Other than not being fun, there are 2 main reasons why zerg farming is bad:
1: Inaccurate data feedback
2: Community erosion
Inaccurate Data Feedback:
This is my main concern. The result of all this farming means that people who do not participate will not be receiving the largest in-game income. With all of the looming future updates such as ascended gear and new legendaries, there is high pressure on many players to farm these events, even if the events themselves are not enjoyable.
This results in a large portion of the community participating in the events, despite not finding it fun in the slightest. If Arena Net only looks at the player data, then it could be incorrectly assumed that so many players are participating because they enjoy the content, resulting in more, similar content in the future.
So many guildmates and friends have completely burnt out on the zerg farming. It’s the least interactive of content, but currently the most profitable. Cries of “I’m bored” ring out all the time now, and “I’ll just hit an event and afk for end credit” is abundant.
This sort of mindless zombie farming is not fun. It’s repetitive and slow, and any individual skill means little to nothing. You’re “forced” to stay for the entire event to receive your shiny loot bags, and all you do is run/waypoint around maps and kill masses of enemies.
It was fun the first couple of times- we all thought that completing the invasion was such a big deal, and the old Aetherblade scaling made it actually difficult to complete a couple of times. There was some strategy needed, and people couldn’t just abuse scaling to farm champions.
Now, with the reduced scaling, it’s a pure farmfest. There’s no major incentive to complete the entire invasion after your daily scarlet kill, so massive groups of players running around and steamrolling champions is commonplace. This leads to the second reason why this sort of massive zerg farm is bad.
Community Erosion:
Back in the earlier days of GW2, you’d always be revived when you got downed. It was common courtesy, and it was reinforced with exp. These days, however, it’s been many a time that I’ve seen massive zergs trample over a downed player to get to the next champion with not a single person stopping. It’s really pathetic.
Arguments in map chat are rampant over whether to farm the Aetherblade events or to try to defeat Scarlet. It’s frustrating. The influx of new commanders (from the large amount of gold added) is sizable, and arguments and drama often breaks out between them. Sure, it’s humorous to watch sometimes, but things do get ugly.
The zerg farms lead to gold being the single most important thing to players, over fun, over courtesy, and over community. This is ridiculous.
Content like the Zephyr Sanctum was amazing. There was a whole new map to explore, some pvp games for people who are into that sort of thing, and incentives to do jumping puzzles or mini dungeons that you might not normally do.
This content is the complete opposite. No exploration, no alternatives, no fun.
Am I the only one who thinks that this is a problem? Am I the only one tired of zerg farming being by far the most profitable method of playing? Am I the only one who wants to actually have fun again?