Dancer Archive
Thread: Yay, and thanks to all you AFK Macro-ers
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.
see this works. and honestly i dig it. alot. especially if there is a group of people and no entertainer. and you know what, if there was a system so we could find what entertainers were online (for the entire galaxy) i'd say that'd be a good solution. it'd be cool to be stranded on dath and turn to the wounded guy next to you and be all "hey lets go halvesies on an entertainer". hahaa. but how do you have an assurance that there are entertainers on at all hours? if afk was removed would enough people flock back to the profession to ensure that? see, i don't think so. so that is why they should fix entertainer missions first. give ability to request entertainers at cantinas.... maybe put in an 'entertainers pot' or something. better features to search for entertainers galaxy-wide. then and only then can you curb afk. that's right, curb, not illiminate. once you see the impact of the system you tighten/loosen the restrictions.
meeuki wrote:
if afk was removed would enough people flock back to the profession to ensure that? see, i don't think so.
Sadly, I feel you are correct. AFK heal bots are now a part of the game universe. Those people who left because of the zombification probably won't come back. Some characters have given up Entertaining and might not be inclined to give up their newfound skills to start Entertaining again.
Even if the devs tried to find a way to discourage AFKing, it probably wouldn't help at this point. The AFK bud should have been nipped early so that the strong Entertainer economy that used to exist in August could continue. But those days are passed.
I like the Dancer/Musician pager idea. Call up a "Yellow Pages." Any Dancer or Musician who is not /registered at a cantina already can have his name show up. The person looking for entertainment can send him a /tell.
And yes, across the planets. And it only pages those with a Dancer or Musician title up (so you can be unlisted if you choose).
It could be something to differentiate Dancers and Musicians from Entertainers, too.
PS, Greatsails, there was a thread earlier where someone claims he asked some Entertainers on hunting missions and was turned down at every request. Not sure if this was an exaggeration, but it's something to consider. Some people prefer to stay in their home cantina. But if you let them know how much two Level -45 missions pay, they may change their minds.
Off hours
Nice try. But that's not an AKF Entertainer only problem. Who's healing you in those hours ? Who are you grouping with in those hours ? Who teaches you in those hours ? Who do you teach in those hours ? You are already losing out on many things that come with playing off hours. I'm from Europe, I know perfectly well how off hours on an American server feel. And yet, I don't think it's a justification to ruin a class. You don't have healbots, teachbots, getting-taught-bots, group-with-me-bots either, do you ?
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'
When I hear things like "I forgot to clone,and fought things to hard for me",I'm tempted. And yes, I have worn the helper tag since day 3 of my swg career when I knew enough to help people. No one ever complained. Maybe you should try, you can learn a lot by teaching. Not just in computer games.
And no, I won't write a guide about that simple truth, I don't do beginners guides in my sparetime.
if afk was removed would enough people flock back to the profession to ensure that?
I'm not sure if we need anyone back. We have plenty, if 10% of the AFK-Bots decided to stay.
I really don't like SOEs approach to their own EULA. On one hand, third party program macroing is a bannable offense, on the other, in-game macroing is no offense. By that judgement, it would be a crime to murder someone... except if you don't bring the weapon but manage to find it on the way. Obviously that will generate a lot of "weapon-finding" shops and murderers. You cannot blame people for doing something when told they can get away without consequences.
<beats the dead horse once more>
Yeah, I know. But I waded my way through three pages of post, I feel entitled to say something now. =P
I am one of those mysterious 1%. When I started this game, about 6 months ago, I was NOTHING but a dancer. I did not craft, I did not heal (other than entertainer healing) and I did not fight. Nothing but dancing. Now tell me, if I'd done that now, would I be able to actually make a living that way? No. Because I've been in the cantinas, I've seen the macrotainers, and I've watched the customers come in. And 75% of those customers don't care which dancer they watch, and which dancer they tip, unless you get phenomenally lucky and are the only Master (got to love that exotic dance). Most of the time, folk come in, target the first dancer they see, tip them if they're feeling generous, and leave. Even most of the ones that pay attention to the non-AFK folk don't engage us. They don't talk to us, they don't thank us, we're lucky if they tip us.
Example. I used to be able to spend 2 hours in AH or Bestine and walk away with 5-7k in tips. Granted, they came slowly, and were usually from about 5 people who simply tipped generously. But the point is, I got paid. Last night I danced in Bestine for 2 hours and came home with 700 credits. If this were still my only method of making credits, I'd be in quite a bit of trouble.
THAT is what macrotainers have done to our class. In addition to siphoning off our healing exp, they're siphoning off our cash intake as well, and causing our customers to assume we're all mindless drones. There's very little fun in spending time in most cantinas anymore. It detracts from our enjoyment. I love my class. I wear my Master Dancer title with pride, knowing that I spent 2 months behind the keyboard, spending time with customers, and building quite a name for myself on my planet. It's sad when I realize I'd rather go smack around a couple of bocatts than go find a cantina to dance in because it's just not WORTH it anymore.
On a PS note, I believe it was meekui that said something about dancing exp being increased based off the number of people watching. It is. I've always noticed that from day one, doing the silly little basic dances, that if I have more people watching, I get better exp.
There's probably a lot more I wanted to say, but I can't remember now. But that's my basic point. That is what macrotainers do to us. I am not attempting to bad-mouth the fellow who thanked his local macrotainer - at least he had the decency to say thank you to the person. Most people don't bother. There's no way for a commando, a BH, a smuggler, a medic, or a TKA to macro and wander off and come back later to effortless exp. There shouldn't be for entertainers, either. It's not "playing" the game to turn on a macro for 6 hours, come back, find you've gained two boxes and a pile of tips. You get none of the enjoyment out of it that way. For those of you who claim, as though all of us are jobless, degenerate slackers, that "I don't have the time to spend all day in front of my computer, I have school/work/homework/kids/etc to do" -- we all have lives. We all have homework, or school, or work. I, personally, chase a 9-month old around all day. And I have never once set up a dancing macro. (I will confess to running outside for 15 minutes for a smoke. But never as group leader.) The excuse that "I just don't have the time" is just an excuse. The entertainer professions were never meant to be mastered in a couple of weeks. No profession was.
It's simply not fair to the rest of us. It's that simple.
Nice try. But that's not an AKF Entertainer only problem. Who's healing you in those hours ? Who are you grouping with in those hours ? Who teaches you in those hours ? Who do you teach in those hours ? You are already losing out on many things that come with playing off hours. I'm from Europe, I know perfectly well how off hours on an American server feel. And yet, I don't think it's a justification to ruin a class. You don't have healbots, teachbots, getting-taught-bots, group-with-me-bots either, do you ?
lets see... healing me in off hours? camps.
group with during off hours? pets.
teaches during off hours? npcs
battle fatigue during off hours without afks... oh... crap. might as well stop playing.
so wait, i guess there really are healbots, teachbots, group with me bots, weapons bots, etc. but really those are crappy solutions. there are always players online. 24/7. alot of them actually.the problem is entertaining isn't that popular.or maybe it is but it's just not popular to do in smaller locations.
without afks it would be exceedingly difficult to find an atk entertainer off hours, without going to theed, coronet, or a popular city on tat. now i can pay to find one. i despise having to drop 5k every time i have 100 BF (the ticket + tip from adventure worlds) but i can do it. but there was a good portion of time where I could not. I know plenty of noobs who don't have the kind of cash to spend on that. i know a ton of people that don't appreciate the timesink involved in doing that. have you ever been to mos taike? yeah there's nobody there ever. so a tusken gives you some wounds and you want them healed... you've cloned but you don't want to decay your armor. you have to run all the way to espa now? how can that not blow? if atkers were at every cantina all the time this would not be an issue. but the powers that be have designed a system where that is not happening.
and the profession isn't even ruined. how can it be ruined if there isa crapload of entertainers everywhere? is it not to your liking? yeah. does it mean you can't entertain elsewhere? no. is it to other people's liking? probably, since people did it before the holocron craze. you can't just remove the feature without having a viable alternative. you can't flame everyone who appreciates people who leave their machines on to help others without there being a viable alternative.
well you can, but i'm going to call you an **edit** every single time.
i'm not even going to go into the helper thing. i was being sarcastic, everyone knows they gotta clone, it's just sometimes people forget. hit the wrong key, whatever. maybe they get hit with one of the new specials npcs are firing off now.this might not ever happen to the 'mighty' nvoigt, but it might to alot of other people.
you can't just remove the feature without having a viable alternative.
Exploitive cheating behaviour is not a "feature". It's greedy humans playing a too forgiving game.
If macroing is ok, why is third party macroing forbidden ? Do you think you'd see a single AFK entertainer if you'd get no xp or tips while AFK ? Don't think that's good samaritans. Online they might be nice people. But they aren't online. And their macros are kill stealers plain and simple.
Imagine there was a bot that auto-looted every corpse you kill ( suppose that would be possible and SOE would announce in their official forums that it's ok as long as you use the ingame macro system for it ) and gave the hide away for free.Obviously, Doctors will rejoice. Hide for free. But you'd be pissed,wouldn't you ?Would that bot be ok ? I mean after all it's hide for free, right ?And I'm on in the off hours and don't have a hide supplier online. I can't live without that bots hide for free.
I need a AFK slicer. And an AFK CH to get me a mount. And I need people to give me money for free. Oh, but I play off hours and those people giving me money for free aren't on. I guess I will go dupe some.
i'm not even going to go into the helper thing. i was being sarcastic, everyone knows they gotta clone, it's just sometimes people forget. hit the wrong key, whatever. maybe they get hit with one of the new specials npcs are firing off now.this might not ever happen to the 'mighty' nvoigt, but it might to alot of other people.
I know people who were on their three newbie deaths 6 weeks into release. I know people who died 12 times on release day. Both are extremes, but if you forget to clone constantly, or bite more than you can chew constantly, then I call that unwise gameplay. If it happens once in a while, it can't be too hard to find a cantina once in a while, right ? 5K is a fair price for not cloning or attacking an enemy way out of your league.
If people are new to the game and cannot afford 5K they have two choices: spend 100cr and get novice entertainer themselves. Or maybe don't go to planets that are out of their league. If you cannot afford to travel back once in a while, it's poor planing. You want to have an entertainer there. Ever thought about their costs to get to a planet that has a cantina the size of a tincan and the atmosphere of a fridge ? Entertainers aren't on those worlds because there is not enough demand.
I don't know how you play, and I don't care. But I have been on Dantooine recently when it was the only source of radioactive and I danced there for two hours. After two hours of dancing and advertising myself, I got 1 tip for 10K, buffed 2 people for 3K each and gave away three free haircuts. When I went out, I saw the same people out there that I had met when I entered. Most of them had lots of mind wounds and probably BF. Not one had cared to get rid of them when the chance was there for two hours. This is clearly what I call unwise gameplay.
On the other hand, I had earned 16K. Subtracting shuttle fees, I earned 6K per hour. Sorry, but do you think that 6K an hour on Dantooine is ok ? That's not money I would work for. If I get 6K an hour, I have better ways to make money in Theed, plus a better cantina. There is not enough demand there for me to go out again.
lets see... healing me in off hours? camps.
group with during off hours? pets.
teaches during off hours? npcs
These aren't really healbots, teachbots, or groupbots. You have to pay for these services. You have to twiddle your thumbs in a camp (5 minutes in a cantina is one thing, but an hour in a camp is something else). You have to find your own pet, buy your own pet, or be friendly with a CH to give you a free pet. If an NPC teaches you (like in the old days when no one had skills), it's costing you money.
You could compare these to AFK entertainers, and I'd agree--if AFK entertainers weren't free and easy.
I know plenty of noobs who don't have the kind of cash to spend on that.
Why is the noob on Yavin? He dug his own grave if he is not prepared for this. Sorry, how can I feel pity for the noob who isn't ready for those jobs? My secondary character is three boxes from being a Master Marksman, and I still venture away from Theed only to meet up with others at the Emporer's Retreat.
As stated before, it's based on wise gameplay. Or perhaps just experience. How is a new player to realize that he should clone all the time and heal his Battle Fatigue before it gets to 800, no matter how wise he is? So, an experienced player should know that going to an advanced planet is a gamble. Maybe there's an entertainer. Maybe there isn't. But that uncertainty is rarely there now.
Ah well, as pointed out, this is pretty much moot. SOE has demonstrated no desire to remove heal bots. I still have fun dancing and will continue to draw people away from the AFKers because they simply are not entertaining (really, the best way to get someone's attention is to greet them by name or say something that would not be macro'd; some people really enjoy that and will tip you handsomely if you just interact with them). Maybe I'll end up stealing Ent Heal xp from some AFKer, but I don't care. Just like I can't feel sorry for the noob, I cannot feel sorry for the Dancer who can't earn someone's Ent Heal xp.
Greatsails wrote: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.
Ah you make a common error. I have seen it many times while DMing/GMing/Refereeing RPGs face to face, as well as while spending 5 years as the head admin of an RP MUSH. A short-term band aid that shuts up 250,000 people or makes them happy for a couple of weeks is NOT necessarily something that is "good for the game" as a whole, in the long run.
YES, that AFK entertainer is good for you right here, right now, when you are in a rush and need healing. And YES lots of people can't see beyond that to look at the bigger picture. But their presence will hurt the game in the long run. If you can't see that, well then, I guess there's no point arguing further. But I was not suggesting that the developers should make the game literally worse for 250,000 people so it could be better for 250. I was suggesting that what is better for the 250 is ALSO better for the 250,000... even if the 250,000 may not realize it for a little while until things settle down.
Let me give a great non-entertaining example. On the general forum I saw a post basically saying that Player Vehicles are the death knell of player city shuttles and the tax you get from them. His reasoning was that the vehicles are faster than the average 5+ min shuttle wait time over any but the longest planetary distances, so he can just "ride" to whatever town he wants on his swoop bike. In the short run this may be true. However, in the long run he is going to find out that, for instance, swoop-riding from Keren to Kaadara, while perhaps a bit faster than the shuttle wait time, is going to end up doing so much wear and tear to his bike that fixing it at Kaadara garage is going to cost substantially more than the shuttle ticket. So, the item decay is going to cause the shuttles to still be used by frugal and non-rich players. And yet that very same decay has been griped about by other short-sighted players as being "unfair" because it is inconvenient for them. When you wrap it all into a package -- shuttle wait times, decay rates, garage locations, and repair costs -- it all balances. But if you take out ONE of those things, it won't balance. Yet most people focus on just ONE (e.g., repair costs) and want to have that "fixed" for their own benefits, without seeing the larger picture.
Remember, an online game is in fact a community (or it contains one, if you will) and you won't make it better by ruining, destroying, or harming a part of that community. You will make it worse.
C
well, then the people playing at 4am need to get a frikkin' life and goto bed like the Entertainers who aren't there. The AFK needs to go.
meeuki wrote:
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?
meeuki wrote:lets see... healing me in off hours? camps.
group with during off hours? pets.
teaches during off hours? npcs
battle fatigue during off hours without afks... oh... crap. might as well stop playing.
While these are technically true, they do not really apply to what Greatsails was talking about. Let's remember his specific argument for why AFKing is good. It is this:
1. Finding or waiting around for dancers is inconvenient on a high-end world.
2. AFKers on that world make healing quicker and more convenient.
3. Incovenience is not fun (honestly, no argument there) and games are about fun, and therefore AFKers are helping him have fun.
4. Therefore, thank you AFKers.
None of your points can address his definition of inconvenience in any but the most specific cases, and certainly not in general. Let's take them one at a time...
Healing in off hours in camp -- this is going to take a long, long time if you have a lot of wounds. It is just as inconvenient to have to sit in camp doing nothing for an hour while you heal from those wounds Nym's pirates just gave you, as it is to go to the spaceport and take a ship to find a doc on Naboo. In fact, that would be faster than just sitting in camp. However, it would cost more. Either way it is inconvenient. Should we take wounds out of the game to "make it more fun"? I think most people would say, "no", because part of the fun of a roleplaying game is the challenge of dealing with the adversity. Wounds are part of that advesrity. And you can easily solve this problem by bringing a medic along with you. "Oh but Chessack I play on off hours." Yeah well part of Great's argument is that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Should the medic class be ruined by allowing NPC healer bots just for the few (by definition, since it is off hours) who play at odd times. No... By his own argument no adjustment ought to be made for off-hours players because they are in the minority, and the good of the majority is (again, according to Greatsails) paramount. So "healing in camps" != NPC Healer bots and it does not solve the "inconvenient things should not be in the game" issue, since it is also inconvenient, and probably much more so than just finding a doc to fix you up.
Grouping during off hours with pets, at this point with CL 10 the limit for non-CHs, is only viable for CHs. For anyone else, on high end worlds (which is what Greatsails was talking about in the first place) you can't use a weak pet. My pet CL 10 kaadu would not last long against a Kimogila. So you can't group with pets as a substitute for grouping with people unless you are a CH, and CHs are a tiny proportion of the total population (what was it, 10% at last count, if that?). So this is not really viable for non-CHs in the case we are talking about (high end worlds).
NPCs teach during off hours. That's true but is it convenient? Remember the point here. "Thanks AFKers you cut down on my inconvenience in the game." Why do they cut down on it? "So I don't have to spend time/money to travel from Lok or someplace like that to a world like Naboo and get healed." Well, 'scuse me but last time I checked there were no elite profession combat trainers on Lok. Now maybe this has changed with the player cities but some high end worlds on any server will have no trainers at all. Which means you still have to go through the "inconvenience" of having to go to town, grab a planet ship, travel to a place like Naboo, find and pay the trainer some absurd amount of money (like 8K or more for the higher boxes) and then travel all the way back. If you get unlucky with shuttle wait times from Lok to Naboo and back you might be talking over an hour of messing around with this and probably 12K in credits lost. How is this more convenient than flying from Lok to Theed on Naboo to get to the one or two healers online during off hours?
You are right these things do serve as "bots" in a sense to do certain things when no one else is around, but they do not address the entire point Greatsails was making, which is that the bots are good for decreasing player inconvenience. These three things do not do this and are if anything MORE inconvenient than looking for an at-keyboard entertainer would be (in the case of camps/NPC trainers) or just plain irrelevent (in the case of grouping with a CL 8 pet on a high end world and having it die in one blow).
Greatsails says that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" yet a big chunk of the "AFKers are essential" argument is so they can heal the few people who play on high end worlds at odd times. If the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few then why should the needs of these few odd-time players be addressed at all? By Great's own reasoning SOE and LA should ignore these people since the bulk of their audience does not play at these times.
In fact I do not agree with the "many/few" argument in this case. It is the job of the developers to see to it that NO profession is ruined, while at the same time making it possible to play at any time on any server, meaning also at odd times. I agree that Great should be able to play and enjoy and I agree that inconvenience is, in general, not fun, and that games are about having fun. What I don't agree with is that, in the long run, this situation is best handled by AFK Macroing.
C
Arguments against AFK entertaining
- Players can reach Master level without being ATK (aside from purchasing training)
-AFK players have an equal opportunity to gain (now limited) healing XP, taking away from those ATK
Arguments for AFK entertaining
- AFK players offer a needed service during non-peak hours
- AFK play does not (currently) violate the EULA
Disclaimers 
Please keep in mind this is only a sumation of reasons affecting game play, and doesn't include complaints regarding cosmetics, orpersonal opinions. It also does not include complaints that an ATK person could just as easily cause (standing in the middle of a cantina, spamming for tips, being annoying in general).
I think if we can find some common ground between the pro- and anti-AFK groups, and find some suitable solutions that both sides find reasonable the devs are more likely to listen.