Dancer Archive
Thread: how can we get thier attention?
There is no content for us. Nothing to do but sit in a cantina and play or dance. We have a very small number of songs and dances we can do, with very little room for creativity. Our missions pay next to nothing and are boring even if they did pay something. There is no gear or clothing that helps us, unless you count the bio stuff (which does not help us in the right ways) and unless you count the ability of a fleshwrap to get tips. There are no props for us to own or have, no special abilities and we only get to buff a single thing (the mind).
The only real content we had was the ability to meet and get to know interesting people, and they've all but destroyed that by allowing our fellow entertainers to become zombies and turning the rest of the player base against us by giving us a primarily negative role (they need us, they don't want us).
The fact that so few play this profession, coupled with the fact that most of those few play it AFK, indicates to me that we need one hell of a lot of work to make this profession a fun and rewarding one.
That's just my opinion though.
Preach on sister Silly, I'm with you 100%. I'm tired of being told that chatting in one place in each city is enough (please don't even bring up theaters)... TSO which is basically _only_ chat has more content than that. If cantina "gameplay" was more like TSO, that might be cool... little games, fun props like drinks, gambling, whatever, those would all be fun and social if that's what cantinas are supposed to be. Cantinas need help big time, with or with out the zombies.
Combat players would benefit greatly by letting us heal bf outside of cantinas; going to a cantina should be a fun and social thing, not a holding tank for healing hostages with bf. I would be happier if I could heal to my full ability everywhere, but I would settle for a nice ranger tent. Making cantinas fun would be such a better solution than restricting our already limited purpose and annoying all the combat types with such a hassle of a down time.
If you post in the Starsider forums and ask the non-dancers what they think, I'll come rally with you. 
There was just a dev post in the ID forum about making that class "fun for all classes", I'd really like to see that for dancers too. ^^
Oh, and the fact that I can't target heal instead of just healing whoever happens to be watching _really_ bugs me even though I'm neut.It feels way too much like rape and way too little like being a healer class.
It's just stupid for gaming reasons that factioned people can'tauto deny their enemies,personal feelings aside. If we aren't really healers and are just Barbies, I want a lot more clothes, in tons of more colors (what is up with no red boots?), and a tiara... I woundn't say no to pools, pink jeeps, and cute pets either. I'm pretty sure Barbies are supposed to get those. 
i think its retarded that dancers/musicians cant heal BF in camps if you want my honest opinion.... hell if you talk them into leaving the cantina i think they should be able to sue their skills to the full extent...
my opinion 
A couple of bugs with dancer right now....
- /duel or factioned player attacking you while dancing won't break your character from the dance animation but will leave your character unable to perform flourishes, heal or fight.
- /stopdance doesn't immediately end a dance. It waits for you to finish the last of the flourish animation (not allowing you to fight in combat etc.)
- Mind buffs can be done in less than thirty seconds using buffs and /stopdance to let you flourish more often.
- Captivator is still misspelled as Captivater.
- Not sure how the bug works but it is still randomly possible to gain music and dance skill at the same time.
- Formal and Lyrical dances look like your player is skipping randomly around the dancefloor.
- /watch is hit and miss. For whatever reason sometimes it will not take when someone uses it just once. Same is true of the radial menu option. /stopwatch works more often than the radial menu option as well. For whatever reason these don't seem to work properly.
- Enemy faction players can heal minds by watching enemy factioned dancers. Must be a bug since enemy faction players can't trade with or doctor heal each other.
- While dancing most clothing doesn't work right. It bleeds through and stretches wildly.
- Holding any weapon other than a vibro knuckler lets a dancer dance without falling.
I'm sure if we thought about it we could think of a few more. The reason our bugs don't get attention is that the majority of players in the dancer profession don't mind them. They just play around the bugs and instead come here to demand silly things like new outfits or dance flourishes. What have always needed though is working content. Dancer is broken. Just look at the entertainer missions... A master can only make the same amount as a novice entertainer for the same time requirement.
There is no content for us. Nothing to do but sit in a cantina and play or dance. We have a very small number of songs and dances we can do, with very little room for creativity. Our missions pay next to nothing and are boring even if they did pay something. There is no gear or clothing that helps us, unless you count the bio stuff (which does not help us in the right ways) and unless you count the ability of a fleshwrap to get tips. There are no props for us to own or have, no special abilities and we only get to buff a single thing (the mind).
Yeah, well, it was also my hope that they'd clean up the cantinas and make them fun to play in again. Turns out we're both disappointed in that they don't intend to do much of anything for us, I guess.
I guess my point is...I'd rather they turn us into bards like you suggest than let us slowly die out completely, which I believe is their current plan.
bugs no where to be seen...Issue one has got to be improving the NPC city cantina enviroments. Across the servers, Theed, Coronet and maybe Anchorhead too, seem to be the meccas for training entertainers. The scrambling to get in the big group, the entryway dancing to get viewers, high-profile begging AFK zombies all work to gether to make the live performers want to go AFK too. Now that i have mastered musician, yes, some was done AFK,I barely enter thes places anymore in favor of Player cantinas where others are getting together to actually be creative with there skills.
The Jedi Quest change should improve this, but the SWG community needs to break down this culture that thinks everyone has an inalienable right to gain maxinmum xp while working, sleeping, or doing house chores. One day as a group leader, I was blasted for bumping AFKs for live players. Currently, new entertainers are learning whatI consider bad gameplay habits as they learn there initial skills in the popular NPC cantinas.
Ilove and hate the ability for entertainers to macro. On one hand irresponsible macroing devalues the profession, yet it also allows entertainers to be more social and can be a great creative outlet when used to sing songs and prest performance routines.
A few other points:
1) While annoying that anyone can view your performance for its effect, that is how it works in the real world if you are on stage anyone can take it in.
2) Barbie should have more toys. LOL
3) A few more BF locales would be great, but would they take all those needing healing away from the cantinas?
4)I wonder if ther may be a few combat abilities that may make sense for entertainers to have? Nothing big, but maybe Dancers should get a small dodge bonus here or their through the skill tree or musicians get burst run efficiency because they have better breathing and endurance from playing long stretches. it seems like they may make some sense conceptually and might make the professions a little more viable.
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