Dancer Archive
Thread: Reactions from the other correspondents?
Nacoa wrote:
AudioOrgana wrote: Everyone else like you and me who just used recurisive macros and /ui action toolbar to simply assist when playing the game will be the ones hurting, not them.
You're assuming /ui action toolbarSlot will be removed. That isn't necessarily the case to stop recursive macros. /ui action toolbarSlot could add a check to see if the target slot contains a macro. If so, don't run it.
I have a hard time believing they'd do that (since it would require code time, which as we are all very, very well aware is at a premium right now), but regardless, that doesn't change the fact that this will not hurt the people it's meant to, only everyone else.
AO
Celedhros wrote:
AudioOrgana wrote:
I could train my dog to click for me - are they going to require us all to install webcams so they can see that there is actually a person sitting there?Both of which are completely ridiculous assertions. /P>
You are right, they are ridiculous assertions - that was the point.
However, I think you overestimate the Devs in this instance (do you really think after delaying every revamp/update people have been waiting for since beta they are going to code some brand new system as you describe?), and severely underestimate players (as the SWG Dev team has also known to do from time to time).
Time will tell, that's really all that can be said at this point - I just fear this is another in a long line of things the Dev team has done/is doing that drive more and more people from the game every day.
AO
If you ignore this very specific fact about the application of functionality of the services entertainers provide, that you must be in the presence of another player to recieve benefit, then any analogy you make is inherently flawed
No, again, you do *not* have to be standing infront of the entertainer to use their product either...You *just* have to be standing infront of them too recieve their product...There is a huge diffrence, and you are trying to simplify it down to a null factor, that argument simply does not work...
I *do* have to go to a droid vendor to buy a droid...I *do* have to ask weaponsmiths to tailor make me a weapon...I am required to interact with these people on some level....That is the crux of the issue.
You do not have to be infront of the dancer every time your mind bar gets hit 
...But you must go visit them when you need a buff....People like yourself are trying to over-simplify that concept and make the dancers look selfish for requiring at least some type of interaction of forthought from the players.
If you want to get everything from a non-playing person, then you should be playing a single player game...Otherwise, expect to have to interact on some level with the people that control that particular part of the game...Whether it be going to their vendor, or requesting a special order or asking for a buff...
Also, its been proven, that this interaction fosters healthy game play...I can only imagine if the warriors in WoW, EQ or other games started saying "We should not need clerics or shamans to be at the key-board for their buffs!"...On so many levels, that line of thinking in a multi-player game is wrong.
Message Edited by Taewyn on 08-04-2004 05:11 AM
Oqua wrote:
I don't think any of the entertainers want harm to come to the other classes that interact with us in SWG. What we do want though is the afk problem (bots...people such as yourself constantly afk in a zombie state in the cantinas) to be "fixed". The afk bots/zombies seem to have a great deal to do with impedinghow areal performer is meant tofunction it seems.
My alt is kept for personal and guildie use. its a shared account...controlled by two players, and never on while we are not on...nor is it running a buff macro... We have to alt-tab over to it to use it. However, my macros for buffing are a recursive macro, - so that I can tab over, start my buff, and tab back to my main...and continue any conversations or socializations I was occupied with before buffing.
I have done the "grind" four times. Each time atk, and each time during different phases of the game, the most recent being about three weeks ago.
Just finished dancer and musician myself...(within the last week...so i'm not completely ignorant here. I did tne entertainer grind to master ent in january or so.)
I (and many others) notice the difference in how things are since the inception of the game. Anyone who has done the grind recently can probably concur withthe difference of the healing xp flow now (since the flood of bots). To say there isn't a problem caused by it means you are either ignorant and ill informed, or seeing it only from your own perspective.
Nah..what you are seeing is a lack of healing exp, since we arent all noobs anymore, and don't let our bf get to 900 before we start doing something about it.
The devs seem to be offering this as some solution to ebb/stop the influx of afk things in the game (from my understanding).
What I seem to sense though from many is that they will be inconvenienced by getting their BF/mind wounds healed if someone/something isn't made readily available to them. That seems to be the main underlying current in these posts "against" this change.
Now, if this isn't the case....if most are upset because of the /ui command taken out, by all means, I wish for the devs to come up with a better solution. I (nor do most of the entertainers I would gather) don't think that macros are the problem in and of itself. We probably use macros ourselves (I know I do at times...to flourish and talk at the same time, making it atiny bit easier).
What I don't want to see anymore are bots in the doorways of cantinas, taking healing xp from aspiring performers who need it. What I don't wish to see are constant cries of buffbots droning on and on, so much so that you can't even talk in spatial. What I don't wish to see are the constant afk zombie's cluttering up the floor, grinding out a "boring" profession.
easy solution for afk'rs in high population zones - boot players in the coronet and theed starports and cantina areas once every hour or so...after giving players 3 minutes notice. live players would fly out of town, wait for the all clear, and back in...or be booted and relog in 30 seconds
If you can do that (which is what dancer's/musicians want) without taking away a macro's legitimate use/need for the rest of the community...please, by all means devs do so.We wub macros just as much as the rest of you. What we don't like is the macros being abused in a such a way, that they interfere with our "functionality and design".
***side note*** before you say it, I do have a combat lady...and my husband has many combat professions as well, including a jedi. So I do know the inconvenience in trying to find buffs/healing at off peak times. I can't find a doctor in the middle of the night either, but I don't see any crying out for public buffbots outside of Coronet.
again...I have an alt who is a master doc/master musician...not always the most convenient solution (especially on my slower pc....but its what I was forced to do MONTHS ago...due to the dwindling number of master level entertainers for buffs, and increasing costs for doc buffs)
What I wish to see are "unselfish" responses to this change. Help us fix dancer/musicians/entertainers. Help us have life in the cantinas with getting rid of the zombies and buffbots that are strangling us.
I hope your classes get fixed...honest. but don't force me to use one....you can not force dependancy between the social classes and the rest of us.
I have friends...I don't need to be forced into a cantina to socialize.
DON'T just tell me you will be inconvenienced because it interferes with your gameplay. What about ours? (and before you say I only have one account..wrong...between the two of us, my husband and I have six active characters).
Again, find a way to get rid of the bots and afk'ing zombies. Keep macros...I want macros. We all want, use, need macros at times. But...get rid of the thing that is hurting my profession. Help me play the game the way it was intended....not just for combat characters, but other professions as well.
Oqua wrote:
Those LIVE BODIES are not always available.What do you do if you can't find a "Iive body" doctor?What do you do if you can't find the crafted item you want (either food, armor, weapons, tailored items, etc. etc.)?If you are like the rest of us you run from vendor to vendor searching for the desired item, on different planets at times too. If you don't find your item..what do you do? You place a special order.Or is that going to be changed for us too....since you can't be inconvenienced, I don't wish to be either.I want what I want/need/wish for NOW!See how odd that would sound in any other context? So why is it so difficult for you all to swallow with healing your bf and mind wounds?
If I can't find a doctor, another profession that has to be a LIVE BODY, I go to a buff-bot. If I can't find a doc to heal, even though it takes forever I can sit in a med center - but with buffs healing is pretty much irrelevant most of the time unless you have severe wounds. This change affects docs as well negatively - it's not just entertainers.
The point is, with vendors the actual person does not have to be IN THE GAME at THAT MOMENT, in the SAME PLACE you are. If I can't find what I want, yes, I am SOL, but I can compensate for this ahead of time by planning my game so I never run out of things like brandy, guns, or armor. When I find them, I stock up so I am not forced to stop playing the game. If you also implement vendors for the product I require from Entertainers, then we could compare.
I cannot do this with BF or mind buffs. I cannot prepare ahead of time. You make it sound so selfish that I want to not have to stop playing in the middle of the game because I cannot find one in a reasonable amount of time, when it's again a game mechanic that wasn't completely thought out in the first place.
Taewyn, you can consider this reply to you as well. It's really a very complex issue that you both are trying to marginalize to fit your agendas. It's not that we don't want to interact, it's that it's not always possible. It's clear that you choose not understand the needs of your clients, therefore you cannot be expected to understand the rationale of why eliminating AFKers from your profession is going to do much more harm for the general playerbase than will help the small segment of players who choose to be career entertainers and spend more time complaining about how other people play the profession than recognizing the reason your profession even exists in the first place.
AO
Oqua wrote:YOU make it sound so selfish that you want us to either be there at your beck and call, or SOE take away our profession and make it totally automated to suit your needs.How dare we want to play something other then a fighter profession? *mock gasp*
Oh, don't try to pull that BS with me. I'm a crafter from beta, and it doesn't wash.
Your continued ignorance of anything other than the inside of a cantina is astounding; in order for combat people (and people like myself who combat as well as craft/support professions) to be able to play their profession they are required to find entertainers constantly, i.e. every play session. I can buy a suit of armor or a gun, lasts me a couple of weeks. Your product (along with doctors) which we are required to patronize in order to play OUR profession, does not last nearly as long, and again, requires (after this change) a LIVE player, who happens to be in the SAME spot at the SAME time EVERY TIME. This would be fine if there were 10K people online at a time, but since there are about a 1/3 of that number of active players on a server during a 24 hour period, and only a tiny percentage of them entertainers, and only a small percentage of those players online at any given time (especially at off-peak hours), it becomes a problem.
This is too many hoops to have to jump through, especially when you can never be assured of finding this service the Devs have us as slave to. It's not about convenience, it's about alternatives when no other is available short of doing what NewJedi suggested in the thread TH started, which was to "pick up novice entertainer". Yeah, THAT wouldn't devalue your profession, would it? /roll eyes
What do you want from us? I always talk to the ATK entertainers I find while I am healing. I give them outrageous tips (from 25-50K) because I know that it can be difficult to be an ATK entertainer, and I truly appriciate that there is someone doing it.
The reverse of what you said is true - we do not expect you ATK players to be at our beck and call, but you expect us to be at the mercy of your whim of deciding to login or not and refuse to acknowledge that we need alternatives for when an ATK player isn't available.
AO
Message Edited by AudioOrgana on 08-04-2004 05:16 AM
when it's again a game mechanic that wasn't completely thought out in the first place.
Taewyn, you can consider this reply to you as well. It's really a very complex issue that you both are trying to marginalize to fit your agendas.
Oqua wrote:What we do wish though is to not have our profession wrecked due to the fact that you want buffs/healing when and where..on demand. You may say that is not at the crux of your argument, but you would be then a liar as well now wouldn't you?
There is a difference between "on demand" and "not available".
I don't expect an entertainer to appear before me instantly in the wilds of Dantooine, but then again, I don't expect to have to spend an hour trying to find one.
If you don't want more money, or thanks, or anything but to entertain, no one is stopping you from doing so, and your profession is not "wrecked". You seem to simply want less people playing your profession, and you want to dictate how those that do play participate in it, which has an effect on the vast majority of players of this game who play combat roles.
This is but a minor part of the issue, as players across the board will be hurt by this change, and it's a shame that you are so naive to think that this will somehow "fix" your profession and that the far-reaching effects of this are far more detremental than entertainers who don't try to distingush themselves from the AFKers and capitalize on the situation instead of trying to wreck the game for everyone else in the process.
The current state of Entertainers may not be ideal, but adding another wrong by making all other professions far from idea in countless ways will not make it right; that's like saying that they can fix Smuggler's melee problem (that we have melee requirements but no melee moves in the Smuggler tree) by taking away melee moves from all other combat professions.
Give ATK entertainers HUGE benefits, make them glow and sparkle and maybe float around in the air to be worshiped, make my mind buff soar because there is an ATK player instead of an AFK, make me WANT to spend an hour finding you...bring your profession UP instead of bringing everyone else DOWN.
AO
Message Edited by AudioOrgana on 08-04-2004 05:30 AM
Any thing you can kill afk on a looping macro wont pay enough exp to make a difference. meatlumps pay 130 exp last i checked. i can out grind an afk leveller in 3 hrs a night, vs 23 afk hours a day... (and btw..how does this affect my gameplay again, anyways?)
Actually, many spawns can be killed in the game with just a a 3 hour doc buff+ armor+spin attack....This cant be done all day, but it can be done in 3 hours stretches...Many people on my server AFK in the Geo caves and used too in the Squill cave (before the Jedi went their en-mass).
So, its not just meat-lumps...
Not to mention loot boxes were nerfed because of AFK looters...Its just one of the sub-systems or "fun" aspects of the game that got nerfed because of looping macros...
As was the original intent...macros were put in to allow players to avoid that which they found tedious or in need of automation. This has been quoted eloquently by Haden, I believe at one point...or maybe it was Raph. If the tedium of the game is so bad...would you rather a player accomplished it AFK, or quit the game? I'm sure SOE would rather have a paying afk'r than a dropped subscriber...
Couple of points here....
yes, macros are very very good..Tedious process are bad for the over-all game...But there is a diffrence between "healthy" macros and "bypass" playing macros...
If given the option people will *always* macro...Its not just about the game being tedious...If you can gain even 10k combat exp while your at work, would you not do it?
Even gaining a small amount of experience in addition to your normal play exp is better then nothing in that time....So, players will macro, allowing them to bypass character play time...Which hurts the game on a whole. If you work for what you get, then the acomplishment feels better and less cheapened.
Harversters are an afk resource gatherer....
I sppend hours a week gathering resources and doing maintinence and power runs...It is very time consuming..Today infact I spent 2 hours searching for a good location for crystaline gems for my stun layers...
Also, I normally have to hunt around for rare post spawn resources...This is an extreamly time consuming part of armor smith...It can take you *months* to find or wait for the resources in order to put out a quality product..
factories complete the construction process...while the armorsmith is afk...
They copy that product....I still takes me about a full day of play time to finish sub-components, make schematics and phycically load and unload factories...I have 6 factories running all the time, this part of the process is more time conusiming then you can imagine (Do you craft?)
make everyone sit actively at the keyboard....no more ui commands either.
You can still make macros!....They just cant loop for 24 hours...Most of my "new" macroes are scripted so they last longer then 20 minutes anyway..If its tedious for you to hit a button for 20 minutes, then you need your wrist checked out..
while crafters hand craft components...and no more factories are available...after hand harvesting resources...an why dont we take out the ability to sell those resources to others as well...that forces the armorsmith to be atk!
You can put together concise and smart arguments without exageration ....As I said above, the ATK of armosmith is rather intense...To put a quality product out, you need alot of ATK time...
Uh-huh. You made that point sooo well.
Why thank you ....I knew you would agree with me...
umm...how again?
As I said before...No one actually "requires" and entertainer to actually "play" their class...Anything and everything they do can be botted...Anyone who actually wants to play an entertainer is screwed because of the bots...
No. This change along with a complete revamp of ALL class levelling and game mechanics that are commonly referred to as 'grinding' might be positive....
but coming as it does...out of left field, without considering the repurcussions, (and with no other basis than a need to appease the entertainers who have whined about buffbots since the buffbot won a badge for being an outstanding example of the profession!) - is NOT a positive change.
How do you know how it will work? For all you know these commands could just /dump when they try to activate a non-weapon/item command...Meaning the only thing they can not do is loop to other commands...
So, really, if done correctly *all* this will do is stop AFK play....And perhaps force melee to hit their CoB macro once every ten minutes...That is compleatly healthy for the game on a whole, if done correctly..
remove the ability to turn off the afk autoboot system. period.
This is another good change...However, this requires hardware monitering, like the monitering of keyboard strokes or mouse movements...If this could be done, then I will agree with you 100%. If AFKers could consistently be booted every 30 minutes, then I would say fine
Message Edited by Taewyn on 08-04-2004 05:20 AM