Musician Archive
Thread: From your Correspondent: inviting suggestions on AFK'ing
I am musician.
Personally i afk once in a while, to make som extra xp. The road to master musician is long, and even though it is fun to chat whith other entertainers in the group chat - its not 300 hours of fun.
I would have loved to do something else instead of standing in a cantina blowing my slitherhorn, but it is simply the best way to make xp at the moment! I dont belive afk macroing is wrong, or that we make too many xp doing it - but there should be an alternative.
If the entertainer mission terminals had something to offer - beside earning 100 xp and 180 credits after running 5km i would defenetly use these terminals.
I have never understood why there wasn´t teminals that combined skills from different carecter classes. A mission like 'rescue a prisoner' could easy combine a combat carecter (for shooting the guards) and two kind of healers (Medic and entertainer - to bring the prisoner back from near death). This would makeit necesarry tobe a group of different carecters tobe able to make the missions.This would also make the entertainer class and othere normally halfway useless classes mor suitable for the game!
I don´t belive that the problem is with the afk´ing, but the lack of deasent alternatives to make XP. You cannot make master dancer or musician over night by beeing AFK, and if the real good xp were somewhere else, people wouldn´t be so disappoited about AFK entertainers.
So my point is. Don´t make it impossible to become entertainer by beeing afk - make the entertainer class more interesting by including them in the mission life in the galaxy!
This way everybody would be happy, and the game would be mutch better!
Uforxo
Sunrunner
Well, First off, I was a holo musician. I never had any intent on mastering musician, or any other entertainment profession. I decided when I finally went into the cantina to work on it, that I was not going to do it afk, I was going to sit thru the entire experience, so I could accuriately describe it upon completion. Somewhere along the way, I started to enjoy being a musician, and now I am going to keep master musician. I will try and break down the pro's and con's of afk'ing and then make some suggestions on how to improve things..
PRO's:
1) Being forced to listen to the same song for 6 hours straight is definitely a viable means of torture, and should be against the geneva convention. Going afk is the only means of keeping ones sanity.
2) Experience: I hate when everyone is afk myself, but I would rather be in a group with 19 afk'ers to get better experience, then a group of 4 non-afk's getting horrible experience. Pistoleers dont try and gain experience by hunting durni's, they want to go after the toughest thing they can find and still live thru it to get experience as fast as possible, same thing applies here.
3) It allows you to do other things while still gathering experience, since in about 90% of the afk'ers, they didnt choose to be an entertainer, it chose them via holocron.
CON's:
1) A group leader being afk wrecks the group, as when people leave, new people dont join. I practiclaly own the entertainer group in coronet cantina on ahazi rright now, because the entertainers know I do not go afk for more then 10 minutes at a time (bathroom ,sandwitch, etc) and I keep the group full, and the experience flowing.
2) afk entertainers ruin entertaining as a profession choice, as people will watch/listen to the afk'ers so they don't have to tip, and thus rob the non afkers of tips.
Solutions:
1) the healing experience is entirely to slow as it stands, triple the amount of healing experience you get, but couple that with a pop-up that you must accept to get any healing experience from a wounded person.
2) Dont entice people to group with an afk group, give experience when completing entertainer missions instead of just money, cap off the max experience you can receive at an 8 member band.
3) force people until they reach master to play their best song, or have the song affect how much experience you get, not just the instrument. If you are going to force me to only be able to play 3 songs so others can level up(SW1, SW2 and folk are the only 3 songs we ever really played), dont complain when I loose intrest in being at the keyboard.
I originally posted this in the gig/missions thread, but it seems appropriate here as well.
Having cantinas pay the entertainers is an idea I keep seeing in different threads. I like this idea a lot. I think it could be used in addition to the current entertainer mission terminals (which need to have better pay-outs).
The two core ideas in this system are:
1. Salary from the venue. The idea that the cantina should pay the entertainers for their time spent entertaining seems to be something the players would like. I've seen various ideas concerning how to go about pay for play. Pay based on healing others is one system I've seen discussed. I think an entertainer playing in an empty cantina should still be able to make some money, perhaps healing xp could grant bonus pay (it's SUPPOSED to solicit a TIP from the players...hehe).
2. In venue"mission terminal." By this I don't mean an actual mission terminal in the venue (but it COULD be), rather someNPC/Object thatentertainers interact with to begin the"pay for play" from the venue. This NPC/Object should be in the venue so you don't have to run around the galaxy training to make a buck. This would also allow you to be a regular at avenue and actually get paid for it. Perhaps this would encourage people to play in theaters or lesser used venues. Any venue you can register with should have this NPC/Object.
Now I wouldn't want a pay for play system to encourage MORE afk'ers. I don't think entertainers should generate a wage simply for playing. There needs to be some point of interaction to ensure the entertainer is at the keyboard. I think a NPC/object interaction would be required, or perhaps some non-macro-able command, and this interaction should be done in the venue.
I'd like to have a NPC in the cantina/theater/venue that you have to talk to in order to get the pay. This NPC would be a barkeep, owner, manager, or some such that would serve the role of mission terminal. Perhaps you could select how long you'd like to play, then you get paid, then if you want to play for pay some more you would have to interact with the NPC again. I think setting the max "mission" time to an hour would be fair (shorter perhaps if that encourages too much afk'ing). As for pay, I think an hour of play should be rewarded in the 1-5k range depending on the entertainer's skill level.
To recap, I'd like to see a "pay for play" salary system from the venue that encourages entertainers to be at the keyboard and rewards them fairly for their time and services.
A bit of an afterthought concerning pop-up windows, the omni-box and the nalargon both need to be the active target to be played.
NewJedi wrote:
Do you all have any specific, constructive suggestions on how the devs might adjust gameplay to encourage Musicians to be at their keyboards? I don't want to provoke a flamewar on the merits of AFK-macroing; I'm simply interested in suggestions on how the devs might provide incentives for people to play a more active role in performing. If you've posted suggestions elsewhere, please don't just provide a link; summarize your idea here. I'm trying to develop constructive ideas for the devs, and I don't want them to have to wade through any more threads than necessary. Thanks!
As a disclaimer, I am posting from the point of view of a 'grinding' entertainer. That is, once I've mastered each of the four entertainment masters, I will drop the whole tree, and am just doing it because I am hunting for my 'silent' force-sensitive pre-req profession. It's not very fun for me, is certainly not in-character, but is a necessity of the way the game is designed.
Firstly, I think there should be an idle timer independant of /afk. I know there are people out there using all sorts of crazy things to keep their character appearing at-keyboard while they sleep... placing a fan next to thier mouse, third-party mouse-macro software, the dual-/afk command, etc, so it has to be more clever. Event pop-ups like were placed in game for anti-afk sampling have already been easily worked around, but may not be a horrible idea as the same workaround won't be quite as effective for dance/music, I think. One thing that came to mind just now, isa simple popup to the effect of "You have been detected as idle. Press "ok" if mistaken." It would spawn at a random point on screen to avoid macro-clicking and would come up when a character has not moved say 15m in 30 mins or an hour even. An adjustment or elimination or xp could be made while the message is present.This should impact ALL afk'ing professions, while still allowing those who really need to afk through a tedius part do so in small segments, or at a much slower rate of xp. It would also allow anyone to put their /afk flag up without it impacting their xp rate.
Secondly, DO NOT eliminate the ability of afk entertainers to heal. They really serve a purpose! However, we don't want afk-entertainers to really be able to 'steal' xp and tips from active performing musicians. Now when you walk into a cantina and have a choice between an AFK Master Dancer, and the no-title guy playing a Fizzz who just said 'hi' to you on the way in, who are you gonna watch? The master of course. Well, what if the idle-event popup mentioned above (or other trigger) reduced the effectiveness of a player to novice-level?? If a novice musician is all that's availible I'll be thrilled to have them there, and content to wait a little bit longer to to heal. If I have a choice though, knowing that the (idle?/afk) tag on a character meant that they could only heal at that level, I'd rather take my chances with the guy who is really there with the novice tag on him.
Well, you've got my 2 cents now... how about seeing some change?
NewJedi,
any news on this ???
Bottom line, is AFK' musicians have to go. I dont care how, it just needs to go...
Each day its getting worse, I am a die hard master musician but each day its harder and harder not to just say ok im done and drop the skill.
Thanks
I posted this on the other anti-afk thread, but this one seems like it gets more views, so I'll put it here as well:
I've been the bandleader at the cantina in Coronet. Did it for about 8 hours straight. I felt one of my responsibilities as bandleader was to kick the AFK players to make room for live entertainers.
I've also been to the cantina when the leader was AFK. After 5 minutes, I had stolen every single LIVE entertainer from that band and formed my own, leaving that afk leader and his afk bandmates on their own while those of us who wanted to rock out and entertain live got to enjoy doing just that.
I'm sorry, but an AFK grinder has never, not even one time, ruined my gameplay. That's like saying that the piece of furniture in your living room ruins your gameplay. Or the NPC standing behind me in the cantina who says the same stupid crap over and over again ruins my gameplay.
I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people have this huge chip on their shoulders when it comes to AFK players. Why do you let it bother you? They are furniture.
You know what bothers me? Being the leader of a group and having to ask 20+ times in group chat (to LIVE entertainers) if someone would like to take over being the group leader so that I can leave, and being greeted by nothing but silence or grumbles that "I would, but I've got to log off soon" or "I'm watching my kids right now, I can't do it." Sadly, I'm guessing some of those people who refuse to run a group are the same ones complaining here, when it would be so easy for them to actually do something about it in game.
You all keep talking about this great "community" in SWG, but none of you seem to want to take any responsibility in that community. You know what - SOE isn't listening to you complain about AFK entertainers. So the next time you see a group full of afk entertainers, you can do 2 things:
1) You can come here and W, B, and M (whine, b**** and moan) about how they are ruining your immersive experience
or
2) You can be the dang group leader, boot them out, and ruin their unimmersive experience healing.
I chose the latter, but by all means, you folks continue to W, B, and M about it.
Reliant8130 wrote:
NewJedi,
any news on this ???
Well, I've had a few exchanges with the devs about it, but nothing concrete has come out of it yet. They have said they really want to encourage at-the-keyboard play; the question is how to do so in a way that is fun, fair, and balanced. They did express some interest in killing two birds with one stone -- making gig missions better and more interactive, thereby creating more incentive for players to be at the keyboard.
I've pointed them to this thread, and I've tried to highlight some of the ideas in this thread for them, but that's about as much as I know about their currentthinking. I might have a bit more to report from them shortly; not sure. I'll keep you posted.
I have read thru as much of this thread as I could and I see both sides of this issue. But why is AFK macroing such a big deal? Really. When I had my pistoleer skills on my Musician and was hunting Endor and Dantooine, I would rarely see an entertainer and I think it would have been a great help to have had a person who was willing to let thier character stay afk and perform for folks, while they were at work, school, sleepings, what ever.
Even when there was an AFK person, when I would walk in with my Master Tag, ya better believe they stopped watching the AFKer and watched and tipped me. I never did AFK, except to go to the restroom, or grab a drink, etc. Most of the time ifI was going AFK I would sit down.
I see it as basicly an issue that has two main points. First is that a lot of the AFKers park in high visibility spots in high traffic cantinas and second, that some people feel it is cheating and thus lessoning thier own since of accomplishment/pride in thier class.
These are both valid concerns, however, they are not technical / gameplay issues. I am sorry if we are all not in agreement here, but it is not broke. Some people will be jerks and there is little that can be done about it.
But, here is a suggestion, if we can get a "Game Stopage" or some similar code for a CSR to reply as a priority one call, make it so if a group of people report a particular AFk macroer, who is in a high traffic place, or possibly one whos macro is spouting spam so that its almost imposible to converse, let a CSR come and remove that person from the area...either by physically moving the offending character to a different location, or by simply logging that character out of the game.
Yes this could be abused, via the priority call to the CSRs. But if the rules were stated and enforced, so that someone who had called a CSR for a non legitimate reason, they could, depending on the situation, be temporarily suspended, with asecond violation resulting in account banning.
You get the point and hopefully you all can expand, or defeat this line of thinking. i personally think it would take about 2 weeks for the CSRs to get used tohaving this added on priority call, and the same amont of time to getthe"Fear ofSuspension/Banning" into the heads of the folks we all know will and would abuse this.
Ok, I need to go to bed....
Durney Kova
BABE - Lowca
Master Entertainer / Master Musician / Master Image Designer / Novice Dancer / Novice Medic
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=970285
Please read this. I have gathered ideas from other forums, not sure if it was yours or not and added a suggestion to the dev suggestion post. This will affect you so I would like your opinions on it as entertainers. Again sorry to link to another post. I hope this is not considered trash on your boards.
-future entertainer