Dancer Archive

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Schardour wrote:
Only those who enjoy the limited aesthetics remain.

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Luckily I dont think that compleely is true. There are a lot of entertainers who enjoy and utilize the healing and buffing aspect of the professions. I'd hate to see what could be a great skill nixed because it is currently being exploited. Kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face, or in this case, to spite the bots.

The ability to buff and make money attracts a lot of different people into the profession... or would, if it was currently possible to make money. If you get rid of the skills you will not attract these people, and you will remain with the same few who enjoy the limited aesthetics as you have now.

I don't think reducing the amount of skills we have will save the professions. Adding to them, yes, and adding different options, and most definitely cleaning out the exploiters. But not simply deleting potentially lucrative skills that make us valuable to the community as a whole. I know a lot of people have had bad experiences with buffing and having to deal with rudeness. But there are many who have had great experiences as well and truly enjoy using their skills.

Hope is not yet gone from the galaxy.

But wouldn't you still have them with BF and mind wound healing, even if they nixed buffs?


Umi

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Drygo wrote:

It always annoys me when I see people asking to remove our buffs. I mean, don't you realize that it's not the buffs that are not working, but the way the buff system is abused. Get rid of the ability to afk, not our skills.

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On the contrary, I am and always have been very strongly of the opinion that buffs themselves are not working. I include doctor buffs in this as well. They are too powerful and last too long, and the chore of obtaining them is inherently immersion-breaking. I don't role-play in this game, and I don't fight, and it's not because I don't want to.


Umi

Message Edited by Sunjammer on 03-05-2005 04:27 AM

I disagree that our buffs intefer significantly with combat players getting started. Sheesh you get both in under 2 minutes now. I do a few DWB groups on endor. I travel there, wait for them to gather, wait for them to get doc buffs, wait for them to all gather in the room, wait for them to all get to watching and listening to us, then play for two minutes. Often these things take an hour of my time, at the best they generally run 30 minutes of my time. Far from our functionaity being the delay its the combatants lack of organization.

Take away buffs and you take away a pure ents income so you better find a way to replace it. Rarely do people pay for healing and those that pay for a good show don't often pay much. I like our buffing functionality and want it to stay but if it doesn't then you must replace it with something else that is needed and not provided by just listening to me.

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Schardour wrote:

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Drygo wrote:

Get rid of the ability to afk, not our skills.

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I was once in the same camp, but don't you see? The ability to perform our services while afk has been allowed to continue for far too long. At one time I could argue that the number of live entertainers on a server could easily cover the needs of the combat community if/when the ability to bot was removed. That's slowly becoming much more difficult for me to argue. It's getting to the point where I believe a sudden removal of buffbots would spark too much animosity toward the few(er) remaining Masters.

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PoetDancer wrote:

The buffing I can handle,

Its the /setperform and /invite that they can keep.

We don't need these active protocols on a system that is by nature passively applied. And to show us how silly these active protocols are, we have master level characters giving away these things 24/7.

I can play a game with passive--truly passive--application. What I cannot do is to sell /invites and /setperforms. Because buffbots can give more of these away than I ever could.

I am convinced that the buffing protocols of /invite and /setperform are buffbot perks, and live entertainer nerfs. It pushes the game into an area where our very presence behind the keys causes insecurity I have to work twice as hard to alleviate. And it creates boredom, loot mongering, and unattended, macroed entities designed for the sole purpose of giving /invites away.

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I completely agree... In addition a big part of what makes the buff bots extremely annoying are the spamming 'invite me' or 'group me for a buff' macros.

However... I am willing to part with the ability to recieve and give mind buffs via entertainer for the sake of returning a better atmosphere to the cantina.

Any game feature that actively encourages AFK play is broken. No ifs ands or buts.

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Else-Whira wrote:



Any game feature that actively encourages AFK play is broken. No ifs ands or buts.

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Drygo wrote:
Basically, you're saying that the vast majority of the features in this game are broken.

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Actually, no, I didn't say that. There are some aspects of the game system that ARE broken though. The parts of the game that are so mundane that an overwhelming majority of players that utilize them PREFER to do so AFK are the parts that are broken.

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LyteFoot wrote:

Take away buffs and you take away a pure ents income so you better find a way to replace it. Rarely do people pay for healing and those that pay for a good show don't often pay much. I like our buffing functionality and want it to stay but if it doesn't then you must replace it with something else that is needed and not provided by just listening to me.

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Hmmmm? Let's see. Master Dancer and Master Musician with a buffing income of ZERO. If buffs went away tomorrow I couldn't care less. The only ones making any signifigant income from buffing are the buffbots and if they disappeared we would all be better off. Get rid of the buffbots or get rid of the buffs, either will work just fine as far as I'm concerned.

When I started I loved the fact that I had a support role. A game mechanic of interdependancy that allowed me to still feel like I was part of the over all game. I needed them for the healing xp and they needed me for the healing(buffing later also). BUT most of them also would stay longer because they enjoyed the performance, the social aspect, the bit of roleplaying. That has of course changed now to where I really only perform outside of cantinas. Do I get tips now ? Yes I do and mostly those are tips done as a way for that player to say "I support Live Entertainers" or a pity tip. Some of them are still done for the performance and social aspect. What is my point ?

Every profession in this game needs to have game mechanics that make us needed/desired and that make us need/desire some other professions mechanics.

Is the straight up healing mechanic enough ? I don't really think it is enough with the current group of players. If tomorrow suddenly buffing was gone(besides some very angry PvPers) we would still have afk and bots to deal with. The bots would slowly go away although there would still be enough of them left as alts to take care of the healing for the entire server. As you only need one of them to do that. And that isn't even counting the afk jedi grinders...