Dancer Archive

Im not sure how the loot tables work and all...but if there is a way to influence it so that you can get a loot a few levels higher than the NPC/Creature you are hunting, this could be a cool buff.

Call it a Luck buff...make it so you have a 10% chance of rolling for a loot a few levels above what you are hunting. Maybe something like this would have Nightsister rangers dropping Pearls every so often. Or make finding that rare part of a loot kit easier to come across.

Along the same path...may something called a Pursuasion buff. Maybe it gives you a free ride through a enemy NPC controlled city as a combatant or Overt for a while, maybe a chance to get past Crackdown searches or maybe even a way to get a few more credits off the Junkdealers or Ship parts.

---

Valkyrie36 wrote:

Along the same path...may something called a Pursuasion buff. Maybe it gives you a free ride through a enemy NPC controlled city as a combatant or Overt for a while, maybe a chance to get past Crackdown searches

---

Idea #1 - Singing Buff
My pet wish: right now you need Novice Entertainer to /sing. If I write a song, I can't /sing it without redirecting 15 skill points. How about if a Musician could buff me with /sing ability as long as I'm listening to him? In other words a non-Entertainer could /sing but only with a Musician there to keep him in tune.

Idea #2 - Resilience Buff
This is combat specific, but we lost some defensive Chef foods with the CU. For example, there are no longer foods for Knockdown or Stun resistance. Why shouldn't a certain inspiration buff increase our resistance and speed our recovery? I should be bouncing back faster after a highly skilled dancer has pumped up my will to live. And though it would cross Chef foods, such buffs should decrease incap recovery as well. An inspired person is hard to keep down.

Idea #3 - "Urban camo"
As a Ranger, camoflauge lets me sneak past NPCs, which is really useful around factional enemies. It's one of the few Ranger skills that justifies the enormous skill point cost. BUT, to be honest, it doesn't really make sense that my camoflauge lets me walk unnoticed past the Stormtroopers in Theed. Am I blending in with the collonades? I should need an Image Designer's help, an "urban camo" buff (which would need a better name), to look inconspicuous in cities, and it should be available to anyone. BUT, if my urban camo "breaks", there could be a risk of faction penalty to the Image Designer. Give them a way to live dangerously.

That third one is along the lines of Valkyrie36's idea. Factional IDs to help me blend in, or neutral ones I have to compensate well for the risk they're taking.

Ideas for non combat buffs:

1) Speed up a players stomach: 5-10% boost in digestion. Only while actively being buffed. This would mainly be a benefit for crafters using Bespin port, they could stay in the cantina and craft and have less downtime while they waited for thier stomachs to empty.

2) Reduce cool down timers for abilities like Burst Run, Trandoshan Regeneration. Again only while actively being buffed.

3) Effect of 1 FS senses or crafting box from dancers and 1 FS box for musicians. Unless devs feel it would be too unbalancing, then have Dancers do FS senses and Musicians do crafting. This one should have a duration of say 45 minutes?

4) True Inspiration: +5 experimentation, only while actively being buffed. This would give some crafters an extra experimentation point, still leave humans as the top with 14 points.

To me the main thing is that a performer needs to choose what type of buff they are offering, it shouldn't be an all or nothing deal. Maybe they do the FS buffs every 40 minutes and then the rest of the time help clear people stomachs, or maybe do the +5 to experimentation.

---

Valkyrie36 wrote:

Its sad to see how entertainers have become collateral damage to the CU. I have lost alot of good friends in this game because of it and most of these people were the ones who really were fun to be online with. With entertainer, SWG attracted alot of interesting folks who would otherwise never play an online game.

---

Sadder still, to me, was watching how our entertainment value became overshadowed by mechanics to the point that how "good" an entertainer was in the opinions of other players, was determined by how rapidly one could heal mind wounds and bf or what percentage of a mind buff one could apply.

---

Esharra wrote:

Sadder still, to me, was watching how our entertainment value became overshadowed by mechanics to the point that how "good" an entertainer was in the opinions of other players, was determined by how rapidly one could heal mind wounds and bf or what percentage of a mind buff one could apply.

---

Not to detract in any way from your experience, Esharra, but that's basically the position that all non-combat professions have been in since SWG launched.

Crafters are very familiar with being treated as useful only as long as they can make the "best" of whatever, and worthless otherwise. And until the CU, Doctors had become valued onlyto the degree to which theirbuffs were cheap, powerful, and supplied by bots-- sound familiar?

SWG's initialdesign (in my opinion as a player sinceLaunch Day) valued different playstyles, if not equally, at least more equally than other MMOGs. Crafters were the sole source of weapons and armor. Doctors were the sole source of wound healing, and entertainers were the sole source of Battle Fatigue healing... and combatants needed every one of those functions. This meant that combat/PvP wasn't the only way to enjoy playing SWG --those who liked creative/exploratory play and social/roleplaying were also explicitly made highly valuable members of the SWG community. We all filled a vital role.

But as good as it was,there was a problem with this design. Doctors and entertainers and crafters were needed... but not by each other. They wereneeded only by combat players;no other interdependence was part of the game's design.

As two yearspassed, combat has become more and more the dominant gameplay style supported by major content additions. (I've documented thisin my Categorization of Every Documented Change to SWG through Publish 10.) This has led to the designed dependence of combat players on other playstyles being reduced, becausethe more numerous combat players didn't like being dependent on non-combatants.We've seen this in the elimination of Doctor stat buffs, theelimination of BF healing, and the ongoing addition of non-craftable high-level loot.

If Doctors and entertainers and crafters had been designed from the start to also need each other, we wouldn't be talking about whether the entertaining professions were "going away," or whether there were stillenough Doctors to heal combatants, or whether the player economy was collapsing from a lack of crafters. The combatants would be doing their thing, and the rest of us would be continuing to usefullyserve each other. The combatants might not need us, but someone would!

Because the web ofvalue didn't connect everyone to everyone, but only connected combatants to everyone else, oncethe combatantswere removed from thecenter ofthe web, the wholething began to fall apart. Which is whywe're nowspending our time asking, "Am I still relevant?"

So: If I'm right about this, can anything be done now? Can non-combat playstyles be salvaged in SWG?

Maybe... but I'm feeling more pessimistic about this now than ever before.

Restoring the value of non-combat playstyles to SWGwould require thatseveral very hard things be done, and be done well:

• the developers would have to dream up multiple newinterdependencies


• these new interdependencies would have to be integrated into the whole game


• players would have to accept the newly imposedinterdependencies

Not allinterdependencies are obvious.Why would a medic need an ent? Why would a Dancer need a crafter?

And how would you tell players, "Sorry, but from now on you'll need other players to do things for you thatyou used to be able to do for yourself." At this late date, how could that feel like anything but random punishment?

Taking away dependencies is easy. Everyone loves that. (Just ask the combatants.) Adding dependencies... that's not so easy.

So at this point, after the long and steady erosion of the need for non-combatants in SWG, I just don't know ifother playstyles havemuch reason for hope now. If you like combat,SWG's a goodgame. If exploration, or creativity, or social interaction, or great storytelling are what excite you, the day when you could find those things here may have passed away forever.

But I could be wrong. I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

Please!

--Flatfingers

Flatfingers' Excessively Long List of Ideas for SWG

---

NJ62 wrote:

---

Panthu wrote:

---

Tuull_Boks wrote:

5) lastly, maybe a buff that would allow us to change someones color of thier armor if SOE is not planning on giving us some "Armor Customization Kits". that would help greatly as alot of people like thier armor, but not the color all the time.

---

*nods* A buff to dye it post production, like slicing. I was thinking about that too.

---

Post-production dye on tailoring items is a whole different matter, to which I believe most tailors are opposed (there are a ton of threads on this topic, just see the link directory). For armor, color is not essential to the sale (and indeed most armor is factory-produced), and I'm guessing armorsmiths would not object to post-production dye.

---

Yeah, he said armor. Is that ok with Tailors, lol?

I hate this. I'm just now waking up for work, and this woman's been up partying all night.

---

Esharra wrote:

Why should game be a job?

---

Has this been mentioned yet? A repair bonus to increase the chances of a successful repair.