Musician Archive
Thread: From your Correspondent: inviting suggestions on AFK'ing
The problem with that, Tiaga, is that it will disconnect any player who needs to use the bathroom or who needs to work on wilderness survival xp and doesnt constantly come back to check. I dont think the solution to this problem will come from nerfing afk entertainers, but from adding to the profession so that players will actually want to be a musician and stay at their keyboards. Part of the problem is the depressingly slow rate of xp accumulation in the profession. I realize that no crafting, fignting, or manual healing is needed to advance, but even mastering entertainer takes a drastically longer time than mastering any of the other basic professions, save artisan if you are poor and cant buy resources. If musicians had a way to earn larger amounts of xp without sitting for hour upon hour in a cantina that was actually fun and exciting, both hoklo-grinders and hardcore musicians should find that they enjoy the profession much more.
Zeta Atreides, former Master Squad Leader and aspiring Master Musician, Intrepid
I don't think making the profession better will do anything about AFK. No matter how good you make it, there is still a reward for being AFK, so people will still do it.
As for the survival xp.. Don't camps auto-disband after a period of time anyway?
They should add little popups, like they did with sampling. And if you dont respond to a popup you dont recieve any XP.
Wouldn't that solve it?
Which is to say not at all.
Besides, it would get bothersome to people like me who actually like to put on performances.
AFK'ing entertaining and sampling still exist because those who do not want to be doing the profession, or can not find a way to occupy themselves when doing the activities, conclude that they rather would not do them at all. I have no problem whatsoever about AFk'ing, save its a little depressing to find so few true musicians.
Once again, I reiterate that the best way to make musicians out of AFK'ers is to improve the profession and make it fun. I've listed my own suggestions, so what do the true musicians want in their professions that they feel is sorely missing? And I dont mean bug fixes, which SHOULD go without saying but in reality require constant nagging, or nerfing the poor hologrinders.
Zeta Atreides, Commissar and aspiring Master Musician, Intrepid
Okay time to get myself flammed
. Sorry but I see no real problem with AFker's and no before the flame war actually starts the only thing I have used player macros for is so that I can actually type and interact with other players. But having to actually get another account just so I can have a entertainer for me and my friends on my main server AFKers have their place. While not a master yet, that **edit** healing exp is holding me back, I have had to pay for most if not all my music and most of my entertainer exp because there was never any entertainer on. That has not changed, I can be on, yes actually on, for 4 to 5 hours and never see another entertainer. Now as I have stated I had to get another account just to have an entertainer to heal my combat character and my friends. Taking away AFKers will only penalize combat character who can't find enteraners as it is now. And no this is not on some out of the way outpost, this is in Naboo, a major starting planet I'm talking about. I have never seen a Afker out do an at the keyboard one, in fact I've had customers stop listening to afkers to listen to me because I'm live.
Tiaga, I kind of like the idea of testing for mouse or keyboard movement, but of course some players will defeat that with mechanical gizmos that wiggle the mouse or touch the keyboard periodically. Still, it might be better than nothing.
I hate the built-in macro. I can understand why a macro function is useful for avoiding RSI when one is at the keyboard, but I wish it weren't used so that one could play, unattended, for hours on end. In other games, that's a bannable offense. (E.g., in "A Tale in the Desert," you can use third-party macro programs all you want, even pixel-detection programs, so long as you don't do so for even a minute unattended.) Even in this one, it's arguably inconsistent with the EULA, but obviously tolerated by the devs.
I do agree with Zeta, though, that any "solution" to AFK'ing should be accompanied by changes that make the profession more fun. As you say, Tiaga, making the profession more fun won't remove the incentive to AFK, but it would create more incentive to be at the keyboard.As you've said in other posts, we need more to do as Musicians.
There will always be power-gamers who AFK macro (or whatever) because they just want to check the box. This is even worse now with all the holo-grinders.
But I LOVE doing music, and even I did most of musician AFK. Why? Because it's not geared toward the casual player. It's bloody BORING to just stand there for hours on end playing the same songs over and over and over again. I don't play SWG as a chat room , and hardly anyone does actual Roleplay in the cantinas. I like playing for an hour or so at a time, but at that rate it would take years to get anywhere! I'm not a power-gamer, but not even I have enough patience to play StarWars1 on a Slitherhorn for the next 3 months.
Two suggestions on what would have made things more interactive:
1. Everyone's clustered in these huge groups playing the low songs and it sounds like a jumbled mess. Encourage smaller groups with more interaction (maybe with an XP boost for small group-high song). Or allow everyone to play all the songs, but with lower xp gain if it's one beyond your skill (kinda like a Novice Marksman trying to use a T21 Rifle). That would offer more variety in what the bands can play and ease the boredom.
2. Let you do other things while playing. RIght now you can't craft, you can't heal... you basically can't do anything other than stand there and talk. That's practically BEGGING people to go afk.
There are other things that could be done, of course, but those are just two suggestions that ought to be fairly easy to implement.
I think that one thing is very clear when I read this thread, or perhaps that's just me.
AFK'ers is not a problem. Inconsiderate **edit** AFK'ers is a problem.
Griefers and annoying people are going to be a problem anywhere, though, not only musicians, but until there was a FCS to unlock theywere a little less likely tochoose musician (not the least because musician is an uncommon class with very few 'bragging rights'.).
The FCS thing is both good and bad. It means people try professions they wouldn't ordinarily and find they actually like them - but on the other hand, if it is done as a chore, it'sless likely to be found amusing.
As long as mastering a profession is something people have to do, even if they do not want to, the people are going to be there for the sole purpose of getting to master and dropping the class. If they can't get xp by beingAFK they will get it as fast as possibleother ways - I imagine it will be even harder getting tips if the guy next to you is tipping people to watch him instead, for one thing. People are paying 3-400K to grind artisan classes; it's not about getting money. (It just seems that way from the spambots.).
Unfortunately I can think of no easy fix. While I am no expert, it is easy to see that both rewarding non-AFK'ers automatically, and penalizing AFK'ers, are both doomed for the same reason - the game is easily fooled into thinking you are not AFK.
The bit about making entertainer missions more worthwhile are actually a better idea, as is making the option to view occupied cantinas better known and bugfree(I didn't know about it before reading this thread!). If the game could track how many visits an empty cantina with mind wounds, then missions could be generated to go there and play(And the reward should at the very least cover the ticket cost!).
I also like the bit about trying to make musician a more fun class. More things to do - if that is 'music duels' or whatever, great. You've probably been at live concerts where band members try to upstage each other. More options are good, you don't have to use them. I notice musician gets a few combat bonuses at master rank, not sure how much of a role that plays... .probably little.
As for the FCS hunters... they are not having fun doing it. I think I would prefer another way of unlocking the FCS slot,even if it that way wasthat youget the slot unlocked if you've been subsricbed a year.
One thing I noticed when starting to play as a musician recently is that the xp is slow - slower than any other class at the equivalent difficulty (at least early in the profession). Faster XP would get the FCS hunters 'out of your face' faster and wouldn't really hurt us up and coming artists either.
Yes, the xp is faster in groups, but groups are not always available.
On that (afk) note I gotta go! Hope I made some sort of sene.
Heh I can't take it. The selfishness of it all is just overwhelming.
When I struggled through bounty hunter (NOT a holocron profession I started heading in that direction since Beta 3) the investigation line was broken but i grinded (that a word?) as much as I could. I got disgusted and dropped my investigation to pursue holo-mania.
The NEXT DAY they fixed the investigation xp doubling the xp % from 1% of mission payout to 2% AND increased mission payouts.
Did I whine and bitch and moan and cry? I HAD JUST DROPPED TWO BOXES of the skill-line and NOW everyone was going to get an easy pass!
No I actually posted on the boards how laughable it was that I could not wait one more day and I went right back to it.
When I got to investigation 3 I found a PC-Jedi mission on the BH terminal I believe his name was Dav*** or something like that. I did not take the mission. I contacted him and told him to be careful, that I was not taking the mission. He replied "Its already taken care of".
I did not know what this meant. I spoke to a BH next to me and he said he took the mission. I said wow you think you can take him? He said yea he is going to stand still and LET ME KILL HIM. The reward for Jedi missions was 150,000 at the time and probably did not change. That results in 3k investigation xp, and only 18k are needed at that point for master. One Jedi kill = 1/6 of that skill box. Jedi dies 6 times and someone finishes that skill box in an hour or less. For those who do not know, Inv3 BH missions pre vehicles took an average of 45 minutes to an hour to complete for like 400 or so xp. Maybe 430 xp. Its like 40 missions.
So this guy, who paid the Jedi in crystals and cash, saves 39 hours worth of grinding.
Did I complain about it? Am I that selfish? Did I feel cheated that this guy found a short cut?
No.
What that player did had no effect on me or my style of play.
Do not complain about the lag. There are 2 cantinas on my server where AFKers congregate. Neither one is a major hunting spot. Theed and Coronet. Dantooine on my server has at most 2-3 AFKers at the mining outpost and a lot of people frequent there. Moenia is a city some new players start in and wind up leaving because no one is there. Its a great new player hunting spot. Cantina is empty 100% of the time. Go there.
Do not complain about tips. If you want to make money, sell buffs. During prime time I am actually AT the keyboard 90% of the time BSing with the other grinders some of which are actually ATK and socializing with the group and the patrons, and I know one guy who is roleplaying it really well. I mastered dancer and I am about 20% into Musician. Since I mastered entertainer last tuesday I received exactly ONE tip while I was ATK (probably none AFK) for 1000 credits. If you go to a place less AFKers go and more people fight you will get tipped. If you do not its not my fault its the cheap combatants out there.
Do not complain about floor space see #1 above there are dozens of NPC cantinas "my kind" do not go to. You can go there.
Do not complain about lack of socialization. If you have a group who roleplays you can still roleplay with them. If you need to talk to patrons, yes you probably want to not be in Theed or Coronet.
I'm sorry - I have been through these boards a bit recently as well as Dancer I cannot see a compelling argument that gives any validity to this "issue". To the extent it increases lag I agree, yes that sucks, but if we were all ATK, or even if we all LOVED being entertainers and were roleplaying, what would your solution be then? To limit the total number of players in a cantina (like the max occupancy fire hazard I guess lol)? If a bunch of people congregate somewhere and you do not like it GO SOMEWHERE ELSE its not that hard there are TEN planets and HUNDREDS of cities now with player cities included.
I agree that AFKers who spam tips and 'heal me plz thx' are annoying. I don't even like it and I look down on it. When I AFK I go off in the corner and flag myself AFK. Again, the AFKers congregate in a couple of cantinas you can ignore them or avoid them.
The professions who should really be upset with the holo-grinders are the crafters. A grinder spends a lot of money buying resources to grind through AS or WS or Arch. At master that person will be willing to make a few of the higher level items and sell them at a STEEP discount to recoup some of the credits they spent. THAT kills the true crafter who worked hard to master his profession. Architect is a great example as I did it as my first holocron. I had some good resources but not many really really good ones and even I was able to make 4 BER13 heavies without trouble and 2 BER14 fusions. I kept these for myself I did not want to sell them even at market price as I knew I was not a real architect. I did not want to flood the market. Architect cost me 1.7 million credits. I made back 0.
The reason its a good example is also that a lot of things architects make are unexperimentable and resource quality means nothing (furniture statues etc). It is EASY for a holo-arch to make statues and sell them BELOW cost, screwing over the true architect who fills orders and tries to make a living. THEY should be upset there is not workaround, it directly cuts into their profits and their reason for playing. They cannot simply move to another cantina. People scour the boards for good prices and most people will buy a statue for 5k instead of 15k if they can because all statues are the same.
So stop whining and stop the selfishness. I am done with these boards I think its despicable how many of you are reacting. I will master Musician and never look back, and althoughI have had some fun in doing these entertainer professions (a LOT more fun than I expected) the only thing I will look back on in a negative light is the outlook of the 'true' entertainer community as a whole.
- Broog
Broog wrote:
The professions who should really be upset with the holo-grinders are the crafters.
I'm not going to try replying to the rest of your post, since it is futile... But the architects I know are tickled pink to have architect holo-grinders. They give them a pile of resources and say "Make me walls" and the grinders are more than happy to oblige.