Musician Archive

Like I suggested a while ago, just reduce the amount of Exp you earn while AFK to i.e. 24th of the amount you receive when not in AFK state in average per hour, and take out the infinite macro cycles plus shorten the maximum letter/number-length of Macros.

WhereI am coming from:

Iplay Master Carbineer/Doctor/CM on Scylla and earned a lot of med xp healing entertainers I tried to help be social with the entertainers that would be at the controls. i haveenjoyed playing himwhile capped out on xperience for nearly 2 months.I got in to making "song" macros when i was an entertainer briefly, and enjoyed converting and rewriting songs into macro forms. ArguablyI picked upso manymed skills becauseI enjoyed being in the cantinas socializing.

Now on Starsider,I play an aspiring Master Musician and and am trying to get through those last 3 big blocks of healing xp.I have gone AFK for a few remaining hours before system close as i slept.I thinkI do it now out of impatience and out of frustration with having to endure the AFK scene in the large cities , in order to get healing xp.I am someone who enjoys being a musician but wants all the tool available to create performances as soon as possible.I look forward to being able to perform whereeverand whatever I please, with no concern for xp.

I'd like to see any steps possible taken to remove the glut of AFK performers especially group leaders. Unfortunately, the holocron system only compounded the problem by "forcing" people in to entertaining who have no interest in the profession. I like many of the ideas submitted that require entertainers clicking boxes to prove they around and recieve more xp. i would also like to see bands automnatically disbanded if the the leader logs or goes LD, the current way leader is passed down the list serves little purpose to me.

Sake Ohara - Scylla

Dante' Skyline - Starsider

remove entertainer fields as a choice from your random list of holocron professions and problem solved. you'll only have people that want to be entertainers being entertainers.

Ok, I dont know about anyone else, but he didnt say how to stop people from going AFK... He said how to "encourage" people to be attended while performing....

I only read the first page before being totally irritated because its just stop this stop that! Every profession in the game can be macroed to some point...

What he was looking for is things that would make people want to stay and play.... For instance, maybe an NPC located in the Cantina could discuss where to find a special instrument that is quite rare, or the schematic for making one! Following the NPCs info, you could go on a musician quest that would offer XP AND a prize (like an instrument or schematic) MaybeKrayt Dragon Pearl saxaphone (or whatever instrument in the timeline!) However, you would have to talk to the NPC within a certain amoun of time from him discussing it....

Or maybe a new song could be taught, again by an NPC discussing it and sending you on a search or to a music trainer at a certain time....

A new cool effect... etc. etc...

Now these shouldnt pop out every night at the same time, or even every night at all.... Totally random, but it would be something that would give us more reason to pay attention...

Maybe add a fame bonus of some sort, that while playing attended and responding to the NPCs you would earn fame points that could be used to adjust your buffs on others...

These are ideas that encourage attended play.. Not ideas that say this is how you stop those from afk.... It irritates me that some people get upset that people will afk... Not everyone can spend 16 hours a day at their PC to macro... Unfortunately the idea of casual gamer doesnt get you anywhere in this game... So you have to expect people to try and keep up.. Quit worrying about how others play and lets work on developing bonuses for certain playstyles....

I just want to point out that AFK drove people away from entertainer and musician/dancer long before holocrons.

The numbers might be lower, I don't know. Perhaps the characters leaving before holocrons were people that weren't "social" players, etc. etc., I don't know. I just have to point out that we (on the entertainer and musician forums) were discussing AFK's as an issue (good,bad, or indifferent; much like today) as far back as July and August. Perhaps it was less of an issue back then and the numbers of people leaving the profession were smaller.

My point is that removing entertainer professions from the holocron list will not 100% remove the issue. It may very well improve the statistics greatly in our favor. I am in favor of the changes to the way you get a FSCS but that is not the only change we should make. Let's look to something in addition to that.

since afk macroing is so irritating to people why not just remove the macro function from the game

how many of you 'pure entertainers' don't ever use a macro? i use a macro for my flourishes and to check if i'm still playing music, what about you?

if you say you're sitting there pressing f1-18 (or whatever you do for flourishes) all day, all the time, while trying to hold a conversation then either you're lying or you're not giving yourself the opportunity to make things a ton easier in this game

from my experience with entertainer so far (just 0-3-4-4 entertainer) i don't have a problem with afk entertainers, and i've been at my keyboard the whole time.

encourage me to be at the keyboard, sure, take away my xp, or tips (what tips) or kick me from the server for doing using a macro? screw you

The only thing that will remove the AFK is something that requires intereaction, and that gives a reward for that interaction.

Let's say I am trying to buff someone. This person comes up with a buff reaction to Rock of 5%. When I try Ballad, I get a buff reaction of 90%. Okay, I now need to intereact with my environment and tune my tune to get the best healing rate into a player. (This is not a real solution, just an example of one.)

When I do combat, I face danger, but get XP. When I do Entertainer, everything is automatic, even the moves if I spend 5 minutes on a macro. There is no judgement or trial involved.

Let's say that I want to buff someone. I target the character, and I see emotes coming over their head. The right flourish will add to their buff. The wrong one will do nothing. I must then be there, at the keyboard, to accomplish my goal. (Again, this is just another example.)

Everything else aside, the question is: how do you make Entertainer INTERACTIVE, where right now, it is merely active.

Hm... VemaGara, you just gave me an idea. I liked your idea, but of course the problem is that we are only healing one stat, but the thing about different flourishes is interesting. Like NewJedi was saying, some people aren't hologrinding. Actually, and this boggles my mind, I see other master entertainers that play afk, they aren't even grinding for experience anymore. They've come to learn that entertainers are "played" afk, I fear. It's the lack of interactive choice in plying the trade.

How's this: As you, the entertainer, is performing, you are given audience feedback. Codewise, the audience mood is not really tied to the actual players making up the audience, but is a varibale related to the musician/dancer group itself. The audience will experience four moods: bored, tired, excited, or attentive, and they experience these moods in varying degrees. Periodically, an entertainer will seea new system message, ie; "The audience is very attentive," or"The audience is somewhat bored." An entertainer might learn certain flourish combos that alleviate or encourage certain states, but oversusing the same flourish combos might make them stop working, or in fact have the opposite effect, over time.

Did that make sense?

This is a good idea. A couple ideas to improve on it.
1. i agree with the moods although here is my sufestions Excited= The Audience is excited and likes that your group is doing consitent (possibly synched flourishes) then as you do less, repetitive, unsynched the mood gets worse from attentive, Good, tired, bored. This may stretch down to the point of an Enraged Audience in which a group may have members playing different songs and people not doing any flourishes. This would directly relate to the exp that you get. Which leads to...

2. Make everyone have to be there in order to change songs. Then if a group decides that it needs to change songs AFK people will not change drag the group down. Eventualy (if leader is smart) the AFker would get kicked from group.

3. Also if the band has a low rating, such as bored, then they would heal wounds slower. And on a slightly weirder possibly insane note. A enraged audience could cause nearby NPCs to storm the stage and attack the horrible musicians. (again not as key as the other stuff I said)