Entertainer Archive
Thread: An idea to keep ents atk
Now about them... The BF thing... You are right in the sense that it does give people a reason to go to the cantina. The problem is, it also gave people a major reason to AFK macro. Entertainer Healing XP, after the first few months of gameplay, became more and more difficult to obtain. Part of this is that the server populations plummeted that first year after school started up again -- a lot of people left to return to classes, and pretty much never came back. Another cause was that people learned to play the game -- properly cloning and doing things correctly means very little battle fatigue is coming your way. With fewer players, and those that were left getting less BF, healing became harder and harder to come by, forcing entertainers into giant groups in a few places like Theed or Coronet just to get by -- and forcing them to perform for so many hours that people just said, "bleep it" and went AFK.
Now with the CU, people get even less BF than ever before. And there are no mind wounds to heal either. So there is just not that much heal XP to be had on the servers, and people are taking forever and a day to get the lower level boxes of heal XP (nevermind upper level). So part of what they are doing, is taking Entertainer Healing XP out of the game... which then necessitates taking BF out. I wonder if they ever thought of the compromise position, at least to start with -- leave BF in the game, but get rid of heal XP, and make dancers work like docs (in that docs can heal wounds in the med center but get no XP for it). But in any case, something had to be done about healing XP, and the only alternative was to massively increase the amount of BF people were getting -- I think you can imagine what the reaction to that would have been.
As to how to prevent AFKers, your ideas are good -- and they have been brought up before. Various entertainers have objected to the popup window. Personally, in fact, I don't think it's even needed. All they need to do is make it so no one, in any prof, can gain any form of XP without being AT KEYBOARD, and all forms of AFK play would go away. Yes, we know there would be a tiny, determined group of people who would find third-party ways to fake being at keyboard.... But I'd rather 10 people on the server could do it than EVERYONE doing it. Their whole logic of "Well we can't stop everyone from AFK macroing so we'll give everyone the tools to do it easily" is just... not really logic at all. Following that reasoning, since the State Police can't pull over EVERYONE who speeds, we should just do away with speed limits entirely. I think we all know what would happen as a result of that...
In any case... I agree we want to keep entertainers at keyboard. The problem is, frankly, that the devs do NOT agree. Or at least, they agree in principle that "it'd be nice if all performers were at keyboard" but they do not believe they should do anything about it other than giving it wishful thinking.
C
The best way to keep entertainers ATK is to remove AFK and thereby remove the AFKtainers. It has been promised for two years. Now they have decided it is more than they have the skills to deliver so instead they will gut these professions to remove the desirability of AFKtaining.
LyteFoot wrote:
The best way to keep entertainers ATK is to remove AFK and thereby remove the AFKtainers. It has been promised for two years.
It has NOT been promised for two years. The official word from TH, probably about a year ago, was that AFK macroing was an officially sanctioned form of game-play. The exact "reasoning" if you want to call it that, was, "If we did not allow it, there would be people who used 3rd party systems to do it, and this would give them an unfair advantage. In-game macros lets everyone be on an equal footing."
In other words, since the cops can't keep EVERYONE from speeding, they decided to do away with speed limits.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with their reasoning here (it's not even worthy of being called "reasoning"), but they did NOT say that they were going to remove AFK at that point.
A few months back (January or so) one dev said they should remove AFK entertaining. In one interview then, someone said AFK would be "going away" in May, but the context made the meaning rather unclear. In any case you could say that it was promised for 6 months... but it's not been promised for two years. Most of the game's "live" time, AFK play has been officially sanctioned.
C
Chessack wrote:
LyteFoot wrote:
The best way to keep entertainers ATK is to remove AFK and thereby remove the AFKtainers. It has been promised for two years.
It has NOT been promised for two years. The official word from TH, probably about a year ago, was that AFK macroing was an officially sanctioned form of game-play. The exact "reasoning" if you want to call it that, was, "If we did not allow it, there would be people who used 3rd party systems to do it, and this would give them an unfair advantage. In-game macros lets everyone be on an equal footing."
In other words, since the cops can't keep EVERYONE from speeding, they decided to do away with speed limits.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with their reasoning here (it's not even worthy of being called "reasoning"), but they did NOT say that they were going to remove AFK at that point.
A few months back (January or so) one dev said they should remove AFK entertaining. In one interview then, someone said AFK would be "going away" in May, but the context made the meaning rather unclear. In any case you could say that it was promised for 6 months... but it's not been promised for two years. Most of the game's "live" time, AFK play has been officially sanctioned.
C
Actually, TH posted in August 2004 they were going to remove AFK. His post has since been deleted, leaving one to believe that they may have retracted (what a surprise) but this post shows that in early August 2004 that they had made that statement:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=31187
So which of his statements are true?
C
Chessack wrote:
He also made the statement that AFKing was designed to make the playing field level and was working as intended.
So which of his statements are true?
C
In theory, both. In practice, neither. Like so many things in the game
People have lifes, SOE not only lost loads of people due to the CU (although I'm one of the few that likes it) but they also lose people as people have lifes. Take away afking while you go off to eat, get a drink, go to the shop, have a life, then you are gonna see LOADS of more people leave. After all its simple to fake ATK but not having the AFK timer come on.
Oh and Artsians can afk survey, the odd popup doesn't interupt the surveying at all, hence I got my alt to surveying 4 in 2 days.
SOE have to think of everyone. Some people want to just pick up the game and play it now and then. Taking away afking means they'd never be a Master Profession unless they spent hours playing. This is the reason WoW and Guildwars is doing so well. It catters for all, the casual player who has a life and the power gamer who never leaves their room.
Removing afking would be a bad idea, would upset alot of people. Its not just entertainers that do it, I hunted with a Jedi last night who was afking grinding.
StevieBUKDroidEngineer wrote:People have lifes, SOE not only lost loads of people due to the CU (although I'm one of the few that likes it) but they also lose people as people have lifes. Take away afking while you go off to eat, get a drink, go to the shop, have a life, then you are gonna see LOADS of more people leave.
This is a lame argument. Sorry, but that's just how it is.
Yes, people have lives. People with actual LIVES should have enough common sense and enough sense of balance to realize that it will not kill them to LOG OUT when they go eat, shop, and do other things.
Why must you be gaining XP 24/7? And what is the point of playing a profession you don't find fun? Because that's basically what you are saying.. "This profession is not fun enough to play at keyboard all the way from novice to master." I can certainly see saying that -- I'd say it myself about most any crafting prof! But... because I find craft-grinding boring, I didn't say, "Well now I have to master it AFK." I said, "Time to quit and try another prof."
This is not the time of the holocrons anymore. Back then you could make this excuse: "The game is making me AFK because I don't want to play an entertainer but I do want a Jedi." But that went away months and months ago. There is no longer any justification for AFKing.
And as for "Casual gamers could never master" -- that's bull. I am no hardcore grinder, but I've managed to master many different professions, including not just Entertainer and Dancer but also marksman, pistoleer, carbineer, teras kasi, CH, brawler, and swordsman.
Also you get NOTHING for mastering Entertainer profs, in particular, except the fun of other dances or music... none of which you will even see or hear if you're AFK anyway. You heal a little more slowly and buff a little more slowly as a novice entertainer but so what?
If you want to argue that the game should be easier or that it should be faster to level -- that's FINE. But arguing that the way to do this should preferentially be AFKing is just ridiculous. If you really believe your own argument you should be asking SOE to reduce the XP requirements for all professions by 50% or more, so you can level faster.
Because let me guess... you can level and master quickly in WOW and GW for reasons having nothing to do with AFK right? It's just quick and easy to level. That's certainly something they could do, but making AFK the way to do it is NOT the answer. People should never be rewarded for not playing the game.
C
Message Edited by Chessack on 06-27-2005 07:20 AM
I'm not arguing, I'm discussing.
Afking is good for advertising. Why do I say this? Well you go make food, go to work, do whatever and you can have your alt, that ya pay for, afking advertising. Is this a bad thing? No. Is it spam, unless its every sec then no. In real life companies put up bill boards, some put up automatic ones that rotate every now and then. This is basically afk macring. The company manager isn't sitting there, standing by the board all the time. The idea of these bill boards, is so you can get on with running the business. Whats this got to do with entertainer afking? Well going back to real life and bill boards or even TV adverts, we have actors acting out the parts in adverts etc etc, you could relate this to entertainers afking in SOE, while advertising.
Its what my current alt does. Dances while advertising. It attracts more people to see what you are doing. I don't spam, my adverts are 2-3mins apart, then I go afk, while my alt does other things for the business or hunts. I relate this to real life companies sticking bill boards everything, then going 'afk' and doing other stuff for the business.
Afkers don't get in peoples way, so why do people moan about it? Yes you could say they are being rewarded for not being at the keyboard while you are. But then thats your choice. They pay for the game monthly to, and have just as much right, to play the game, afking or not, aslong as its not cheating, the way they see fit. I'd rather see a cantina full of afk entertainers than go into the place and find it dead.
And have you never thought that just 'cause it has AFK above their head, they may not be afk, but just not want to be bothered.
I'm not starting and argument or flaming you. I'm just discussing and having my opinion.
Well with all due respect I think you have no idea just how much it does make life miserable for anyone who actually wants to enjoy game time as an entertainer.
I'm very new to this, I don't have tons of time to play because I too have an actual life. When I do want to relax and have fun as an entertainer I load in and head to a cantina. Once there I find it difficult to even find a spot on the cantina floor for my character that doesn't have some afker flailing about doing tumble or formal or whatever. When I need training I have to pay the NPC trainer, which usually means I have to run some space missions first in order to afford it. If I have a question about a command or a funtion Ihave to rely upon the holocron, a huge joke, or come to the forums. And then there's the advertising. You may not want to call it spam because it's you doing it but do you have any idea what it's like to be a live entertainer trying to interact with patrons and getting to listen to "Check out my food vendor" or "Hot weapons at.." for however long you stay in the cantina? You say yours are 2 - 3 minutes apart. If I am in the cantina for 60 minutes I get to hear your advert about 30 times. I'm likely to hope your shop explodes in a ball of fire after the 10th time let alone the 30th. Sure I can put you and every other afk vendor who sets up there on ignorebut people coming into the cantina may not have done that yet so chances are they are just going to ignore everything, including my attempt at a greeting. And we won't even get into the whole inability to get a boost to the xp gain because those who are grouped are afk or the leader is afk and no one wants to disband to reform the group.
I hear a lot of "I pay to play this game just like you do so suck it up" but I never hear "I had no idea my style of play was affecting you, maybe I can alter it". Why is it that I'm the one who has to adjust while you don't? After all I'm the one who is in fact actually frelling playing aren't I? Shouldn't my playstyle then by definition be the one that gets to take precedence?
You want your dancer character to be a billboard that's your choice. But billboards are outside by the roadway so how about putting your dancer outside? Leave the inside to those of us who actually want to relax and entertain. Is that so much to ask?
Sienn
Message Edited by Tralmek on 06-27-2005 02:35 PM