Musician Archive
Thread: A Cvil request as to exactly how buffbots hut *you* as a player?
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Kilnoar
Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:28 pm
#1
I'm honestly curious about this outright hostility.
My first attempt at this game was as a musician. I saw the AFK people grinding away, but it never stopped me from finding people to jam with. In fact I had probably the most fun I've ever had so far with just such a group. We set up like a band, had 4 dancers out in front.
People actually came to the back of the Cantina to watch us and provided tips.
The combat professionals that wanted buffs came and went at the buffbot in the corner, but we didn't care. We were having fun as we were.
When my RL friends logged on, I packed up my Fizz, whipped out the pistol and went right along. We had a hoot whupping up on Squills. When they got banged up my friend aspiring to be a DR healed and I tooted along like a goose on crack.
The buffbot was still in the cantina.
They logged, I went back and found another 'live' group. Set up and tooted along some more.
I didn't make a lot of money, but heck I didn't need a lot. Only spent the smidgen of cash it cost to learn novice. The masters taught me, I taught the younger ones. Sometimes I'd take the little NPC missions, other times I'd be the only live person in the group. I still made enough extra cash off the tips to buy my RL wife armor, and have some change jingling in my pocket.
The buffbot still sat there playing away. People who just wanted 'buffs plz' went to her, people who wanted entertainment went to me. I like to think it was because I told jokes, she didn't.
Some days I'd have my 'novice musician' tag up, and got invited to the infamous 'squill hunting parties' just because I could do what I did. Some scout would throw up a camp and I'd tell jokes and perform. People had fun.
The buffbot was still in the cantina, she couldn't go squill hunting with us.
That was my experience anyway. I moved on to other professions, kept what musician I had as long as I could.
But now I'm honestly curious as to exactly how it affects each of you who hate buff bots so much. I'm not talking as a class, but as an individual. I want to understand where this loathing comes from since I never experienced it as an entertainer.
I've tried to understand it but I can't, every angle I look at it the motives don't add up. I've discounted some such as the old "I went uphill in the snow to school everyday so should they" ones.
I thought perhaps it was because entertainers wouldn't get as many tips. As an experiment I took my master musician alt (ewww it's usually a personal buffbot! BURN HIM!) and tried the old tell jokes and play routine. People watched me (still not capped on healing xp heh), I got a few tips. Nobody asked for buffs, but that was fine by me, I was having fun with the little newbies I found while in there.
So, please help somebody who doesn't care about the buffbots one way or the other understand.
My first attempt at this game was as a musician. I saw the AFK people grinding away, but it never stopped me from finding people to jam with. In fact I had probably the most fun I've ever had so far with just such a group. We set up like a band, had 4 dancers out in front.
People actually came to the back of the Cantina to watch us and provided tips.
The combat professionals that wanted buffs came and went at the buffbot in the corner, but we didn't care. We were having fun as we were.
When my RL friends logged on, I packed up my Fizz, whipped out the pistol and went right along. We had a hoot whupping up on Squills. When they got banged up my friend aspiring to be a DR healed and I tooted along like a goose on crack.
The buffbot was still in the cantina.
They logged, I went back and found another 'live' group. Set up and tooted along some more.
I didn't make a lot of money, but heck I didn't need a lot. Only spent the smidgen of cash it cost to learn novice. The masters taught me, I taught the younger ones. Sometimes I'd take the little NPC missions, other times I'd be the only live person in the group. I still made enough extra cash off the tips to buy my RL wife armor, and have some change jingling in my pocket.
The buffbot still sat there playing away. People who just wanted 'buffs plz' went to her, people who wanted entertainment went to me. I like to think it was because I told jokes, she didn't.
Some days I'd have my 'novice musician' tag up, and got invited to the infamous 'squill hunting parties' just because I could do what I did. Some scout would throw up a camp and I'd tell jokes and perform. People had fun.
The buffbot was still in the cantina, she couldn't go squill hunting with us.
That was my experience anyway. I moved on to other professions, kept what musician I had as long as I could.
But now I'm honestly curious as to exactly how it affects each of you who hate buff bots so much. I'm not talking as a class, but as an individual. I want to understand where this loathing comes from since I never experienced it as an entertainer.
I've tried to understand it but I can't, every angle I look at it the motives don't add up. I've discounted some such as the old "I went uphill in the snow to school everyday so should they" ones.
I thought perhaps it was because entertainers wouldn't get as many tips. As an experiment I took my master musician alt (ewww it's usually a personal buffbot! BURN HIM!) and tried the old tell jokes and play routine. People watched me (still not capped on healing xp heh), I got a few tips. Nobody asked for buffs, but that was fine by me, I was having fun with the little newbies I found while in there.
So, please help somebody who doesn't care about the buffbots one way or the other understand.
picklesSW
Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:48 pm
#2
Ok, no offense, but this is a seriously old topic that has been discussed ad nauseum for the past year and you are asking people to rehash it...AGAIN.
Read the dancer and musician forums, there are plenty of threads about this. Here's a 15 page thread for ya to scan.
Read the dancer and musician forums, there are plenty of threads about this. Here's a 15 page thread for ya to scan.
Jenden
Tue Sep 28, 2004 4:49 pm
#3
They hurt us in a couple ways, some direct some indirect.
1. They create additional spam in the cantinas. Yes, we can /addignore them, but it really get annoying having to /addignore half the cantina every time you walk in.
2. They ruin the cantina atmosphere. If they were off in the corner I wouldn't have a problem with it, but by sitting either right there in the entryway (getting people to stop there assuming thats where everyone is) or scattered throughout the main cantina area its hard to consolidate all the live entertainers without having them make things look bad.
3. They create a bad attitude and expectation towards entertainers. Most people that come into the cantina now just expect entertainers to be AFK. they come in, spam "INVITE TO BUFF GROUP PLZ!!" over and over...and thats when they're being nice. I've been harassed, I've had people drag aggressive NPC's in to the cantina in an attempt to kill or incapacitate the live entertainers, I've had people sit there and go afk dueling with launcher pistols before they gave us a checkbox to turn the shaking off, and the list goes on. All this because (and this is what I've been told by players) "I'm not AFK like I should be", or "I'm taking business away from the buffbots/afk'ers."
and my final point, which isn't specific to entertainers.
4. Galaxies has earned itself the nickname of "SWG: An Empire AFK", as well as being the butt of many such jokes. The first thing a new player sees when they join the Tarquinas server (or at least this is what I saw when I swung by Mos Eisley the other day) is an AFK macro'er spamming out invitations to a guild. The first place most people go is the cantina (because what is more star-warsy than the cantina), and what do they see but a bunch of AFK'ers. A new player won't stay long if the server looks completely dead.
Eaca
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:05 pm
#4
We're a social bunch. And yes we like to have fun and joke around and all that, but sometimes we want to invite guests out to our houses, or update our wardrobes with a cool new weapon or armor piece we've seen somebody else with (hacks, NS lances, and NS biceps are the big ones in this catagory). We want to have nice skill enhancers like the combat guys can get, to make us heal faster and buff better. Not only do we want houses and the means to maintain it, but we want to decorate them nicely, using some of the more colorful and nice decoration items.
Crafters can harvest resources and sell them at incredible markups using thier spent skillpoints to make money, making millions a day. Combatants can run missions to make money, upwards of several hundred thousand credits an hour. Scouts with a bit of combat can harvest high demand creature resources for crafters, further suplimenting thier income. As an entertainer I have 2 means to make money. Entertainer missions, and tips. Have you ever looked at an entertainer mission terminal? As a master dancer/entertainer/musician I can make about 170-190 credits per mission, I can take 2 missions at a time, and they take 10 minutes or so to complete. Thats about 2.4k per hour for my 203 skill points expended, a master rifleman with no other skills can make 300k or so an hour with 92 skill points expended running missions. So workinga 4 hour "shift" I might be able to make as much as 10k for "free" (no expenditure of resources to make this) to buy a new outfit from a reasonably priced tailor, while the rifleman may spend 12k on buffs, 10k on brandy, loose an equivalent of 28k or so on weapon and armor condition, and come away with a net profit of 850k (and thats only for 3 hours total "work").
Obviously entertainer missions are not intended to be any of our source of income past our first few days. So that leaves us with our SP expendature and dreams of having "nice things" with only one other way to make money... tips. This is where buff bots hurt us. I've met numerous people that would rather wait longer for an inferior buff by a bot, or just go without all together, than to get a buff from a live entertainer. Buffbots can make several hundred thousand a day, generally money for thier "main" while the "real" entertainers do like you say you do, and live off of pocket change.
Can you tell me why you feel your expenditure of skill points in entertainer skills makes you entitled to less of the "benefits" in the game than a combattant or crafter? Why do I have to go without the nice things because I chose to be a dancer or musician? I'll tell you why, because no matter how nice I am, no matter how outgoing and available I make myself to heal and buff, I can never be as convienient as a bot, who never needs to go anywhere, never needs to stop, just have its main come by every so often and collect the money and drop of some more skill enhancing cloths (because lets face it, at the prices ent skill tapes go for, only the bots can afford them). Bots offend me because the general populous feels that a few lines of text are more valuable to the comunity than the "real" me. In order to get the things I want, and will want with the upcoming expansion, I HAVE to either drop ent skills for combat, or purchase a second account to turn into a money mule (I've chosen the later). So little of the population even bothers with ATK ents any more. I'd say we're down to less than 1% of the server populations that tip ANYTHING to live ents, I've met new entertainers that have been working on dancer or musician for weeks that still only have one outfit other than thier newbie outfit that was given to them by an older entertainer, most of them can't even afford an X34 yet, they've seen maybe 10k in total tips (the lucky ones) and sometimes the money I give them is the first tip they've EVER recieved. Why? Because most people now go exclusively to bots for both buffs AND healing, EH xp is becoming a rare comodity. Do you honestly expect these new players to go get ent missions? That means either they sacrifice thier healing and dance/music xp for a pitiifully small amount of money, or they split thier pitance with a sea of AFK, netting themself 10 credits instead of the 200 they were trying for.
Buff bots have distroyed the econimical viablity of this profession. Buff bots have turned cantina's into places hostile to the very people they are supposed to house. Buff bots have turned the player base even more against the live entertainer. And combined the hologrind and buff bots have resulted in a DRASTICALLY reduced entertainer population compared to before all this happened (and declining server populations only account for a fraction of this).
Do I have fun as a dancer socializing? Yes. Is a big damper put on my fun when somebody comes in asking where the bot is, and flat out declines my offer to buff them live? Very much so. Am I gonna laugh my ass off when macros go away and mind buffs are impossible to find because live entertainers have been driven to the brink of extinction? You bet your ass.
Eaca
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:23 pm
#5
Arg, I just got suckered
Kilnoar wrote:
So, please help somebody who doesn't care about the buffbots one way or the other understand.
He's not indiferent, he IS A BOT
Message Edited by Eaca on 09-28-2004 05:33 PM
Kilnoar
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:40 pm
#6
I'm indifferent to the whole affair.
I'm not Pro-AFKtertainment nor Anti.
I made a char on my other account to buff myself after experiences in-game and here, and took the time to explain such.
If I truly didn't care why would I even bother posting the question?
I'm not Pro-AFKtertainment nor Anti.
I made a char on my other account to buff myself after experiences in-game and here, and took the time to explain such.
If I truly didn't care why would I even bother posting the question?
Eaca
Tue Sep 28, 2004 5:54 pm
#7
Well I answered your question then, at least for me, any more questions?
Atiknin
Tue Sep 28, 2004 6:25 pm
#8
For me, the problem is, as Jenden noted above, that since the ascension of buffbots, entertainers are valued somewhere close to NPCs. We can be replaced for all of our services by an NPC. That does not lend to valuing entertainers as players, it leads people to pity us as poor misguided souls whose job is better done by a twi'lek with a cool macro. Those of us who spend much of our time performing have gotten used to being ignored, or worse, shunned for our stupidity for continuing to hold on to a dead profession. Furthermore, players have come to think of musician/dancer buffs as entitlements. Players seem to believe they deserve the buffs, after all, they are provided by NPCs for free.
The blame does not, however, rest on the players, but on the devs. The devs have done nothing to discourage buffbots and everything to encourage them. An at-the-keyboard entertainer provides no in-game-mechanical benefit to players. My master musician buff is no better than the buff bots. To patronize the buffbot, the player need not ask anything, need not interact, need not pay, and need not suffer embarrassment or societal censure for preferring the buffbot.
So, that's how they hurt me: they make me less than an NPC.
Gramon Blatt, ME/MM
aspiring Master Rifleman
The blame does not, however, rest on the players, but on the devs. The devs have done nothing to discourage buffbots and everything to encourage them. An at-the-keyboard entertainer provides no in-game-mechanical benefit to players. My master musician buff is no better than the buff bots. To patronize the buffbot, the player need not ask anything, need not interact, need not pay, and need not suffer embarrassment or societal censure for preferring the buffbot.
So, that's how they hurt me: they make me less than an NPC.
Gramon Blatt, ME/MM
aspiring Master Rifleman
Aleyo
Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:38 pm
#9
Aside from the way I'm affected by the many issues we as a class have with the buffbots, I'll share a personal story that happened a few minutes ago.
I'm on Yavin, at the labor outpost, and I hear the telltale signs of a buffbot "2 minutes left, I won't autojoin until the next cycle".
I for some odd reason decide to give it the benefit of the doubt, and take a chance that the owner is actually there so I can try to convince them not to run the buffbot. As I walk in, I see someone using the buffbot. This person is someone who's really well known on my server's forum (where I often lurk), yet I'd never seen this person come into any cantina I was entertaining in. I felt sad, cause from the person's posts, it seems like it would be fun to meet and get to know this person. I don't know if this person would ever come to a cantina I was in if buffbots don't exist. I don't even know that this person didn't own that buffbot, and hates entertainers. But I now believe that as long as buffbots exist, I won't get to meet this person, and probably not many other people I've heard of.
That's just a little personal tale of woe. It's late and I won't go into how I'm hurt in all the ways that we as a class are hurt by buffbots.
I'm on Yavin, at the labor outpost, and I hear the telltale signs of a buffbot "2 minutes left, I won't autojoin until the next cycle".
I for some odd reason decide to give it the benefit of the doubt, and take a chance that the owner is actually there so I can try to convince them not to run the buffbot. As I walk in, I see someone using the buffbot. This person is someone who's really well known on my server's forum (where I often lurk), yet I'd never seen this person come into any cantina I was entertaining in. I felt sad, cause from the person's posts, it seems like it would be fun to meet and get to know this person. I don't know if this person would ever come to a cantina I was in if buffbots don't exist. I don't even know that this person didn't own that buffbot, and hates entertainers. But I now believe that as long as buffbots exist, I won't get to meet this person, and probably not many other people I've heard of.
That's just a little personal tale of woe. It's late and I won't go into how I'm hurt in all the ways that we as a class are hurt by buffbots.
AtheneNoctua
Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:06 am
#10
Jenden wrote:[...]4. Galaxies has earned itself the nickname of "SWG: An Empire AFK", as well as being the butt of many such jokes. The first thing a new player sees when they join the Tarquinas server (or at least this is what I saw when I swung by Mos Eisley the other day) is an AFK macro'er spamming out invitations to a guild. The first place most people go is the cantina (because what is more star-warsy than the cantina), and what do they see but a bunch of AFK'ers. A new player won't stay long if the server looks completely dead.
The interesting thing is that SWG got this nickname right after launch (does anybody remember Farglik?) and all I have seen the devs do about unattended gameplay was the survey pop-up box which is easily circumvented.
To the original poster: Too see how buffbots (and other AFKers, of which buffbots are just the most prominent variant) hurt the game of an ATK entertainer, try to find a medium-busy cantina that only sometimes has a buffbot, and compare your experience with and without buffbot presence.
If you don't want to see it yourself, at least in half of the threads on this and the dancer board, ATK entertainers post why buffbots hurt their game.
Tiaga
Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:59 am
#11
Just a link. That's all. A bit on the worst case scenereo side, but still something that happens.
LyteFoot
Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:56 am
#12
Buff bots are taking over the Theed cantina on corbantis all the sudden. I recently mastered entertainer and musician and while doing it over the past couple of months I got to know a group as friends. We joked, flirted, lined up and performed together. As we mastered a few wandered off and some stayed. I got to where I would go in and set up my own little group so I didn't have to play SW1 all the time. Being the only master musician in the cantina at the time I got requests for buffs. Those requests ranged from polite to indifferent to down right rude. Then many of the people walked off without tipping or saying thank you because they normally deal with an NPC not a live person. Yes a bot is an NPC, but to SOE's credit it is a PAYING NPC.
Since the buffbots moved in this past weekend I've only had buff requests from friends, guild mates, and a couple of hunters who I got to know over the past couple weeks. All the others run right to the bot even waiting in line when I tell them I'm open for immediate buffing. All but a couple of my friends have left the cantina so now I'm pretty much alone in a sea of afk grinders and bots.
A profession I started to spend time with a friend, came to love, and enjoy thoroughly is being utterly decimated by AFK play. I spent the evening out harvesting for our chef.Pointing my toon at a layer of shaupats, clicking attack, and watching my T21 two shot kill is less boring than sitting in the cantina all alone because what I enjoy is the social aspect and trying to create songs others actually enjoy listening to but there isn't much of anyone there to listen.
Comp, buffs, and AFK play are killing this game. There is little risk, I can solo ancient Rancor for goodness sake. There is little opportunity to sample some of the cooler features after all every dungeon is camped by someones AFK toon. It is difficult to get some loot items because every NPC spawn spot is covered by some AFK player. There is no social interaction anymore beyond shouting "LOOKING FOR SOLO GROUP" and "how much fer buffs". How SOE doesn't hear a death knell in the concept of a solo group I simply don't understand.
fett3041
Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:02 am
#13
LyteFoot wrote:
Comp, buffs, and AFK play are killing this game. There is little risk, I can solo ancient Rancor for goodness sake. There is little opportunity to sample some of the cooler features after all every dungeon is camped by someones AFK toon. It is difficult to get some loot items because every NPC spawn spot is covered by some AFK player. There is no social interaction anymore beyond shouting "LOOKING FOR SOLO GROUP" and "how much fer buffs". How SOE doesn't hear a death knell in the concept of a solo group I simply don't understand.
Thus the high priority of the combat rebalance (nerf/fix), and macro change (nerf/fix). I can't wait to hear the screams. "I pay my $15. I should be ENTITLED to do whatever I want, including solo each and every mob in the game!"
My preference (which means zip in the grand scheme of things) : Delay JTL until the core game is fixed. No need to add bugs in space ontop of bugs in the ground game, just piling bugs on top of bugs, until the game is deemed broken and disposed of.
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