Farming Etiquette

[BugCatcher6]

Farming Etiquette

How to farm with style?

Etiquette Lesson #1: Start each event with a small story. It does not have to be anything elaborate, it could be short and sweet. You don’t need to write a book, but a brief description of your project will help draw people into your event.


Etiquette Lesson #2: Always give a move-set listing. Having people ask what the moves are for your Pokémon will slow the event down and cause people to leave your farm. People don’t like to wait for details. All the details should be taken care of in the opening post.


Etiquette Lesson #3: When asking for things in return for your Pokémon, remember to not ask for anything that is worth more than what you are offering. If you are giving away Bidoof with a basic move-set, you will not get a shiny Pokémon for that, so save yourself time and don’t ask. You should never request much as a farmer. Farming is for the love of breeding great Pokémon, not profit. Asking for items or certain Pokémon is not rude, but don’t plan on swimming in riches from farming. Also for the love of all things farming please don’t ask for shiny Pokémon, Legendaries, or Event Pokémon. No farmed Pokémon is ever worth any of those; well unless one of your farmed Pokémon has 6 stats maxed at 31 IVs.


Etiquette Lesson #4: One of the biggest things to remember to make your request and your project as clear as possible. Type it in WordPad or something with a spell checker and then copy and paste it into your PokéFarm thread. I know it does not sound like much, but having everything clear and crisp helps. If you just type out bits of info here and there, that will bring more questions and slow down your event while you’re explaining what you meant.


Etiquette Lesson #5: Never offer hacked or cloned Pokémon as farmed Pokémon. Farming is not as hard as it seems, but it is very time consuming. That is why there are breeders and then there are traders. It is all a matter of time. Those with little time will trade for Pokémon and those with some spare time will farm the Pokémon.


Etiquette Lesson #6: If you are not sure if you want to be a farmer and just want to try it out, you don't have to breed a huge batch of Pokémon. For your first event you can breed as little as 6 Pokémon. If that goes well and you want to try again, increase your output and go for it. The more Pokémon you breed and the more people that can receive one of your Pokémon the better. As a rule of thumb most farmers breed about 30 Pokémon, very rarely do you have all 30 taken. It is nice to have a few leftovers for people that find your event later and wish to get one of your babies. Having 30 Pokémon is a rule not set in stone, but getting more Pokémon out to people is your best bet for getting noticed as one of the best breeders. So if you think you may like farming, start with a small batch of Pokémon and see how it goes.


Etiquette Lesson #7: As a long-time member and forum farmer, I am going to put this out there for other farmers. If after your Minor Market Event ends and you don't want anymore request for that Pokemon, please add a post with a CLOSE and someone can close that thread for you. I am only posting this because I saw today a handful of members asking for a Pokemon in a farmer's thread, but the event has been over for 2 months.
Out of courtesy we don't like just closing another farmers thread. I know alot of you use the same thread for every event, and that is O.K. I use a new thread for every event only because I can keep track of my event that way.


Etiquette Lesson #8: After starting your farm, please concentrate on one event at a time. Running more then one event at a time is really rude to other farmers. How is it rude? Well if you have 5 threads created for each event, all going on at the same time, that pushes other farmers events out of the way. It is also a nice idea to name your farm to give other forum members something to look for when searching for events. Changing your farm name is also something that can annoy other members. People will quickly associate you to your farm and if all of a sudden Farm X is now Farm Z, you may not have the same people that followed Farm X come looking for you at Farm Z.

Trust how these minor things can make or break farms.


Etiquette Lesson #9: When holding an event, please keep it limited to 1 Pokémon per event. If you are doing a Holiday theme or a themed event 2 -3 Pokémon is fine, but the more you offer the more confusion it brings. The only time you should really offer more then 1 Pokémon is when you are doing a cleanup event and you are offering Pokémon from previous events.

Example:
I recently saw a farm offer almost every Pokémon and they had no move-set for any of them. It was I can farm this what do you want. That is not a farm event, that is a General Trade. Don't be surprised if your thread gets moved, closed, or edited.


Etiquette Lesson #10:

This lesson was sent to me by Tunk. I think this lesson should have been number one on the list. Thank you Tunk for bringing it to my attention.

Now this lesson is more for the people receiving a farmer's Pokémon. If a set time for a trade was established and the receiving party was sent a reminder PM, try to make the trade on time.

Also as a sidebar to this. If you request a Pokémon and don't pick it up and give excuse after excuse, your Pokémon will be given to the next person or released altogether. As farmers box space is very precious to us.

If it was up to me I would keep a list of people that constantly request Pokémon and never show up to trade for them, but PM insisting they will. I would then just start to ignore those members. I sometimes hold Pokémon for up to a week, but after that my boxes get cleaned and your out of luck.

This just the starting of this guide, I plan on adding to this guide and eventually finding the Golden Rule of Farming.

If you as a farmer can think of a new Etiquette Lesson, please PM it to me and I will add it to the guide.

[Deneves]

Those great rules of Farming Etiquette still apply.

Since Fourth and Fifth generation games are not compatible for trading between versions, please post if your event is only available in Fourth Generation games.

In addition to move-set:

If the pokemon have a sex, please post the ones available to trade.

Post the natures of the pokemon. A Helpful Guide to Natures may assist you if need guidance in choosing a nature. It is not essential that you breed for nature, but I would encourage breeders to strive to produce offspring with beneficial natures when doing farm events.

Post the ability of the pokemon you are farming. A description of the ability is always helpful to members.

It is not necessary to breed for IVs, but more members are interested in farming events that include high IV offspring. Power Items are great for insuring that at least one of your favorable IVs are passed to your offspring, Helpful Guide to Individual Values and Effort Values is a useful reference if you need more information.

I understand that IV battling is not currently available in the fifth generation, but there is a IV checker available in the battle subway once you defeat the Elite Four and N. A heads up to any high stats is a benefit to members and this format: x / x / x / 31 / 31 / x is a great way to do it without chasing down each IV.
I have been able to narrow down the IVs by finding their Hidden Power and then battling 2-3 high level Audinos with my offspring holding Experience Share. I then using Rare Candies and/or Wings to level them up to a range where the margin of error narrows. Once you have checked the IVs just reset without saving.