Entertainer Archive
Thread: From TH & SOETyrant Recursive Macros
In fact I'm saying give more people the opportunity to use it's strong points if you take away AFKing...
wexenvitch wrote:
By no means do I mean to make the profession a mockery or insult hard working entertainers out there.
In fact I'm saying give more people the opportunity to use it's strong points if you take away AFKing...
Unfortunatley the game seems to be based largley on loot and if your not out looting then your missing out on the big money.
So, if money is not where it's at then for some people entertaining is just fine but you can work an cantina and make a million credits a week if your lucky or find one tape worth 15 mil on one kill and buy everything you desire.
Here's another idea that would be uber cool. What if entertainers could record their performances into "datadisks" that can give players a few buffs. The players can then buy these disks from entertainers who can record them at their leisure. Then the people looking for mind buffs can actually eitherwatch or listen to these performances on a portable player or in their houses or whatever. Then they can get their buff when they need it and the entertainer is still vital.
Brandy is good, but it's not enough. Usually anyone doing master professions or heavy PvP rely on brandy and entertainer buffs.
Setting aside the whole "The game seems based on looting" argument that won't get us anywhere. . . . 
I think the datadisk idea has merit - people have proposed doing something like this to give musicians at least some control over the use of jukeboxes, and "hot hits" that you could use for a buff doesn't seem like too bad an extension of that, provided it's properly implemented.
Even if one queu has run out of own commands it still continues existing and counting until every subqueu it triggered has recursively signaled that it has run out of commands, too. Then the queu signals that it is done to its own mother queu and waits for the termination signal.
This way the maximum length of a command chain could be limited to 100 commands (not including /pause which or most likely processed on the client side) or five minutes.
I love the "hobby" idea!!! 
For my hobby I would like to hunt Krayts. I don't care about all the other combat stuff - rills, jantas, squills, rancors, bah, who needs it you combats can keep that, it's ALL YOURS. I just would like to be able to hunt Krayts. Because sometimes when I'm entertaining on off hours, there is hardly a person around to heal, and so I would like to go and do something else. And quite frankly, a starter combat profession just isn't worth the skill points for me, since I need both Master musician AND dancer to be able to do full buffs.
So yes, that would be my hobby. I also like pearls, who doesn't, they are so pretty.
In waiting for the "hobby" revamp, I would like you other poor entertainer wannabees to meet "The Chef Vendor". Yes, everyone knows about brandy. Have you also met Ahrisa? Very nice - and stacks with brandy. If this is not enough, the only advise I have is to actually learn how to use your specials effectively instead of macro-spamming them. Works for a whole lot of people. 
Service announcement: This was not in any way meant as a flame, just a comment.
Since I'm at it anyway - I'd like to add that I'm not in favor of a recording device for mind buffs. Seems like a good idea in principle, but I have a feeling thatif/when AFK goes away, instead of dismantling the bots and building something peaceful with them, they will instead be used as recording-sweatshop-workers, prongling out mass-recordings of these things. No thank you.
Warryyr wrote:
BOTS SUCK.
They make this game a joke.
They have destroyed the Entertainer profession, and I am currently making a list of all of the bots I can, on Starsider.
Not one of them will ever buy anything from me or receive any benefit from me. Ever. I never want any benefit from them. Ever. I don't care if I'm on fire and they have the last bucket of water on Naboo, I'd rather burn to death than get anything from them.
I hate each and every one of them, I hate them for ruining my game and the game of countless other friends who have quit. I hate them more than Anakin hated the Sandpeople, when he slaughtered them mercilessly.
I hate bots, they suck, they're a joke, the SWG Entertainer profession is a freakin' travesty, and I'm tired of the stupid arguments that bots are good in any way in this game. Those bots who think they're actually doing GOOD things for this game have a sick and perverted view of reality - and of course they do, they do nothing but BENEFIT from their pathetic macros. THEY SUCK, they have ruined this game, and continue to ruin it while the Devs do nothing (while promising to do something).
Bots SUCK.
The end.
Its really not the fact buffbots take money from me that makes me dislike them. Its the attitude that they have instilled in players that I dislike. They cause us to be treated like second class citizens, like npc's.
I do hold out hope that the devs will fix the situation things are in. I won't believe it until it is in testing but I do believe it is coming.
It'll be so much fun to be able to say no to the people that have decided to go out of their way to put down entertainers and them not have any other alternative.
I think that we can all agree on one thing - Buffbots and AFK players need to go away. But I'm going to make the point that Looping Macros do not need to go away. They are an incredibly useful tool when used the way they were originally intended - to save keystrokes and NOT to enable players to play the game while they sleep.
Why are you all allowing one issue ruin the game for you? Get over it and have fun, enjoy the game. Some players find that recursive macros are a great way to keep keystrokes to a minimum during combat or during crafting. I used them when I was a dancer/entertainer so that I didn't have keep restarting my dance macro. I would just set it and let it go so I could be free to chat and have fun with the people in the cantina, as well as the others in my entertainer group. I use macros during combat so that I don't have to keep restarting my Center, Intimidate, and Warcry macro. There is enough to do in combat without having to worry about that. I have a macro set so that if I'm looking for a group I shout "Looking for a group" every 30 seconds. I have a repeating macro set so that I can harvest hide/meat when I'm out hunting. It saves a lot of keystrokes and if it was removed would really detract from my game play. Most of these macros that I use are looping macros. They are really handy to have and I'm not an AFK player. The only profession that you can fully play while AFK is dancer/entertainer and it sounds like that is the biggest gripe about looping macros.
Basically my point is that while I agree that repeating macros can be misused, they are also one of the most convenient and handy features in the game. They really take a lot of the repetitive keystrokes out and allow players to have more time to talk and interact. I don't use AFK doctor buffbots, or AFK entertainer buffs. I like to have some fun and talk with the people who are buffing me, even though it's a very routine thing to do.
About using brandy, etc., as a substitute for entertainer buffs - it doesn't work for PVP or high end PVE. You really have to have the maximum buffs allowable in the game. When you are using specials and getting hit on the head your Mind bar goes very fast. Brandy just can't keep up with it. During normal grinding it's not a big deal, but if you are trying to knock down a Krayt, or a Nightsister Elder, or taking damage from a 400 pt Mind poison from a Combat Medic,you need all the help you can get as well as the ability to do a ton of damage byspamming specials. If you aren't using all the advantages available to you then you will lose the fight.
I know I'll get a One Star for this post because this wholethread is very one sided, but I hope that you all can see things from my viewpoint - I've been where you are as an entertainer and I can see both sides of the game.
Blakgun wrote:
I think that we can all agree on one thing - Buffbots and AFK players need to go away. But I'm going to make the point that Looping Macros do not need to go away. They are an incredibly useful tool when used the way they were originally intended - to save keystrokes and NOT to enable players to play the game while they sleep.
Why are you all allowing one issue ruin the game for you? Get over it and have fun, enjoy the game. Some players find that recursive macros are a great way to keep keystrokes to a minimum during combat or during crafting. I used them when I was a dancer/entertainer so that I didn't have keep restarting my dance macro. I would just set it and let it go so I could be free to chat and have fun with the people in the cantina, as well as the others in my entertainer group. I use macros during combat so that I don't have to keep restarting my Center, Intimidate, and Warcry macro. There is enough to do in combat without having to worry about that. I have a macro set so that if I'm looking for a group I shout "Looking for a group" every 30 seconds. I have a repeating macro set so that I can harvest hide/meat when I'm out hunting. It saves a lot of keystrokes and if it was removed would really detract from my game play. Most of these macros that I use are looping macros. They are really handy to have and I'm not an AFK player. The only profession that you can fully play while AFK is dancer/entertainer and it sounds like that is the biggest gripe about looping macros.
Basically my point is that while I agree that repeating macros can be misused, they are also one of the most convenient and handy features in the game. They really take a lot of the repetitive keystrokes out and allow players to have more time to talk and interact. I don't use AFK doctor buffbots, or AFK entertainer buffs. I like to have some fun and talk with the people who are buffing me, even though it's a very routine thing to do.
About using brandy, etc., as a substitute for entertainer buffs - it doesn't work for PVP or high end PVE. You really have to have the maximum buffs allowable in the game. When you are using specials and getting hit on the head your Mind bar goes very fast. Brandy just can't keep up with it. During normal grinding it's not a big deal, but if you are trying to knock down a Krayt, or a Nightsister Elder, or taking damage from a 400 pt Mind poison from a Combat Medic,you need all the help you can get as well as the ability to do a ton of damage byspamming specials. If you aren't using all the advantages available to you then you will lose the fight.
I know I'll get a One Star for this post because this wholethread is very one sided, but I hope that you all can see things from my viewpoint - I've been where you are as an entertainer and I can see both sides of the game.
I'll repeat that we did not decide the way to fix the issue was to remove recursive macros. We in fact had nothing to do with that idea. We offered a slew of ideas and I never once saw that one listed.
I'm a master dancer/ master rifles. I never use a buffbot of any kind and I have been out hunting krayts and NS Elders and successfully run the Corvette, all while only using brandy, ahrissa, and blue milk. I just started engaging in PvP tonight and can certainly see the advantage to having a mind buff but I can tell you right here and now I would rather lose each and every time than use a buff bot. It's all about choices in this game. If people chose to play this as an interactive, multi-player game then we'd never need to have this conversation. We could all have our CoB macros, our intimidate macros, and our performance macros. Instead too many people chose to utilize non-players for a variety of reasons. As a result the developers, who prefer to have people playing their game rather than simply "running it", decided to fix the problem.
Thank you Blakgun for never using bots or afkers. We appreciate your support. Let's not one-star him folks. He uses ATK entertainers over afk dispensors and that should always get a round of applause.
cheers,
Ikewe
Message Edited by Ikewe on 03-14-2005 06:33 AM
Warryyr wrote:
BOTS SUCK.
They make this game a joke.
...
Bots SUCK.
The end.
I agree absolutely. Until recently, I turned a blind eye to AFKers and just let them get on with, but the sheer volume of buffbots, advertising screamers, spammers and generally destructive gameplay is now severely affecting my enjoyment of SWG.
The sooner that recursive macros are taken out, the better! 