[oasis]

I will give you a few examples

the general jist goes that farming is acceptable and needed for most games.

for example
in metroid if you need health you just repeatedly kill enemies over and over untill your health is satisfied.

this is considered farming because you are stopping normal progress through the game. you are not moving on to the next boss and what would be assumed to be a normal pace.

where retro is concerned is in score competition a player can play mega man and just repeatedly kill enemy's for an infinite amount of time or until they beat the previous high score.

farming takes the fun out of competing because it just becomes who can play the game longer which is boring and frowned upon.