Dancer Archive
Thread: Some thoughts on dancers buffing themselves
I've found that I'm pulled in two directions with this issue. Since I despise Fox News, I'll name my two arguments after their horrendous slogan.
1. The "Fair" Argument:
Given the current state of the game, and the presence of several (what I feel to be) overpowered classes, dancers buffing themselves would seem to be fair. This is not to say that many classes do not need a lot of work - they obviously do - but the ability to buff ourselves is in no way comparable to say, one shot kills, large amounts of DoT, high HAM pets, etc. The buffing ability is most noticable as a Master, and I have always felt that a Master title should bring more significant benefits to any profession.
2. The "Balanced" Argument
In terms of a balanced game, I do not believe dancers should be able to buff themselves. The presence of over-powered classes
Stupid message boards.
2. The "balanced" argument. In terms of a balanced game, I do not believe dancers should be able to buff themselves. The presence of over-powered classes does not neccesarily justify this, as I do not believe those classes are balanced in terms of the game itself. I don't believe our buffs can be realistically compared to doctor buffs either, because, as has already been pointed out: doctors spend 140 points to get to master, while dancers spend "only" 104. Doctors also require materials, which they must either gather themselves or purchase from others - either way, an expensive proposition which dancers do not have. If the ultimate goal of the game is to promote commerce between the classes, it only makes sense to me that a dancer would have to seek out another dancer in order to gain a mind buff.
Anyway, these are thoughts which I've begun kicking around in my head, and I'd appreciate hearing other's viewpoints - and I'll respect your opinion a lot more if you can offer both pro and con arguments for both sides.
My thoughts:
I'm a dancer because I like to heal and I like to help my group members with the mind buff. But I am also a member of that group; an active participant that has an important job once the tent is torn down, dancer shoesput up andthe hunt begins. I'm also a master doctor meaning my mind bar is life and death to my team.
So as it stands now, I'm able to give everyone double their current mind except myself. I'm forced to live the up and down spice rollercoaster. We don't have a second dancer in my guild (we do have a couple musicians) and even so is it fair to make the group wait for me to buff her and then her to buff me before we go off to fight? That's a lot of down time for no reason.
Yes I know the arguement that a doctor works hard gathering material for buffs and works hard and therefore deserves to buff themselves. I live this hellish resource nightmare. But my thoughts are with out on the field. My mind bar should equal my groupmates especially since it was my tireless hours of grinding in the cantina that allowed them to get the buff in the first place.
In that sense, does it also make sense to be able to cure our own wounds? We've all seen the marksman who comes into the cantina, looks like a customer, but then whips out their slitherhorn. Obviously they spent the 15 points on novice entertainer to remove any dependance on our profession. Is this healthy?
i hate that!!!!
i'd trade the ability to heal my own mind for the ability to buff myself. i wonder how that would change the way things work?
i'm for the mind buff by the way, for the reasons posted above and also because i find it very difficult to find an entertainer of any sort who can give me a reasonable buff. i'd be fine with a cost associated with it. so long as it was cheaper than muon.
Sinda wrote:
I don't think self-buffing is really an earth-shaking issue. It'd be nice to have but we can work around it if we don't get it. I'd much rather see lowered Action costs, lowered fall rates, higher entertainer missions payouts and a "zero-XP-if-You're AFK"design change. Given all those, I think we'd be in darned fine shape as a profession. We can figure out other ways to buff our mind pools. I still want the holo-disk recording idea to get attention!
And lucky for you, all those are almost exactly whats on the table being worked on.(worked on as in either discused or put in soon)
Action costs going down next update, fall rates are being discussed but won't likely recieve much attention until our dev gets some more free time, and Entertainer missions are being worked on to get those improved which hopefully we'll see in the next update or two (but don't quote me, there is no exact timeline for themissions yet so don't hold yer breath).
The self mind buff will get some attention to, hopefully soon but maybe not. See, it wasn't that they didn't want us to be able to buff ourselves, its that the way the current system works, it couldn't be easily made so we can buff ourselves and they didn't have time to make the changes. (reguardless of what some of you may think, there is no current way to watch or listen to yourself which is possibly the biggest roadblock) It will take some work and a lot of changesto the buffing system in order for us to do that which isn't a priority for him right now.
So just hang in there everyone, hopefully you'll all get the changes you want to see. (might of said a few things the devs could get grumpy about so remember, No promises or timelines on anything! (except for the action cost reduction) Thats my story and I'm stickin too it if ya know what I mean.
this is just another roadblock for those of us who have mored varied skillsets, and it'd be great if it could be removed
I think dancers should be able to buff themselves. My reason is this: the primary limit in the game is skill points and dancersget almost no benefit from their skill point expenditure. Allowing them to buff one pool on themselves as compensation for the skill points is hardly excessive. Almost half of the dancer skill points only benefit other players anyhow (in faster healing rates).
Is this comparable to what a doctor has to go through? Not really. Never-the-less, having one self-benefit for over 100 skill points is a very minor boon. The only other benefit to master is the +7 defense and three new dances. In the overall scheme of the character classes, these are extremely minor.
Entertainers are all about entertaining others. It's our job to make others relax and enjoy themselves. In doing so, we ourselves do not relax...we work. Does it really make sense to be able to buff our own minds?
In that sense, does it also make sense to be able to cure our own wounds? We've all seen the marksman who comes into the cantina, looks like a customer, but then whips out their slitherhorn. Obviously they spent the 15 points on novice entertainer to remove any dependance on our profession. Is this healthy?
On another note, does the ability to buff our own minds overpower the doctor/entertainer combo? Will not every single doctor pick up entertainer skills so they never have to deal without a huge mind bar ever again?
Will this also not remove some of the social and interactive play between entertainers? I buff you, you buff me...gone. None of us need each other. No more private dances for that medic in my group that also is an entertainer...she can just buff herself.
Will this in general create even more of a mass influx into the entertainer professions of people who never should have been entertainers? We all know that the biggest problem right now in battle is being mind incapped. Don't you think a whole bunch of people will create even more AFK bots in the cantinas grinding all night to master in order to be able to eliminate this problem whenever they want to, thus removing the one thing that was finally giving us back some respect and financial reward?
A few things to think about. I'm not saying I'm for it or against it, but to me it's not as clear cut a decision as it seems.
- J
picklesSW wrote:
Entertainers are all about entertaining others. It's our job to make others relax and enjoy themselves. In doing so, we ourselves do not relax...we work. Does it really make sense to be able to buff our own minds?
In that sense, does it also make sense to be able to cure our own wounds? We've all seen the marksman who comes into the cantina, looks like a customer, but then whips out their slitherhorn. Obviously they spent the 15 points on novice entertainer to remove any dependance on our profession. Is this healthy?
To tack onto Pickles' good points, let me add from apractical view - if I'm a dancer performing in public, it's not necessarily a relaxing thing. Any real performer will tell you that a little bit of stage fright will increase the adrenaline and help them perform better, but that after the performance they're mentally exhausted. And BF and mind wound healing is based on the premise that watching or listening to a performance soothes your mind (heals it).
My position on this is that we should be able to /watch other dancers in our group and get the buff from them, but right now you can't do that if you're dancing as well.
I'm not that concerned about the entertainment dabblers, as it takes some work to get to Novice Dancer (and you're not going to buff anybody's mind as a Novice entertainer - not that I know of, anyway). So the part-timers aren't that much of a threat. What is a threat is the fact that SOE didn't make the buffs completely targetable to prevent AFK macro'ing. We finally get a nice feature to our class and it can still be Zombied.
I don't think self-buffing is really an earth-shaking issue. It'd be nice to have but we can work around it if we don't get it. I'd much rather see lowered Action costs, lowered fall rates, higher entertainer missions payouts and a "zero-XP-if-You're AFK"design change. Given all those, I think we'd be in darned fine shape as a profession. We can figure out other ways to buff our mind pools. I still want the holo-disk recording idea to get attention!
you don't want to heal your own wounds? You guys must never leave the cantina. If they took away the ability to heal yourself I would drop master dancer in a heart beat. I'm sorry but I feel there needs to be some benefitfor meall that dancing I did. Selfish, yes but I could have spent those skillpoints in much more selfish ways than a character that heals other players wounds. Asking for a little kick back for my efforts isn't too much to ask.
And thank you for the update Ravenmist. I'm glad they are looking into adding the ability to self buff.
I'm sorry but I feel there needs to be some benefitfor meall that dancing I did
At master you get +7 to melee and ranged defense. I know, it's not much.