Entertainer Archive

Solve the problem (profession based path) not the symptoms (afk grinding)

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Achiving Jedihood is not the problem, it's the symptom. Macrotainers were there long before people were grinding for Jedi. And when people wanted to be Jedi, they chose the dark and easy path that was already fully mapped out for them. ( still hate the FSCS system, but thats not the prime issue here )

You've just provided the argument for why Sony would not want to do that. Every minute a CSR spends doing what you describe is a minutethatCSRisn't doing the things that the CSR is hired to do. I'm sure Sony would be horrified at the idea of instituting a policy which is going to have their CSR's chatting with people every hour about problems that didn't really happen.

In pure man-hour terms that would cost Sony a lot of money.

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Indeed. This is what happens when you ignore a problem long enough. In the end you will have to solve it and it will cost a lot more than working on it right from the start. If the CSR spends time because someone is grieving me, the griever is known. No problem. Warn him. Ban him. Show force. This is what an administration does. At the moment, it's so weak I wonder if it even exists.

If we had CSRs enforcing rules, half of the people would stop simpy because it's dangerous. Because if there is a cheap way without risk, people will take it simply because they can. Increase the risk, people will stop. Catching AFKers is not like duping, hard to track and hard to fix. Go to Theed and you will find plenty of them. No need to search in dark pathways.

What we need is a show of force from the administration. If people believe it's ok, it's not too hard to imagine what happens. And it has happened, the cantinas are AFK-kindergardens where you park your toon when you go to work or school.

Yes, it will cost money for a month. How many reports do you think you will get when it's clear macroing is wrong and a bannable offense as stated in the EULA for 3rd party software ?

If they enforce 1 report, maybe9 others will be afraid they will be next.10 cases solved with 10 minutes of CSR time.

Yes, it will cost money. But every game I have played so far had these rules, and all but SWG managed to keep up a vision of normality. I don't know if there were bots hidden somewhere, cheating unnoticed in a piece of the virtual world no one ever saw... but I know there were no exploiter meetings with 20 people in the most common place in the game worldopenly disobeyingthe administrations rules. I don't expect a perfect solution, I expect them to enforce their own rules. And fast before even the last one has lost respect.

ok my five cents.. ok first of all I WANT all those jedi holocron seeking dudes to just macro right up to master and then get the hell out of the entertainer class. They are annoyingme. Second of all, why punish people for trying to escape a bad time? If being an entertainer was fun and rewarding, people would be there to do it. One thing I think they need to do is jack up the entertainer mission rewards, because right now they are not worth crap. It would be good if they could scale it based on difficulty somehow, because to me a novice dancer or novice musician would be paid more then a novice entertainer, and a master dancer or master musician even more so. At least that way, people would pay attention. They'd want to watch how they were doing so they'd know when their mission was up so they could grab another one. As it is right now, sitting around in cantinas is torturous and slow. It's great when you have customers, but customers are not always there, and you are left staring at the walls. The SAME four walls. I'm not a big fan of having my butt glued in the cantina either. This isn't an exploit issue, it's a gameplay issue. Make the class FUN and interesting devs, please!!

You know I never really cared about AFKers before til last night. About 2 or 3ish in the morning I went into a Theed catina, and there were about 10-12 AFK people dancing, playing and macroing. I couldn't get into into the group. Plus the fact that I was there and people would come in and watch AFKers I had to make extra effort to get them to watch the 2-3 people that were ACTUALLY there. And I agree with the post above. I went off on some holo grinder last night when he was asking people to watch him cause grinding was "boring, slow and he just HAD to do it" Its really a shame that our profession is going to hell thanks to these people who dont care about it and just want to rush through it. I made an entertainer to help the SWG community when needed, and thats what I'm doing despite all the problems that are arising.

i'm holo grinding. i afk macroed entertainer. next i'm gonna afk macro dancer and muscian.

and i'm going to keep afk macroing them, until someone makes me stop. i'll be damned if i waste my time, just because RPers are cranky. i'd rather watch tv or read a book.

AFK'ing per se is not a problem either in my opinon. Look at it this way... I have my own cantina in the middle of Lok... I have to step away from the keyboard but by leaving my toon in AFK mode, some poor wounded warrior can come in and get a heal - I'm the only place for miles! I don't necessarily expect tips, but I AM STILL providing a necessary role in the game.

Another way to look at it... I watch tv shows and movies. THOSE actors and actresses or singers may be in bed a sleep as I'm watching the recording.. but it still does me some good! Their macros performance still entertains me and helps me relax.

Macros are not the problem - leave them as is.

The problem is the Holosurfing of professions. The GREAT assumption now is that 99.9% of all ppl in cantinas are only there following a holocron. This did ruin the public opinion of true entertainers and hurt our economy. Let them holosurf all the fighting professions they want... but they messed with a profession that was ALL ABOUT building relationships with our customers.

My opinion is that this is already a self-governing issue. Simply put, I find that AFK entertainers get less customers than those at the keyboard. I show this preferential treatment myself because AFK entertainers are not putting their time into performing so why should they benefit from extra experience over someone who is right there?

I also think that since this profession is now a holo-profession it would be unfair and potentially bad for business if SOE actively discouraged AFK macroing for entertainers. This is because the profession is really quite boring and much slower to advance in terms of experience per hour compared to many others.

I have been advised by my very first holocron to master Dancer. I'll do it, but if I have to be at the keyboard for the whole time it's going to bore me so much that SOE could loose me. If they tolerate my using AFK macroing while I sleep or do chores, then accelerated dancing using food and drugs while I'm at the keyboard, then I think I might just survive it and get on to the next profession.

My problem with AFK dancers and musicians is they go afk in a group do not tell anyone and then get upset when they get booted from a group and then complain. PLEASE tell the group leader why most of you would not get booted. But come on I not hereto beat a point that is beaten to death. Unlike a crafter I think of a pasty skin geek. A doctor well they can create stims using a macro (who cares) but should be alive person while healing.

Dancer's and entainer's are social by nature. Being that I said that, yes dancers in real life take a break but not for 4,8,16 and 24 hour straight. Why even if you are doing because of a holocron would you bother dancing or playing an instrument in a cantina when you could dance in your house or guild hall to gain experience. When you goto the cantinaand take a spot in a group, you take it from someone who loves the profession and you take the pleasure out of it for those who love the profesision. The only time I go afk is to do something for the guild with my other account and normally I will leave the group and goto a corner so people dont see me or if I am selling something to someone in game.

Please Holodancer's goto your house or guild hall for this not the cantina

I just started playing SWG two days ago. I started with entertainer as my profession because I have a specific goal in mind for the type of character I want to be. I discu\overed the macro trick fairly quickly on my own and gave it a try Xmas eve. I kept going back to my keyboard while running around getting things ready for my kids.

I started questioning my acceptance to using the macro while I was away or simply leaving game. But on three different occasions I returned to check out my character I found I was the only entertainer and people were watching me for healing. If I had left the game these people would have had no one to watch. This helped me decide that I was right with what I was doing. My character is an entertainer to help people.. any way, shape or form. And you know something, tips are not why performers are performers. If you are playing an entertainer because you see it as an easy way to gather credits then you have the wrong profession. Entertainers IN THE REAL WORLD entertain because it is something they enjoy, it is a love. And there are THOUSANDS of struggling entertainers. How much do you listen to the radio or a CD and then consider sending a thank you or trying to tip who you just listened to. For that matter at a live performance that you didn't have a cover charge to get to hear. Do you tip? DO YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT TIPPING? Some people need to get off their high horse and concern themselves with real game issues. AFK activity is petty in regards to entertainers. Like I'm really going to be able to dance my enemies to death -sheesh-.

Suntydt

Hah, n'Jessi...I wasgoing to post the same proposal. I agree completely.

The very problem is that we don't have to *do* anything to advance our characters or provide a service that a macro can't do for us.

Get rid of /listen and /watch for thecustomers and add a /playfor for the entertainers. It would certainly make buffing a lot easier, too.

(Just fix the targetting-via-macro thing, though.)

But what about those poor Holo afkers that would be forced to deal with a profession like this. /puke

Maybe this has been mentioned before but if healing and entertainment healing xp were tied to a voluntary action on the part of the musician/dancer this would solve the following problems:

1. respect for the profession because, like doctors, you can choose whom to help. Will prevent the "no tip" scenario. More effective than denyservice.


2. in order to get entertainment healing xp you must actively click on patrons, which will make sure you're atk (and I know there will be a macro-y way around this, but humor me)


3. if you're not going to gain entertainment healing xp by being afk, this will encourage people to only afk for dance/music xp, at which point they don't even need to be at the cantina, cluttering it up. Take away dance/music xp incentives for grouping, so people will only group for ent healing xp (at which point they will have to be atk). If you can afk macro dance just as effectively in your house as in the cantina, why wouldn't you?

I realize this would be a burden for those on adventure planets (because a lone afk dancer could no longer heal a party), but, the cantina is supposed to be social. Many more player cantinas are cropping up on adventure planets - encourage clustering there rather than watching the afk dancer in the outpost. Or, it may just encourage hunting parties to recruit a dancer and bring him/her along for the ride.

Just a thought.

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Fa11enknight wrote:

But what about those poor Holo afkers that would be forced to deal with a profession like this. /puke

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/tiny This is me playing "My 7-Chambered Heart Bleeds For You" on the Galaxies' smallest Mandoviol. Suck it up and have the barest decency to not disparage something that others find rewarding. Go whine at the developers for designing and implementing such a phenomenally lame system for opening a Force Sensitive character slot.

Then go macro Squad Leader.

one answer to this question...

duh!

you have to be really thick to ask a question of is a gamebreaking issue a top 5