CUEmu - Thread Posts

IrinaStarsinger

Wed Jun 30, 2004 4:36 am

As long as all we do is complain about flourishes and silly stuff like that we can go on as much as we want. But when westart discussing actual changes that MIGHT save our profession.... the threads get deleted or locked. Does that suggest that maybe we're being humored? Condescension maybe?

We start discussing whether Dancing is dead as a profession and thats fine. THEN we start talking about what can be done to SAVE it and POOF.... it disappears.

Okay lets try that and see.

What do we need to save the Entertainment profession? We DONT need new flourishes. We DONT need changes to the buff system. WeDONT need new special effect. We need TWO things. Fairly SIMPLE things.

When you go AFK you STOP Dancing/Playing/Buffing/Macroing

When you go Idle for 10-15 mins you STOP Dancing/Playing/Buffing/Macroing

THOSE two thing would save the entertainment profession. They would stop the AFK dancers. They would stop the spamming. They would stop the buffbots. They would free up the cantinas for conversation again.

We can sit here and yell about new flourishes all we want. Anyone who'se ever BEEN an entertainer knows that entertaining is not about wiggling around on the floor. Its about social interaction. The kind thats become impossible with Spammers blanketing the cantinas.

We can ask for all the changes in the buff system we can think of.. What does it matter when the buffbots make live buffing irrelevant?

We can set up all the Chat channels we want and entertain each other... But I Thought we were supposed to be entertaining Others, not ourselves.

So how do we save Entertaining as a profession? We ALL ask for those two things and forget all the others things for a while. Not a Whole lot of point in asking for all those other cute things when the Profession itself is on the way out.

There's an expression that describes what we're doing right now...

Rearranging Deck Chairs ont he Titanic.

Asking for lots of nice imporvements in a Profession thats fast dying out entirely is kind of.... Ostrich like? FIRST keep the ship from sinking... THEN we can make the deck chairs look pretty.

If we Can't get together on those two simple points and save the profession then fine. We give it up and go kill things like everyone else. But lets EITHER save the profession or admit that it cant BE saved and lets quit PRETENDING that it still IS a viable professionbecause every one of you know that its not. Either join the effort and Save Entertaining or we might as well go ahead and start moving to the combat forums.

Euclase
Master Dancer/Master ID
Bria

Lsk

Wed Jun 30, 2004 4:47 am

#2

I 100% agree /applaud /cheer /hug

Iwear Nothing

M dancer ID Ent.

Chimera

Ikewe

Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:10 am

#3

I'd just like to throw out my 2 credits worth here on why I think changing the buff system would go a long way toward helping to save the dance profession. I've seen quite a few posts recently from combat players who say "we use buff bots because we need all our mind stats buffed" or "they are easy to find so we use them". I think that if we could change the buff system to enable dancers and musicians to provide truely full service buffing then you'd quickly see fewer buff bots. Surely no player would maintain a buff bot that wasn't making a profit?? The entire profession is sunk when it is viewed as something that can be done by an NPC. If we can change how our fellow players use entertainers then I think we can save the profession. As for focusing on the important things, I agree 100% but if I am not mistaken big changes/fixes to the entertainer profession have been postponed until after current projects such as the combat rebalance and JTL are completed. So although we aren't going to forget that these problems need to be addressed what can we get fixed in the short term? I think you'll find that's why some entertainers are focusing on what would seem to be trivial problems in the grand scheme.

Cheers,

Ikewe

Ikewe, Master Dancer, Shadowfire

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Panthu

Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:23 am

#4

I'm pushing for the buffing changes that would resolve this during the CB. I do not know if it will happen. The Devs have seen our poll on changing our buffing system to an ATK only option.

The other Ent Corres and many other Corres from other Profs are supporting this in there too. I have no word other than that. I will let you know if I do get some word beforesomething goes public (sometimes they tell us first, sometimes they don't).

P A N T H U Y GlitterUsagi
M i n d B o d y S p i r i t
Dancer ImageDesigner Doc

Ikewe

Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:36 am

#5

Panthu, Thanks much for your efforts. I know you are pushing to make some very positive changes to the entertainer profession. I'm certain it'll take a while before we see these changes but am also hopeful that they will be well worth the wait. In the meantime there are things each of us as entertainers can do on our servers and in our cantinas to help work on our image. While it may vary by server, I've found that many combat players really appreciate that I am willing to drop what I am doing and travel to their location to provide a mind buff. Yes it is time consuming and sometimes costly for me to travel but I think the benefit is that the other players start to view me and my role as healer in a different and more positive light. Because in my opinion even if the devs were able to "fix" our profession overnight, unless thecombat players view entertainers as fellow players rather than NPC healers then we are still a doomed profession.

Cheers,

Ikewe

Ikewe, Master Dancer, Shadowfire

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Ravanne_Esi

Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:45 am

#6

Right now we had JustG bending over backwards to do something for the BH RIGHT NOW! The BH have suffered a minor setback with this patch and are getting IMMEDIATE attention but our professsion has been broken and unfinished since day one and we are IGNORED! I am so angry right now I don't have words to express it.

Ravanne Esi
Master Dancer, Master Entertainer, Master Musician
Ragin' Rancor Enterprises
New Hope, Naboo

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Kreistor

Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:31 am

#7

Irina, your solution is really close to one that I constantly preach (much to everyone's chagrin ) over and over.

Panthu, I know you mentioned that the Devs were against my solution before, but is there any hope of presenting it again? Once again, it's like this:

Macroing by itself isn't the problem. Having macros are very useful. Being AFK isn't the problem. It's the combination of the two that causes problems. Not only are entertainer buffbots created by this, but so are doc buffbots, AFK macro looters and AFK Combat XP Grinders.

The solution is simple, right along the lines of what Irina said. Lock the idle time that causes a player to go AFK, say 10 minutes. Also, make it so the player can't turn this feature off. Then, once the player is flagged AFK by the system, simply dump all macros that player currenty has running. That's it! Entertainers stop gaining XP since they need to flourish. Buffbot stop buffing, since they need to /join a group. Macro looters stop looting. Macro XP grinders stop fighting.

I'm sorry, but I have yet to see how this is a bad thing. SOE's response will probably be that people will then start to use 3rd party macros. However, if they're not at the the keyboard and doing something over and over, don't you think it would be easier to catch them and ENFORCE THE SOE POLICY AGAINST THIS??

Anyway Panthu, if you could push this on them again. I really feel like this is a good solution. If they still don't like it, an explanation of why might help us help them by better defining this solution.

Thanks again

Ub-ick Esava
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Bria - Working towards Master Dancer one fall at a time

Lowca - Master Dancer Extraordinaire
*CENSORS* Cantina, Honor's Keep, Corellia,

Electro

Wed Jun 30, 2004 8:39 am

#8

My personal, and deep cynical I admit, viewpoint is that with the combat rebalance our mind buffs will in essence be entirely worthless. This will be becuase the mind pool will no longer be "the" factor in combat any longer (especially PvP combat.) People won't need our buffs so they won't bother with them any longer... and a big motivation for many buffbots will disappear.

That will be the last "fix" to our profession we will see.

Reachwind

Wed Jun 30, 2004 8:56 am

#9

The most important reason why attacking how macros work and how dancing works with macros won't stop buff bots is that where there is a need there is a way. With the changes you recommend you will just have the macro writers change the macro a bit to anti-idle. Either with the use of a third party app or through clever use of the existing game mechanic.

The system must be changed but it must be changed to an interactive system.As long as the buffing/healing process is passive players will stick a bot in place to cover this important need. Entertainment professions must be challenging, rewarding and fun for a wider group of players than pure socializers like us or the majority will never support the existance of the profession as a viable part of the SWG economy.

Targeted healing controlled by the entertainer.

A dance system where player skill is used to generate greater or lesser healing effect and performance.

An engaging solo player content system with scaled rewards based on dancer skill level and player ability.

Attractive rewards for excelling at the profession.

Kreistor

Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:26 am

#10

For the longest time I been trying to figure out how someone could write a macro in order to avoid gaining the AFK flag. I was seriously looking for a way bust my solution. I have yet to find a way in game to do it with the existing macro system, so I'm still looking. If you say there is one then I'll take your word for it. Definitely, this is one thing that should be also removed from the AFK process if it's possible.

The point about 3rd party macro apps is valid as well. But wouldn't it be easier to catch these people if the in game macro system didn't allow for unattended macroing? If you see someone doing a repetative action over and over, someone who doesn't respond to your tells, wouldn't that be someone using a 3rd party macro since that's the only option? If so, he/she is bannable.

Also, I agree that we need more content. Better rewards and dynamic content would be great. I don't see how this would help the buffbot situation however. It would certainly attract more active live entertainers to our professions, but the buffbots would still be around. In fact, if the content isn't implemented properly, they may find a way to take advantage of these new rewards because of a macro.

As for adding an active healing component, although I see the mechanical need for it, I believe it defeats the 'spirit' of entertaining. Dancers don't need to be asked permission in order to entertain someone. It's hard to stop someone from watching you. I've got to say though that I've just noticed that this seems to be the only thing that my anti-buffbot solution won't cure. A dancer that is dancing but doesn't flourish still heals BF and mind wounds. I'm at a loss for any other solution other than the one that you suggested.

I'm liking this discussion so far! Let's keep it up!!

Ub-ick Esava
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Bria - Working towards Master Dancer one fall at a time

Lowca - Master Dancer Extraordinaire
*CENSORS* Cantina, Honor's Keep, Corellia,

Groovymarlin

Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:56 am

#11

Ravanne_Esi wrote:

Right now we had JustG bending over backwards to do something for the BH RIGHT NOW! The BH have suffered a minor setback with this patch and are getting IMMEDIATE attention but our professsion has been broken and unfinished since day one and we are IGNORED! I am so angry right now I don't have words to express it.

Please don't direct your anger at Bounty Hunters. My alt is a BH in training, and the profession has been broken for a long time. There are lots of reasons I could list but suffice to say, for a long time now the profession that takes more skill points than any other to master (BH) has also had the lowest defenses and offense of any elite combat profession. So the fact that they're eliminating the master scout requirement and 3/4 of the scout trees is a very good thing and long overdue. In addition, it's apparently not a huge code change since they can get it to testing this week, and they were going to do it in the CB anyway.

More than that though, I cannot begrudge any profession dev attention. If we fall into the trap of saying "why did they help BHs while we continue to suffer," then we're just like the smugglers or pistoleers or squad leaders or pikemenwho said "why did they help IDs while we continue to suffer?" The fact is, LOTS of professions need revamps and dev attention, I just want to get us on the list as one of them. As far as I know, there is no entertainer revamp of any kind in the works, yet.Yes we will get some new content in the Hutt Casino post-JTL, but that is not a revamp.

I understand your anger, but please reconsider. The reason they did this thing for BH's now is that publish 9 was about to be the nail in the coffin for the profession. The devs have said that BH's are the mechanism for controlling the Jedi population, but for months they've been unable to effectively do that. And with publish 9, because of a developer oversight, their Jedi missions were reduced dramatically in both cash and xp payout. They really deserved something, and I'm glad they got it.

We of course deserve something too, and we're going to have to fight for it, from all appearances. But criticizing other professions or begrudging them any dev attention is not the way to get what we need. We really, really need to get behind this idea of not putting ourselves before any other profession, because we all get upset when other professions do it to us. If the devs do spend some time fixing our bugs and working on our needs at some point, lots of combat types will certainly point at us and say "Why should they get the attention when my profession needs it more?" I want to be able to say "we never begrudged bounty hunters or smugglers or anyone else who got development time, please don't do it to us."

La'lepa Ofo

Master Dancer :: Master Swordswoman :: Force Sensitive
AFKing is not entertaining - support real entertainers

Ikewe

Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:51 pm

#12

Warryyr, I think this sounds like an interesting and very workable solution. (although I'm not a programmer so what sounds workable to me might not really be). What do other entertainers think of this solution? It's a pretty quick thing so I don't think it would interfere too much with social interactions - no more than responding to a /tell or guildchat or anyother private message. Panthu, do you think this is a possibility to present to the Devs??

Ikewe, Master Dancer, Shadowfire

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Ravanne_Esi

Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:45 pm

#13

Groovymarlin wrote:

Please don't direct your anger at Bounty Hunters.

I know that the Bounty Hunters are not our enemy, but it seems the DEVs are. I have no anger towards the BH but a great deal reserved for the DEVs. The DEVs are the ones causing the problems not the Bounty Hunters or any of the other professions. My complaint is that the DEVS who have never come and told us that they understand we have a problem and are working on a solution are more than willing to do whatever it takes to placate an agriefed profession as long as it's not an entertainer. BH, Smuggler, SL, etc. all deserve attention but damn it so do we!

Message Edited by Ravanne_Esi on 06-30-2004 03:53 PM

Ravanne Esi
Master Dancer, Master Entertainer, Master Musician
Ragin' Rancor Enterprises
New Hope, Naboo

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