Musician Archive
Thread: From your Correspondent: inviting suggestions on AFK'ing
Page 24 of 24
Griswel
Sun Jul 11, 2004 6:26 am
#300
I'd like to find out from the Devs, while we wait for a change that may never come to afk-macros:
Is it considered acceptable by the Devs that some players interfere with afk Musician/Dance buff macros run by other players? There seems to be a belief on this board that creating a counter macro which/invites buffers and stops the buff process is acceptable to CSRs, and some have even promoted moves which they believe will kill the buffer's afk character.
IMHO if the Devs want to do away with the afk-macro-buff process they should do so. "Ban"ning macros through harassment by other PCs will only resultin bad blood all around. Also, I'm not sure if the CM/wounds method would actually kill the PC, but PKing PvP- playersviolates one of the basic design decisions of the game. Some of the players in this forum have stated that they have CS approval for these tactics.
The rules of the game should be enforced by the mechanics of the game, not by vigilantes.
Warryyr
Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:24 pm
#301
Ok, so I know this might be met with some resistance. I mean, when was the last time you bought a new instrument? We're broke enough as it is, without paying for new instruments all the time. But, follow me on this...
Basically, as it stands, instrument quality has no impact on us. And, instruments never decay. I'd venture to say that's a bit unrealistic. As someone who plays music in real life, strings break and instruments need work occasionally to be in tip top shape and sounding great. And nicer instruments last longer and sound better.
I propose that instruments decay gradually, until eventually you have to repair them. The rate of repair would be very similar to how vehicles work - the better the instrument, the slower the decay. Instruments should only need to be repaired if they reach 0 condition.
So, you may ask, how is this going to stop buffbots and AFK'ers....well, I'll tell ya! You need to keep your instrument TUNED!
First off, as you progress through Musician, you get an instrumenttuning bonus. Lower level musicians won't be able totune their instruments as much at a time as a Master can - maybe it'll take them 4 tunings to get it right and get their instrument back to full - similar to how a medic heals a patient a little at first, then they get better gradually. This will give Masters a role after they gain their Mastery, they can tune better than anyone else. Masters should be able totune instruments back to full, so that they last longer - in one try. If a lower level Musician wishes to have a Master tune their instrument so it lasts longer, they can trade it to the Master for tuning.
Now, as you're playing, the instrument slowly decays. Let's say every hour or 2 hours a box pops up that says "Your instrument is getting out of tune. Please enter "yes" in the box if you wish to tune it." If you don't tune your instrument, it will decay at a drastically faster rate - until it gets to 0 condition. Maybe something could be put in, so that the music sounds REALLY annoying and out of key if you don't tune yourinstrument (discouraging people from listening to AFK'ers who don't tune their instrument). If you don't respond to the tuning box within 30 minutes, your instrument's condition is set to 0 and you stop playing.
Should your instrument reach 0 condition, you will stop performing. You cannot use that instrument. Now, it can only be repaired by a Master. Masters can repair it back to full condition, but only Masters have a 100% chance of success with repairs -you cantry it yourself, and risk destruction of the instrument if you're not Master. The instrument must be traded to a Master for them toaccomplish repairing it.
If one attempts to equip a new instrument once your current one is at 0 condition, a box pops up that says "Would you like to attempt to repair your instrument that just broke, before using a new one? Enter yes or no." This prevents people from buying crates of slitherhorns or whatever, and just setting em up in the hotkey and macroing that all day, for a new instrument each time theirs needs repairing. As for people who set up a ton of slitherhorns in their hotkeys and switch them all day long (so none of them reach 0 condition), they're met with a box every 2 hours that says "You've been playing for awhile, don't you think you could use a break? Enter yes or no." If they don't respond in 20 minutes, a /stopmusic and /dump is issued, and a /disband.
I think this would pretty much allow people to run macros (which I use to talk to my customers, and ensure I buff right every time) but it would very much encourage at the keyboard play versus being AFK.
Griswel
Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:41 pm
#302
Ten pages, so I apologize if I am repeating:
IMHO the key is to reward people actually playing Musician rather than punishing people who use the macros that are built into the game. So for starters, make it clear to players (especially the ones here) that harassment of macro-musicians is no different from harassment of other players. No interfering, no spamming, no threats, no harrasment.
Once that is done, you need to reward people who are actually playing the game. IMHO the musician buff takes too long. Yes, it can be done toa group, but unless you're in very busy place that doesn't matter, what matters is that buffing two stats (one for dancers!) takes 4-5 minutes whereas a Doc can do six stasin one minute. Yes, I realize Docs use up things, but they also buff 6 stats for 3 hours.
The mechanism for rewarding players should be like the "bonus" boxes for sampling. Pop up one of a variety of boxes every little while and make the buff finish faster if the player hits the right key. You have to vary them so he cannot just makea macro hit the button. Anything like this that lets the game system know that the musician really is present can kick in a variety of rewards.
One possible way would be to have the system pop up amessage every 15 seconds which tells the player which flourish to play (instead ofthe box I was just suggesting). A non-afk player then uses that flourish (this would be instead of all other flourishes, i.e. the player only uses the flourishes he is told to use), and thus the game both tests to see if the player is there (with 8 flourishes random macro clicks will not work), and does so in a way that looks natural to people observing the musician (they do not see the popup message, they just see flourishes). I don't see how a player/macro could cheat this, I don't think it's too tough for players to do right (mistakes make the processtake longer, they don't end it)and I don't think it would be all that tough to program (give people a good bit of leeway for the flourish, punish errors not delays). This really should work.
So, here's a set of rewards that ought to work, again, the idea is that the current system takes too long, so shortening it is justified (remember, a player who wants three stats buffed needs to do this once with music and again with dance):
1 - make the buff process take 1 minute or so for a single target, and 2 minutes for a group;
2 - and/ormake the buff last longer, IMHO if Docs can buff 3 hours then lettingan at-the-keyboard musician do soas well is not unbalancing.
Be sure to tell everyone when the musician is done, and the maximum buff duration has been applied,so that the players can adjust for mistakes without starting all over. Otherwise the shortened time will not work, because people will be stuck buffing for longer 'just to be sure', and you've killed your reward. Better yet, only tell at-the-keyboard players when their buff has maxxed out.
There may be problems with this that I miss, or programming troubles with the idea of a random flourish requestor, but I really think that this would encourage at-the-keyboard musicians in an immersive way, without punishing other people.
Cupas
Thu Jul 15, 2004 3:45 am
#303
BEST IDEA EVER!!!!!
totally works!
remove the /startmusic command
and put a frekn timer on music in real life music doesnt go for 22 hours ok it goes for lets say a maximum of 7-10 minutes so every 7-10 minutes you stop playing and you have to start back up.
and without the /startmusic commando your finished right there.
Juny
Fri Jul 16, 2004 3:20 am
#304
I am not much care about AFKer becouse they just misses to fun a lot for cantina chatting and enjoy dancing and play music. I'd like to say how glad to me when they tell me my entertainment is nice.
But I do not like to my friends to get trouble and bad effect like 15sec timer to play again from stop. So, some suggestion here...
-For stop AFK buff-bot.
First, Audience need to type /requestbuff to get our buff. Then open a window on you. You need select passive buff or active buff if she/he is in group or not, or just accept the request or not. The window do not have way to push OK with macro like survey one. If we have this function, we can know who need buff ( sometime miss the call while telling or chatting 
) and starting time becomes clear ( and a request, when we starting buff, audience are just clapping at low, middle then clapp at high, done then cheer, should be fun and we can see done for the buff 
).
) and starting time becomes clear ( and a request, when we starting buff, audience are just clapping at low, middle then clapp at high, done then cheer, should be fun and we can see done for the buff ). And again, please rid off 15sec timer to play, I hate the specification ever! stolen lot of fun for me as live entertainer becouse of it...
-Differentiation between live and AFK
For wound healing, When he/she starting watch/listen then window pop up and bleh, bleh, bleh.... If you push ok for the window, you can give them 100% power of heal. If you don't push OK, heal power will come down to 50%. AFKer can still heal becouse I know, not so many live entertainers nowadays... so, I think we need to symbiosis togather with AFKer.
On our server, Live entertainer chat channel available, if it comes to regular channel, good for find live entertainer to get fast heal. If we got bazzar type entertainer registration system would be good too.
Dameos
Wed Jul 28, 2004 5:42 am
#305
I made toon on a server Intrepid I believe Azi was his name.... and for maybe 2 hours a day i was at the keyboard, the rest of the time i was sleeping working, going out with my wife blah blah... i made master in about a week I stayed in the Bestine Cantina... setup a shout macro so my afk wouldnt pop... and to draw / let people know there was an entertainer available... I mastered entertainer, and then musician in this way the only tree that took me time to be at the keyboard was ID... I have since Deleted this character (I enjoyed it while i had it but it got borring for me)
Do I see a problem with AFK macroers... (being one myself at the time) No
Is Afk Macroing a problem... Yes (let me explain)
you have 3 major cities for any form of healing / buffing these are Theed, Coronet, and Mos Eisly now if you take the 60+ people in each cantina of those 60 maybe 10 are at the keyboard you try to walk into a cantina and you lag up... (I dont have a super computer like some people do) and you cant see names or professions (ok fine use the /who command or search ability) totalk to a specificperson.... also 90% of the Afk Entertainers do what i did and set up a /shout or /yell or even a /say command asking for tips, heals, blah blah this makes it immpossible to read your chat box... (Ok they added a filter to remove afk chat but if your dancing / playing music and chattingyou do not get tagged AFK so this doesnt work... )
A Fix
Add more content for entertainers other than the"mission" terminal these missions grant a little exp and a laughable ammount of cash (compared to the prices of clothes / instruments) instead of auto healing whoever watches / listens to you... make it like a medic / doctor you have to target the person and select /healmind, /healbatfat, /bufftarget ... doing this brings the entertainers who are there to heal and interact with others a reason to be at the keyboard, can you still AFK macro yeah sure.. but you wont get any healing exp... perhaps even add in a /performForTarget to gain the music / dance exp... again this will now promote being at the keyboard and player interaction... well what about entertainer groups you ask.... simple if your in a group you get an exp bonus for the others in the group but they do not receive any exp for those people watching / listening to you... but then people would only listen / watch the masters you say and the novices wouldnt get any exp... this is where the More content comes into play... scale the missions and or content as an entertainer gains levels... the missions get better pay outs... or better rewards... and perhaps once a master hits the exp cap the exp he / she would gain is divided among the others of the group...
just my 2 creds worth...
SurrealKnyte
Fri Jul 30, 2004 2:39 am
#306
Darniaq wrote:I've thought about this a bit over the last few days, and I'm thinking that a really elegant solution would be to just do to us what Dancers have had to deal with all along: missed notes.
Miss a note, boom, knocked out of song and you have to manually restart.
But this alone isn't a whole answer. They absolutely need to remove:
- The /ui action toolbarSlot command.
- Unlimited /pause durations
AFKing for 15 minutes isn't killing the perception of our profession. In fact, I'd wager large that there are more people who say they have a problem with it than those who actually do at any given time. And, once you hit the cap, it's academic anyway because those who don't enjoy it will unlearn it anyway.
But the above is sort of a quick and easy solution that also adds interest to playing.
Why do you keep pushing for the removal of The /ui action toolbarSlot command?
We fought long and hard for a way to simplify our in-game macroing of keystrokes to retard Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and this was their approved solution. Sony approves in-game macroing (as long as you're at the keyboard). This command, if removed, would hurt more than help. They simply will never get rid of this command.
I'd be willing to bet you investment property on that.
StikerRunningfly
Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:32 pm
#307
SurrealKnyte wrote:
Why do you keep pushing for the removal of The /ui action toolbarSlot command?
We fought long and hard for a way to simplify our in-game macroing of keystrokes to retard Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and this was their approved solution. Sony approves in-game macroing (as long as you're at the keyboard). This command, if removed, would hurt more than help. They simply will never get rid of this command.
I'd be willing to bet you investment property on that.
So what kind of investment property do we get?
IzualauzI
Fri Aug 06, 2004 5:44 pm
#309
It has occurred to me that, those who AFK to buff and/or get experience have the /join command in order to allow themselves to buff or get experience from a group. All that has to be done is make people manually accept an invite. POOF buff bots are gone. If people really hate AFK people as much as they are saying, then the group leader mearly has to boot the AFK grinders to stop them. They still get their experience, just EXTREMELY slower than normal. I also liked the /silence suggestion. That way anyone who had problems getting buisiness due to a buff bot could simply end his or her macro for a time. I would suggest making it last for 10 minutes and then have a 10 minute timer until the person could reapply the /silence. The command would create a window on the macroer's screen that allows them to choose to continue playing, or if they do not choose that option over a period of 1 minute, then their music and macro are paused for the time period above. Also, maybe you could add instrument decay. I know after blowing in an instrument for 6 hours there is bound to be some serious spit build up 
Just don't remove recursive macros! Think of the things that would go bye-bye! Armor On/Off Macros, Center of Being Macros, and the much needed Crafting Macros! I have heard the people preaching about how being able to Master a profession while AFK is not fair to the others...I ground Musician AT THE KEYBOARD in a 20 person groupas soon (asI got the money to travel to Coronet)for 10 days, each forabout 12 hours(I do have a life, these days weren't consecutive, only the days I had free)until I mastered! Last I checked no other profession given that kind of time commitment took that much time...Combat Professions can master in 2-4 days of equal timedepending on the grinding location. Doctor? What a joke...tumbling anyone? Only two come to mind that could take a comparable amount of time are Merchant and Politician, and thats just if they don't exploit or take over a large city (in a politician's case)
Just don't remove recursive macros! Think of the things that would go bye-bye! Armor On/Off Macros, Center of Being Macros, and the much needed Crafting Macros! I have heard the people preaching about how being able to Master a profession while AFK is not fair to the others...I ground Musician AT THE KEYBOARD in a 20 person groupas soon (asI got the money to travel to Coronet)for 10 days, each forabout 12 hours(I do have a life, these days weren't consecutive, only the days I had free)until I mastered! Last I checked no other profession given that kind of time commitment took that much time...Combat Professions can master in 2-4 days of equal timedepending on the grinding location. Doctor? What a joke...tumbling anyone? Only two come to mind that could take a comparable amount of time are Merchant and Politician, and thats just if they don't exploit or take over a large city (in a politician's case)
(g'.')-O Izual O-('.'t) 
Anistasio
Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:38 pm
#310
If you feel that 'we' NEED afk entertainers on 'adventure' planets, then we must also need AFK architects, weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, slicers, chefs, etc.I mean, my god
um..there are afk in all these professions..there called vendors
SurrealKnyte
Sat Aug 14, 2004 5:24 pm
#311
StikerRunningfly wrote:
SurrealKnyte wrote:
Why do you keep pushing for the removal of The /ui action toolbarSlot command?
We fought long and hard for a way to simplify our in-game macroing of keystrokes to retard Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and this was their approved solution. Sony approves in-game macroing (as long as you're at the keyboard). This command, if removed, would hurt more than help. They simply will never get rid of this command.
I'd be willing to bet you investment property on that.
So what kind of investment property do we get?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
LOL, none. I told you they weren't going to get rid of the /ui action commands. ALWAYS know the odds before you make a bet =D Actually, it was more of a guess based onyears ofprogramming. Their current plans on 'recursive' macro removal is a lot easier than trying to do away with /ui action commands. (Not to mention saner. My other character is a MM, Doc, and I'd hate trying to converse/socialize and not have /ui commands LOL).
You never know though, they have surprised us before, who is to say they won't do it again?
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