Force Sensitive Archive
Thread: GET OUT OF AURILIA!
GraySeven wrote:
I understand completely about this being about AFK non-players...
Buffbots and AFK entertainers, AFK loot campers, AFK static spawn campers.....these are all doing the exact same thing as the Docs, and yet I don't see CSR's bum rushing the Coronet Cantina and offing all the AFK people there....
There is no difference except that one is grinding FSXP....
Don't get me wrong, I hate AFKer's. That they pay just as much as I do to "play" doesn't justify their "roboting" the scut work while others do it at the keyboard.
My problem is with the inconsistancy in the CSR's actions. If one profession is getting bans by AFK macroing xp, all of them should be getting bans for AFK macroing.
Oh, and using the excuse of multiple trips back for you while combat xp only needs to come back every hour or so....don't float. Scouts cap xp at 30000.....thats 20 rancors harvested, which can be done in 3 lairs. That comes in at 8 to 1 or 3750 Sense xp...
Regardless, if a crackdown on AFK macroing is being done, then it needs to be done everywhere across the board. CSR's need to hit all of the static area's and POI's looking for unattended macro'ers and start warning and banning them as well, otherwise the inconsistancy breeds contempt and anger.
I agree completely, and I think the problem of focus is the overkill being directed to Jedi. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that some effort has been made on behalf of the Jedi, but it should have been done the RIGHT way from the beginning.
Personally, I think every AFKer other than those stated to be acceptable by the Devs (dancers and musicians) should be nuked. I mean ALL of them. From crafters on up.
Notice how the ability to use a third-party program to mouse-pilot for crafting AFK was nuked within a month or two of it becoming popular? At least with crafting you can use a normal macro and sit at the keys, clicking in your resources while the macro runs the tools for you, thus saving on the wear for fingers and keys alike. This I find PERFECTLY acceptable, and it would seem the Devs would agree with me given their assertions that AFK grinding in combat is a bannable offense.
Lets hope the movement spreads, and all the exploiters get what they have coming to them.
DanoCollins wrote:
JOEFNERAT wrote:
I love this thread!. Rarely do I ever see an AFK vs non-AFK thread get this large especially when my comments are involved. Usually I get forum banned or all my posts deleted. Nevertheless, I understand both sides involved in this issue and I respect all your comments, so this will not be an attack post.
Why we afkers do what we do?
The problem with this game is that its set up to be like a job you hate going to everyday and you are paying someone for you to do the job. This is why people afk. I would say the majority of players do not role play so dancing/musician is not fun to level up and becomes more of a chore. This is the same case with force sensitive. We dont like hunting animals endlessly just to convert and do it all over again. Its just not our style. I realize some people take this with honor and thats great. Any way to ease the suffering of the grind is admirable. With natural afkers, the only way to ease the grind is to not be there. Since the end result of jedi is the same whether you afk or not, we take the easy road. We get our sense of achievement by getting it done the fastest while others get their sense of achievement by roleplaying or doing it the honorable way. Either way, the same goal is accomplished.
How I did it?
I had two characters that needed to unlock jedi and sinceI found it was so easy, I decided to do it. In the old system, I wouldn't touch jedi. The longest part for me was getting the lines unlocked but after that it was all downhill.
First Character
Four lines of crafting / Two lines of senses
Crafting takes a little longer than Senses, but at least it can be done without using multiple characters. 0300 (Kiwik Clusjo Swirls) chef getting ~300k force sensitive experience a day. This took about 16 solid days to complete, but at least I didn't have to be there.
Senses just flew by. Using the resurrection macro, I finished those two lines in about 3 days.
Second Character
Four lines of senses / Two lines of crafting
I finally got this resurrection thing down to an art with auto buffing and consistent attacking. Used three characters to streamline the process and finished the 4 lines in under 3 days.
Crafting took about 8 days.
Conclusion
I had people sending me tells about reporting my actions when I would check the characters on and off during the day. Apparently one of their reports paid off. I was punished by getting one of my characters renamed.SOE has no reason to really punish afk players since they aren't severely disrupting the gameplay of others. Most of the time they are enhancing it with buffbots. The main point is for every afker banned, thats $15 less in the pockets of SOE and that is the priority.
I have never heard of any afk player ever getting banned and I would be surprised if it happened. I was always curious if my accounts would be banned one day since I openly support third party programs and use them extensively in game. I even come to the forums to try to help out other players (especially merchants with restocking), but almost immediately my posts are deleted and my account is banned from the forums. That never translated into banned in the game though.
My final piece of advice is to play the game as you want to play it. If you want to afk it, afk it. If you don't, don't. Easy as that.
Are you a Rebel? You should be if you aren't.
Yeah...points read and taken. Even with grenades, the grind is long...but it is designed this way. If you have a Jedi with the skill trees you have...are they any good in combat without the added melee speed and melee defense?
To address both points and thus save on posts, I agree in principle with both of you.
Yes, I do know that in the end the fault for AFK grinding lays with the Devs, but that still doesn't make it acceptable for someone to exploit it. If I am walking down the street and see a bank truck with the door standing open, am I justified in taking a bag? The answer is no, whether I want to, need to or just simply could. This is the situation with the AFK grinding.
As far as nade grinding goes, it is NOT an exploit, as you still have to put in the time, effort and millions of credits in grenades to make it pay off.
I dont consider this a bank heist. This is mechanization for me. Instead of doing things by hand, I let a machine do it.
To address both points and thus save on posts, I agree in principle with both of you.
Yes, I do know that in the end the fault for AFK grinding lays with the Devs, but that still doesn't make it acceptable for someone to exploit it. If I am walking down the street and see a bank truck with the door standing open, am I justified in taking a bag? The answer is no, whether I want to, need to or just simply could. This is the situation with the AFK grinding.
As far as nade grinding goes, it is NOT an exploit, as you still have to put in the time, effort and millions of credits in grenades to make it pay off.
Kristianius wrote:
You are disrespecting other players, complaining about all sorts of diffrent stuff and generally crying like a five year old.
And now, so are you.
Respect is earned, not given freely to the people so eager to demonstrate their lack of deserving it.
- The devs have stated that being able to afk macro things is NOT an intended feature of the macro system.
- The devs have made it so you cannot do anything in combat if you have your afk tag up. This shows me the devs dont want you to afk combat.
- People have been, are being, and will continue to be banned for afking. Just because you don't know one doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
- Every time I make a ticket and report someone for afk macroing, the CSR tells me that it is NOT allowed.
- People that I have personally reported for afk macroing have been banned because of my reporting ticket.
Anyone that says afk macroing is intended, you are full of it up to your eyeballs. The Devs have stated multiple times, and even tried to make an action showing that they don't approve of afk macroing and want it removed. I have a feeling that either in the CU or shortly after, AFK macroing will be addressed. CSRs DO ban people for afk macroing, I've seen and been a part of it personally. There is no way that you can say it's intended if the Devs and CSRs act this way towards it.
Before I continue and forget, so you can't try to use this against me: I do not, have not, and will not ever get a buff from an AFK doc or ent. Every time I go afk, I put my afk tag up. The only macros I use are not recursive ones during combat. For example, I don't have room on my toolbar for all my weapons and abilites, so I'll stick a few together in a one hit one use macro, which is using macros how they are intended to be used. If recursive macros were indeed part of the gaming system, there would be a command such as "repeat macro", instead of having to use the /ui for the toolbar slot. If afk macro combat was indeed part of the gaming system, the devs would not have made it so you cannot do anything in combat while afk.
In conclusion, the Devs and CSRs for SWG have stated and acted upon the idea that (recursive) afk macroing is not an intended feature of the macro system and they are working to stop it. Anyone who says otherwise is simply trying to defend the fact that they ruin this game by clogging it up with bots that they haven't actually played for more than a few hours.
GraySeven wrote:There is no difference except that one is grinding FSXP....
Gray I've read a lot of your posts man, and you're a solid member of the community. As such I seriously hope you don't take this personally, BUT:
You can't really make this assertion. Dance / Music XP convert to FS Senses XP, same as medical. Dancer / Musician are both very capable of AFK macro-grinding FS xp.
Please accept this as a respectful correction not at all intended to be snooty or smart-assed. Probably in the vast majority of cases, you're right: since it seems to me that something around 90 - 95% of all entertainers are alt cash cows, we can guess that they're probably not grinding FS. Who the heck bothers to make their cash cow FS? The badges won't lie in this regard...if you see an ent with 3 themeparks and a bunch of POIs and the Warren (for God's sake), she could very well be macro-grinding her way to Master Heightened Senses.
You know what though? Buffbots, ent bots, afk solo group leaders don't bother me at all. I'm thankful that someone else pays $15 per month to provide these off-hours and mundane services to other players, especially since I personally play from 11 pm to 7 am EST most days of the week. In fact I myself run an AFK solo group leader, and the members of the community have all been very thankful for it (try to find a solo group at 3 am, I dare you!
), but I'm not trying to use him to get rich or make a Jedi. I realize some modest income from him, and I try to be as service-minded as possible and take great pride in the macro, but it's not *advancement.* He's not mastering anything, he's not an offense to anyone else's legitimate achievement. The difference is that these afk bots are useful, while AFK db/rez zombies are not. I don't feel nearly as imposed upon as Yt does by these people, but I agree that it's exceptionally lame and I make fun of any "player" that whines about how hard it is to grind FS with his template. Gee, maybe you picked a crummy template! Whatever. DB/R = CMN!As if they're somehow infringed upon because it's easier to get FS XP as a Swordsman than as a doc. Maybe that's because combat profs more resemble the desired end result: a Jedi! Since that's ultimately what nearly every FS toon is heading towards anyway, I have no problem with some professions having leverage over others, provided it makes sense. The obvious exception to this is commando and the nade grinders, simply because it's so inconsistent with the game that it's confusing and just plainly b0rkt (flamethrowers, rocketlaunchers, and grenades are the path that leads most directly to Jedi, philosophical monks of a fictional religion? The two are nearly perfect diametric opposites). Looks like the CU will stem the hemmoraging pretty soon though.
Db/rezzers are lame, but far too small of fish in my pond to get my attention. Same for the afk meatlump grinders outside of every major city. They do it, I don't...they suck, I don't. It doesn't hurt me any.
Paulo187 wrote:
Israth, from reading your post, i presume you dont know fully how the macros work. there is actually a way to repeat the macro without using a /ui command. if you simply put /macro MACRONAME at the end of the macro it will loop. as LS said to Gray, this is not meant to be snooty or smart assed, but if you are using this as part of your arguement, then i thought i would correct it
There is a /macro command, it is true, but when this command was added it was done so under the entertainer patch that was supposed to address the needs of musicians and dancers. It was included as an aid to those professions, and not meant to be used by AFK combat monkies.
JOEFNERAT wrote:
I love this thread!. Rarely do I ever see an AFK vs non-AFK thread get this large especially when my comments are involved. Usually I get forum banned or all my posts deleted. Nevertheless, I understand both sides involved in this issue and I respect all your comments, so this will not be an attack post.
Why we afkers do what we do?
The problem with this game is that its set up to be like a job you hate going to everyday and you are paying someone for you to do the job. This is why people afk. I would say the majority of players do not role play so dancing/musician is not fun to level up and becomes more of a chore. This is the same case with force sensitive. We dont like hunting animals endlessly just to convert and do it all over again. Its just not our style. I realize some people take this with honor and thats great. Any way to ease the suffering of the grind is admirable. With natural afkers, the only way to ease the grind is to not be there. Since the end result of jedi is the same whether you afk or not, we take the easy road. We get our sense of achievement by getting it done the fastest while others get their sense of achievement by roleplaying or doing it the honorable way. Either way, the same goal is accomplished.
How I did it?
I had two characters that needed to unlock jedi and sinceI found it was so easy, I decided to do it. In the old system, I wouldn't touch jedi. The longest part for me was getting the lines unlocked but after that it was all downhill.
First Character
Four lines of crafting / Two lines of senses
Crafting takes a little longer than Senses, but at least it can be done without using multiple characters. 0300 (Kiwik Clusjo Swirls) chef getting ~300k force sensitive experience a day. This took about 16 solid days to complete, but at least I didn't have to be there.
Senses just flew by. Using the resurrection macro, I finished those two lines in about 3 days.
Second Character
Four lines of senses / Two lines of crafting
I finally got this resurrection thing down to an art with auto buffing and consistent attacking. Used three characters to streamline the process and finished the 4 lines in under 3 days.
Crafting took about 8 days.
Conclusion
I had people sending me tells about reporting my actions when I would check the characters on and off during the day. Apparently one of their reports paid off. I was punished by getting one of my characters renamed.SOE has no reason to really punish afk players since they aren't severely disrupting the gameplay of others. Most of the time they are enhancing it with buffbots. The main point is for every afker banned, thats $15 less in the pockets of SOE and that is the priority.
I have never heard of any afk player ever getting banned and I would be surprised if it happened. I was always curious if my accounts would be banned one day since I openly support third party programs and use them extensively in game. I even come to the forums to try to help out other players (especially merchants with restocking), but almost immediately my posts are deleted and my account is banned from the forums. That never translated into banned in the game though.
My final piece of advice is to play the game as you want to play it. If you want to afk it, afk it. If you don't, don't. Easy as that.
LordScotticus wrote:
GraySeven wrote:
There is no difference except that one is grinding FSXP....
Gray I've read a lot of your posts man, and you're a solid member of the community. As such I seriously hope you don't take this personally, BUT:
You can't really make this assertion. Dance / Music XP convert to FS Senses XP, same as medical. Dancer / Musician are both very capable of AFK macro-grinding FS xp.
Please accept this as a respectful correction not at all intended to be snooty or smart-assed. Probably in the vast majority of cases, you're right: since it seems to me that something around 90 - 95% of all entertainers are alt cash cows, we can guess that they're probably not grinding FS. Who the heck bothers to make their cash cow FS? The badges won't lie in this regard...if you see an ent with 3 themeparks and a bunch of POIs and the Warren (for God's sake), she could very well be macro-grinding her way to Master Heightened Senses.
You know what though? Buffbots, ent bots, afk solo group leaders don't bother me at all. I'm thankful that someone else pays $15 per month to provide these off-hours and mundane services to other players, especially since I personally play from 11 pm to 7 am EST most days of the week. In fact I myself run an AFK solo group leader, and the members of the community have all been very thankful for it (try to find a solo group at 3 am, I dare you!
As if they're somehow infringed upon because it's easier to get FS XP as a Swordsman than as a doc. Maybe that's because combat profs more resemble the desired end result: a Jedi! Since that's ultimately what nearly every FS toon is heading towards anyway, I have no problem with some professions having leverage over others, provided it makes sense. The obvious exception to this is commando and the nade grinders, simply because it's so inconsistent with the game that it's confusing and just plainly b0rkt (flamethrowers, rocketlaunchers, and grenades are the path that leads most directly to Jedi, philosophical monks of a fictional religion? The two are nearly perfect diametric opposites). Looks like the CU will stem the hemmoraging pretty soon though.
Db/rezzers are lame, but far too small of fish in my pond to get my attention. Same for the afk meatlump grinders outside of every major city. They do it, I don't...they suck, I don't. It doesn't hurt me any.
Solid member of the community?!? Arghh....
Just kidding. No, actually I don't take it personally. You've made a number of good points (including entertainers AFKing FSXP), but it does not address my basic point, and that is it appears that the CSR's are singling out one specific group of AFK experience gainers while leaving all the others alone.
It doesn't really matter who affects what, in this regard. You are right, AFK entertainers do fill a niche, but what they are doing is no different than a Doc doing DB/rez. The gaining of xp/credits with unattended gameplay, regardless of what it accomplishes, is the same no matter who is doing it or why.
During the big furor over the camping of the Lord Nyax spawn, not once did I see a Dev or CSR say "this is an exploit" or "this is against the rules and you will be banned for it". To the person who said that the Dev's have stated this is an exploit and bannable offense I ask you where is the link to support this? I've yet to see any forum posting on this from any redshirt.
My point is simple; if you're going to crack down on one group for doing something, you have to crack down on all of them, regardless of whether they are helpful or hurtful.
Israth wrote:
Let's get some things straight here
- The devs have stated that being able to afk macro things is NOT an intended feature of the macro system.
- The devs have made it so you cannot do anything in combat if you have your afk tag up. This shows me the devs dont want you to afk combat.
- People have been, are being, and will continue to be banned for afking. Just because you don't know one doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
- Every time I make a ticket and report someone for afk macroing, the CSR tells me that it is NOT allowed.
- People that I have personally reported for afk macroing have been banned because of my reporting ticket.
Anyone that says afk macroing is intended, you are full of it up to your eyeballs. The Devs have stated multiple times, and even tried to make an action showing that they don't approve of afk macroing and want it removed. I have a feeling that either in the CU or shortly after, AFK macroing will be addressed. CSRs DO ban people for afk macroing, I've seen and been a part of it personally. There is no way that you can say it's intended if the Devs and CSRs act this way towards it.
Before I continue and forget, so you can't try to use this against me: I do not, have not, and will not ever get a buff from an AFK doc or ent. Every time I go afk, I put my afk tag up. The only macros I use are not recursive ones during combat. For example, I don't have room on my toolbar for all my weapons and abilites, so I'll stick a few together in a one hit one use macro, which is using macros how they are intended to be used. If recursive macros were indeed part of the gaming system, there would be a command such as "repeat macro", instead of having to use the /ui for the toolbar slot. If afk macro combat was indeed part of the gaming system, the devs would not have made it so you cannot do anything in combat while afk.
In conclusion, the Devs and CSRs for SWG have stated and acted upon the idea that (recursive) afk macroing is not an intended feature of the macro system and they are working to stop it. Anyone who says otherwise is simply trying to defend the fact that they ruin this game by clogging it up with bots that they haven't actually played for more than a few hours.
Not that I don't agree with what you're getting at, but from my point of view we all know it wasn't "intended", but that's what we got. The devs know and have known for a long time about this and haven't done the slightest thing up until the afk flag/combat change. Too little too late I say. Do I think they are banning people for it? Sure, if someone makes a big enough stink about it but even then it is done strictly on a case by case basis. They know where certain types of afk macro'ers "hang out" so to speak, but they do nothing. Why? Because if they banned every person using some form of afk macro they would lose too many accounts and too much money. Had they addressed thisswiftlywhen it first became a known issue there would be little to no problem, but now after turning the other cheek so long they won't drop the hammer on people because they would lose money over a problem that they could have corrected and did not. Again I'm not saying that I don't think you are right, I just think the devs/CSRs made their bed in this particular case and will have to lie in it until they do something that really makes it work as intended.
GraySeven wrote:My point is simple; if you're going to crack down on one group for doing something, you have to crack down on all of them, regardless of whether they are helpful or hurtful.
Again with all respect, but is this true? Is not some temperance and interpretation appropriate in this case? It seems that the goal of a CSR or Dev ought be the creation and protection of an integritible game. One AFKer hurts the game, one does not. One helps other players and the community (although often for the sake of profit), one is a nuissance seeking free and fast end-game profession advancement without playing to the spirit of the game.
I propose that they are different, and therefore applying the rules to them differently may not be so evil as it sounds, provided that it's done with consistency and in accordance with some advertised policy. Hard to imagine using such a phrase as that with this game; isn't it tragic?
This conversation is irrelevant anyway. Pardon my apathy, but I feel very strongly that no one who draws an SOE paycheck gives half a damn about the players or the quality of the game. It's good for us to discuss these things, but ultimately I fear it's an effort resembling the contemplation of one's own navel.
Yt, my opinion is that you're right to be offended but that nothing is going to be done about it. There is no justice; there is no punishment, and the message from the authorities isn't even so positive as to tell you that if you don't like it, you can go somewhere else. You won't even be afforded the courtesy of such an acknowledging answer.
Their response is the same as it always is: indicative, betraying silence.