Dancer Archive
Thread: Need some help with ideas here please. :)
Also I wanted to assure you that improvements and changes to things are being discussed.Don't expect anything to happen soon tho, some of this stuff is more tricky then you'd think. 
So, I'm trying to come up with a good way to make our Entertainer missions AFK proof.. this is tough tho. One idea I've had is to have the NPCs ora Certain NPC at a location periodically through the mission request random dances or effects. This could be given in a hint form or straight forward. The problem with this is it might feel like having to jump through hoops to get to an end goal for some.
I've come up with a lot more ideas then just this, but I wanted to give you all an example and a general idea of the kind of stuff I'm looking for here. So.. now that you do, I'd sure appreciate any ideas you all could come up with that I could play with and shoot over to our dev to see what he thinks about it. The answer will probably end up being a combination of ideas so don't be shy if yours isn't flawless. Any fuel for the mind on this one will be a big help towards making some positive improvements for us.
Having been a master dancer for almost two months, ( and never once had a afk macro), I can truthfully say the number one issue is removal of any afk healing potential of any sort by any entertainer. I rarely see any of the dancers I once had lots of fun with, some have surrendered, some have left swg altogether, and some just migrate to other servers to have a different profession. Lets not worry about an afk dancer doing a mission for 170 credits, lets worry about whats eventually going to make a "lively" cantina extinct and thats afk healing,,,dance all you want afk,,I dont care or play afk music, but afk healing must stop and soon.
Why bother to tip an afk entertainer ,, where 's the interaction?? On a server at one of the most popular cities where I have a combat character, its rare that I even get a Hello or Hi or any sort of greeting, but when I do , I always tip (tipped only twice all last week,,total 1000). I go to endor, dathomir and other planets, no entertainers at all in the cantina.
This profession was at one time fun,,no longer,,and the experienced dancers and enterainers have mostly all voted by either surrendering or finding other things to do besides entertaining,,Its sad and until afk healing is ended it wont ever change,,,there is so much potential in the cantina for fun and good times,,its sad that it didnt last.
Raven, you're asking for ideas, so I'm going to share my mind...
I still think the AFK entertainers is a problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later. I counted the replies to your thread requesting issues, and grouped them into general categories. Things like mind buff improvements I considered making entertainers more useful. The only issue that didn't need a category was the AFK macroers. It still came in second to more usefulness by 1 post, not counting those after you turned in the top issue. So it's a close second for dancer. Now initially I was happy that your idea was giving a nod to it, but I was thinking about it and I'm not happy anymore. In fact, I'd vote against any changes to make high end dancers more useful until AFK advancement is prevented.
I think your idea is more likely to make the problem worse, not better. The reason is suddenly people will start realizing having a master dancer or musician around is important to hunting.. So there will be a demand for these people, especially in large PAs. The people to answer the demand, some will already be entertainers. But many will be people who don't care about the class and just want the benefeits. These are the people who will setup a macro in the middle of the cantina and not care.
I sincerely hope that the top issue is not addressed without some way to prevent people from just macroing their way to the benefeits of master dancer.
Interesting question.
The example you provided issimpler than anything I can think of. My more complicated ideas:
Base mission completion on mind/BF healing and add targetted healing flourishes. Disadvantage: makes missions difficult in the quieter parts of the galaxy.
Dancing partners? It would be nice to have the ability to actually dance as a pair. One player is designated the lead and selects flourishes, which the other one has to respond (with an appropriate flourish of their own?)in order to make the "couples"flourish happen. Missions could then be given specifically for couples with a certain number of flourishes required. Disadvantage: Doesn't prevent people with multiple accounts/computers from completing missions afk.
Prevent mission terminals from giving missions in the same town. The extra hassle of requiring a shuttle trip may be a discouragement to stop some afk-dancers. You'd need to up the payouts for the cost of the ticket, of course.
Multiple-stage missions? Require performances in a couple of different venues with greater payouts. Once again this is using the hassle-factor as a discouragement.
Base mission completion on tips? You could base it on total credits and/or on number of different players who tip. Probably too easy to exploit, but figured I'd still mention it.
Most of my ideas have flaws, but maybe they can be worked with.
OOC:
I personally don't see AFK entertainer missions as a big problem. You can only get 2 missions at a time to begin with, so someone has to walk to the mission terminal tochoose the missions, and then even if they are in the same location, they have to execute them and then walk back to the terminal to get more. So, the person might be able to go afk for 20 minutes while they execute the mission, but it's not like they can make tons of credits spending hours on end AFK. They still have to return to the keyboard to get more missions.
~Player of Nare Ese
AFK missions? Not top on my list
AFK healing is
Wanting to be more usefull in the field is
~Caitiri Ca'Mora~
Or even better... you get the (piddling) 100 or so cr pay for the dance, but if you switch as requested, the NPC tips you a equal amount, right after the change. Perhaps 2 or 3 of these changes can happen during the mission. So... AFK dancer gets 100 cr for completing the mission "bare bones." At keyboard dancer gets 300-400 cr for completing the mission "With style" by taking requests from the patron.
(You could do the same exact thing with musicians BTW, with songs rather than dances.)
C
I never was good at Space Channel 5, but what if dancer missions were more like "dance-offs". The mission target does a dance flourish and then you would have to do the same dance flourish. Complexity, speed,and number of flourishes would increase until you failed to match your opponent. Mission payment would be based on how long you last, with a set amount (basically what they pay now) for those who are really really bad at these. The first few dances would have to be pretty easy though so that you could at least have a chance for a decent payout and to help those of us that are really bad at these "simon says" type games. In any case, no way you could AFK macro that since you would actually have to sit and watch what your opponent was doing (and of course it would be random and based on your level)...
Hmmm, guess you would have to know what the flourishes looked like too (unless it told you which flourish to do - that might make it too easy though). It would be sort of a game-within-a-game; nice distraction if nothing else.
Chessack wrote:
How about a popup like in surveying. Have the NPC just say, "Hmm... I like that dance but can you do another for me?" Then have the dances menu pop up and let the player pick one. If he picks nothing for 60 seconds, the dance stops. Or maybe it continues but the NPC gets mad and won't pay.
Yes, I saw this suggestion elsewhere and liked it as well. I was going to steal that. Curse you! *grin*
A pop-up every 10-15 minutes can discourage AFKers. It also can provide some supplemental income. Say someone has +10 in Healing, then he gets 10 credits for an NPC tip. Someone with +50 may get 50 or more credits. It's something that can help, but it won't allow an Entertainer to "get rich quick."
I can only think of this approach or the approach where the computer stops your xp and healing if it detects you haven't done anything. Problem is, does a macro provide the same feedback as someone typing something? If so, then new code would have to be introduced to make this work, and introducing new code is time-consuming and risky.
So, for that reason, I'd rather see the pop-up message (infrequent enough so I don't feel I'm visiting a porn site--er, not that I know about pop-up ads and porn), as that would implement the same tested code used or surveying.
I think this would be a simple solution to the AFK plague. It would take just slightly more time than it would take to fix Entertainer mission payouts. *grin*
I would recommend utilizing some functionality that is already in the game:
The first would be to utilize the logic of delivery missions, where you need to visit multiple NPCs. One (in one hotel or cantina) to prove that you can dance. The second (in another hotel or cantinato perform the dance for the recipient.
The second is the proximity logic to show that you are dancing near the correct NPC.
Thethird would be to utilize similar logic in surveying where it asks you if you want to try to extract a large quantity of the item you are surveying. I have noticed that it seems to have a time limit for how long it works and that its appearance is quite random. A similar tool could be used for a dance mission, where if you accept in a short period of time, your reward is increased. If you don't respond in that amount of time, your reward stays the same.
What I think about this solution is that you are not punishing those whouse AFK. Instead you are rewarding those who are not AFK.
I totally agree with -Caitiri-
The few credits an afk dancer can make with the two missions they accept before going afk doesnt concern me in the least.
Earning Dancing and Healing exp while not putting an effort into it besides writing out or copy and pasting a macro does concern me quite a bit. I've been really surprised at the number of beginner dancers who've come to me asking for a macro. When I told them I didnt know know, nor never cared to know how to do one, thier reaction has been one of disbelief. This is such a common practice that they find it hard to believe that anyone has actually been present and worked toward earning thier title!
My experience with Entertainer missions has been that they don't last long enough to make AFK an issue, really. As some of the others have indicated, it's not a few credits we begrudge nor even the bit of XP a mission would give. The problem, rather, is dancers writing recursive macros that call themselves using the /ui commands, endlessly looping while they sleep or go to the movies for hours at a time.
I'm glad to hear they're thinking in these terms. But if it takes 10 minutes' dancing to get the completion message on a mission, that's not the kind of AFK'ing we're worried about.
On the other hand, if the idea is to require entertainer missions for advancement toward Master, maybe they're onto something. You can't automate running to the terminal and clicking refresh a few times. You can't control where the mission is. And even here, if they adapted the auto-AFK code that's already in the game to detect when a player has not touched their keyboard for 10 minutes, it shouldn't be difficult to shut off all XP until they either logout or touch their keyboard again. (I can sayit's easysince I'm not a professional game programmer ).
Sinda wrote:
On the other hand, if the idea is to require entertainer missions for advancement toward Master, maybe they're onto something. You can't automate running to the terminal and clicking refresh a few times. You can't control where the mission is.
Hmm, now that is an idea. Have Dancer and Musician require Skill Points, Experience Points, and Fame Points. You gain Fame Points by doing gigs. Level 1 boxes require 10 Fame Points to advance. Level 2 boxes require 20 Fame Points. And so forth.
And I could see that being used for Bounty Hunters too (minimum of 20 bounties), but that's another topic.
Although I see a flaw with what I just mentioned. Being a Master Dancer reflects the amount of skill you have. You can be virtually unknown but be an excellent dancer. Then again, to be a Master Dancer requires enough Healing xp to fill two branches. That requires people watch you. So, I guess the concept of popularity and fame is already built in. As it is now, you cannot attain a Master title in a vacuum. You have to perform for people. So, introducing Fame might not be too outrageous.
I don't know. It's an idea.