Armorsmith Archive
Thread: The real problem
Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
Straker_Atrella I do not know if you se the down worth spiral of you play style.
Lets say you and your friends prepare for a hunting trip by:
Get all buffed up on both doctor, dancer and musician buffs.
Use all the spice and food you can.
Is fully decked out in 80% base resist composite (or how ever good it cam become).
Use a PSG and krayt enhanced weapon
Now you are as strong as a non Jedi can be, and you group will kill juvenile krayt's with ease. But you like getting the best loot so you attack a ancient krayt, and now it is a struggle. So you have to call out for stronger buffs, better armour, better weapons, and so on, or you cannot kill the toughest mobs in the game without some of you dying.
If you get what you ask for the challenge is gone, as so you have to ask for even stronger mobs to get a challenge.
If you get the even stronger mobs, we will be back where we started, with you not being able to fight them with out several members of the group dying.
It is a never-ending spiral. Accept that some contend are not meant for your play style, it is mend for the players that love a challenge above al else, and the good loot is the reword they get for the larger risk taken and for all the "work" done to prepare for it.
Part of that work is maintaining good relations with the top nudge weapon smiths, armour smiths, doctors, and entertainers, so they have access to the best of the best equipment in game.
If you and your friends have amore laid back attitude towards the "work" of preparing then you will not be able to take on as though targets, and perhaps the juvenile krayt will be the target where half of you die. You simply have to fight something a little bit easier, to fine the balance between the effort you put in and the challenge you get out of it.
In short, some mobs are not mend to be taken on by anything but a group of 20 well trained players that knows how to work together, and even then they need all the professions, including a doctor to revive them in the field.
I enjoy a challange, always have. I don't expect to mow through everything nor would I want too.
Yet why would I want to fight at less then my max potential? Some things I kill easily, some things I need to work for. If I need too, I bring friends.
I never asked for the game to be easier, nor do I want it to be. I was very happy when NPC powers came back. The combat revamp will make me happy as well.
Me taking 30 minutes to kill something that I could kill in 5 minutes if I had buffs is not my version of fun however.
Straker_Atrella wrote:
There are Doc buffbots though. Many of them. Yet still there is plenty of business to go around.
How manydoctors do you think would becharging 12k if there was a buffbot standing nearby giving powerful buffs away 23 hours a day?And the docswere forced to share the same space with these bots? Imaginethere was asimilar buffbot in every major city or place where there were a concentration of players? How many docs do you think would quit?Doctor Buffbots are inside their own private medical centers, outside the NPC cities, giving weaker buffs, and they charge. This is a huge number of differences.
Don't get me wrong, I think buffbots are bad, real people are better. I also think a large portion of the population would prefer a real person to a bot.
I grouped with some other entertainers, master musicians and dancers, and we played in front of the buffbot. People would walk through us to get to the buffbot, no matter what was said in spatial, or even if we sent a /setperform message. I find the exact opposite to be true. People will go to the "person" who is always there, and FREE.
The problem is that with Doc and Entertainer buff times not matching and not stacking it is just so inconvieniant.
The devs thought Doc buffs would be weaker and last around 2 hours. They didn't forsee people harvesting so much and hoarding so much to make a the best possible buffs the standard buffs.
Yes some inconvieniance is ok, people should be dependant on others. Yet forcing people to go to town twice as often, then sit around and wait is silly, make stuff match.
We entertainers have asked about this, it was just never a top 5 issue with us, I don't think. Maybe it will become a higher priority for us. I understand how it would be a high priority for non-entertainers.
You PVP as a rifleman without mind buffs all the time. That is great, I try not to di, you will die when you fight another rifleman who does have mind buffs. With buffs my Mind hits 5000, I often fight other people with Mind just as high. If I fight somebody with less mind, they die.
Besides the fact that this will all be changing.... I eat some burst run food when I log in, eat some synthsteak before I buff, make sure I eat 2 focus foods, by the time I'm getting armored I'll start drinking brandy, then once I arrive I can eat a low-filling canape, pop a muon when needed. I've killed other rifleman. I don't solo pvp however. Maybe everybody in my group always having access to music buffs helps my survival indirectly. I'm actually quite viable in PvP, maybe because template stackinghas a lot less meaning these days.PvP has become: are you a Jedi or not, or are you grouped with Jedis or not?
Straker_Atrella wrote:I enjoy a challange, always have. I don't expect to mow through everything nor would I want too.
Yet why would I want to fight at less then my max potential? Some things I kill easily, some things I need to work for. If I need too, I bring friends.
I never asked for the game to be easier, nor do I want it to be. I was very happy when NPC powers came back. The combat revamp will make me happy as well.
Me taking 30 minutes to kill something that I could kill in 5 minutes if I had buffs is not my version of fun however.
But are you willing to do the work required to play at the max possible level? That means making friends with entertainers, so you would have someone on the planet where you run missions to rebuff you when the music and dancer buffs runs out. And if you had a doctor in the group to rebuff you as well you only needed to go back to town once every 2 hours.
If you really was willing to give it all the effort needed, that you would have no reason to complain.
Springbok wrote:People still aren't reading....he did not say buffbots have to stay, and he did not not try to excuse destroying 2 professions, but quite the opposite. Folks, read the whole post, the whole argument, before you respond and contradict yourselves, and argue a point that the competitor is not debating, or even disagreeing with.
I am reading what he posted, that is just one small quote from one of his 7 posts in this topic.
I was not replying to a specific comment in the post you quote me from, but to the general feeling I got from all his post in this topic.
Straker_Atrella wrote:Ok first. saying make friends with Entertainers is great, yet as I have stated before, at least on Scylla, that is not easy, there are simply very few people tring to make a living Entertaining. No matter the cause. However, there are a lot of people I know with secondary accounts who are Entertainers. When we hunt, we simply duel log and drag them along. There are many others like me. The problem is that this does nothing to help the actual Entertainer trying to earn his keep. They still are not getting business.
This should insure that you and your friends will not be without buffs. You have more accounts and if you use them to buff your self and your friends that is your right.
Granted I do not play on Scylla, not have I ever played there, but why should it be impossible for everyone else that plays there to do the same... make friends with someone with an entertainer alt. Anyone can join a guild that has a few entertainer alts.
Only thoughts that dislike interaction of any kind with other players will have trouble achieving this, and I think we can agree that they are properly playing the wrong game.
It is a choice, will people behave in a manor that will make the friends, will they commit them self to a guild that helps it them but in return expect them to help the guild? If they choose not to, then they might also choose not to have access to mind buffs.
Straker_Atrella wrote:On Macros. Killing Macros and AFK, no matter my comments I can live with. However, in order to do so, you need to make big changes to the macro system, including stopping it from accessing the toolbar. This would have far reaching effects.
I disagree with you on this. From my knowledge of object orientated programming, with I will admit is not my strong side, it should be possible to add a "macro" flag to the function that interprets and execute any the macros. This "macro" flag would then be inherited by any function executed by the macro, and by any object created by the macro. When a macro or alias function is then called it checks for the existence of a "macro" flag before anything else, and if it is there it just terminate it self.
So if /ui action toolbar11 is called, and toolbar 11 is a new colour flesh wrap, the character just changes clothing. If toolbar 11 on the other hand were a macro it will call the macro interprets that would check for the flag and thus not run the macro.
Much of the fears about the way to SOE will have to handle looping macros properly comes from people that know to little about programming to know they know to little. People who thing that the macro is somehow directly executed with out being interpreted and that the program have no way of seeing the difference between keyboard input and macros.
Straker_Atrella wrote:Every profession has bugs and problems. The answer to those problems is not to drag the other professions down, it is to fix the problems.
Entertainers in general despise AFK play, they loathe it's very existance. It has arguably killed their profession. However while just waving the nerf bat and making it all go away may make the game more enjoyable for you, it will make it less enjoyable for others. They matter as well.
Buffbots are killing us. The hologrinding have made BF healing "a right" and even a favour to the entertainer, few tip for it any more. That leaves buffs as the only viable income for an entertainer. Buffs witch are being devaluated by buffbots, if people come to us at all.
Combaters will still be able to function even with out mind buffs, they did before the mind buffs was around. So if worst come to worst and mind buffs becomes only for the few and privileged, then the rest will still be able to run mission, just not on such a high difficulty. And the PvP'ers would be in equal footing. The option to join one of the guilds that provide the mind buffs are open to them, they will have a choice.
Straker_Atrella wrote:Here in my humble opinion is a timeline for how you REALLY fix buffbots.
1. Add an active interface that allows attended buffs to last 3 hours and makes them 10% better.
Result: When a live Entertainer is present, people will bypass the bot and go to the person. This will start to bring real live Entertaining back, slowly pushing buffbots away.
3 hour buffs would be nice, it would reduce the "time mismatch" of buffing that make many people complain. But simply giving a bonus to a ATK player over a AFK one, is saying that being AFK is ok in the first place.
Straker_Atrella wrote:2. Make it so you can be rebuffed and the times stack. Meaning if I have an hour left on Doc or Musician buffs, I can get rebuffed. When the first die, the others kick in.
Result: This allow different Doc and Musician times to coexist better. You wont have those periods in town where you need to sit around and wait 30 minutes for Doc buffs (or Entertainer) to fall. This time differential is the #1 reason that people love buffbots right near their hunting spot. After this kicks in, coupled with number 1, more Entertainers come back, or more people start to play their Entertainers attended.
This is a bad idea... People would get 2 set of buffs at once, and then not need buffing for 6 hours, you could just as well ask for even longer running buffs. If buffs could overwrite old buffs, so the doc buff with one hour left could be replaced with a new 3 hour one, then that would be good, and it would eliminate the need to wait for a buff to run out.
Straker_Atrella wrote:3. Add Entertainer content, nothing major, just something to attract more people.
Result: More people play Entertainers and keep playing them. Many people will get bored with just buffing. You can't have a situation hwere you have a lot at first, then it falls again.
Entertainers are for the social players, whether they are the chatty type or prefer to listen, and perhaps comment occasionally. Buffing should not be the only reason for becoming an entertainer. Just as doing corvette runs, should not be the sole reason to become a commando. More tools to better entertain would be good, but contend like the devs define it is not was entertainers need. We are not suppose to interact with NPC's we are supposed to interact with PC's.
Straker_Atrella wrote:4. Now you Nerf buffbots. You would need to REALLY take a look at every single server to ensure that there are enough live Entertainers around.
Result: Because of changes 1 and 2, people were already seeking attended buffs. More Entertainers should be around, they have also had time to level up. If it is deemed through a good look that at all hours, on all servers there are enough people to carry the load, kill the buffbots. People probably are not using them anyway.
When you say that the combaters access to mind buffs should be secured before the entertainer professions are fixed, you are saying that the combaters are more imported the we are. That it does not matter that entertainers have to endure months upon months of a situation is driving us away from the profession, as long as the combatants get thair precious mind buffs.
I say remove the buffbots and all other AFK playing. Then provide the TOOLS for the combatants to find us. By the time the tools are implemented perhaps they will have learned to appreciate entertainers again, so that we will again start to grow as a profession.
All servers are different, on some armour and weapons cost more then on other, and the quality of the armour and weapons varies. So why should the availability of entertainers not vary, if there are few entertainers the ones there are should get much bigger tips, simple supply and demand. If you pay enough you can most likely always get the service you wand.
Straker_Atrella wrote:THAT is how you fix the problem. By killing buff bots first, your saying "If you do it we will come." You are asking the community to trust you. Not only trust you, but to put their enjoyment of the game in your hands. You are not only saying that you will come, but you will STAY. You wont grow bored and leave, you will be around at all hours. That is a lot of trust.
By killing buffbots first we are saying that live players comes before AFK players. Are tailors required to be around at all hours, are chefs, weaponsmiths, or even doctors required to be around at all hours? No, only entertainers are hold up to that standard and only because of the publicly available buffbots.
At the moment our enjoyment of the game is in the hands on the buffbots, and they have already proven that they do not care about us. So why not turn the table and give us the chance to prove that we do really do wand to provide buffs for the masses, why not choose the untested road over the one we know has failed?
On Chimera I have seen up to 2 other live entertainers in the tavern in the mining outpost on dantooine around 3 AM local server time. If enough players are around the statistically one will be an entertainer of some kind.
Straker_Atrella wrote:It is also a big picture problem. How many servers are there? I honestly don't know, lets say 25. Lets say the nerf bat is swung and buffbots are nerfed. On 24 servers, the Entertainers come, there is blissfull harmony. Yet what about number 25? Life there is miserable, the loss rate is high. The devs are not going to code in buffbots just for them. A couple of thousand people are unhappy, what to do?
Not as easy situation, no matter how much you hate buffbots.
I do think that the above 4 step program is a good step in the right direction however.
Well the problem would be that there was to many servers then
But lets say I wanted to make a dancer/TKA, to take on another aspect of entertaining. What server would I be most likely to make it on, the one where entertainers are common place and in fierce competition for the customers, or the one where entertainers are few and far between and the custimore line up round the block when one is performing ?It would properly balance it self out. The question is, under your scenario why should the entertainers on the 24 servers suffer because the players on one server could not get the game economy to work.
Straker_Atrella wrote:Well what I did was spend a lot of time looking for a Musician buff. Frustrated, I then got a second account and made her a musician. That is what a lot of people did, they just logged on an account, buffed themselves and their friends, then logged off. All the buffbot macros did was get rid of the logging off.
Well the question should be what did combatants do before mind buffs even existed? And the answer is they did with out, they use food and spice. They did not miss buff bots because they did not know that buffbots could exist.
Straker_Atrella wrote:
THAT is how you fixthe problem. By killing buff bots first, your saying "If you do it we will come." You are asking the community to trust you. Not only trustyou, but to put their enjoyment of the game in your hands. You are not only saying that you will come, but you will STAY. You wont grow bored and leave, you will be around at all hours. That is a lot of trust.
Ravanne_Esi wrote: ....
Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
This should insure that you and your friends will not be without buffs. You have more accounts and if you use them to buff your self and your friends that is your right.
Granted I do not play on Scylla, not have I ever played there, but why should it be impossible for everyone else that plays there to do the same... make friends with someone with an entertainer alt. Anyone can join a guild that has a few entertainer alts.
Only thoughts that dislike interaction of any kind with other players will have trouble achieving this, and I think we can agree that they are properly playing the wrong game.
It is a choice, will people behave in a manor that will make the friends, will they commit them self to a guild that helps it them but in return expect them to help the guild? If they choose not to, then they might also choose not to have access to mind buffs.
I think you'll find a lot of guilds will be shutting down those Alt Entertainers soon. Their owners really have no interest in playing them andwill probably choose to take back their cash, rather than leave the account to sit,gathering dust.
Buffbots are killing us. The hologrinding have made BF healing "a right" and even a favour to the entertainer, few tip for it any more. That leaves buffs as the only viable income for an entertainer. Buffs witch are being devaluated by buffbots, if people come to us at all.
Combaters will still be able to function even with out mind buffs, they did before the mind buffs was around. So if worst come to worst and mind buffs becomes only for the few and privileged, then the rest will still be able to run mission, just not on such a high difficulty. And the PvP'ers would be in equal footing. The option to join one of the guilds that provide the mind buffs are open to them, they will have a choice.
I'm sorry but I have two probles with this. First, you advocate joining a guild so you never have to worry about being without an entertainer. But then you turn around and embrace the only game system in SWG which forces a player to interact directly with another. Not for interaction sake, but just so they can get back to playing "their" game. Would you feel the same if you were forced to find a Tailor every two hours for a new pair of shoes orlose the abilityto dance? And not just find his vendor, but the Tailor himself and wait while he made them? OR an Artisan to fix your instrument before you could play another note? So long as you cling to the monopoly on BF healing, you will have combat players that resent you. Whether they are right or wrong doesn't really enter into it.
And I'm sorry.. I started a brand new Dancer on Starsider Friday night. I have now made 84,000 credits (all ATK) just from Mind & BF healing. So obviously someone out there is still tipping.Do people walk away without tipping? Absolutely. But you know what... thishas been an issue since this game launched. The Buff Bots didn't have anything to do with it.
By killing buffbots first we are saying that live players comes before AFK players. Are tailors required to be around at all hours, are chefs, weaponsmiths, or even doctors required to be around at all hours? No, only entertainers are hold up to that standard and only because of the publicly available buffbots.
You're right. And that is why the Buff Bot first came into being. Because the Tailor, the Chef, the Weaponsmith, even the Doctor have an alternative in the form of an NPC counterpart. Provide the same for the entertainer and I think you'll find most arguments would go away as well.
Well the problem would be that there was to many servers then
It would properly balance it self out. The question is, under your scenario why should the entertainers on the 24 servers suffer because the players on one server could not get the game economy to work.
Because the game community covers all servers and changes are not done in a vacuum. You see... You have my complete support for fixing the entertainer professions and removing the AFK gameplay. My problemis the player thatwould do so at the expense of all other playing types. Consider alternatives or solutions that will make the game better for everyone. If that means removing recursive macros.. fine. Come up with something to help those negatively impacted by that decision.
That can't really be too much to ask for, can it?
Xyrdre wrote:
Just what did the combat players do before there were buffbots?