Dancer Archive

This is a step in the right direction, but hardly a fix. Now it takes me 10 minutes and my exploiting neighbour 2.5. So much for fixing that issue. I'd like to see some reason for these changes. Is "speed buffing" deemed an exploit or is that totally unrelated to this issue ? Panthu, can you try to squeeze a tiny bit of information out of them ? ( And while we are speaking about impossible tasks... how about world peace?

If they change it, they change it. It's no big thing for me at all. I've said that before. I do think 10 min is a ridiculous amount of time for a buff though. So do my clients.

Panthu will come back with the word on this, no doubt, but I didn't read this as "2 minutes before you start buffing". I read this as "no matter what system/method we use to buff, there is a 2 minute minimum, period". If I'm right, all it means is that someone would have to 30 second speed buff 4 times consecutively (to be going for the new 2 minute minimum time)to be able to apply a buff. A four minute or 8 minute buff that the rest of us do would still take 4 or 8 minutes, because they're well above the minimum of 2 minutes.

Just to let you know for a reference, a master doctor can buff one stat every 18 seconds, so 18x6 = 108 /60 = 1.8 minutes for a 6 stat buff. 10 minutes is indeed way too long for your buffing ability. Hope this helps a bit

I'd say that sucks. I don't get it. A doctor can buff 6 stats like no tomorrow (which by no means am I calling for a nerf. I like quick doc buffs. The waits horrible as it is with the long lines), but I don't see why they can't just make the mind buffs from musicians/dancers 30s? I think if they are going to impose the aformentioned penalties they should decrease the time it takes to get buffed. Personally it wasn't broken so why the heck are they trying to fix it. Dev's just don't understand sometimes.

Sounds good on initial hearing, Panthu... and it seems to fall in line with the delay we have after moving.

"You cannot start skill animating while running..."

"I'm not running! I'm just standing here!"

Other than stopping dance to reset position after drift, can anyone think of any legitimate uses for a rapid /stopd - /startd sequence that would be hurt by a 15 second delay? And if we do get some of the 'moving while skill animating' features that we've been kicking around, a 15 second delay doesn't even affect drift correction.

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Xyrdre wrote:

Other than stopping dance to reset position after drift, can anyone think of any legitimate uses for a rapid /stopd - /startd sequence that would be hurt by a 15 second delay?

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I can't think of a legit reason for a sequence, no... but I do often /stopd to heal myself then /startd in as little time possiable... I stop in mid-flo so I can take on the stimming anim after the flo has a clear end move... it looks goofy otherwise because it breaks your dance animation. I see it being a problem here.

It may just mean I won't be healing myself ever now since I don't like how it looks anyway though.

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Panthu wrote:

Ok, I'm asking... on test, 30 sec work around is no longer working regardless... we now have a 15 sec delay before we can /startd after a /stopd.

No more quickie stops to stim yourself I guess, how do we feel about that part?

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The first time I read it I thought "well that sucks." I mean, there are lots of times that I stop dancing, quickly change my position on the stage, and start again. Definitely shorter than a 15 second pause. Same for stopping to heal myself, or other people I'm performing with.

But I'm open-minded about it. It would have the advantage of screwing up a lot of existing AFK macros out there.

I can't think of a single reason for a quick start/stopdance outside of healing yourself real fast. The only other possible legitimate use would be to use it to help get in sync with other dancers for dance routines(well as in sync as we can get given lag and all), but, you can accomplish the exact same thing using rapid fire /changedance's. So it seems fair to me.

And regarding the above poster, I can give two very good reasons why entertainers shouldn't have 30 second buffs:

From the entertainer point of view: We are entertainers. No matter what you picked up this profession for(personal preference and fun, or to be a buff bot ) you are still an entertainer. And you can't entertain in 30 seconds.

From the game/balance point of view: I havea doctor alt too. Doctors spend just as much time, if not more, than Dancers/Musicians to buff people, and they spend a heck of a lot more money to boot. The difference is doctors spend their time gathering the proper resources and assembling the buff packs. For you, the customer, it may seen like 2 minutes for 6 stat buffs. But for the doctor, its a heck of a lot more effort and money put into it. So, since all we entertainers do is burn some action to buff, it only makes sense, and is only fair, that our buffs take longer to apply since they are being done mostly(or entirely depending on the dancer/musicians stats) for free.

Oh, and for the record, I'd like to see quicker buffs as well.. just as long as they involve an actual dance performance rather than a non-skill-animated flo spam macro with commands to circumvent the flourishingsystem. Sure, it'd be great for business, and I know my customers would love it as well.Although I'd like to see quicker entertainerbuffs, it may not be fair in the big picture though.

I've always thought that the time involved for our buffs was the trade-off for the lack of resources/preparation that docs have for medical buffs. Docs spend money andprep time up frontfor their buff packs, we don't. Therefore:

Docs: Resources/prep time is the cost, the benefit is a quick buff
Entertainers: The benefit is no up-front resources/prep time, the cost is in time to apply.

It seems a good overall balance of game systemsto me,even ifa bit inconvenient for customers. To make things more convenient for our customers (i.e., really fast buffs), something would have to go into initial prep for mind buffsto keep things equitable between entertainers and docs buffing systems. If we buffed stats in 18 seconds the way docs do,docs wouldjust start complaining abouthow they have to spend resources and prep time for their buffs and we don't, and they'd be right to complain.

I'm just not sure there's anything in the character roleplaying sensethat really fits the dance/music theme for super-fast buffing either. I can envision a doc preparing drug cocktails beforehandto enhance physical attributes, but the concept of entertainer buffs always seemed to me to be more of an inspirational performance to "psyche up" the viewer/listener. How could we really prepare some kind of a kit to psyche up a buff recipient that we haven't even met? Pre-packaged assembly line entertainment? Sounds too much like the boy-bands to me...

Oh... 'Tess's post brought up a thought...

It just occured to me that I've never tested to see if /changedance resets the flo timer as well... a 15 second delay in /stopd - /startd could still be worked around if /changed accomplishes the same thing...