Dancer Archive
Thread: Here I stand...
Tangleweb
Tue Nov 23, 2004 9:47 am
#53
i got to play with combat-assist early this morning... deila draggedit (i'm going to refrain from refering to it bythe toons sex pronoun, it's just an it)into the c-net cantina, and i happened to be there at the time. i gave it its first music buff. didn't even group with it. deila made it listen to me while i used /setp. i named it steve, cuz that seemed like a good enough name for it. it is creepy.
Rosaria Caroleema
Sunjammer
Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:30 am
#55
Can you add a line to the macros that makes it say "roger roger" in response to commands? 
I mentioned this thread to my housemate, who claims it won't have as much of an effect on combat players as entertainer bots have on us. We're in direct competition with bots for our income, our "missions" so to speak, whereas combatants get their business from a terminal. There are a finite number of players coming to a cantina for healing or buffing, whereas there are an infinate number of terminal missions available to them, so having to compete with combat bots won't devastate their income the way buffbots do ours. That was his reasoning anyway.
J.
Umiio "Umi" Panwanga • Rodian party girl • Bria
Iba'onchab • Gets boarded sometimes • Chimaera
This random sig quote is brought to you by Buffy The Vampire Slayer:
GILES: Unbelievable. 'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!' Americans.
I mentioned this thread to my housemate, who claims it won't have as much of an effect on combat players as entertainer bots have on us. We're in direct competition with bots for our income, our "missions" so to speak, whereas combatants get their business from a terminal. There are a finite number of players coming to a cantina for healing or buffing, whereas there are an infinate number of terminal missions available to them, so having to compete with combat bots won't devastate their income the way buffbots do ours. That was his reasoning anyway.
J.
Umiio "Umi" Panwanga • Rodian party girl • Bria
Iba'onchab • Gets boarded sometimes • Chimaera
This random sig quote is brought to you by Buffy The Vampire Slayer:
GILES: Unbelievable. 'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!' Americans.
Goldy_Lhim
Tue Nov 23, 2004 10:34 am
#56
woah are you serious!? You can really do that?
thats nutso crazy. I'd like to read it just to see the darn thing.
I dunno what to say about releasing it though. Things are bad but we could make them worse releasing it and its apparent that Devs aren't giving us the time of day until they say we deserve it which could be a very long time from now. I'd be hesitant about releasing it as I doubt it would do a darn thing to push the devs into any sort of action. (I'm guessing that's the desired result)
But open it. Let the virus spread and other professions feel our pain.
Message Edited by Goldy_Lhim on 11-23-2004 12:40 PM
Padtai
Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:30 pm
#57
Eaca, now that you've said this could be done, doubtless word has spread and others are hard at work to figure this out to exploit it. Reverse engineering is usually easier than thinking something up--and when you know something can be done, its usually easier to try to do it.
I don't see this hurting the combat elites, but rather, helping those who want to further their doc bot technology. And sadly, I dont think if a bunch of doctors cry out that their concerns will be heard anymore strongly than the voices of entertainers. Tumbling has been thereforever, and in fact is probably the way 90% of new docs get to master. Very few doctors even say on the forums that its a concern any more, so we've given up for the most part, our voices outweighed by all those who just want a buff bot.
This discovery of yours will hand them a better buffbot, one that can monitor tips so it can work in npc structure locations, be told to eat bivoli on demand (less waste), heal stats or states on demand (something they don't bother with now as to add to a loop would be wasting charges of packs), and generally even be dual purpose as it could switch from entertainer buffs to doc ones. So all those virtuso/dazler/docs or even the dedicated PVE buffer (music/doc) or PVP (dance/doc for Jedi), could work 23/7 on their secondary classes for the whole guild, instaed of just yusing the doc part whenever the main is free to control it as happens now. Finally,it may be more useful to most combat players to have a true heal bot (like the "helper Stim A droid but better"), following them, that only incidentally fights...though I could see the Doc/Tka bot being popular as a companion. It can apply states, tank and go for the KD/dizzy, plus heal and buff you too.
As others said, combat players have an infinite set of missions to pull--so these things would have to start being used in situations where things are finite and used in such number that live players feel outnumbered. The tusken fort, geo lab, deathwatch, hunting krayts....but again, an "assist' bot means a live player is still there and the bot's control over the game is limited. You would know the assist bot would leave ina few hours--AFK entertaner bots never do. Literally what would have to happen is assist bots operating in such numbers that live players can't get away from them. That wherever they go, or whatever they try to do, there's an AFk bot doing it already. And interactivity doesn't quite push the game to that point.
Anyway, letting the secrets out isn't going to change anything one way or the other. The deveopers have reasons theydon't want to address recursive macros before the combat upgrade and I doubt that's going to change if there are more efficient doc bots, or even if all combat players were suddenly more efficient at playing their combat roles while offline than they are now. Those who don't like AFK play don't like it because its unfair and not fun to experience a game filled with badly scripted player owned NPCs. Those who like it cherish it because they don't care about a multi-player game, they just want to solo and "achieve" whatever goals there are as fast as possible. These are just two different ways of looking at the game and what one should get out of the experience. And some of those who care so much more about "achieving" a goal or skill set aren't going to much care how they get there or how anyone else gets there. And they aren't going to complain if you hand them a way to automate their path to the goal more efficiently. They'll thank you (just look at the reactions to the thread you started on your server forum about the combat bots). And the developers won't be any more "troubled" by all this than they are now, or any more able to deal with it.
Go ahead and share it though. Because if and when the devs do decide to fix "macros" and recursivity, they might as well know *everything* they need to fix.
Schardour
Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:46 pm
#58
Not if the recipient is forced to sit in a chair before tipping. Then the target cursor command could be used for an active buff. Getting people to follow directions is always a pain though...
AtheneNoctua
Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:34 pm
#59
Tralmek wrote:In ways, the design of the C-aB could help us as Entertainers. If enough buffbots use this, then they will no longer be buffing for free and buffs will have a value again--true, the value will still be diluted, but it might just be possible for someone who is wholly an Entertainer to eke out a living.Just a thought.
This reminds me of Sirii's post titled The Customer in a World of Dedicated Unattended Buffers some time ago. We're already beginning to see signs of the behavior she predicted, and it looks like "Steve" may somewhat speed-up the process.
Eaca, I'm sorry but I have to burst your bubble: it had already be done before:
The Automated Online Role-Player (j/k)
Padtai wrote:Literally what would have to happen is assist bots operating in such numbers that live players can't get away from them. That wherever they go, or whatever they try to do, there's an AFk bot doing it already.
Now this looks like a blueprint for KillStealSteve, doesn't it?
DanceRulez
Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:36 pm
#60
Xyrdre wrote:... and then into the Coronet cantina for his music buffs, courtesy of Rosaria, and dance buffs that I performed. I particularly enjoyed the irony... for the first time in known history the tables were turned. Live entertainers buffed a totally AFK macro combat character.
Yes, but did it give a good tip??
PoetDancer
Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:50 pm
#61
DanceRulez wrote:
Yes, but did it give a good tip??
From the looks of it, it would probably be a good idea if Mr. "CA" would tip.
[Looks at the screenshot]
Um...yes...a...whole lot...
[looks at the second screenshot]
Um...yes....a whole heck of a lot....
Reachwind
Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:08 pm
#62
There are two main areas this will hurt the combat player and neither of these is directly connected to missions.
The combat assist bot/script will hurt combat players in two major ways. First of all let's talk about PvP and the jedi FRS. This type of "character" gives one player the power of two or more. Three players the power of six or more. Four players the power of eight. See the potential? Suddenly a pair of jedi is a pair of jedi and two combat medics or two riflemen. As the players with multiple accounts and computers start to see the damage potential here they will begin to logoff the Briha type buffer and login their combat bot to increase their damage potential.
The other area you will see a damage dealing bot or doc/combat bot used is in highly contested and camped high end loot mobs. With single players becoming more powerful you'll see an increase in the ammount of loot coming into the game which in turn causes combat to become even further unbalanced. The players without a combat bot will find themselves without the needed equipment or worse having to do even more missions to get the extra credits needed to buy the even higher end gear.
As to the infinite missions from terminals goes... Just keep in mind that the more money coming into the system means that the base prices for all services go up as the value of the credit drops even further.
The combat assist bot/script will hurt combat players in two major ways. First of all let's talk about PvP and the jedi FRS. This type of "character" gives one player the power of two or more. Three players the power of six or more. Four players the power of eight. See the potential? Suddenly a pair of jedi is a pair of jedi and two combat medics or two riflemen. As the players with multiple accounts and computers start to see the damage potential here they will begin to logoff the Briha type buffer and login their combat bot to increase their damage potential.
The other area you will see a damage dealing bot or doc/combat bot used is in highly contested and camped high end loot mobs. With single players becoming more powerful you'll see an increase in the ammount of loot coming into the game which in turn causes combat to become even further unbalanced. The players without a combat bot will find themselves without the needed equipment or worse having to do even more missions to get the extra credits needed to buy the even higher end gear.
As to the infinite missions from terminals goes... Just keep in mind that the more money coming into the system means that the base prices for all services go up as the value of the credit drops even further.
Eaca
Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:12 pm
#63
PoetDancer wrote:
DanceRulez wrote: Yes, but did it give a good tip??
From the looks of it, it would probably be a good idea if Mr. "CA" would tip.
[Looks at the screenshot]
Um...yes...a...whole lot...
[looks at the second screenshot]
Um...yes....a whole heck of a lot....
You're gonna have to talk to whoever is commanding the bot about. The bot CAN tip if commanded (tho right now it has all of 1192 credits or something, no idea how it got the 192...), but it does have to be commanded, I suppose I could make a "getdancebuff" and "getmusicbuff" alias that included a tip command (assuming it had the money of course), would help streamline things, make it easier for the combatants to use, more "convenient"
As far as the auto afk thing goes, I patched in a fix for that, it won't happen again (need to start assigning version numbers to this thing...)
Ok, official combat bot versioning as follows:
Combat-Assist macro: v0.5 (alpha)
- Initial attempt at combat bot, limited functionality, no remote interactivity, required local commands to switch modes
- Project abandoned at the development of Command-Bot
Command-Bot: v1.1(alpha)
- Initial implementation, required a lot of babying and complex setup, little assistance provided by script, however remote commands were succssfuly interpreted into actions.
- Bot able to execute all commands
- 20 second command window
- 1 second processing time in which commands would not be recieved
Command-Bot v1.2 (alpha)
-
Bot command window reduced to 5 seconds, processing time eliminated, bot now able to process all commands EXCEPT tells (issuing it a command to /tell causes it to constantly repeat the tell over and over til it gets a new tell command...)
Command-Bot v1.3 (alpha)
-
Initial attempt at integrating multiple command modes, ran into a slight problem in doing so, regressed to v1.2
Command-Bot v1.2a
-
Commands added to assist in weapon swapping and a command added to assist in combat.
Near future upgrades;
-
Ability to enter spam command mode, also integration of pwn macro to enable it to talk smack, as well as a few more weapon equip macros, and an armor equip one as well.
I'm skipping v1.0 release since command parser is such a radical upgrade that I feel it deserves its own version number, combat-assist can be considered an abandoned project, tho its functionality will be integrated into command parser.
Again any Ahazi players are encouraged to participate in the alpha and beta testing phases, I need to get it more gear, armor, weapons, food, hawtpants, you know, normal combatant stuff 
Eaca
Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:22 pm
#64
Xyrdre wrote:
Next, to the Cantina, where for the first time ever, a live entertainer (yours truly)buffs a bot!
I still wanna see a pic of it getting buffed by another bot, and the pic titled "Nobody's Home"
Anyway, I like how in that pic you left in the command line and response, thats great
Hopefully I got all the "game breaking" bugges fixed in it so you can take it out for some rudimentary xping later
Oh hey, bonus, I just figured out how to have it send tells without breaking itself, will require a new alias to do it tho... not too big a deal tho
DanceRulez
Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:12 pm
#65
AtheneNoctua wrote:Eaca, I'm sorry but I have to burst your bubble: it had already be done before:
The Automated Online Role-Player (j/k)
I just checked this out and it is sooooo funny in light of Eaca's macros that I was almost rolling! Eaca, you've gotta get your combat bot set up with some melons!
Dude!Message Edited by DanceRulez on 11-23-2004 06:15 PM