Dancer Archive
Thread: Yay, and thanks to all you AFK Macro-ers
Greatsails wrote:Thanks to AFK healers in every nook and cranney, people get to spend more time doing what they think is fun.
If this is true (maybe it is), then the Entertainment classes need to be pulled from the game.
No, I am not kidding. I mean it. What you're literally saying here is that thanks to the AFKers dancing in "every nook and cranny" there is no way for at-keyboard entertainers to make their way in the game, then the profession is unplayable and needs to be removed. Period.
I don't agree with you, and I don't think this makes the game better, but if that's the way the developers feel they should delete all entertainment professions and just put NPC ent healers in every cantina in the galaxy.
To sum it up, you are literally saying on this thread: Thank you AFKers, you helped me at the expense of utterly ruining your own entire profession.
Perhaps now you can see why the at-keyboard people might be a bit upset by this?
C
Greatsails wrote:The fundamental flaw in your logic is that . Now there are a zillion entertainers, and so the spread is greater, and now you're getting less XP.
What server do YOU play on? This is definitely NOT the case on Valcyn. Bestine and AH have times where there is NO entertainer there (not even an AFK one), and people will drop dead with surprise if they see an entertainer in some place like Moenia or Mos Espa. You might think they all moved out to the player cities, but nope- they're just as dead as the NPC cities. With the new patch that raised the city caps, there's all sorts of folks screaming for entertainers, any entertainers, to come and join their new city of Whatsitville. YMMV, of course, but the number of entertainers has definitely DROPPED greatly since release on Valcyn, and even the Holotainers aren't making up for the loss.
Kae
I'm an AFK dancer at times.... unlike some people I can't sit at my computer the entire day and press the flourish buttons... I still have homework and chores to do at home.... So why not go to a place that no one normally thinks of going... lets say, the mining post on Dantooine and AFK/macro dance while i get those things done. I've only had one person say something bad about me AFK-ing dance and that was because i dunno....
Plus while I'm afk-ing dance i get xp and heal people without really doing much...
Plus i refuse to pay $15 a month for a game that if I didn't afk dance I would never ever get anything done. At least when I'm afk dancing i'm getting my money's worth becasue i'm actually on playing, using the game.
(liek any of that made any sense.... woo rambling...)
i've never heard of the word.
you repost the xp fix i detailed, maybe it'll get a nod then.
Chessack wrote:
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.
Making something better for 250,000 at the expense of 250 *necessarily* makes the game better. Any arguement to the contrary is foolish and fails to take into account why this game exists. This game exists so that SOE and Lucasarts can make money. Any failure to recognize that is naive. This keeps people happy, exactly as you say. It keeps the money rolling in.
Does it help gameplay itself, if we remove money from the equation? Of course it does. Any game that is only fun for 250 people at the expense of the fun for 250,000 is a roaring failure. A game that is fun for 250,000 goes down in history.
This strikes at what I think is the fundamental problem on many forums here, not just the Entertainer ones. People fail to see the game from any perspective other than their own. "If it isn't good for me, it's bad bad bad." They don't care which "me" they represent, if it's the extreme minority or the extreme majority. In this case, what is benefitting me personally is what beneficial to the majority, and yay for me. There are a lot of things in this game I accept because it's an issue that isn't beneficial to me, but I'm in the minority, and I know it won't really get addressed. But that's the nature of MMORPG.If you can't recognize that and modify your gameplay to adjust, then you'll never be happy.
I take offense to that last post.... I have never gone afk while grinding dance (or music for that matter)xp and you know what? Because of that, it took me 4 months of game play to master my professions! I earned it, unliked someone who all they did was write a simple little macro and then go off and do the other business of their life.
But, this really isn't about me... I feel the need to point out that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER game. Much of the point of it is to interact with people, not to grind your own xp. There are reasons that the economies are sustained by players. It's becuase players are supposed to interact and help each other in the game. If someone is just afk and grinding their own xp, they're not really adding anything, are they?
I think mind-buffing definitley helps out with the afk "problem". An afk person can't buff... there's one thing I have on them. 
>Your insult to the other poster was unnecessary.
Sorry, but his argumentation was so stupid that even a grade schooler would have seen the flaw. I couldn't resist, my dark side was getting through 
>Your insult to the other poster is ironic because then you proceed to make the same mistake you are insulting
Not quite the same. I did read and understood your post, and I assumed that you'd only post this if it made it so unfun they quit. Because as you said, SOE only cares for money and if it's unfun for you but you pay and the dancers stay, SOE might care less... if the the other hand, you had more fun at the cost of dancers quiting, then it would hurt SOE.
>howI'd walk into a cantina with 300 BFand plenty of mind wounds
Maybe you play harder, or longer, or better than I do, but my rifleman never amasses that many wounds or BF. I hardly get 50-100 BF a session and resting that in a cantina takes no time at all. Especially now that you might find masters in the cantinas. If you wait until you have to go to the cantina or drop dead from wounds, I'd say you need to do this more often in smaller steps. It's more fun this way. If your playstyle is not fun for you, maybe you could change your style.
If waiting for healing isn't fun, then why not replace the AFKers with NPCs. I mean, it's the same. Replace the hospitals with Instant Heals as well. Somehow I'm under the impression with this system we have an FPS with artisans. Oh, wait, replace them as well, waiting for a weapon is lame.
This is a roleplaying game and an RPG includes more than just shooting. I enjoy cantinas. Hours a day as a dancer, some minutes a day as a combateer. I have to rest from combat. Unlike FPS, where you drop dead and spawn to kill another enemy, this actually is a game where you have a consistent character and don't have action all the time. And as I remember from the pre-AFK times, people had fun in the cantina. I have very seldom seen people sit there for more than 5 minutes without doing this on their own free will because it was fun. Maybe those people were playing more cowardly, were incredible lucky or just cantina hoppers. If healing up takes you 20 minutes, I can understand it might be boring. But that's nothing a dancer, AFK or not,could change.
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
Please note that the PvP crowd (overts) isroughly 3% of the community. Other professions have other drawbacks. Those people who want 100% action without character will probably have more fun with a first person shooter.
You want to have an entertainer in every cantina ? Fine. I don't mind. What I want is to remove 25 Bots from Theed and Coronet, leaving only 5 real entertainers there. No loss for you. Big gain for us.
Greatsails wrote:
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.
Hard is also planning ahead before going on these long trips. If you knew that Dathomir usually lacked entertainers, you could hire one for the trip. That is a more active role. A more passive role is for people to encourage entertainers to fly out there with some good tipping. But that relies on the generosity of others. Your best bet is to provide that incentive to entertainers yourself.
Right now, my Creature Handler character is on Dantooine and has perhaps 40 charges of Pet Stim A. Those will run out soon. If I knew more Bio Engineers, I could have stocked up beforehand. But I only know one BE, and she's too busy to make Pet Stims. So I have to either find a vendor on Dantooine or go back to Coronet. Is it inconvenient? Yes. And why's that? Because I didn't meet the challenge of stocking up beforehand.
If I can just find a freebie bot that heals my pets 7000 HAM at a time, then that'd be nice and easy. Same thing with AFK Entertainers. If I can heal my Mind for free (or in my case, my pets' HAM) then I do not need to make as many preparations beforehand.
In this case, it's not a matter of inconvenience = hard. It's a matter of failing to handle the difficulty leads to inconvenience. If you don't create a contingency plan, then you have to suffer the inconvenience.
What all is required when going on an adventure planet? A small list could include:
Ensuring weapons are in good shape (or bringing a spare if one should break)
Ensuring armor is in good shape
Bringing batteries for droids
Stocking up on camping gear (in case you get spanked before you can harvest rancor)
Stocking up on healing
The last part is simple enough if you have a Medic and some packs. The mental wounds can be slightly trickier. Make sure at least one PC has Novice Entertainer. If no one does (or you want fast healing instead), then pack an Entertainer. Go to Theed. There are usually so many Entertainers that the tips aren't that great per-person. If the Entertainer groups with you and gets a share of the mission payouts, that alone should be more than he could normally make in Theed (with an exception for popular entertainers who have a fan base). And the Entertainer gets to see the countryside.
That's the way the Entertainer community ought to be. Supply and demand. There is too much supply, but very little of that supply are actual players.
Instead of paying off an AFK entertainer, may I suggest that you ask around in Theed or Coronet? Or do a search before you head off to Dathomir or Endor? Tell the Entertainer that you'd like to employ him for a job. Your band of 5 would be willing to group with him. That means that if each of you take two missions, then he in essence gets the payout of two full high-level missions. Furthermore, if the Entertainer wishes to practice some Marksman skills, then you can give him a cheap gun and let him fire from 65 meters away. Someone who is grinding for xp probably won't take you up on the offer, but a Master surely doesn't need the xp.
That way, you are supporting Entertainers and encouraging them to try out these advanced planets.
You want to have an entertainer in every cantina ? Fine. I don't mind. What I want is to remove 25 Bots from Theed and Coronet, leaving only 5 real entertainers there. No loss for you. Big gain for us.
right, except until 4am where the removal of the bots would cause empty cantinas everywhere, and not just outposts. it's nice getting the daily drivel from you nvoigt but really, if you are going to write a freaking page try saying something that makes sense. 'waiting for guns sucks'. good analogy. when was the last freaking time you waited for a gun? did you have to wait for a gun after every 3 or 4 hours? at 4am are there no guns in the game? what if they removed vendors entirely? players wouldn't be pissed would they? i mean there's got to be an awake weaponsmith somewhere right?
and just because you don't have many wounds doesn't mean other people don't. try fighting something hard, or without a pet, or forgetting to clone. oh wait, what did you call that? 'tactically unwise gameplay' you should really think about putting on the <helper> tag and spouting that crap in the game. maybe write a strategy guide. you could call it 'nvoigt's tactically wise gameplay, how to never recieve wounds, and never need an atk entertainer'
seriously, post it on the discussion forums. put in all your great tips. it might get stickied.
Kuildeous wrote:
That way, you are supporting Entertainers and encouraging them to try out these advanced planets.
Ok, that's something I never thought of. Hiring an entertainer to join us. I'll try that and see what kind of response I get. Of course, since I play at odd hours, the odds of me finding any actual ATK entertainers is small, but on the rare occasion I play during "normal" hours I'll try.
But once again, we come to part of my very original point, 3 pages back. If it weren't for AFK dancers, I'd never get healed, except on the weekends when I have the opportunity to play during the same hours as everyone else. I've been playing since launch, and I can cound the number of times I've been serviced by an ATK dancer at 3am (4 times in 6 months - and each time resulted in an enjoyable chat). Until there are ATK dancers who are numerous enough to service me at 3am, I'm still going to support the AFKers.
I honestly don't care how others play this game, AFK or ATK.
I really think its just a problem that can never be solved.. in ANY online game.
I've seen many games try and combat AFK and then try and enforce it but no matter what the policy states or how many GM's Dev's try and curb it, the AFK problemalways exists!!!! It's not a NEW problem for entertainers/dancers or SWG.
I actually think its good that SWG has no policy against AFK because (personally)I feel it would be a waste of Dev and CSR time to try and combat the problem. There will always be AFK'ers, in any game, any day of the week. It's the same old argument I've heard countless times, and there really is NO simple answer for doing away with AFK players. It's just part of any ONLINE game. I AFK'ed to Master Dancer and now I am on to other things, no longer clogging up the cantinas, but after playing several professions and master many, I felt it a blessing to be able to get to master by being afk. (I know that unpopular but that ishow I chose to play)
I feel maybe adding incentives for being ATK is a much better idea then trying to squash AFK playing altogether.
Live and Let Live...
I also feel some dancers/entertainers want to 'stand out' as being all that and a bag of chips.. and they feel insecure that they cannot do this in a "sea of AFK'ers". You CAN stand out if you want to, just be creative and have fun and don't worry about the 'sea'. Find a nice group you can have fun with, go out hunting with them, enjoy doing different things besides being in a cantina, then have fun healing their wounds and have fun and don't worry about the AFK'ers left behind in the boring old cantina.
I am NOT an AFK performer, but I do agree in part with what Greatsails is saying. AFK performers serve a much needed niche within the galactic structure, and that is to provide service to those who may not otherwise have service because of off hours play. As a live entertainer, I know an AFKer won't make me poor, or put me out of a job, because at least in my galaxy the vast majority of players will pay live dancers well, ESPECIALLY for buffs. That being said, the problem with AFK entertainers is that they do not go where they are needed, but cluster around the three or four major "grind capitals" in groups to gain XP. When was the last time you saw an AFK dancer in Narmale? Or Wayfar? Or Keren? Or Dathomir Science Outpost? Or Yavin IV? You DON'T.
If AFK macro dancers want to be more altruistic, they will make the dream of a full service galaxy a reality.