User:Yamagawa/Scratch

= Purpose = The purpose of this guide is not to tell you how to run HFF. As HFF is a fast way to earn Luxon or Kurzick faction and experience, many players may find themselves turning to it when they need faction or experience in a safe and quick manner. There are builds and pages that do that. The purpose of his build is to answer the common questions related to HFF, so that things can happen more smoothly for everyone involved. As a result, this also answers that often repeated question: 'How can you do that repeated chore for the 300+ hours it takes to max kurzick (600+ for luxon)'. There is a HFF for Luxon and a HFF for Kurzick. While similar, they are not identical, this guide is geared towards the Kurzick HFF. Despite that, much of this will relate to the Luxon HFF, and parts may apply to other runs as well.

= HFF for the Leech = The Leech is the person who is being run by the runner. As a Leech, your role is to pay for the run, and collect the quest reward. That's it. While this is remarkably simple, it's amazing at how often someone can screw up doing this. Or perhaps, to put it in a more appropriate tone: There are some things you can do, there are many things you should not do.

Payment
Unless you are getting your runs for free, some sort of payment is needed.

Do Not: Use a trade window. Your average runner (typically) has 7 plus windows open, and is working hard to manage 3 heroes and one or two henchmen. The trade window is an unneeded distraction, especially if opened at the wrong time. If your payment is for a bulk number of runs, the trade is usualy acceptable, however then payment should be made near the completion of the quest, or after receiving the reward.

Do: Drop your payment on the ground. Since most players have little other need for dropping coins, a common question is how? Open your Inventory window (press 'i'), then click and drag the gold coin to the ground. You will be prompted for an amount to drop.

Bulk payments: This chart should help you determine what sort of bulk payment you can make. You are strongly encouraged to make bulk payments only in multiples of 5 runs, as otherwise the math involved for the runner to track your payments gets more complex.

If paying for individual runs, drop your coins and stand on them. Standing on them lets the runner know who made that payment, and also keeps you from accidently causing other mischief. Payment should be made as soon as you enter the zone. Paying after the quest is completed wastes time, and for a title that takes 300+ hours to complete, that time is important to some.

The Quest
Do not:
 * Take the quest until the runner moves up to the scout master. The quest causes additional foes to spawn which will kill the heroes if the heroes have not passed them yet.
 * Approach the scout master early. Some runners use brittle builds, simply moving to the scoutmaster early can cause heroes to die.

A good runner will take the quest 2-3 seconds before the heroes complete it, giving you only short warning to be there for it. Do:
 * Arrange yourself move so that you are not standing in the same place as anyone else while waiting for the quest reward to become available.
 * Back away from the scoutmaster and any other players after you get the reward.

By not standing on others and backing away, you help the runner see when everyone has the reward. Fail to do these two simple things and the runner may opt to zone out before you have the reward, rather than ask if you got it.

Boredom
A very real threat for the leech is boredom. This can be combated in a variety of ways
 * Conversation: The simplest being simply to talk with the people in your group.
 * Listen to music
 * Read a book.
 * Watch a movie.
 * Look at peoples armor/weapons
 * Put out a mini
 * Sac health -- but don't kill yourself while saccing (your runner may not have a res). It's a good way to entertain others with the idea that you might actually die.  Spamming Infuse Health at the scoutmaster is one way to safely manage this.
 * Attack any tigers in range. For an added challenge, use a weapon that hits for 1 damage.  Careful, as some tigers wander behind the portal to the zone, and trying to attack them may render everyone rather unhappy at you for taking them out of the zone right near the end of the quest.

Tips
Tips are a way to let a particular runner know that you like his or her work, and a good runner will note who the tippers are and ask for runs from them first. This is true whether or not that runner is charging any fee. If you like the runners work, let them know!

= HFF for the Runner =

For Profit
Some people run for free, others do so while charging a fee. Which you do is entirely up to you, but if you are running for a fee, you have a couple more things to be aware of than just getting heroes to where they need to go:

Reputation
You are competing against many other runners. You will want a good reputation. Without this, you are going to have problems getting people who will pay for your services.

Complaints
If someone is unhappy with your work and wants a refund, give them a refund. No point giving them to cause to spread word about how bad a runner you are (true or not), just give them their money back so they can go on their way.

The Pro
Don't call yourself a pro. This is not for you to determine for yourself. Let others determine if you are a pro. If you call yourself a pro and act in an unprofessional manner, word will get around. People go to pros because they want the faction or experience with as little extra fuss as possible. A Pro must be, by definition:
 * Fast: A pro should be able to complete a 10k set in under 48 minutes. One using sweets should be able to finish a 10k set in under 35 minutes.  These assume no breaks to find more people to run, or to pick up people who left the party to donate faction.  A pro is accustomed to getting complaints about being too fast.
 * Reliable: If your heroes die frequently, your leeches will get impatient. A good runner can finish a 10k set with only 1 death.  Pros are better still, but a Pro is not perfect.  A Pro is going to be very very reliable.

A Pro should wear their faction title while running. Granted, it's possible all of the faction a title represents came from leeching, a Rank 5 'Pro' will still be seen for the novice he is by the title alone. A Rank 10 Pro will have at least a measure of credibility from his title.

Timing: Classic timing is done measured from when one enters the zone to when the quest is completed, and 50 seconds is considered to be a very good time. A vampiric weapon is good for this, as you lose health at a rate of 2 hp a second. 50 seconds will result in 100hp degen. More appropriate timing would be from zone to zone, but ultimately the important question is one of how fast can you get 10k, and measuring that will average out little things like hero deaths and the effect of different town spawn locations.

The Scratch Pad
Whether it's a piece of paper in front of you, or a notepad or excel document open on a second PC, you need to be able to make notes. On this paper, you should note who your tippers are (Player abc -- Tips in ectos) and who to not run (Player xyz -- Stole 3k from ground). Sadly, your friends and ignore lists are simply not long enough for this job, notes are required. You will also need this to track bulk payments. When someone makes a bulk payment, note their full player name, and when their payment runs out. Eg: If you have 3.2k faction and a player pays for 15 runs, you note down that the player is paid up to 9.2k faction (your faction progress, not theirs). If they disconnect early, note down how much is owed (Player abc -- owed refund for 11 runs). You may then contact them at another time and see if they want more runs or if they just want the money back. More often than not they either want more runs, or don't care about getting the refund. In this way, offering refunds is not so much giving money away, it is instead a way to build a good reputation, and a great way get repeat customers.

The Resurrection Signet
Before the Shadow Form buff, it was somewhat common for mantids to attack the shrine, when the shrine monk actually ran out to heal one of the runners. Not a great problem in and of itself, someone wearing 55 armor would be promptly dead moments after. While the buff to shadow form makes this a very unlikely occurrence, players can still wind up dead. Most often this is from self saccing or sometimes a less expected death such as what a vamp sword, shield of devotion, and shadow form can render. Whatever the cause, you will want a res, and preferably one that only works once ("Don't die on me again, my res sig won't recharge until we hit town.").

Boredom
The HFF runner is very susceptible to boredom. They cannot watch TV or read books like the leeches do. They cannot participate in conversation while micro-managing heroes. How then to keep from nodding off while on the last set of 10k from a long series of sets?
 * Play music. Something with an upbeat rythm to it is suggested, although not so loud that you cannot hear items drop, be picked up, or someone sending you a whisper.
 * Do Not Watch Movies/TV: Your attention is needed on the HFF run, not the TV, and turning around at the wrong moment to watch as the hero just barely misses catching the villain will not do your runs any favors.
 * Get a stack of different weapons and shields. Swap between them for each run to elicit comments from your leeches.  You don't need to have quality gear.  Even a R12 Non-Max Grape Clean Celestial Shield is still a Celestial Shield.  For brownie points, try matching the same weapon and offhand as one of your leeches.
 * Wear different armor. Same deal as the shields and weapons.  Perhaps your leeches can manage to guess how you have mixed and matched your different armors.
 * Put out a mini each run. Not necessarily the same mini each time.  (dedicated or undedicated, they work equally well for this)
 * Keep a good rhythm going -- If your run includes a long pause between pins and skills, add an extra pin. Use it to keep a rhythm going so that even half asleep you can still manage to flawlessly complete the run.
 * Encourage chatter: Run others, and have them converse. Inspire conversation if things grow quiet.  "Say, is that a crystalline sword you have there?  How did you manage to afford one of those?"
 * Hard Mode: Since the Shadow Form buff, Hard Mode is not appreciably more difficult than Normal Mode. You'd be surprised by how long it can take someone to notice that you have turned on Hard Mode.
 * Pick a fight with a hapless tiger. Perhaps someone can kill it before you finish the run?  Blame the attack on the 'rabid' tiger, and mourn how it had to be 'put down'.