could achieve 99 Herblore, or for that matter a high level. What Farming did was fix that. It increased the amount of herbs fivefold. It was an awkward way out of a situation that was perfect in RuneScape Classic, but in the new, fast-paced, high velocity RuneScape, having few herbs was bad.
2. Farming is a waste of my time. Farming takes hours on end to train, or hours on end to get items to give you automatic levels. For what? Herbs? Trees? Magic Jutes? In a personal experiment I had, I planted a rannar seed, and then went to Fire Giants. In the time it took for the rannar seed to grow into 4 rannar weeds, I successfully received 2,000 gold coins, 2 rannar weeds, 1 irit leaf, and about 600 fire runes. All in all, I came out about even. But what is the difference? I gained almost 10 times as much combat experience over Farming experience.
3. Farming is unrelated to other skills from the inside out. Oh yeah, Farming produces herbs and secondary herbs, but other than that, it helps almost no other skill. Fishing affects cooking which affects combat. Mining affects smithing with affects combat. Fletching affects range. Runecrafting affects magic. What does farming help, with the exception of herblore at a high level? Nothing. It is isolated from the rest of the RuneScape skills. Even with it affecting herblore, there are faster ways to get those herbs.
In conclusion, yes, I do have a low farming level. Yes, I do not train it. Yes, I did whine when Jagex released it. But at least I am sensible, and did at least try it enough to get it to 52 (I think…)
Anyways, until next time,
Guerrillero Heroico
haha, nice thoughts bud, fun read =D
Interesting article.
I think you have forgotten that the way we train Farming is vastly different from typical skills.
For example: When you are fighting fire giants you can grow your ranarr weeds and in doing so you get the combat experience, the loot, the farming experience and the ranarrs. Obviously from taking 10 minutes out of your combat training time you have doubled your loot which is a very important aspect of the Farming skill.
`11
Interesting post. I think you couldn’t be farther from the realities of farming though. I got to 84 farming mostly on 20 minutes of farming runs a day. I have my herb route down to 5 minutes, and do that 4 times. It is an incredible source of money, XP and useful stuff.
My farming products grow if I am logged in or not, training thieving or slayer.
A better title might have been: Why I don;t like farming, as that wasn’t a very critical look.
Its a critical look at why I don’t like Farming.
The key to enjoying herb growing is plant only herbs that you don’t care if they live or die. Just plant and walk away. I only plant avantoes and irits at the 4 main spots, because they cost so little to buy, and if they die, so what. I only plant high lvl herbs (and ranar) at the troll rooftop herb spot (100% success). That way I don’t have to stand by like I see so many others do. yes you can alc or whatever while you wait, by why bother. That way your not waisting any time at all.
I think you’re a bit off base here. Getting high level seeds is a little difficult, but if you use your kingdom, its not that hard at all. It takes me about 15 minutes to plant my 4 fruit trees and 5 regular trees and then I’m done with it. Everything you grow up until then, you use as payments for your next step.
Its definitely useful in herblore. Sure you can kill monsters for herb drops, but if you want to make a specific potion I dont want to spend 2 hours killing things just hoping i get the drop I want.
I find its also useful for wc. trying to compete for trees can be super frustrating in crowded worlds. Its so nice having that yew tree all to myself right close to the bank in Fally garden.
You forgot to mention that while you were growing your ranarr and getting that cb experience fighting fire giants, your plant was still growing. You now have additional ranarr and farming experience as well. That’s the best thing about farming, you don’t have to sit and wait for it to grow. Just a few minutes a day is all it takes.
“That’s the best thing about farming, you don’t have to sit and wait for it to grow. Just a few minutes a day is all it takes.”
I totally agree.
For me farming is a skill i train on the side of doing other things, I’m hoping to get 99 in a weeks time:D . But we all have skills we dont like, i enjoyed reading your views on it – can’t wait for more.
ok , i see that you hve no idea about farming
farming don’t mean to plant only herbs , u can plant tree too and fruit tree , calquat , ivy , …
you said taht farming is only good for herbo , that’s totally false
i’m lvl 61 herblore , and 99 farming , so if U don’t use the herbs , you don’t lvl up your herblore
farming help for many many skills : wc ( you can have your own tree )so for firemaking too , cooking ( with fruit tree , sweetcorn , watermelon )for téléportation ( spirit tree ) for summoning ( willow branch , … ) …
so farming is really the most important skill in runescape , because no farming –> no herbo –> no potions –> harder for combat
and for the seeds , just go to the ge ^^ yes , it cost much money , but farming is really the best runescape skill !
Maelvandervl:
I see that you have no idea about farming (or spelling/grammar). Without farming, there are still plenty of potions, herbs, etc. Farming is a relatively new skill as far as some go, and before it’s introduction the combat market was still centralized around potions. Players didn’t make them, but there were still plenty. Yes, farming has completely changed that market, but because of it’s extremely tedious nature not many players do it. Hence it still being a very lucrative business — you are not competing in nearly as large of a market as if you were to try to make money off of smithing or mining for example.
Though I agree farming is helpful in some skills, but not necessarily useful in anything else, it is one of my favorite skills. Why? It’s a FUN skill! Take construction as an example, you don’t “need” it but people train it because they like it and are probably looking forward to sharing their house with their friends for a nice, FUN party. What’s usually the case with all the hate about farming is that most people think it takes too long and it’s boring, but it’s a skill that just takes patience. If you don’t like it, fine, just don’t talk about it like it’s your mortal enemy.