Dancer Archive

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Chessack wrote:

At this point they should just get rid of the skill system, IMO. It's vestigial. Just make it like D&D, where you pick a maximum of 3 total classes, and you can only get to, e.g., 40th level in a given class, so you dual class to get to level 80. Give skills out with each level, and have done with it. It'd be more consistent with their actual policy on what is and is not encouraged in terms of character design.

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I agree. It's just silly to keep up the old system when it isn't being developed for at all. Non-Combat profs make no sense in the current template system given the way the game actually works now and combat profs don't make any sense when you compare content profs like BH to weapon/skill profs like Fencer. The whole skill progression and character building system needs to be redone to match the existing development goals.

It feels like we are playing some weird shell of a game now and seems to only be getting stranger with each new patch and expansion.

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Trellgar wrote:
I dont suppose anyone has recently started a new dancer and talked to Allura?
you know, that girl in the Eisley cantina...

you know, the one that STATES we can buff ourselves.
Idont see why some programmer at SOE would put that in her speil,if it wasnt meant to be.

they need to change that pronto

Ka'th
Master Dancer

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QFE

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Panthu wrote:
I agree. It's just silly to keep up the old system when it isn't being developed for at all. Non-Combat profs make no sense in the current template system given the way the game actually works now and combat profs don't make any sense when you compare content profs like BH to weapon/skill profs like Fencer. The whole skill progression and character building system needs to be redone to match the existing development goals.

It feels like we are playing some weird shell of a game now and seems to only be getting stranger with each new patch and expansion. :

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Yup.

The devs tried to create a hybrid game. I'm not sure entirely why, although I can postulate a few reasons. First, if they went to a pure level system, what to do with the non-combat classes? It didn't occur to them (though it should have) to do something like: Pure level system with a max of some number of profs (2, 3, etc) and a level cap of 80 (or whatever, there's nothing sacred about "80") for combat, and then a "points" system for noncombat (leaving things like dancer and shipwright as is). Then just give you one skill per combat level gained or something.

The second reason they probably didn't do it was that they knew that even the combat-leets would've screamed at them over it. The game is already transparently "EQ2 w/SW graphics" but if they turned it into a full level system it would be even more so. And people would probably have screamed about that.

Third, I don't think it really occurred to them that a system where your skills determine your level (such as old SWG or the old Champions game, neither of which had true levels in fact) is fundamentally different from a system where your level determines your skills (such as D&D, GW, or the new SWG). A lot of people mistakenly think the two concepts are synomymous, equivalent, and interchangable, but they are not: they are fundamentally different. SWG is trying to mix the two, or at least the devs seem to think that's what they are doing, but since level trumps everything else (if you don't think it does, compare a level 80 using a novice skill with a level 10 doing the same skill and see who does more damage), it's really not a true mix. In fact you can't have a true mix... you must have one or the other.

That the devs do not understand this suggests they need to go back and do some intensive reading on fundamental game design theory. I also wish they'd take a look at Mu's site where he discusses things like this. That site should be required reading for all game designers, IMO (not that Mu discusses levels too much but he really gets into the heart of what is wrong with most games as currently designed). The problem is, not enough thought is given to this stuff at the design phase, and so when it is implemented, they end up with a flawed system from day 1. The end result is things like dancer/TKAs not working because the game, as designed, is flawed.

C

Message Edited by Chessack on 09-26-2005 11:22 AM

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Chessack wrote:
This is the whole problem with their "templating" crap. It's sucked the fun out of mixing and matching professions, because anything that doesn't get you to level 80 kills your effectiveness. I remember when you could be a master TKA/* and be entirely self-sufficient and fully capable in combat, equal to any other master combat with any other set of skills (though not having */Doc was always less efficient than having it, LOL). Now to do what the old TKA/* did, you have to be TKA/Swordsman (indeed they even stuck TKA's best animations in the swordsman class). If you just do TKA you can't do crap for damage and you get only half the specials you once had. Heck it's not even that you have to dual-combat class either, because a TKA/Swordsman will be infinitely more effective overall, than say a TKA/rifleman. Even the melee and ranged combat classes don't stack well. The idea is if you want a fully effective combat character, you can ONLY do combat now, and you'd better spend all your skill points in those areas. And that is antithetical to how they originally built the game, which allowed lots of multi-classing and lots of effectiveness.

At this point they should just get rid of the skill system, IMO. It's vestigial. Just make it like D&D, where you pick a maximum of 3 total classes, and you can only get to, e.g., 40th level in a given class, so you dual class to get to level 80. Give skills out with each level, and have done with it. It'd be more consistent with their actual policy on what is and is not encouraged in terms of character design.

C

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I thought very long and hard about the choice I made and even then it was not easy. ( just ask my guild mates who heard me agonize about it for ages) I have been Master dancer for almost 2 years and giving it up was very painful but I have good reasons. One: I am so tired of being killed by anything3 levels higher than me. Especially bad at the moment because Pax seems to attract TONS of credit farmers and while we do our best to city ban them and report them they just keep coming back, they leave a BIG mess with lvl 65 camps all over the place and at lvl 60 I could not take them on alone. I got tired of going to places like Dath or Dant to look for things to get nailed by some lvl 76 critter without even knowing what hit me. Even as a lvl 60 TKM I was limited to the places I could go and the things I could do ON my own. ( yes, I know the galaxy is a dangerous place but you know..some leeway would be good)I love playing with a group and the guild I am in rocks but since we are on European time during my day it's mostly empty and quiet. Not many around from the North American side of things and here everyone is at work ( Bored housewife syndrome ) I get that time to do stuff on my own. But it is discouraging when if you step foot off Tatooine or Corellia or Naboo you get instantly taken out. Even on the core worlds if you are not careful you get nailed from left over lvl 80 camps and so on. After playing for nearly 2 years one gets bored of wandering around the same haunts. Variety is the spice of life so to say.

Last night my guild mates and I went to Wook world, I figured we bought that bloody expansion we should use it but i can tell you if you are not a HIGH end combat lvl you are so messed. So here we have an expansion that is pretty useless to low end lvl players I shudder to think about Mustapha which i won't buy.

The discrepancy between the combat lvls is too great. That you have to use up a ton of skill points to get novice is just plain weird it shodul be 15 sp to make master not the other way around. This game, as I see and watch it is slowly being turned into something where if you are not a jedi or a pure lvl 80 combat toon you are stuck in a rut doing something no one seems to care about. I care greatly about this. I loved being a master dancer and took great care with my character NOT to afk in a public place and NOT to spam. I loved being able to teach and to heal BF and to inspire. But I also like to fight and since it is a big part of my character's back story i wound it into the game because I could. Now I pay the price.

It would seem to me that in real life if you are a trained dancer and a trained martial artist you get some serious advantges from this, in game you are punished. There is some serious short sightedness going on about how things work. And I apologise because I am unable to express it better than this. My goal was never and still isn't to attain lvl 80 status, my goal was to play to persona and step into the Star wars world as much as I could according to the story I have been walking around with for almost ten years now. It's not exactly role play but it comes close I suppose. I have really good friends in game and I really enjoy playing but the limitations being set every publish are starting to kill me. Every publish seems to remove something that makes the game special (next is the forage aspect which my scout / creature handler usues ALL THE TIME!) the combat differential makes it really hard to be anything but a lvl 80 and the expansions don't gear for low level non combatents at all despite what is being said.

I run around the core worlds and visit the cantinas and all I see almost all the time are the same people AFKing and spamming. I don't want to dance in a place like that. That is not much fun. And I read the boards and see people now offering a ton of money for the apporpriate entertainer to be on line and at the keyboard so they can get their specific buffs. That just makes me sad. The crafters, entertainers and non Jedi/ combatent professions are being squished to death and I don't understand why.

I dropped master dancer because I felt backed into a corner with no way out. If things ever change I will pick it up again so fast it woudl make Darth Vader's helmet spin on his head, but the combat lvl system and the differences between them are just too much to deal with, the expansions make in impossible for anything but a High levl toon to play and I am tired of geting nailed to the boards every time I step out of my own home. If that is givingin then I guess I caved but it was either that or walk away from the game completely as Merlyn and I am not prepared to do that because despite everyhing I still enjoy the game and the world we step into every time we log on.

But things seem to change rapidly so who knows...?

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sorry double post due to computer hiccup

Message Edited by EH_Merlyn on 09-26-2005 09:36 AM