Dancer Archive
Thread: Possible solutions to the AFK/buffbot dilemma
Joker9125 wrote:
You want live people to care about you being there? Ok goto the Mining Outpost on dantooine and run a solo group for people who need XP. Give them mind/secondary buffs and an interesting convorsation and I guarntee people WILL appreciate it. Theres incentive to be ATK at 6PM.
Frankly, they could use one of the many unattended entertainers at the MO to be a placeholder for missions. One does not have to be live to be a placeholder.
And the thing about many unattendeed accessory alts is that they are dual masters in dance and music. After all, they are designed never to leave the cantina, while I as a real player am. So I have but a single mastery in dance, meaning I can only buff one stat.
All I have is my show. But as many players have told us ad nauseum, they do not go to the MO to get a show. They go to get the "big buffaroo." Frankly, I can do only half of that buffing request, and any sort of improvisation on my part is seen as an unecessary imposition. Buffing has become too serious a matter these days to be taken lightly.
And though I appreciate your sentiment regarding the viability of players like me in places like the Dantooine MO, you are but one player. Many other players just like yourself have told me to quit because I am still under the delusion that I should somehow play this class, rather than leave my computer on and automate my functions "for the good of the server."
You see, the very fact that I am live produces uncertainty and anxiety that players do not have to worry about when dealing with an automated unattended entertainer. With bots, they are assured total and predictable behavior. A known quantity that is not influenced by boredom, ambition, feelings, or making a better use of their time. Its a variable that is turned into a constant. It is sort of like being a tailor on a blue frog test server. What incentive is there to seek a tailor out, or even become a tailor when characters can simply gain as much money as they wish whenever they need it, and have access to the skills they need when they need it?
Nobody really wants to nerf anybody. But how else are we to promote live play when the resounding chorus these days from most of our patrons is that they'd rather not deal with the cantina feature at all? Its a thorny problem, and a problem of existential proportions that no other group of professions in the game has to deal with.
Many smugglers argue that they have a broken profession. But at least smugglers have to actually log on, click their mouse, and observe and respond to the environment in order to craft spice schematics, or gaming tables, or slice. Their functions, however meager, require play.
I see you are a creature handler. Many creature handlers argue, and I believe rightly so, that they have a broken profession. But at least creature handlers have to monitor their pets, shout commands at the right time, and have to observe and interact with the environment to capturebaby animals, train them into large animals, and order them around. Your functions, however problematic, require play.
But with a musician, dancer, or entertainer base professional, we are able to influence the game environment without even having to have the monitor on, the mouse clicked, or the keys typed. All of the things we are able to do can be done simply by maintaining a running computer to keep in contact with the server. Our functions--all our functions--do not require play, rightly understood. They merely require an active account and a running computer.
I wish your guarantee was valid. But I cannot help but think it is a guarantee nobody is under any obligation to back with action. And that is no guarantee at all. In our rulebooks, it says "entertainers rely heavily on the goodwill of other players." The problem is, nobody seems to be in the mood to take that provision seriously. And they do not, because they understand that one doesn't need to take care of entertainers in order to have the benefits of entertainment. One only needs to create an alt account and have it skill animate perpetually.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 03-31-2005 12:21 PM
Listen I am all for solving the AFK problem but no has answered my question of how to do it without seriously hurtinghurting people like me. You say you arnt calling for a nerf but in the end that is going to be what is going to happen. As far as AFK loot camping goes. Did you know that under the current systen even with a combat macro running you will be forced AFK after awhile of no keyboard input? I bet you also didnt know that you caint attack while afk either did you?
PoetDancer wrote:
The removal of recursive macros may not solve it, but then again, what will solve it?
Joker9125 wrote:Listen I am all for solving the AFK problem but no has answered my question of how to do it without seriously hurting hurting people like me?
OK it's a few posts up, but let me summarize as succinctly as I can, your logic of how taking AFKers out of the game will hurt you.
By taking AFK bots out of the game, your ability to get a 100% reliable buff at your convenience, any time day or night, will be hampered. As a result you will not be able to play the game the way you want.
I understand this issue... No, really, I do. I have a 2nd account with a TK/CH and it is a real pain to have several hundred BF because you can't find an at-keyboard dancer or musician to heal you.
However, you proceed from a false assumption. You are not entitled to any of the player-provided services in the game. You just assume you are with dancers because you've been getting it for so long. That's a flaw in the game... it doesn't equate to an entitlement. But let's try a few other examples.
I assume (given your descriptions like having 3 pets out and recursive macros to control their specials) that you are one of these uberplayers who always buffs, and can't imagine paying without a buff anymore. I'm not trying to be insulting -- I have lots of friends like this. When I lead a "non buffed hunt" in my guild, there are guild members who won't come because they don't like playing without buffs. So I assume that in addition to getting mind buffs at your convenience you are used to getting doctor buffs at your convenience as well. Docs can't AFK bot this. So, How do you find doc buffs at 2 in the morning? I'm guessing sometimes it is hard. Heck, the other night during primetime (9 PM or so) I couldn't find a single doc buffing in Coronet (on my server at least, that's "where you go" to get a doc buff... but there just wasn't anyone that night). I had planned to get buffed up and go to Dath to hunt rancors for some grinding meat for our guild BE. But since there were no buffers, my plans had to change. This inconvenienced me, sure. But I didn't think I was entitled to the doctoral buff... Doctor buffs are given by other players and thus I am not entitled to them.
And while we're at it have you ever tried shopping for something you can't find? I can't find a good BE on our server... NOT ONE. I am running out of pet stimpacks. One of our guild members has a BE alt, bless her heart, but she's levelling very slowly because she is not a grinder. Meanwhile I have level 50+ pets with 10k+ HAM, who are becoming hard to use because I can't find decent stim Cs to heal them. It's very hard to play a CH without a good BE around. What should I do about this? Demand free stimpacks of the devs?
The truth is that the game population is shrinking. This is directly the result of the combat players, who whine till the cows come home about combat, forcing the devs to spend all their time on combat things like the "CU". And since the support professions are, ironically, not being supported by the devs, everyone who was inclined to play one has either (a) quit the game (the majority have done this by my estimation), or (b) switched to the professions that are being actively supported/worked on -- that is, combat profs. The crafters get hosed regularly. For example, item decay is trivial to the point of not even being worth the code they have in the game for it (I've never yet had an article of clothing wear out), which means the crafters don't have a continuing market (once you buy your house and furniture, why would you need to keep buying more from the architect, for instance?). Rather than finding some other role or other way of keeping these profs in the game, the devs have left them to fester. So gradually we have seen (again, at least on my server) the vanishing of (1) chefs (I know of exactly 1 on the entire server besides my own novice chef who is slowly gaining some skills), (2) architects, (3) BEs, and (4) DEs, and even (5) tailors, which are one of the easier/lowest-overhead crafting profs. The main commerce center on my server is the South Coronet Mall. Little by little the vendors are vanishing and not being replaced. There are 4 spaces for DE and BE vendors. 3 of each are vacant. The one of each that isn't vacant has a stock that is laughable, and clearly neither are actively re-stocked.
By your reasoning, I should be demanding the devs put NPC variants with Master Quality food, furniture/housing, pet stims, droids, and clothing, into the game. I mean after all, since I have trouble finding these things from players, and they aren't providing it, I am being inconvenienced, and that's unacceptable. But wait... if they make NPC variants what is the point of having any of these things in the game?
You see when SWG was created the vision was to make a world, where players provided each other with goods and services in exchange for currency or other commodities. When you allow certain services to become available as bots or NPCs, the whole economy gets shifted. The service professions and crafting professions can't survive when that happens, and we are seeing it very clearly in the disappearance of all of them little by little from the game. Now, you probably think that's a good thing. If the devs wiped out entertainers and crafters tomorrow and made the game combat, combat, and only combat, you'd probably like it. And so there really isn't anything we can say to you... since you see no value in what we do.
The question is, really, if the Devs still see a value in the non-combat elements of the game. In my opinion this is an open question. If they do, and if they want to stick to their "make a whole universe and not just a combat game" philosophy then your point is moot -- yes you will sometimes be stuck without the player-provided service you want at the instant you want it. In a game with the design philosophy of SWG, the answer to that is, bluntly, "tough noogies." After all lots of times the dancer wants patrons to come in and give her healing XP and no one is wounded just then and she has to live with that too... and that is also "tough noogies." This is the trade-off we all have to make for having a player-run universe -- players are not NPCs and thus their services are not available 24/7.
I for one think there is value in what they originally set out to do -- to have everything be player run, player made, player created, and player used. The problem is they keep forgetting that's the heart of the game when they make these changes, and they keep doing things that undercut that philosophy. The allowance of AFKers is just one example... there are thousands of others from the game.
In the end looking back over this post, I'm not sure I really have an answer for you. As things stand now it is certainly arguable that if they took AFk ent bots out of the game, you might not be able to find healing for weeks and weeks. And it remains unknown whether the vacuum would be filled again by live entertainers. In fact I suspect it might well not be. 90% of the entertainers I know have not left the profession -- they have left the game. Would the players in the game now, who were not inclined to be entertainers ever before, take up the mantle? I find this questionable -- since they are not apparently of the disposition to do that in the first place. So the pool we're drawing from will be much smaller.
Ultimately though from the perspective of, "I want to be buffed at my convenience and not have to go without," I still say "tough noogies." I mean after all, I want to perform in a cantina with a group of entertainers just like the old days right after launch, and I haven't had THAT for at least 20 months... so if I can go 20 months without what I want, you'll have to forgive me if you going an evening or even a week without what you want, doesn't ruffle my feathers in the slightest.
C
Chessack wrote:
Joker9125 wrote:
Listen I am all for solving the AFK problem but no has answered my question of how to do it without seriously hurting hurting people like me?
OK it's a few posts up, but let me summarize as succinctly as I can, your logic of how taking AFKers out of the game will hurt you.
By taking AFK bots out of the game, your ability to get a 100% reliable buff at your convenience, any time day or night, will be hampered. As a result you will not be able to play the game the way you want.
I understand this issue... No, really, I do. I have a 2nd account with a TK/CH and it is a real pain to have several hundred BF because you can't find an at-keyboard dancer or musician to heal you.
However, you proceed from a false assumption. You are not entitled to any of the player-provided services in the game. You just assume you are with dancers because you've been getting it for so long. That's a flaw in the game... it doesn't equate to an entitlement. But let's try a few other examples.
I assume (given your descriptions like having 3 pets out and recursive macros to control their specials) that you are one of these uberplayers who always buffs, and can't imagine paying without a buff anymore.
Haha Im a MCH I dont need buffs for anything in this game really. I generally just buff to kill things like krayts and for things like the DWB. I do however use buffs for the ability to spam specials just because I dont feel like spending 5 hours auto attacking a krayt.
I'm not trying to be insulting -- I have lots of friends like this. When I lead a "non buffed hunt" in my guild, there are guild members who won't come because they don't like playing without buffs. So I assume that in addition to getting mind buffs at your convenience you are used to getting doctor buffs at your convenience as well. Docs can't AFK bot this.
Thats funny. Then who are all those AFK people I goto that buff my health and action?
So, How do you find doc buffs at 2 in the morning?
I generally get them from my guild doc and if he isnt on I goto an AFK doc
I'm guessing sometimes it is hard. Heck, the other night during primetime (9 PM or so) I couldn't find a single doc buffing in Coronet (on my server at least, that's "where you go" to get a doc buff... but there just wasn't anyone that night). I had planned to get buffed up and go to Dath to hunt rancors for some grinding meat for our guild BE. But since there were no buffers, my plans had to change. This inconvenienced me, sure. But I didn't think I was entitled to the doctoral buff... Doctor buffs are given by other players and thus I am not entitled to them.
Your right that we arnt entitled to them,but when I was saying "how could you fix this without hurting me?" I was mostly reffering to the removal of recursive macros.
And while we're at it have you ever tried shopping for something you can't find? I can't find a good BE on our server... NOT ONE. I am running out of pet stimpacks. One of our guild members has a BE alt, bless her heart, but she's levelling very slowly because she is not a grinder. Meanwhile I have level 50+ pets with 10k+ HAM, who are becoming hard to use because I can't find decent stim Cs to heal them. It's very hard to play a CH without a good BE around. What should I do about this? Demand free stimpacks of the devs?
No you alternate pets between lairs. Or pick up novice medic.
The truth is that the game population is shrinking. This is directly the result of the combat players, who whine till the cows come home about combat, forcing the devs to spend all their time on combat things like the "CU". And since the support professions are, ironically, not being supported by the devs, everyone who was inclined to play one has either (a) quit the game (the majority have done this by my estimation), or (b) switched to the professions that are being actively supported/worked on -- that is, combat profs. The crafters get hosed regularly. For example, item decay is trivial to the point of not even being worth the code they have in the game for it (I've never yet had an article of clothing wear out), which means the crafters don't have a continuing market (once you buy your house and furniture, why would you need to keep buying more from the architect, for instance?). Rather than finding some other role or other way of keeping these profs in the game, the devs have left them to fester. So gradually we have seen (again, at least on my server) the vanishing of (1) chefs (I know of exactly 1 on the entire server besides my own novice chef who is slowly gaining some skills), (2) architects, (3) BEs, and (4) DEs, and even (5) tailors, which are one of the easier/lowest-overhead crafting profs. The main commerce center on my server is the South Coronet Mall. Little by little the vendors are vanishing and not being replaced. There are 4 spaces for DE and BE vendors. 3 of each are vacant. The one of each that isn't vacant has a stock that is laughable, and clearly neither are actively re-stocked.
I see chef vendors all the time on my server and I am very lucky to have found a good BE. DEs recently got alot of love with JTL but since that is such a waste they got the shaft. Arch do need a revamp that is true.
By your reasoning, I should be demanding the devs put NPC variants with Master Quality food, furniture/housing, pet stims, droids, and clothing, into the game. I mean after all, since I have trouble finding these things from players, and they aren't providing it, I am being inconvenienced, and that's unacceptable. But wait... if they make NPC variants what is the point of having any of these things in the game?
I think your stretching my words quite a bit there. In fact I really have no clue where you got that from.
You see when SWG was created the vision was to make a world, where players provided each other with goods and services in exchange for currency or other commodities. When you allow certain services to become available as bots or NPCs, the whole economy gets shifted. The service professions and crafting professions can't survive when that happens, and we are seeing it very clearly in the disappearance of all of them little by little from the game. Now, you probably think that's a good thing. If the devs wiped out entertainers and crafters tomorrow and made the game combat, combat, and only combat, you'd probably like it. And so there really isn't anything we can say to you... since you see no value in what we do.
What would be the fun in a game like that? When you assume things about people you generally open yourself up to being wrong. And in this case you are wrong, very very wrong. AFK doc/eintainers dont hurt the ecomony they may take business away from ATK people but they have little effect on the economy as a whole.
The question is, really, if the Devs still see a value in the non-combat elements of the game. In my opinion this is an open question. If they do, and if they want to stick to their "make a whole universe and not just a combat game" philosophy then your point is moot -- yes you will sometimes be stuck without the player-provided service you want at the instant you want it. In a game with the design philosophy of SWG, the answer to that is, bluntly, "tough noogies." After all lots of times the dancer wants patrons to come in and give her healing XP and no one is wounded just then and she has to live with that too... and that is also "tough noogies." This is the trade-off we all have to make for having a player-run universe -- players are not NPCs and thus their services are not available 24/7.
I dont expect to be able to find these services every night I play, but what you are proposing is effectively cutting me off from them completely.
I for one think there is value in what they originally set out to do -- to have everything be player run, player made, player created, and player used. The problem is they keep forgetting that's the heart of the game when they make these changes, and they keep doing things that undercut that philosophy. The allowance of AFKers is just one example... there are thousands of others from the game.
That is what has most intrigued me about this game. AFK docs/eintertainers do not detract from the player made player used part of the game. A player owns that account and runs it so it IS player made. Likewise another player watches it and gets mind buffs so it IS also player used. It seems to me you are making a connection between player made/ player used and ATK player made/ ATK player used
In the end looking back over this post, I'm not sure I really have an answer for you. As things stand now it is certainly arguable that if they took AFk ent bots out of the game, you might not be able to find healing for weeks and weeks. And it remains unknown whether the vacuum would be filled again by live entertainers. In fact I suspect it might well not be. 90% of the entertainers I know have not left the profession -- they have left the game. Would the players in the game now, who were not inclined to be entertainers ever before, take up the mantle? I find this questionable -- since they are not apparently of the disposition to do that in the first place. So the pool we're drawing from will be much smaller.
If you do not have a solution then do not cause the problem.
Ultimately though from the perspective of, "I want to be buffed at my convenience and not have to go without," I still say "tough noogies." I mean after all, I want to perform in a cantina with a group of entertainers just like the old days right after launch, and I haven't had THAT for at least 20 months... so if I can go 20 months without what I want, you'll have to forgive me if you going an evening or even a week without what you want, doesn't ruffle my feathers in the slightest.
Dont even begin to speak about losing what was had at launch to a CH.
C
PoetDancer wrote:
But you can defend yourself if attacked, yes?
Esharra wrote:
The appropriate thread for discussing concerns regarding unattended play, buffbots and recursive macro issues may be found here. Thank you.
YAY!!! Eshie's first smack down!
*sniff* she's so cute...
Anoewyn wrote:
Alright - its getting to the stage where I have to ask:
a) Who is this Joker person?
My name is Blake why do ask?
b) Why does he have a sudden interest in the age-old AFK discussions?
Because it directly affects me.
and
c) Who left the screen door open for him to be buzzing around in here?
How did you know I came in through an open screen? Guilty consience?