Dancer Archive

Dancer/Musicans Ideas

I have noticed dancers/Musicans getting more usless as the game has gone on.

Before CU they were required for PVP and also helped quite alot in PVE.

So considering all this i decided to sit down and storm up some ideas to make dancers and musicans viable for combat again.

*NO DANCER BUFF OR MUSICIAN BUFF EXCEEDS 60MINS

*A MUSICAN AND DANCER BUFF CAN BE STACKED, MAKING BOTH USEFUL AGAIN

*A specific dance or tune grants a specific buff. IE. Exotic 4 could do health boost bufffor dancers.

PVE BUFFS:

*Inspiration XP buff = Grants 15% bonus xp. Granted for 60mins. (Both Dancers and Musicans Can do this).

*Inspiration Craft Buff = Increases the chance of sucess on experimental roll.Granted for 60mins. (Both Dancers and Musicans Can do this).

** Both XP and Craft Buffs can be stacked

PVP BUFFS:

*Health Boost = Grants 500 health for 60mins ( Both Dancers and Musicans Can do this)

*Dance Focus Buff = Grants 50 Melee Defense for 60mins. (Only a Dancer can do)

*Musical Focus Buff = Grants 50 Ranged Defense for 60mins (Only a Musican can do)

*Dance Regen Buff = Grants 200 regen to health for 60mins. (Only a Dancer can do)

*Musical Regen Buff = Grants 200 regen to action/mind for 60mins. (Only a Musican can do)

COMBOS:

Heres a example of a combo:

Heath Boost & Musical Regen

This would help the average player in PVP, giving the muscians/dancer a support role as seen before CU.

I am thinking the 200 regen may be abit much but these are just ideas.

Message Edited by sahjhan on 08-05-2005 01:57 PM

Message Edited by sahjhan on 08-05-2005 02:05 PM

if i have spelt wrong sorry was in rush

I think the title may prevent you from getting the kind of feedback that you are looking for. It sounds from the title as if you miss the services of an AFK bot, and that your ideas are meant to make bots more useful and prevalent? If so, you're not likely to get a warm welcome.

Edit: From rereading your post, it's pretty clear you're not pro-afk. Do you mean that you miss your friends who are no longer playing due to the decreased functionality of entertianer profs? If so, you might want to change your title.

Message Edited by NJ62 on 08-04-2005 10:03 PM

Message Edited by sahjhan on 08-05-2005 02:08 PM

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sahjhan wrote:

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NJ62 wrote:
I think the title may prevent you from getting the kind of feedback that you are looking for. It sounds from the title as if you miss the services of an AFK bot, and that your ideas are meant to make bots more useful and prevalent? If so, you're not likely to get a warm welcome.

Edit: From rereading your post, it's pretty clear you're not pro-afk. Do you mean that you miss your friends who are no longer playing due to the decreased functionality of entertianer profs? If so, you might want to change your title.

Message Edited by NJ62 on 08-04-2005 10:03 PM

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changed there you go .... I don't like AFK bots... These are just ideas since BF no longer exists. I don't even go near a dancer now i am full temp. There usless to me. I want to change this.

Message Edited by sahjhan on 08-05-2005 02:08 PM

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We are going to get additional functionalities (more Inspirations). However, based on the information we've been given, we believe these will be designed to benefit non-combat skills.

Here's what I would like to see change: The opinion that you can't go near a dancer or musician unless you aregetting something from them that would enhance your performanceright then. Have you ever just dropped in where your friends were hanging justto goof off? Or just stop by the theater when you've heard a couple of us are hanging there, to show off your template? () I know you do, Avi. All players have "downtime" that they make for themselves, those times when you're doing nothing of any consequence. You know..those nights when I'm doing something like...say...ID'ing Oxi..and you know Mell is hanging there and Traint stops in to say hi..and yeah Avi..like tonight in Dearic.

The cantinas, theaters and hotels were intended to be fairly neutral places where players could go after combat or a long crafting run and just hang and chat. The entertainer professions were designed to draw the kind of socially oriented players who would keep the conversation going. Our dance and musicianship skills are to liven the place up a little. Mind wounds and BF were something to force you to have to come to us, mind buffs ended up being that way too. The devs seem to prefer it be a player's choice if and when they come to the cantinas and theaters to hang out. All you have to do if you want to visit with an entertaineris make that choice.

Message Edited by Esharra on 08-05-2005 01:49 AM

I am sitting in a cantina as I RE lvl 1 parts right now. No reason. Just felt like watchin'.

Message Edited by sahjhan on 08-05-2005 09:34 PM

The point I was making is that you ended up hanging with a few friends, chatting, dueling and wasting away a little extra time at a theater where there were entertainers around. Not because you had to get a buff. The point being,we were all just hanging and it was fun..and that's sort of the whole point of playing a game.

The problem with us helping in combat is that any asset to combat becomes a necessity. And then we get replaced by bots..again.

Message Edited by Esharra on 08-05-2005 05:54 AM

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Esharra wrote:

But we were all just hanging and it was fun..and that's sort of the whole point of playing a game.

The problem with us helping in combat is that any asset to combat becomes a necessity. And then we get replaced by bots..again.

Message Edited by Esharra on 08-05-200505:37 AM

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sahjhan wrote:

I can understand what your saying here. But if the system is done correctly it wouldn't be a necessity.

As I PVP alot its the skills that make the player not the buffs.

Of course it is the skills, not the buffs. I pvp on another server so I know what you're saying. But for each one player that actually has the skills there are 20 who think they can make up for lack of skills with buffs.

When refering to bots. I think of AFK people dancing or playing music in MO. This is still possible so i don't really understand what you are saying here. Only difference between now and before is the BOTS can not heal BF now since it is gone or give useful buffs for combat.

Generally, when we refer to bots we mean characters which are created with the express purpose of providing our services while unattended. AFK grinders are a regular pain in our backsides but bots were our death because they were providing the services that were supposed to be our source of income. They did it in the same place 24/7 and they did it for free. Their whole existence was wrapped around preventing their owners from having to "bother" with us and so their owners could "corner our market".

Dancers have been made for crafters or grinders now in my views. Before with the MIND boosts it use to give it had a purpose in both PVE and PVP. I can only see a use in PVE now.

Actually, Dancers were made for the players who wanted to play dancers, either because they like dancing/performing or healing and buffing. Our mechanics weren't made for other players, they were made to provide us with a marketable skill.

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Meh..one more edit...

I believe where your thinking and my thinking parts company is that; in your mind our reason for existing was to provide you with something. Now that the "something" is gone, you see no more reason for our existance and that worries you because you like some of us.On the other hand, our reason for our existence is to have fun in a game. Sure, we need interdependency and a marketable skill. But our being here doesn't rest on our ability to provide a marketableskill that is instrumental in pvp.

Message Edited by Esharra on 08-05-2005 06:47 AM

The idea behind the cantina was simple.... Holocron and some of the original designers had a very clear picture of what a cantina should be and I think not many who currently design the game even remotely understand it. You have to go back to Holocron's previous major MMORPG project, UO. In UO they tried to make a game that appealled to role players and not video gamers (although video gamers jumped on board reguarless). In a pen and paper RPG (D&D, Star Wars, etc.) more often than not your characters will all start and finish an adventure at a gathering place like a tavern, a pub or in the case of Star Wars a cantina. In UO they added in taverns in the hope that players would use them for this purpose without artificial assistance to make the tavern a place players HAD to go.

Well, after a while a gathering place formed that was not the tavern. The video gamer needed a place that had a disticnt use so instead of the tavern being the defacto meeting area the players huddled around the banks instead (since the bank was a place players could put items). It was because of this that when Holocron and the other veteren game designers who worked on the early SWG game that is far superior to the current game they decided to give these RPG staple social hubs a definate purpose. Players would NEED to go there after combat in order to make them places to find other adventurers. They also realised that to make these places even more imersive you'd need to have someone charismatic there to greet the adventurers and hopefully do more to encourage the RP atmosphere.

The entertainer was born as a way to give the tavern a RPer to generate even more of an imersive atmosphere of Star Wars cantina. The entertainer professions were always intended to be played by a role player who probably didn't care much about the game mechanics and instead just needed some visuals, a title over their head and a game mechanic that made them absolutely necessary to an adventurer in order to keep them playing. It is this last aspect that the current designers have no clue about since they are not interested in keeping SWG as a RPG.

I know a lot of you think I am full of #$%&, but we don't have to guess about what the original game designers were thinking, because during beta Holocron posted that very message to the entertainer boards in answer to one of the video gamers questioning why entertainers couldn't adventure as a bard.

So, basically until they go back and return our use as forced down time we will never be working as intended.

You're absolutely right, Reachy. That is why I keep saying entertainers need a "hook" into the game system. So far we have none. Their only answer is "well one is coming" with zero specifics, so who knows what it will be? But given what we seem to have heard about these things (non-combat prof buffs) it's unlikely that our hook will be a really strong one... meaning the entertainer professions have become mostly eye-candy now. And that's sad.

Fishermagi, who posts a lot on the general board, nailed it right on the head with this analogy. The game has gone from one of interdependent capitalism, to one of kill-loot-trade medievalism. And that leaves dancers and musicians (and a lot of other profs, in fact) pretty much out in the cold.

C