Dancer Archive
Thread: Yay, and thanks to all you AFK Macro-ers
it's obvious why they don't nix it. that's the point i'm trying to make. the design is flawed. too many people need mind healing, and there are too few people who want to pay for graphical chat. there are ways to fix the problem, but none of them involve ripping into people who apprieciate healing at 4am, none of them involve ripping afk healing out of the game, none of them involve forcing players into the disgusting timesink of running halfway across the galaxy (or paying for it) to find a healer.
put incentives into the game to be atk. make people want to come to the cantinas. not stupid treats or player owned cantinas or gambling machines. real incentives. this is going to require alot more thought and effort from the developers, and that is another reason why it's not going to be fixed anytime soon.
but being total **edit** about it to everyone in game and out doesn't solve a **edit** thing. it just makes people think dancers are a bunch of elitist **edit**. which right now people are, because honestly the profession works, it's a great profession and there are thousands of avenues to entertain besides in the stupid cantinas.
meeuki wrote:
it's obvious why they don't nix it. that's the point i'm trying to make. the design is flawed. too many people need mind healing, and there are too few people who want to pay for graphical chat. there are ways to fix the problem, but none of them involve ripping into people who apprieciate healing at 4am, none of them involve ripping afk healing out of the game, none of them involve forcing players into the disgusting timesink of running halfway across the galaxy (or paying for it) to find a healer.
put incentives into the game to be atk. make people want to come to the cantinas. not stupid treats or player owned cantinas or gambling machines. real incentives. this is going to require alot more thought and effort from the developers, and that is another reason why it's not going to be fixed anytime soon.
Well, the people who want to be at the keyboard really care about the class, who wants to socialize or rollplay (gee, that word again) with people who are in the cantina and the people who come in and go AFK in the middle of the floor making people move around to "avoid" them ruins everyones gameplay.
but being total **edit** about it to everyone in game and out doesn't solve a **edit** thing. it just makes people think dancers are a bunch of elitist **edit**. which right now people are, because honestly the profession works, it's a great profession and there are thousands of avenues to entertain besides in the stupid cantinas.
Well, if we gripe about it enough, it's possible (very slim) that we will be able to get our point across that they are ruining the gameplay for the ones who want to be there. Just because the Holocrons were put in, and someone wants to try the Jedi way and has to go either dancer, or musician doesn't mean that they have to be a total *blank* to the people who enjoy entertaining and I guess it's time for payback.
meeuki wrote:it's obvious why they don't nix it. that's the point i'm trying to make. the design is flawed. too many people need mind healing, and there are too few people who want to pay for graphical chat.
I disagree with this assertion on the following grounds. Several other threads have been posted here, particularly by newer players, saying, "Where the heck do I go to get ent heal XP? Nobody seems to have much BF or mind wounds any more."
If what you say is true -- that the designe is "flawed" because "too many people need mind healing" and there are "too few people" healing (actively paying for graphical chat as you call it), then why the heck are so many entertainers -- including now, I might add, Jedi Hologrinders who have complained about being stuck at 4/1/4/1 or something and other AFKers -- complaining that they are having a hard time finding a little ent heal XP to go along with all that knowledge XP?
Time was (and I remember it) when heal XP was 10x the rate of knowledge XP even at the higher dances. Over time, for whatever reason (frankly I am not 100% sure what it is) that has gone away. Now it's reversed, and people are getting 10 dance xp for every heal xp they get.
So. If you are right, then how do these things get conceptually reconciled? How is it both true that there are way too many mind/fatigue wounds in the game and not enough healers AND there are healers coming on this forum asking, "Where the heck are all the wounds and BF so I can get my heal XP?"
Kuildeous has suggested insurance has a lot to do with it. Now that in addition to BF and mind wounds and such that can be healed more or less for free, stuff decays now so people are cloning/insuring more. Some will suggest that the game is dying and less people are playing. Others will complain that various things (PVP, PVE, you name it) have been "nerfed" and no longer give whatever damage or wounds they once did.
However you slice it, one way or another, the evidence from everyone on the forums other than you seems to suggest (given the frequency of "how do I get heal xp?" posts lately and the rarity of "where the heck are all the healers?" posts at the same time) not that there are too many mind wounds/BF in the game, but there there is not enough of either. And if that is true, then the whole "need a healer but there is none around so AFK is the only way to go" argument rings false.
C
exactly, it's easy to find a healer afk now. maybe a bit harder in small towns and adventure worlds but otherwise it's simple. but rip afk healing right out of the game and the balance would shift back the other way.
i don't see how insurance could be any part of it. paying 1k to clone has been in for a long long time now and insurance/decay doesn't affect that.
my point isn't that afk dancing isn't bad. i mean, i think if someone is really concerned about entertaining they aren't going to beshaking hands at the cantina door, but maybe that's just me. the point is people don't like timesinks. having dancers be a person responsible (to validate our profession) for the timesink is a bad idea. forcing players to not have a workaround for the timesink is a worse idea. constantly spitting at everyone, in-game and out, who appreciates the workaround is the worst idea.
what if you could heal wounds anywhere? battle fatigue too.
but to to get dancing experience you had to be in the cantina?make giving buffs get you dancing xp and make it a significant amount of dance xp. remove the passive buff and make the active buff targettable to more than one person at a time. make dancing xp dependant on the # of people watching.
this wouldn't remove afk dancing. it wouldn't bar people who don't mind leavingtheir machines on at night to heal people, but it would give people who wanted to grind through the class an alternative to simply sitting afk all the time. why take 2 weeks macroing when they could go around buffing people for xp and finish in a week?
(thats right nvoigt, you simpleton, master thus devoid of the need for xp)
Reading comprehension is for experts. Go back and try again. Read whole sentences. Slowly. Take a deep breath. Think about the meaning of the words. Ah. Better. You see, it can work if you only try...
all of them wanted to be the unique individual in their pretty purple dress and painted lekkus and the master dancer title was to be their sparkling tiara. you have to wonder if they really are skilled enough to switch modes from baited breath to enthralling conversationalist with ease. from what i have seen on here, and in the game, no.
Then you probably have never seen a Master dancer that earned that title. That's exactly what we are talking about. No bots please, we want real players who know how to play.
The game would not be as fun for 95% of the gaming community if they had to sit in a cantina for 15-20 minutes to heal their PvP-earned BF and wounds because there are only 4 of your type of preferred, non-afk entertainers in the Theed cantina, or in Coronet, or in Moenia, or in any other hotspot.
I wonder how it was the first month in release, or even in beta. I'm sure people quit in thousands because of this. No wait... they didn't.
Before you judge anyone or tell us to see both sides, I challenge you to play an entertainer. Because most entertainers I know have either combat skills, or a second character who is a combatant. Yes, most of us do know both sides. And I'd rather trade three botted cantinas for one staffed and two empty. I guess you have never experienced a really staffed cantina as either class. That's not your fault, and I think it's sad, but it's exactly what we're talking about here.
Well you know what? You're concerned about the well-being of a very small percentage of a pair of professions that account for small percentages of the game playing people. I'm concerned about the well-fare of everyone else.
And you are wrong. I play more fighter type characters than entertainers, and you are dead wrong. If you want instant action, play an FPS. If you want an RPG, where after a day of fighting you come into a cantina and get greeted by the band and asked what you did, where you got this terrible wounds, if they can do anything for you... then sitting there for 5 minutes is a very enjoyable part of the game. I have been there, from both sides, and all enjoyed it. The few that didn't would use the time for a toilet break, ok with me.
However, I can understand that listening to an AFK-Bot for 5 minutes is pure boredom. But the solution cannot be to introduce even more Bots.
Devs only want to cause uproar for things that are game-breaking (read: AT-ST).
Game breaking is a nice word. For all the good entertainers, that left before you recognized them, don't you think this was gamebreaking ? I don't think they had too much trouble with AT-STs. And guess what, they payed the same money as you do. Game breaking would be game breaking for a special set of people.
I can see your problem, but I don't think your behaviour is the right solution.
Chessack wrote:
Well, I won't quote the whole thing, but he wrote a lot of things I wholeheartedly agree with as to the nature of the debate on the forums. Thank you. At least if we can't agree on theory, we can at least agree on the methods we use to debate them like adults. Mr. M above makes points I feel are valid sometimes, but his vulgarity and offensiveness go a long way towatrd making his points ignored. Thanks Chessack for at least having a reasoned approach to the whole issue.
Your point about being 4/1/4/1 is well taken. One of my points far far above in this thread is that the reason the Devs have not removed AFK macrotainers from the game is because there would not be enough entertainers to fit the game's bill for them. Now for every one ATK, we've got 3-5 AFK. But how was the game better balanced at the beginning when entertainers were 1/41/4?
It's the same either way. Too many or too few, neither is good. If we were to rely solely on the ATKers, then we'd get back to the 1/4/1/4 method of Mastering Dance/Music, and then we know that there aren't enough entertainers to go around. In a perfectly balanced world, you would move up the tree evenly. It's like any combat profession requiring 3branches of weapon and 1branchof combat xp - by the time you've got the weapon XP to hit Master Whateverweapon, you've got enough Combat XP to get there too, because it is mathematically designed that this should be so, and that works. Entertainer is much more orgainic, and it's harder to strike that balance.
But if we pretend for a sec that you and I are Devs,which way do we go when the only two options we have open to us are the 1/4/1/4 method that makes 3% of the game population happy and makes 65% of the game population leaving posts on *their* combat forums "Hey, where do I get to heal all my BF and Mind Wounds??" or do we go with the 4/1/4/1 method that makes 65% of the game population happy and makes 3% of the game population leaving posts on *their* entertainer forums "Hey, where do I get all that Healing XP?" Ideally, you and I would takeamoment to think outside the box and decide to settle on neither option, but to come up with something that works better. But since you and I are pretending to be Devs, we should make the roleplay complete by realizing that we have corporate SOE and Lucasarts bosses who want the game to go out to fit their marketing ideas without regard to the actual state of the game from a programming standpoint. We should further make the roleplay complete by understanding that certain aspects of the game require our finite attention in more urgent ways than this decision between an entertainer world of 1/4/1/4 or 4/1/4/1. Essentially, we're pretending to be Devs as best we can, and therefore we know that thinking outside the box is best, but not feasable at this time, and therefore we *must* choose between the 4/1/4/1 and the 1/4/1/4 method. And if we must choose, then it is clear thatour choice must bethe 4/1/4/1 method, because it is the one which makes the largest number of people happy. It isn't fair to the few, but it benefits the many, and that is our goal, since ultimately we have bills to pay, and we need to be sure we keep the largest portion of our gamers happy as possible.
It is what it is. We can debate the theory of it all day. In theory, I'm a definite opponent to AFK advancement in MMORPGS. I've played many, and have loved the lengths they go to in limiting that problem. I was glad for the "nerf" to surveying that makes it impossible to survey forever, making your toon into a pseudo-heavy harvester. But in this case, I can't disagree with it, because the mechanics that drive the system make it much more useful to the game at large to support the AFKers, and the Devs agree with that. They *hate* AFK advancement to the cores of their beings, because in the end they are MMORPG designers, and AFK advancement is *evil.* I think it speaks a lot that they have not addressed this issue. They know it's a bandaid over a wound they can't heal right now. At some point they may address it, but for now, they can't. They are choosing the lesser of two evils.
Unlike many who blame the Devs for the state of the game's incompleteness and bugginess, I applaud them that the game is as sound as it is. They were looking for a release date end of '03, and then someone who's more important than the programmers at SOE/Lucasarts decided for marketing reasons that the game just *had* to be launched in July, 4-6 months too soon. That it's gone as smoothly as it has is a testament to the Devs' ability to take a made situation and make a workable world out of it. Bravo to them.
But if you're waiting for the Devs to fix this, be prepared for a long wait. In the meantime, AFK macrotainers serve the game better by being, than by being removed, and I shall continue to support them.
Edit: ... appluad the Devs for taking a bad (not made) situation and ...
nvoigt wrote:
Reading comprehension is for experts. Go back and try again. Read whole sentences. Slowly. Take a deep breath. Think about the meaning of the words. Ah. Better. You see, it can work if you only try...
The game would not be as fun for 95% of the gaming community if they had to sit in a cantina for 15-20 minutes to heal their PvP-earned BF and wounds because there are only 4 of your type of preferred, non-afk entertainers in the Theed cantina, or in Coronet, or in Moenia, or in any other hotspot.
I wonder how it was the first month in release, or even in beta. I'm sure people quit in thousands because of this. No wait... they didn't.
- Your insult to the other poster was unnecessary.
- Your insult to the other poster is ironic because then you proceed to make the same mistake you are insulting (ie. reading comprehension).
- I didn't say they were quitting because ofit.If you'll actually look at what I said, it was that they weren't having fun. That's all.
You were there? Good for you. So was I. You can see there to the left, right under my name, that I've been around a good long while, thank you. I remember advancing through my weapon skills much faster than the entertainers were advancing through entertainment, and howI'd walk into a cantina with 300 BFand plenty of mind wounds andsee 2 Novice Entertainers. AndI'd think: "do I stay here for 15 minutes while these 2work out my 300 BF, or do Itake a shuttle to some other place where maybe there are more entertainers?" How did I know in the first few weeks of the game where the big entertainment venues would be on 5 different newbie planets? It wasn't fun. I didn'tquit. I'd go out on a limb and say that no one quit for that express reason. But many people did quit because the game wasn't fun, and that was one symptom. The game has hundreds of thousands of players, and if you think that means that SOE doesn't mind losing paying customers in 1s and 2s, you know nothing of business. You want everyone, as many as possible. So you try to design the game with a few non-fun things as possible, because even though no one quit because healing 300 BF in the first two weeks took 15-20 minutes, it sure didn't help, and it was a contirbuting factor. You look to reduce all the factors that contribute to the decision to leave the game.
All I was saying was that it wasn't fun. That's all.
granted there were afkers before but since the holocrons even a non-dancer like me can see the difference.
i tend to give my healing XP to non masters. so not every person out there that doesnt use cloning or insurance just looks for afkers. i seek out non afkers and reward them with 5-10k credit tips and the wound XP.
Greatsails wrote:I wholeheartedly agree with as to the nature of the debate on the forums. Thank you. At least if we can't agree on theory, we can at least agree on the methods we use to debate them like adults.
I'll add another wrinkle. Some of us (including me) are RPers, and pretty hardcore ones at that. I stay in character as much of the time as possible (it's not always possible for a variety of reasons, from game mechanic ones to people who just don't RP but you have to interact with, but most of the time I am in character). The AFK/anti-AFK is an OOC (out of character) issue. Just like whether /legshot3 is broken for carbineers. It is not an in-character issue. Anyone who is a roleplayer, is extremely unlikely to have AFK/anti-AFK discussions in game. Again, other than a few "Acid Fermented Kreetlejuice" jibes and a couple of comments in group-chat, the subject simply does not come up when I am in game, because I remain in character with Dejah and it would not be in-character to discuss such things. I am sure many other dancers are like this (and those of other classes). Forum debate is one thing. Taking it in game is something else, and nobody who is really into roleplaying is likely to do that, especially in spatial. Anyone who assumes that "Forum Hounds" who debate strongly here make the same comments in game is really making a bad assumption.
As a great example, Velvet-Dancer and I have both made many "anti-AFK" postings here and agree with each other probably 99.9% of the time on the forum. For a little while she played a character on Naritus (my server). Other than one or two tells, we RPed together (and with other people in Keren cantina). The subject just did not come up much. To read our forum posts, you'd think if we two got together in game it'd be all we talked about. But no... we RPed, making up stories about "where did the name 'Poplock' come from?" or "Who invented the Basic dance", and so on. AFK dancing? That's a matter for the forums, not for in-game play.
So I urge everyone to have care when assuming things about game play based on forum posts. Not only are the two not equivalents, but in fact they rarely resemble one another.
Greatsails wrote:Your point about being 4/1/4/1 is well taken. One of my points far far above in this thread is that the reason the Devs have not removed AFK macrotainers from the game is because there would not be enough entertainers to fit the game's bill for them. Now for every one ATK, we've got 3-5 AFK. But how was the game better balanced at the beginning when entertainers were 1/41/4?
The 1/4/1/4 was not due to AFK/ATK, at least not directly. Something has happened to the player base (and I honestly am not sure what) that has caused the total amount of BF and Mind Wounds they are coming in to get healed up for to decrease to probably a tenth of what it was the first couple of months. Someone on another thread somewhere said it is because people are playing "smarter." Others have suggested other things (such as insurance). I'm not sure what the right answer to this is, honestly, since the amount of MY wounds and battle fatigue (never high in the first place, since I play carefully and use good tactics when I get into combat) has remained more or less the same since I started playing the combat aspects of the game.
It's not true that just because you are at-keyboard you will ordinarily get more healing points than knowledge points. Healing was way ahead for a long time. Now suddenly I get nothing. 3,000 measley points for several hours of dancing on a weekend?? I remember when it was 30,000. Where did all those points go? Certainly I didn't get the before just because I was "at keyboard." I'm still at keyboard... But not many people have wounds or BF. So what has changed?
My point was, regaring the idea that "there are not enough entertainers" and it being "too easy" to get mind wounds and BF, that if that were true, where the heck is all the healing XP we should be getting for the fact that BF and mind wounds happen too much? If they happen too much the XP should be rolling in. I should be smothered in it. That would be how to get to 1/4/1/4. Not ATK vs. AFK.
Where AFK/ATK comes into play is the excuse AFK-ers and their supporters use, "If it weren't for AFK, mind wounds/BF are so prevalent and out of control in the game that it would be unplayable." The fact that even AFKers are having trouble scraping enough healing XP together to make it to Master now, let alone ATKers (who play less hours and have opportunity to heal less people just in terms of real time minutes) gives the lie to that argument. If it were true, I should be rolling in XP when at keyboard. But I'm not. I'm starving for it. So where is it, if mind wounds and BF are such an important factor in the game and if entertainers are sooooo needed that they just have to be there as AFK bots when ATKers are not present. If that's all true then where the heck is all the healing xp?
What I see is a game full of people who, for whatever reason I have not fathomed yet, are NOT getting much BF or mind wounds yet. Why is that? No idea. But it is happening, and healing XP is drying up. This means entertainers, including AFK ones, are not as crucial as the pro-AFK crowd would have you believe. Meaning that it is not really true that they are necessary for a large majority of the player base just to get the crucial healing. Because if they were, then healing would be going on, and XP would be being gained. But that is not happening. XP is not being gained and even Jedi Hologrinders are whining, "Where do I get healing xp?" So people just flat out aren't getting BF'ed/mind wounded much any more. Which means you don't need all that many healer/entertainers. Which means AFK is really not as necessary as some would have you believe, if at all.
Greatsails wrote:If we were to rely solely on the ATKers, then we'd get back to the 1/4/1/4 method of Mastering Dance/Music, and then we know that there aren't enough entertainers to go around.
This is not true. See what I wrote above. 4/1/4/1 does NOT come from AFKing. I'm 4/2/4/3 and I never AFKed. If 1/4/1/4 came from being at keyboard, as you are assuming, then since I have all the knowledge stuff now I should be a master dancer. But I am not.
You say things should go up in a balanced way. Well, they did (ish). Healing got ahead for a bit but by 2/2/2/2 everything was nice and even. Then little by little the healing XP was gone. And no this is not because the higher dances just give more XP. They do, but that's not the whole story. Before, say, Labor Day (maybe a bit after that), I could rack up 20,000 XP or more in heal xp in an evening of entertaining. Now I'd be lucky to "rack up" 2K. I have not changed what I do. I have not gone from ATK to AFK. So something else has changed and it is not the XP itself. The wounds and BF are not what they were in the past. Why? Don't know. But THAT is the source of 4/1/4/1... not ATK/AFK (directly).
Greatsails wrote:But if we pretend for a sec that you and I are Devs,which way do we go when the only two options we have open to us are the 1/4/1/4 method that makes 3% of the game population happy and makes 65% of the game population leaving posts on *their* combat forums "Hey, where do I get to heal all my BF and Mind Wounds??" or do we go with the 4/1/4/1 method that makes 65% of the game population happy and makes 3% of the game population leaving posts on *their* entertainer forums "Hey, where do I get all that Healing XP?"
I don't follow this. How can it be possible that there are "all these people out there" who need healing, but the dancers and musicians can't get healing xp? They have not changed the XP algorithm (that I am aware of). So the only possibility is that people are not being wounded as much. Why is that? I don't know. But it IS happening. It must be, or else entertainers would not be asking for healing XP.
You are mistaken if you think only ATK performers are whining for healing XP. Everyone is complaining about it, from novices to near masters, from Hologrinders to dedicated full-time entertainers. Healing XP has gone bye-bye for the most part. This can ONLY be possible if the wounded people aren't so wounded any more. And if they aren't so wounded anymore, what the heck do they need AFK bots for? To heal wounds they don't have?
Greatsails wrote:But if you're waiting for the Devs to fix this, be prepared for a long wait. In the meantime, AFK macrotainers serve the game better by being, than by being removed, and I shall continue to support them.
They do not, in the long run, serve the game better than at-keyboaders. What they do is get all the people who would whine about not being able to find a healer at 3 AM off the devs' backs. They shut you up, which is just fine with Holo and the others I suppose. It's better for them to shut up 250,000 people than 250 people. But that doesn't mean it's good for the GAME. It just means it's good for the devs to have some peace and quiet from the whiners on the forums.
C
I, a Master Dancer, am in agreement with Greatsails and confess that I have danced while AFK.
A'Ri
The fundamental flaw in your logic is that you think BF and Mind Wounds are less prevalant than before. This is not the case. It only appears this way because there are so many entertainers now that the Healing XP is more spread out. Once upon a time, early in the game, there were vastly many more combat people than entertainers, so there were just a few entertainers for all we combat types to visit. Now, with an entertainer or 3 at minimum in every cantina in every corner of the galaxy, the healing XP is being spread across more entertainers, and therefore it feels like it's less. It isn't. There are more combat people too, I mean of course the game has grown. But the ratio isn't as disperate as it once was.
Used to be, everyone on Naboo had to go to Moe or Theed to heal BF/Wounds. Now I can go to anyplace and get them healed. Used to be, everyone on Dantooine had to fly back to civilization to get healed. Now you don't. The reason you got huge Healing XP in the beginning was because you were among the very few being watched by very many. Now there are a zillion entertainers, and so the spread is greater, and now you're getting less XP.
If it weren't for all the AFKers, people would have to go once again to very central locations to get healed, and you'd be back to getting way more healing XP than performance XP. Again, my assertion is that it was a big hassle early in the game, it wasn't fun for the majority of players, and now with AFK making accessibility to healing better, people are playing longer and fighting longer and sitting less.
All the above arguements about how the game must be hard is missing the point that people don't consider the game to be hard because they have to go halfway across the galaxy to get healed. They consider that an inconvenience. Hard is how smart your tactics have to be to kill something, or how hard it is to place your harvesters around an ugly spawn with your crafter/non-combatant. Thanks to AFK healers in every nook and cranney, peolpe get to spend more time doing what they think is fun. It's all about what the most number of people think is fun, and galavanting acorss the galaxy to sit in cantina for 10-20 minutes wasn't it.
What we have now is better. Does it disappoint you that they have to cater to the blowing-stuff-up-is-fun crowd? Of course it does, becuase that isn't your crowd. But you (entertainers in general) need to accept that the game will always be balanced in favor of the majority opinion.