Dancer Archive
Thread: You finally convinced me!!
Adding the extra 2 minutes of mandatory buffing time has resulted in the loss of 2 minutes for buffs. So with the buffs hitting at 2 hours each, that's taking a big chunk of time!! Further that by the HUGE lines the dancers get lined up to do buffs. It is just not fair.
Dancer buffs should be instant via an "Uberbuff" hotkey and should last a minimum of 47 days. It is also very unfair that combat classes are good at combat. Dancers are getting the short end of the stick on this too. I propose and instant kill command for dancers as well.
And heck, to make EVERYONE happy, let's introduce a new NPC class. Fully automated, you only log on and collect their money. Oh wait. We kinda have that already. Hmmmm...
Ok ok, how about this. Instant teleport to mission location. I mean, heck sometimes it takes 5 or more minutes to make the run. If 2 mins is the end of the world for entertainers and thier buffs, 5 mins has to be catastrophic to mission runners!!
What about those poor crafters? Slaving over harvesters and surveyors. I am sure they laugh at the pettiness in here regarding 2 mins. Shouldn't they all just harvest to full instantly? And while we are on the subject of crafters, those 30+ second construction times are out of whack!! We want those at one second.
You should be able to max your char in a 2 hour play period. Anything else is just silly. Don't the designers know that we want the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and we don't even wanna have to walk to it. Teleport us instantly. Maybe the only fair thing it to make everyone master jedi's and max out their bank accounts.
Or maybe... just maybe... many of us are missing the whole point of the game. It's all about the journey. There may be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but face the facts, no one is ever getting to the end.
Enjoy your journey. Embrace the fact that the other live people are what make this type of game unique. Instead of bitching about 2 minutes lost, spend those 2 minutes chatting with someone you just met. Say hello to people every now and then. Assist people with insight, advice, and war stories when you can. You might just come to realize there is more to SWG then killing monsters and collecting credits and items.
I will be sure to wear my flame retardant gear when I return.
-Flechette
Problem I have withthe contraversy over bufftimesis this: the fastest buff is never fast enough, nor cheap enough. Ten minutes was a standard that worked....until it could be done in five. However, five wasn't good enough....untill it was 3:10. 3:10 paled in comparison to 30 seconds....but I wonder.....was 30 seconds ever fast enough?
Let's say that instantaneous buffs were possible....you think they'd want to pay for that?!? After all, players need credits.....but unattended entertainers aren't players, are they?
5 stars for Flechette. This post brought up some recent thoughts of my own... not just regarding fast buffing, but the entire breadth of the gaming climate that I've seen of late. This may be tangential to the original point of the post, and not specific to dancers in particular, but it was this thread that inspired my thoughts, and so here it is posted.
What has changed in gaming?
When did players stop thinking that they had to do anything at all to gain game rewards. There seems to be this prevailing attitude herethat if gaining all the perks and abilities of a profession takes them longer than 2 days that they've somehow been cheated. That they deserve to have all of the highest ranking abilities instantly, and without any effort.
It used to be that if you could "beat" a game that fast, no one liked it, because there was nothing to do... it was all too easy, and over too quick. A waste of money, and no challenge.
But here, I constantly hear people saying that these professions are too hard to master... they take too much work.. I have to wait too long... doing the work is boring... I want everything now now now. Yet in the same breath, I hear complaints that there's not enough content. I can't help but feel that some degree of the content that is available is just being missed by people in too much of a hurry to look up from their "grind", or because they're not playing the game at their keyboards at all.
And I see game developers indirectlyencouragingthis attitudeby allowing the rewards of gameplay (experience points and accompanying abilities) to be gained without playing the game. As a former professional game designer, this baffles me. Progression through a game, be itmoving through astoryline or advancement of a character's abilities, have always been rewards given out for playing their game. And methods of obtaining game rewards without playing the game have always been called cheats.Yet we have automated systems to get all of the rewards for free... and they're "legal". Who needs a third-party program to cheat? It's officially endorsed, right here at home. And if it's permitted, of course a lot of people will take you right up on the offer.
So...
The problem is, players see a full set of doctor buffs and entertainer buffs as "bare minimum" nowadays. I know people who will not set foot on another planet unless buffed (and armored to boot). Expectations of the players are all out of whack. They are used to play in god mode, buffed and armored to the gills, and apparently even this is not enough - they want to be instantly buffed and armored to the gills.
Yet they clamor for challenges, and then whine when things get a trifle harder.
Grow up some.
And for SOE: Cap Doctor buffs the same as entertainer buffs, and make armor have some drawbacks again. Maybe then we will see people wearing anything else than a full set of composite again.
I'll make this short and sweet.
You can't rush through your profession in two days, achieve a master title, and then declare "this game has no content." Perhaps if you had actually taken the time to play instead of afk grinding, you would see the enormous amounts of content this game truly has. I've been playing for 4 months (between the two times I subscribed) and have yet to scratch the surface of content and learn something new about this game every single day. I play for hours upon hours every single day. I'm not a casual player because I put in at least 40 hours a week on this game. But, I'm not a powergamer either because it took me over 3 months to even get my template skill points all used up. Why? Because I actually played. I can't even keep up with trying to get all the new stuff and participating in everything that the devs give us. The devs are doing a great job of providing content. I think that if anybody is complaining about lack of content around these parts they have only themselves to blame for grinding through things rapidly and having such a narrow focus of what this game is about. I agree with the original poster here. People just want everything and they want everything immediately. (I think that was the point, hehe.) But, so I gotta ask ya...so what if you got everything and got everything immediately...what would you do then? I'd be bored. I wouldn't play anymore. Others would instead complain about lack of content, and then when something came out 2 weeks later they'd complain that they don't have it immediately or it's too hard (Corvette, anyone?) So, theywrite game guides so anyone can figure it out within a day. And, then they're back to "Where's my content?" Heh, sorry, but you just can't have it both ways. Actually try playing the game for once and you'll see that there's so much here that you may never get bored.
Ok...so, not so short and sweet.
Message Edited by Drygo on 04-29-2004 06:30 AM
Melpomyne wrote:
Flechette I think you are being insensitive to players that may have other motives for playing SWG than itjust being a very nice-graphics orientated chat room. Perhaps when you're in the field and an entire team needs a buff becuase the doc buffs last over 3hrs and entertainer buffs struggle to hit 2hrs and don't even have an absolute amount, just a percentage, and YOU are responsible for helping them you might think again. Perhaps when your teams combat medic has been healing incapped minds and you then have to heal and buff them it'd be great if that CM could get back out in the field this week!! Yes I too can be obnoxious and rude, it doesn't help anyone. But it does show that you have no empathy for other players Flechette, so how can you ask how they are when you see them if you really don't care?
Ooh, ooh! I played out in the field. I often did things just fine without buffs.
So I am finding it hard to be sensitive to your plight, as well.
Incidentally, when doing field exercises, you don't need to shoot for the 2-hour mark. If you're going to be with the team anyway, then you can do a quick dance and have it last 40 minutes. Now that people have timers, you can foresee when you need to set up camp and dance some more. If you have spare time (like people need to craft, train, and arrange the taskbar), then you can go the whole 2 minutes.
Oh, and I played this great game. It was called Quake. When I died, I appeared right in the middle of the action. Why do I have to spawn in a city in SWG? I have to walk or ride*all* that way. It totally sucks. I demand instant buff, instant guns, and instant spawn!
Do you feel that we should instantly spawn where we died? Or is that over-empathizing?
Good point. I have noticed something lately. This game is slowly being catered to the extreme examples of characters, rather than the vast majority of characters. The last few POI additions: the Nightsister cave, The Bio Lab, and the Corvette, are so challenging that most normal players can barely accomplish the most minimal tasks there. Why is it that there hasn't been any new POIs for us middle grade and low grade combatants? Will we always have to go to the Ahfaratu cave, Tuskan Fortress,and the Lost Aqualish hideout? We've had those since launch.
I spend the bulk of my dancing time "in the field" and I have never had anyone complain about the buffs, nor the time they take. My combat skills are nearly non-existant, so they certainly don't wait for me because of that. I do 4 minute buffs and no one seems to notice--usually it takes that long for everyone to heal wounds, take a bio/smoke break, etc.
I have novice scout so I can set up the camp in preparation--kind of like being ready for the field hands when they come in for lunch 
I don't get tips out of it usually, but the mission rewards plus the animal products I harvest more than make up for it, particularly in Rancor groups. Speaking of which, for up and coming dancers, I get over 100 healing xp per tick with a Rancor group--as good as the days of the cloning explot. Just be sure you get a nice mid-level hunting group with 6 or 8 people. If it is a group full of high level players that can solo-kill Rancors they don't get as much mind damage.
- Cassie, Dance Hall Girl
Drygo wrote:
I have been in hunting groups where the 2 hour buff wore out or practically everyone died, and a scout/ranger set up camp and I would dance and rebuff everybody. So, yes, people have been known to wait for the full dancer buff out in the field. Might not happen in your hunting parties, but it often happens in mine.
You misunderstood me. I said that they did not just wait for me to finish my dancing - they had other things to do in this time. Or do you want to tell me no one ever goes AFK for a smoke, snack, or nature call in your hunting groups? People always act as if the dancer buffs are THE time sinks.