Brawler Archive

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Stormbilly wrote:

Newmoon,

have you ever tried to heal your own battle fatigue with just novice entertainer? It takes FOREVER! This really isn't a viable option.

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Yep, several times on test I did this ( Didnt want to have to go all the way to New Unity, and it was time to make a sandwich too). Of course, I made cash doing it, from the newbie droids....

Option 2 is the more viable to me.

There are ways to prevent recursive macros without resorting to removing /macro and /ui. I find this a most welcome change.

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Mannee wrote:

The following should be a consideration of the Development team when considering removing macro features such as repeat, call, and other benefits. I understand there has been much discussion regarding the annoyance that persists at star ports with living advertising, constant and repetitious chatter on spatial, with Entertainers and Doctors operating AFK and on macros, etc. However, I am confident a different approach must be considered than opting for the removal of macro options so valuable to professions.

Possibly eliminating AFK and macro combinations is the solution. Most macros are sufficient to keep someone online indefinitely until server reset. Doctors have proven that by programming enhancement macros that speak dribble, target the customer, enhance, and finally request payment. I do not consider this as either wrong or detracting from an optimally conducive game-play environment. It is the player’s choice to do so and they accept full responsibility for no payment and free enhancements, duping, etc. I personally do not patronize AFK Doctors. I have once but find the experience distasteful. I have, on the other hand, patronized AFK Entertainers who are running an invite macro, doing a little dancing, a little singing, and providing a service. If they chose to do this without a repeating macro and not AFK, I am sure there would be fewer Entertainers as this is not the most exciting part of the game.

The mere fact macros exist in-game and can be written then ran to execute whatever function the player desires is astounding given the alternative of piling command icons into the command bar and the rest of the /commands typed manually. I have at present five characters on one account. I added a second account and another character as well. Each character has been defined uniquely and performing a broad variety of professions. This has given me opportunity to write many macros and a fraction that repeat automatically.

Whether AFK or not, which is an in-game option for a character, I do not consider that player choice reason to hinder macro operation. Many beneficial macros I have written for my characters to automate certain tasks such as the all familiar /loot. Due to current in-game lag, delay, and other server wide problems, I have had to place my cursor, mouse left-click engaged, over the loot all option on corpses for a minimum time of 3-5 seconds before I get a response from the game that either the corpse is dry or there are looted items I have received in my inventory. This is more than an annoyance and occurs with shuttle port ticket collectors as well hindering game play. Thus, if I choose to /loot, /pause 1, and then either indirectly call the macro “loot” or directly through /ui action, that should be my choice to run a repeating macro at one second intervals to improve my own game play and not feel like looting is a chore.

Macros and their recursive behavior have the following uses in my game-play:

1). AFK Macro tumbling to a standing position for Doctors and Combat Medics.
2). AFK Macro barking that I am tumbling to a standing position for Doctors and combat Medics. Please tip as a courtesy.
3). Macro running /loot over and over to avoid the timely penalties of missing the loot opportunity
4). Combat macros running with other macros repeating commands such as /intimidate2 and Center of Being macros
5). Combat Medic and Doctor healing macros
6). Entertainer macros
7). Crafting macros

These are all designed to maximize my game-play and allow me to focus on other tasks required for my characters depending upon what they are engaged in. Does the decision to remove recursive macros mean the macros loose their effectiveness? Is there a way to write a macro that in essence is a recursive macro but requiring my presence at the keyboard once every hour and I can still “AFK”? Can I write a one hundred line macro I press on the command bar once every 30 minutes to do what a recursive macro would for me? I am sure the impact will be felt but not sure, unless SWG limits the length, that writing a very lengthy macro I press once every hour will bring that impact to bear.

Removing recursive functionality from macros will make obtaining a profession faster to enjoy the full benefits more difficult, will make many tasks done within SWG more tedious and cumbersome, will make combat more laborious as one will not be able to focus on the next combat strategy but more so on what button to next press. While I appreciate the need to remove elements of game-play that are not conducive to SWG, crippling players is one way to put more burden on CSR and SOE than never before.

Instead, consider the following. Make it impossible to AFK macro. Most macros are sufficient to keep players online. However, just running a macro and walking away from the machine will result in disconnect since there is code monitoring mouse and character movement. Why not utilize that code to the advantage of SWG to prohibit AFK macros. Thus, if someone is AFK and enables a macro, code can activate to spam /dump and /clearCombatQueue to prohibit AFK macroing. A player is then required to periodically establish physical interface to their computer in order to run macros at the same time making AFK macroing impossible. Thus, gone are the days when communicating with spatial to another character is impossible due to all the AFK macro spammers.

Consider other options that are possible instead of always taking the most immediately confrontational approach Developers seem to be taking with all issues players complain about.

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Crisby wrote:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=44991

Need a dancer buff? Good luck finding one.

Need a musician buff? Good luck finding one.

Need battle fatigue healed at 2am? Good luck getting that done.

Need an entertainer at all outside of Theed and Coronet? GOOD LUCK FINDING ONE!

Oh, and for the few people who have figured out how to get a doctor buff on a macro, they'll be gone too!

Don't forget the combat macros that you use! Without a /ui command or a /macro command, you'll be putting on your armor one piece at a time. Not that it matters much with the delay now.

Anyway, this post is for people who think eliminating repeating macros will only affect entertainer professions.

YOU will be affected by this.

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Have you ever played any of the entertainer professions? I was master musician but quit after 3 days because of buffbots. They completely dominate the buff and heal market, why pay a live entertainer 500 creds for a buff or heal when you can get it for free from a bot?
In 3 days actively advertising and trying to sell buffs in dant mining op, dath science op, and coronet, I made about 100k (Most of that came from a select few who tipped 30k). I would have made more if I did one enraged rancor lair a day.
Arguably entertainers dont need money, but entertainer is just one of possible 3.5 master professions.

The saddest episode was when the buff bot in dant mining op went LD, and instead of getting buffs from me, people would cry about when the bot was coming back and how that sucked.

We should just remove entertainers and docs alltogether and place buff/heal vendors next to the ticket machines, right?

I cant wait until the recursive macros are gone, imagine the spam reduction from afk shouters. I might pick up musician again.