Dancer Archive
Thread: Need some help with ideas here please. :)
I don't think some of you see the big picture here. What if finding this answer would mean turning those 170 credit missions into 2000-5000 credit missions? Are you seeing where I'm going with this? There are several possible solutions to getting rid of the AFK entertainers being discussed and worked on. I can assure you all that every change we're talking about and making is also trying to diminish the ability to AFK entertain and its overall usefullness to people while making those of us that are at their keyboards a valuable asset to the community.
Jaela wrote:
Lets not worry about an afk dancer doing a mission for 170 credits, lets worry about whats eventually going to make a "lively" cantina extinct and thats afk healing,,,dance all you want afk,,I dont care or play afk music, but afk healing must stop and soon.
Rewards will be balanced with the time and such involved. 5k isn't likely to be the number.. was just off the top of my head.. when I said the 2-5k I really mean somewhere in there. Might be 2k which at Master Level I do not see as being too high personally. Its all going to come down to balance. We have to balance the amount of time it takes to do one of these missions with that of other missions and also consider the danger level and wear and tear on equipment they take and adjust accordingly. In the end our missions will not in any way be a get rich quick way to go, combat missions will still be faster. However... it will make it possible to make a living dancing and only dancing and that is something we need.
This is also something that is completely in character especially for a master dancer, much MORE so then living off tips. You don't see Aerosmith doing concerts for tips do you? Getting paid for working a show is much more IC then living off tips that way. Not to mention if your making enough off tips anyway then there will be no need to do these missions, but it will be there for those that aren't or need some extra credits. I'd personally rather see a dancer doing a gig then having to run combat missions for extra cash myself.
As far as making it easier for us to get the tips? Thats also one of the things I'm working on and the buff changes will play a large part in that. This won't be the last improvement by a long shot but I think between these two things alone dancing will be a much more rewarding profession and those AFK bots will become far less of a problem. Does this all make sense to you? I love constructive criticism, if you have anything to add feel free. 
Rebeeka wrote:
I never was good at Space Channel 5, but what if dancer missions were more like "dance-offs". The mission target does a dance flourish and then you would have to do the same dance flourish. Complexity, speed,and number of flourishes would increase until you failed to match your opponent. Mission payment would be based on how long you last, with a set amount (basically what they pay now) for those who are really really bad at these. The first few dances would have to be pretty easy though so that you could at least have a chance for a decent payout and to help those of us that are really bad at these "simon says" type games. In any case, no way you could AFK macro that since you would actually have to sit and watch what your opponent was doing (and of course it would be random and based on your level)...
Hmmm, guess you would have to know what the flourishes looked like too (unless it told you which flourish to do - that might make it too easy though). It would be sort of a game-within-a-game; nice distraction if nothing else.
Very creative idea, I like this one a lot.
Several good ideas so far tho, good work people, keep em coming.
Ravenmist wrote:
I don't think some of you see the big picture here. What if finding this answer would mean turning those 170 credit missions into 2000-5000 credit missions? Are you seeing where I'm going with this? There are several possible solutions to getting rid of the AFK entertainers being discussed and worked on. I can assure you all that every change we're talking about and making is also trying to diminish the ability to AFK entertain and its overall usefullness to people while making those of us that are at their keyboards a valuable asset to the community.
I'm leaning toward what Pickles said at first blush - the last thing we want to do is make entertainment seem to be lucrative and easy. Dancers would be thicker than Creature Handlers
On the other hand, I really am getting excited thinking that the Devs are taking this issue seriously. Some thoughts:
- Just like crack-proof copy protection, you're never going to prevent the most inventive and industrious from dancing AFK if that's what they want to do. You can, however, make it difficult enough that 99% of them don't see it as worth while.
- I'd rather discourage AFKing by encouraging actual play; offer signficant rewards for playing at the keyboard vs. nothing for dancing AFK.
- Since entertainer's focus is non-combat, we need more non-combat type goals to go for. If we can't take sides in the GCW (without combat skills), I like the ideas being bantered around about fame. One poster, who may have said this on the Musician board, suggested billboards advertising entertainers who were in town with x amount of fame. Making fame a part of the advancement requirements, or an indirect benefit to one's faction are all worthy ideas. The trick would be to make fame impossible to macro, and IMO that requires that fame be based on missions -- maybe not terminal missions, but specific NPC quests that are pre-scripted and sequential, even tailored for a specific faction (including Jabba).
Sorry for the digression -- I guess the answer to your first question is that entertainer missions themselves would be hard to AFK macro. They require interaction by the player and could include variables (location, dance step, flourishes required) that could not be macro'd ahead of time. If they also paid enough to be worthwhile and gave the entertainer Fame points, then we've taken one step to undercutting the AFKer.
Of more concern should be the routine daily automation of skills by so many of our number. These are the folks that AFK Macro 24/7, only checking in to make log in after the servers come up. They can be discouraged by:
- The Mind Buff enhancement will hinder AFK macroers fromoffering the same services as those of us who play, rendering them less desirable to play or to interact with.
- If you dance while AFK for more than 10 minutes (my own arbitrary number), you get no more XP until you return to your keyboard. The game already has auto-AFK features, maybe that could be adapted?
- GIve us a confirmation window for tips. One, this would solve our problem of not seeing tip messages in all the spam. And two, you don't get the tip unless you're at the keyboard to click "OK" and accept it.
- Use (3) as part of the mission process so that, in order to get paid and receive Fame points or XP, the player must acknowledge a confirmation window. The window should not always be the same message - it must be read, and sometimes the correct answer will be to click "Yes", and other times "No", but it requires a living human brain to make that decision and finish the quest.
Ravenmist, I don't envy you your job. This is kinda like herding cats, isn't it?
what if dancer missions were more like "dance-offs". The mission target does a dance flourish and then you would have to do the same dance flourish. Complexity, speed,and number of flourishes would increase until you failed to match your opponent. Mission payment would be based on how long you last, with a set amount (basically what they pay now) for those who are really really bad at these.
I REALLY like Rebeeka's brainstorm. This would be a fun quest to do, too - kinda like whackamole My only concern is that, even after dancing since release, I'm hard-pressed to tell the difference between Exotic1, 2, and 3. They all sway with the hands below the waist. Their flourishes differ, but only Exotic4 is immediately discernible. The same might be said for lyrical and formal -- this could be a tough quiz to master, even for a Master.
But, hey, I like challenges. And the point can be made that challenges alone will discourage AFKing.
I also like Sinda's idea of a tip confirmation box asking if you want to accept or not. Not only does this inhibit AFKers from ever getting tips, but for some people like medics who heal me, I'd like to be able to refuse without having to tip back. This also would seem like a reasonably easy thing to implement, no?
- J
Oooh! Now that Pickles mentions it, I hate having to /tip back people when I want to work for free. (Yes, it happens) My scout has some medic skills and it's not unusual for her to heal entertainers' action bars when she's in a cantina - the other day one tipped me 250cr. I had to /tip it back and add 1000cr for all the BF and mind wounds she helped me cure. It would have been easier to just refuse the tip, something some of us do once in a while, believe it or not! I never charge for teaching skills either, another case where I return tips.
picklesSW wrote:
I also like Sinda's idea of a tip confirmation box asking if you want to accept or not. Not only does this inhibit AFKers from ever getting tips, but for some people like medics who heal me, I'd like to be able to refuse without having to tip back. This also would seem like a reasonably easy thing to implement, no?
Okay, a few things here.
One.. personally I don't care about the entertainer missions, but theres a lot that do so I'm doing this for them. I don't see this becoming a problem as long as you can still make money faster doing destroy missions. And seriously how many people do you think are going to become master dancers just to do some missions? Not going to happen. The goal here is to make sure a Dancer can survive on dancing only and at the same time, make it so they have to work for it. (No AFK) Any change we make from here on out is going to be with the mentality of making things harder for people to AFK.
Two.. I like the idea of the auto afk flag making it so that no exp can be gained. I'm apprehensive about making it stop all healing tho because of the many dancers that stay in their PA's afk to help their PA members while they can't be there. So, if their serious about helping their PA members they can still heal them but they won't get any exp doing it. I think this is a fair compromise myself.
Three.. while I see the usefulness of the popup boxes.. many have expressed a great hatred for them and don't want to deal with them. I can understand this so I'd like to find a good alternative, but in the end one or two may be necessary.. I just hope I can find the right solution to make everyone happy here. 
I may be dreaming tho.
Please keep your thoughts coming tho, this is a great help to me. Even those of you who disagree with me.
funny i had kind of the same type of idea as the /tip accept but for the healing purposes.
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From what i can see a deny of service is not the right solution, since afkers dont need to press a button tuss not requiring a presence in front of the keyboard. What would need to be implemented is something i think would work great.
eg:
Booboo_the wonderfull (pistoleer) comes into the cantina spots a twi'lek dancerand send a request to be healed.
The Twi'lek dancer accepts the request tuss beginning the healing process.
afkers wont be able to accept and heal so the players will start to look for non afk dancers
well thats just an idea !
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Now as for the dancing missions I was thinking of something like this
Somewhere during the mission the npccould have a few requests, wich will require to agree and perform the requested action, this could be random so as to make it more fun. but the basic idea is to have a few pop up windows once in a while so that you need to interact with the game, You cant be afk if you have to interact with the game.
This would realy slove the problem of afkers.
Quoting Sinda:
"If you dance while AFK for more than 10 minutes (my own arbitrary number), you get no more XP until you return to your keyboard. The game already has auto-AFK features, maybe that could be adapted? "
Just as a further point, I think for this to be effective, the auto-AFK would have to be changed so you could not turn it off. As it stands right now, you can just toggle this feature off and not worry about it. There would also have to be some kind of 'cap' for the length you can set the timer-it defaults to 10 mins now, but you can set it for longer (I've not tested but presumably you can set it to an hour,at least, by typing 60, and possibly longer).
"GIve us a confirmation window for tips. One, this would solve our problem of not seeing tip messages in all the spam. And two, you don't get the tip unless you're at the keyboard to click "OK" and accept it. "
I like this idea because it's pretty straightforward and simple. AFKers will thus be guaranteed to be working for free.
"Use (3) as part of the mission process so that, in order to get paid and receive Fame points or XP, the player must acknowledge a confirmation window. The window should not always be the same message - it must be read, and sometimes the correct answer will be to click "Yes", and other times "No", but it requires a living human brain to make that decision and finish the quest."
I like this idea too. Then again, I'm at the point where I wouldn't mind a popup or two if it would increase the likelyhood that when I go to dance and there are other entertainers there, they'll be live people and not bots.
The whack-a-mole idea presented too is good, but a couple of things:
--the displays for lyrical/formal need to be fixed when watching, else you can't tell which is which until a flourish comes up
--the base dance for exotic3 includes a movement that is identical to its flo 2, and flo2/3 of exotic2- this makes it difficult to discern which dance is being done (you'd have to watch for a bit to see if the arms move from waist level higher [ex2] or if they remain low [ex3]; and you'd have no real way of knowing if ex3 is being flourished or left to run idle when the turn move comes up-it's possible to flourish it seamlessly)
--they'd have to promise not to force us to do the new flourishes until they've been replaced! *snicker*
I think that no healing while AFK is still a good idea, even with the point you raise Ravenmist. If the 'PA entertainer' needs to log, those people in that PA can either wait for healing till the entertainer is back online, or go elsewhere. It's exactly what would happen if they wandered into a regular cantina and found it empty, and it could serve as incentive to get more thanone entertainer in the PA (or to *contract* one for a duration of time, thus creating a job for another live player). Of course, I'm also willing to admit that I'm pretty hardnosed when it comes to AFK, so take that as you will 
I like dancing because I like performing. For people. Not NPCs. I like the concept of the manager of a cantina hiring me to entertain his patrons, but the concept of turning those missions into some sort of mini video game where I make a fool of myself imitating the moves an NPC makes (and I'm sure they'll throw the 'giggle-wiggle' in there for exotic dances, as well as the 'defy-gravity' horrendous hand-animated moves for some of the others) is not something I'll voluntarily do, for any amount of cash.
No offense intended. If you want to include missions like that, I'd recommend making it another type of 'tab' in the mission terminal.
- J
(of course this makes my job and the devs that much harder, but hey, thats what I'm here for )
I would have to go with if you use AFK or the time out auto AKF to code it where the mission would be incomplete and you would have to start over again. Also make this the same for anytype of healing in the cantinas.