Instead of trying to make the game more fun to play, the dev team is looking at ways to make it less fun for the folks who actually play the game, in an attempt to reduce the folks who use macros.

forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m

Why not just make an attachment that gives an electric shock every few minutes and requires the player to hit a button when getting shocked?  If the game isn't fun enough to play, do they really think forcing players to do things they don't enjoy so they can do the things they do enjoy isd going to improve things?  There are 'Where did everyone go?' threads popping up again, and the response by the dev team is to make playing the game an even bigger chore?

As always, the SOE response to 'exploits' is to punish the folks who play the game legitimately.

No matter what they do people will find away around it and automate it and if not they will simply quit...or cancel their entertainer alts.   Many of today's SWG players do not like profession interdependency and prefer to be self sufficient. 

This "fix" does not address the underlying issue that buffs do not last long enough and take too long to get in order to get back  into the game whether that be PvE or PvP.  The entertainers want the bots gone but they do not understand that these power players could care less about social interaction.

  One more lets beat up the players.    What does this solve?  Absolutely nothing.   The main problem isnt addresed and never was.    Ent buffs should not be lost after death, especially when you die multiple times in pvp.    This made people like me get a second account to keep a Ent active all the time.   I use the multiple accounts trick and had a doc and ent on to rebuff fast.    This was due to having to run to the local cantina then waiting around or more than likely not finding one active.    

I rebuff in about 2mins 10 times faster compaired to the other guy that needs to run to Eisly find a ent then run back for that pvp that lasts for about a min.  It isnt worth the time but if you want to keep up with a player like myself that uses almost every trick when pvping its worth the wait.   SWG has become buff wars over the years, absolutly backwards from what the NGE was supposed to do, it was supposed to get rid of constant need for Ent and Doc buffs.

Ent buffs more than likely frustrated more people into leaving than anything else, not right away but the constant waste of time and frustration of constantly loosing to buff hoes does take a toll on players.   But I see that many players in other mmos are doing this now to get an advantage.    The Devs in SWG really need to address the root problems instead of constantly using short cuts to fix problems.    This is only going to make people mad, I already see Ents saying this is wasting a big portion of my time.    God what a headache this must be.  Its like killing the entire proffesion to get rid of 30 people using buff bots.      

Fun is a long forgotten aspect to the Devs over at SOE, honestly the game hasnt been fun for alot of people since more than half the population left after the NGE.   A game is only as fun as its community, I love some old games but the population is so low it makes the game not as fun as it could be.    Thats what I constantly heard from freinds that leave, it just isnt the same and the other is people just arnt the same.   Well I think its the well rounded community that makes a game feel alive.   SWG feels like its in intesive care and really is headed to the morgue.

Personally, I've always wondered why SOE didn't add NPC buffers to the game. That way, they were actually removing creds from the players, but, the players could get buffs at anytime.

Yes, I know this would have meant that Docs and Ent. proffessions would have lost out, but, then, they could have made the Doc proffession more engaging, and an actual team player instead of a just a bot buffer

"Ent buffs should not be lost after death, especially when you die multiple times in pvp."

Well GU10 on TC now and live in a week or two thats exactly what happens, your ent buff will decay not be lost in a PvP death, you should get about 10 deaths before your ent buff is gone in the new system.

Originally posted by Gutboy

"Ent buffs should not be lost after death, especially when you die multiple times in pvp."

 

Well GU10 on TC now and live in a week or two thats exactly what happens, your ent buff will decay not be lost in a PvP death, you should get about 10 deaths before your ent buff is gone in the new system.

 

Can you share where you saw that documented? I saw other buffs are like that, which was a welcome change, but not the ent ones.

Macro's are fine, but 3rd party software is not.

Second, if an entertainer is afk buffing people currently, they HAVE  to be using 3rd party software since you cannot emulate mouse clicks in the in-game macro system.  So current entertainers who don't break the rules are completely unaffected by this except for having to take an extra 5 seconds to enter an extra code (Oh n03s!  Call  T3h Pohle3ce!!!11!!1, a h0|3 ektr@H PH1Ve s3koNds!!!!!!)

{ Mod Edit }

some gaming players are hilarious.They try to justify any forms of cheating or exploiting.When  i hear someone say i wan my buffs even when i die,that is just pathetic,you should not even be gaming,IDK  i cannot think of a game offhand that would totally let you login and get everything you want with no effort and no risk,if there ws it truly could be the fodder for the chat rooms flaming "CAREBEARS" are us.

The simple thing to remember when gaming ,is that you are suppose to be "playing the game" not scripting,not botting,not exploiting,if you feel the game is too boring to play properly,then yes by all means ,get out of the game and go find something that you feel is fun.

The problem i feel with todays gamers ,is that there is no real such term as "FUN" that is just something people are using ,if the game is letting them cheat or break the game to the point it is of no challenge at all,like not even playing the game.If the player has to actually play thew game ,the proper way it was designed,it is no longer fun..lmao pathetic gamers.They all belong in WOW :D or in pre school,learning how to use building blocks...dammit i guess that would be no fun,even the pre school building blocks are not exploitable,you have to actually use your own imagination..oh well,maybe somewhere out there is some gaming for the children..for now it seems to be WOW.

I think what gamers need is after they die,they have a hotbar icon that allows them to respawn in same place and get an auto kill,on the person who killed them.That is not enough ,to be fair and keep it FUN ,we should have FULL loot of that player and he should be forced to logout,dam him for ruining my FUN.Then when that player who killed me logs back in,he should not be allowed to use any buffs and i get to damage him 5x for free with no retaliation,and my buffs should count as double,because after all it is about fun for "ME"it is not a game,it is my own personal "playground".If a MOB kills me ,i should be able to have buffs that last for 3 days straight,and i cannot be killed by thaty mob ever again i nthe game,after all dying is not fun,and i wnt this game to be fun...oh i should get an auto 5 million gold for dying ,that would actually make dying fun,remeber it is all about the "FUN" right??

Originally posted by Wizardry

some gaming players are hilarious.They try to justify any forms of cheating or exploiting.When  i hear someone say i wan my buffs even when i die,that is just pathetic,you should not even be gaming,IDK  i cannot think of a game offhand that would totally let you login and get everything you want with no effort and no risk,if there ws it truly could be the fodder for the chat rooms flaming "CAREBEARS" are us.

The simple thing to remember when gaming ,is that you are suppose to be "playing the game" not scripting,not botting,not exploiting,if you feel the game is too boring to play properly,then yes by all means ,get out of the game and go find something that you feel is fun.

The problem i feel with todays gamers ,is that there is no real such term as "FUN" that is just something people are using ,if the game is letting them cheat or break the game to the point it is of no challenge at all,like not even playing the game.If the player has to actually play thew game ,the proper way it was designed,it is no longer fun..lmao pathetic gamers.They all belong in WOW :D or in pre school,learning how to use building blocks...dammit i guess that would be no fun,even the pre school building blocks are not exploitable,you have to actually use your own imagination..oh well,maybe somewhere out there is some gaming for the children..for now it seems to be WOW.

I think what gamers need is after they die,they have a hotbar icon that allows them to respawn in same place and get an auto kill,on the person who killed them.That is not enough ,to be fair and keep it FUN ,we should have FULL loot of that player and he should be forced to logout,dam him for ruining my FUN.Then when that player who killed me logs back in,he should not be allowed to use any buffs and i get to damage him 5x for free with no retaliation,and my buffs should count as double,because after all it is about fun for "ME"it is not a game,it is my own personal "playground".If a MOB kills me ,i should be able to have buffs that last for 3 days straight,and i cannot be killed by thaty mob ever again i nthe game,after all dying is not fun,and i wnt this game to be fun...oh i should get an auto 5 million gold for dying ,that would actually make dying fun,remeber it is all about the "FUN" right??

Heh...I  love the autokill icon idea.  Kind of  an eye for an eye thing...but then that would just be exploited for GCW points.  ;)

My god SOE is stupid.   This game in it's current state is FAR more buff dependant than any previous version, they made it that way. Ent, Medic, Officer, food/drink, stims, GCW and beyond.  Buffs are more important now than they were in PreCU and much easier and faster to get, it's obvious to me that this design would invite and even encourage AFK buffers. 

Originally posted by Fishermage

Originally posted by Gutboy

"Ent buffs should not be lost after death, especially when you die multiple times in pvp."

 

Well GU10 on TC now and live in a week or two thats exactly what happens, your ent buff will decay not be lost in a PvP death, you should get about 10 deaths before your ent buff is gone in the new system.

 

 

Can you share where you saw that documented? I saw other buffs are like that, which was a welcome change, but not the ent ones.

From the patch notes:

Star Wars Galaxies: Game Update 10

Publish Notes, May 13, 2009

PvP

Introducing Battlefields to Star Wars Galaxies!
There are four new PvP regions added to the game. Each is a battlefield complete with its own objectives. To play on one of the battlefields you simply need to use the slash command "battlefield" (/battlefield).
This will bring up a user interface allowing you to view battlefield status or to queue up for one.
Players can queue up as a group, the group leader does this, or can queue individually. Groups are chosen at a higher priority than singles. Singles will be used to fill empty places in the battlefield teams.
Once a battlefield has enough members ready to participate, a gunship will arrive to take you to the battle!
Players have to be members of the Rebel or Imperial army, to join a battlefield. Each faction (team) can have up to 16 players, with a minimum of 4, on the battlefield at a time.
Participating in a Battlefield will award the player Battlefield tokens. You get 5 for winning, 3 for a tie, and 1 for losing. You can then spend these tokens at your factions vendor:
Imperials: Speak to Staff Sergeant Rothax in Talus' Imperial Outpost
Rebels: Speak to Staff Sergeant Levardio in Rori's Rebel Military Outpost
These Staff Sergeants will sell you all new weapons and armor.
Buffs that are normally removed during death, now simply lose 10% of their total duration from their remaining duration if the death was PvP related.

Originally posted by Gutboy

Originally posted by Fishermage

Originally posted by Gutboy

"Ent buffs should not be lost after death, especially when you die multiple times in pvp."

 

Well GU10 on TC now and live in a week or two thats exactly what happens, your ent buff will decay not be lost in a PvP death, you should get about 10 deaths before your ent buff is gone in the new system.

 

 

Can you share where you saw that documented? I saw other buffs are like that, which was a welcome change, but not the ent ones.

 

From the patch notes:

 

Star Wars Galaxies: Game Update 10

Publish Notes, May 13, 2009

PvP

Introducing Battlefields to Star Wars Galaxies!
There are four new PvP regions added to the game. Each is a battlefield complete with its own objectives. To play on one of the battlefields you simply need to use the slash command "battlefield" (/battlefield).
This will bring up a user interface allowing you to view battlefield status or to queue up for one.
Players can queue up as a group, the group leader does this, or can queue individually. Groups are chosen at a higher priority than singles. Singles will be used to fill empty places in the battlefield teams.
Once a battlefield has enough members ready to participate, a gunship will arrive to take you to the battle!
Players have to be members of the Rebel or Imperial army, to join a battlefield. Each faction (team) can have up to 16 players, with a minimum of 4, on the battlefield at a time.
Participating in a Battlefield will award the player Battlefield tokens. You get 5 for winning, 3 for a tie, and 1 for losing. You can then spend these tokens at your factions vendor:
Imperials: Speak to Staff Sergeant Rothax in Talus' Imperial Outpost
Rebels: Speak to Staff Sergeant Levardio in Rori's Rebel Military Outpost
These Staff Sergeants will sell you all new weapons and armor.
Buffs that are normally removed during death, now simply lose 10% of their total duration from their remaining duration if the death was PvP related.

Yup, I read that, and they have been notoriously misleading in their patch notes. Do you have anyone, a real player, confirming this on test?

Plus the death has to be PvP related, so that doesn't help most players.

Changing up the entertainer buff process has nothing to do with macros, since you can't automate the buff process using macros. It has to do with people botting using third-party programs.

That said, I still don't think it's a necessary change, since I don't think the prominence of entertainers botting with third-party programs is anywhere close to level that people in the entertainer community, such as it is, claim it to be.

Originally posted by kobie173

Changing up the entertainer buff process has nothing to do with macros, since you can't automate the buff process using macros. It has to do with people botting using third-party programs.

That said, I still don't think it's a necessary change, since I don't think the prominence of entertainers botting with third-party programs is anywhere close to level that people in the entertainer community, such as it is, claim it to be.

I agree...seems there would be more pressing issues to spend coding time on than this. 

Originally posted by Valeran

Originally posted by kobie173

Changing up the entertainer buff process has nothing to do with macros, since you can't automate the buff process using macros. It has to do with people botting using third-party programs.

That said, I still don't think it's a necessary change, since I don't think the prominence of entertainers botting with third-party programs is anywhere close to level that people in the entertainer community, such as it is, claim it to be.

 

I agree...seems there would be more pressing issues to spend coding time on than this. 

Yeah, I really don't see the point. Entertainers on the forums complain that the third-party botters are costing them business, but I play pretty regularly and have been in numerous buff houses and cantinas and have never, ever, ever, ever seen one.

I've always hated macros in mmorpgs and wish'd they were taken outta the game from the start. All they did was allow people to go AFK instead of actually playing the game because some things were really boring. How about just make the game fun instead? Doctor buffs for example people just buff botted and everyone was AFK which was really annoying.

What SOE needed to do was get rid of macros and make Doctor buffs like they are today where they help but they arn't needed to do most of the content. What entertainers have today is much better because the player has to tell the entertainer what they want and again they arn't needed to play the game but they offer an advantage.

Just such a shame that they didn't fix buffs and the armour in the Pre CU system.

I rarely used macros except for my armorsmith during leveling and I had a harvester macro that speeded up adding maintenance and opening the hopper.  If I ever encountered macro users in PvP they were dead pretty quick really.

I have no problem really with people who use macros.  It is and was a part of the game by design and looked at as a take it or leave it kind of thing. 

SOE is looking at the macro issue from the wrong point of view.  They keep looking at ways to stop the vast majority of macro users even though it was put in the game by their design.   What they should be doing is looking at why people turn to using macros in the first place and address that underlying issue.  Certian parts of the game are completely tedious.  I am not saying that is necessarily bad but they certainly have alot of game systems within SWG that are.

That being said the afkers will always find a way to do it third party or not.  The biggest issue I have with SOE is that they leave this sort of gameplay in the game for a very long time thus making it for a lack of a better term "normal".  Same thing with the basebusting thing.  If it was such an issue why didn't they address it when first reported?

Persistent World.  SOE in regards to SWG never get it. 

They use terms like "not  intended gameplay" when it is really the players who ultimately decided how the game is played not the developers.  If they do not like how a game system is being used or a bug is being used to circumvent game systems then fix them...but do it quickly, efficiently, and with quality.  Do not wait years and then do a V8 on everyone and "fix" something that has become the norm due to their own lack of effort. 

I still cannot help think what this game could have been had SOE done the one thing Blizzard does really well and that is polish.  I still wonder if they really have a QA team and if they do what they get paid to do?

Ents should have never been made into buff merchants...not Pre-CU, not now.  It turns the profession into something that resembles a broken doctor profession...a doctor that takes tons of time and a contrived process just to get people the things they need.  And the buffs don't do much to make entertainment more valued in SWG.  In fact, the buffs just make entertainment into something that isn't very entertaining...for the buffer and the buffee.

In fact, everything that was ever wrong with the entertainment professions can be traced back directly to the enhancement abilities. It is simply something that is too antithetical to what entertainment should be about in SWG.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

Ents should have never been made into buff merchants...not Pre-CU, not now.  It turns the profession into something that resembles a broken doctor profession...a doctor that takes tons of time and a contrived process just to get people the things they need.  And the buffs don't do much to make entertainment more valued in SWG.  In fact, the buffs just make entertainment into something that isn't very entertaining...for the buffer and the buffee.

In fact, everything that was ever wrong with the entertainment professions can be traced back directly to the enhancement abilities. It is simply something that is too antithetical to what entertainment should be about in SWG.

I think what I liked about the entertainers is the battle fatigue and mind wound healing mini system.  It gave people reason to go to the cantina and was a great way to congregate and socialize.

Originally posted by Valeran

I rarely used macros except for my armorsmith during leveling and I had a harvester macro that speeded up adding maintenance and opening the hopper.  If I ever encountered macro users in PvP they were dead pretty quick really.

I have no problem really with people who use macros.  It is and was a part of the game by design and looked at as a take it or leave it kind of thing. 

SOE is looking at the macro issue from the wrong point of view.  They keep looking at ways to stop the vast majority of macro users even though it was put in the game by their design.   What they should be doing is looking at why people turn to using macros in the first place and address that underlying issue.  Certian parts of the game are completely tedious.  I am not saying that is necessarily bad but they certainly have alot of game systems within SWG that are.

That being said the afkers will always find a way to do it third party or not.  The biggest issue I have with SOE is that they leave this sort of gameplay in the game for a very long time thus making it for a lack of a better term "normal".  Same thing with the basebusting thing.  If it was such an issue why didn't they address it when first reported?

Persistent World.  SOE in regards to SWG never get it. 

They use terms like "not  intended gameplay" when it is really the players who ultimately decided how the game is played not the developers.  If they do not like how a game system is being used or a bug is being used to circumvent game systems then fix them...but do it quickly, efficiently, and with quality.  Do not wait years and then do a V8 on everyone and "fix" something that has become the norm due to their own lack of effort. 

I still cannot help think what this game could have been had SOE done the one thing Blizzard does really well and that is polish.  I still wonder if they really have a QA team and if they do what they get paid to do?

 

What really stands out for me about this whole issue is that SOE has never had a really cohesive vision for this game.  They've never seemed to know where they were going or how to get there.  Well I think Raph did, but ultimately his vision was voted down, and he was shuffled up.  In hindsight, that was probably the beginning of the end.

I still have the original manual that encourages macro use, and offers some instructions.  Then later, people seemed to get bent out of shape while people used macros.  They also created the game so that you could loop a macro and run it afk.  Many people did this to help others out.  It was helpful because without the buffs offered via the macros, you couldn't play the game.  Much of the most enjoyable content could only be accessed if you had doctor and entertainer buffs.  So, you were happy if you found a dancer running a macro, or a doctor running a macro.  They helped you out, so you tipped them, which helped them out.  Then you could go to places like the death watch bunker etc.

Now the direction of the game has changed so many times that what once was helpful and intended is now seen as offensive.  Honestly I think that there's so much confusion among the players because the game direction has changed so drastically on so many different occasions.

My only hope at this point is that LEC and Bioware can learn from this history.  The new StarWars MMO needs one, well-designed, cohesive vision.  They need to get the foundation right, from the start, and then build on it.  Here's hoping.

P.S. They also need to get the business model right; I'm watching that quite closely.  Just give people a good service for a reasonable, predictable price.  No scams and gimmicks.  Hopefully they'll also learn from SWG that scams and gimmicks can lead to a mass player exodus.