Dancer Archive
Thread: Petition to un-nerf dancers earnings
picklesSW wrote:
It's the lesser of two evils. An annoying popup box is a lesser evil than the current AFK issue which is already destroying (has destroyed?) our profession.
You really think so? I feel that the popup box would be a worse problem than the AFK issue.
At least the AFKers don't chase me out of dancing. If I had to endure popup hell when I dance, then I would trade in those points and go master Pistoleer or something. I would have gone with Artisan if I wanted to play "click to my loo, my darling."
While I can appreciate the desire to make AFKing unattractive, I do not feel accepting every patron's request is the way to do it.
A lesser evil that I could support would be a periodic popup box, similar to sampling. But we know that the sampling popup doesn't work. People can set their macros to stop the activity after 8 minutes and let the popup timer reset.
Perhaps this can be fixed (and applied to entertaining) by reseting the timer only when you log out. You dance for 10 minutes straight, you get a popup. You dance for8 minutes and stop; when you start up again, you get a popup after 2 minutes. You could also make it vary in popup time. Maybe it comes up as early as 4 minutes. Maybe it is quiet for 20 minutes. The extremes should be rare (no one should have to endure seeing a popup every4 minutes!) with the majority of popups being about 12 minutes.
That kind of popup I can support. But if you want a popup every time someone wants to watch you, I oppose it vehemently. I do not want to click on 10 different buttons within a minute when some group comes in to heal.
And if an AFKer doesn't click Yes after a couple of boxes, then he gets a bunch of trash sticking to him, and he provides no bonus.
picklesSW wrote:
"A lesser evil that I could support would be a periodic popup box, similar to sampling."
Hey, ya know, anything is good for me. I don't want popup hell either, but I'll pay any price to remove AFKers at this point. I would say that on my server, easily 95% of all entertainers are currently AFK. To me, that means our profession has one foot fully in the grave and we're teetering on the edge. This is no longer just a disease, it's pandemic and it's getting worse, not better.
And don't tell me about the test server. Go look at the live servers and see how many people are at their keyboards. Wake up. We're a joke.
- Javier
Are there AFK entertainers on Test Server? If so, I can excuse them because they are actually serving a purpose there. They may be working to test Master Dancer abilities, but they're still novices. I think Test should hand out skills to whoever asks (and maybe they do).
I wouldn't say that any price is good. There are limits. My limit is popup hell. But I'm sure we can suggest something that doesn't resort to such nasty alternatives.
Ravenmist, what do you think of the popup modification I just suggested? I can't say it's my idea because it's actually compiled from many suggestions here. I'll outline it and see if anyone sees a major flaw in it.
- Raise a popup window similar to the one used in sampling. The text is something like, "One of the patrons enjoys your dance/song and wishes to grant a small monetary gift. Do you accept?" (note that isolated cantinas may need NPC patrons)
- The entertainer has the option of clicking on Yes or No. There is no effect if you click on No. If you click Yes, you receive a small tip. This could be 20 credits for a Novice Entertainer and may range all the way to 400 credits for a Master Dancer/Musician.
- If neither button is clicked after 5 minutes, the entertainer stops dancing. A /dump command is sent to prevent macro people from inserting a /start command. Once this happens, the player must actively restart the process.
- In order to prevent disruption of entertainers, this popup window cannot interfere with hot keys or chat windows. Whatever the entertainer was doing (pressing keys or chatting) is not affected. If the popup is ignored after 5 minutes, then the entertainer stops performing as the step above. Five minutes is usually plenty of time for someone to finish typing a message or tie together flourishes and effects.
- The frequency of the popup window should be about once every 15 minutes. This gives entertainers three or four opportunities per hour to make some money (in this example, the Master gets about 1200 free credits in an hour). This money is in addition to mission payouts and tips; it's not much, but it can help a starting entertainer.
- The popup timer resets only on logout. In the current sampling situation, a macro is designed to stop sampling before the popup window can halt it. If the timer does not reset, then stopping the performance 14 minutes into the routine will not prevent the popup. When the entertainer starts again, the popup shows up 1 minute later (at the 15-minute mark).
Is this something feasible? Is it grief-proof? Will it discourage AFKing? I'm open to ideas. If this seems like a workable solution, I'd like to suggest that all of our Entertainer correspondents push this. It could also be used to overcome the bypass to the sampling anti-AFKing procedures.
At the very least, if AFK entertaining (there's an oxymoron as they are not very entertaining) can be discouraged heavily, then we can stop arguing about it and go back to talking about calendars. *grin*
Hi,
Ihave been a dancer for a good long while now, months before we could do mind buff. I could make no money so I did delivery missions. I worked on dancing XP while waiting for shuttles. (surprisingly I got tipped more there if at all) I finally got fed up with it and took up fencer skills. I make upward 200k in few hours.
But let me tell you, dancer is an easy profession. You will not get incapped. You will not get DBed. You never need to worry about death and decay.You don't even need tocraft and to experiment.Dancer prof might take longer time but it took me far more pain and frustration to master fencer than dancing. I suppose getting low pay off some annoyance is like exchange for that.
Besides being purely devoted to one profession in this very rich game is sorta waste, isn't it?
As for AFKing people, yeah they are problem. But I would really hate to have something keep on interrapting my macro and my attention. For some dances, macroing is an art. I love writing new macro's as I go along as much as manual flourishing. (Macroing with is some low lvl dance is real waste, I agree.) I get real kick out of my performances. If you don't get this kick, you chose the wrong profession because you will be bored out of your minds. Tell that to AFKers. Feel sorry for them, but nothing you can really do. If you apply some silly restriction like the tip popups, I am absolutely sure you can bypass that with fair ease. ... Then all the restriction we apply will makeourselves uncomfortable.
I might consider blocking tipping to "AFK" marked characters. It sounds like a fair game for all of us. I mean most of these AFKers don't need tips to begin with. ie Holo-dancer etc. Meanwhile we should get our own pennies. (Hey suck it up it's fairly easy profession. Boring if you don't like it, but if so you shouldn't be a dancer anyway.)
Qui'lu of Chilastra
Blademaster and Master Dancer
Those are good suggestions, Kuildeous, though I do have a concern that the tip money would be generated artificially. Mission terminals already put a large quantity of credits into the economy. If the mere act of doing what we'd be doing anyway would be generating new credits into the galaxy, it could really impact the total amount of credits in the game. In order to counteract that, there would have to be an increase in severity for the current money sinks or the creation of new ones. I don't want people to be forced into paying more for shuttles, nor do I want people to suddenly find themselves being charged just for browsing the bazaar.
Anyway, I like the idea (especially the automated /dump). I think it has to somehow work with player-tipped credits, though. I just can't figure out how player-tipped credits can apply to afkers, however, for the simple fact that not many people tip them. I could suggest something like a need to manually /collect tipped credits within 15 minutes of receiving them (the /collect command calling up a yes/no popup), but such a timer would only start once the tips had been given. Not terribly effective if Joe Afk doesn't get tipped.
It's tricky. I wish they'd just come out and remove the darned /ui toolbar-blah-blah thingy. I had a divine time before the bloody thing was discovered.
Hey,
Yeah I like that too. But can't we set so that you can't tip AFKers? Like the automated response from AFK person when you /tell. Something like "He is AFK right now tip later" or something. It should be a restriction applied to AFKers not to ourselves. We shouldn't be taking extra clicks just get the tipwe deserve.
Qui'lu
Kuildeous -
Kuildeous wrote:
So it boils down to "Get a real job." Granted, it's the nicest way I've seen it put. But it sounds like that's the crux of it all.
And that's a valid statement to make to anyone. "Hey you with the pets! Get a real job." "Hey you selling houses! Get a real job."
This is hardly the point. Having a pet can actually earn you commissions. You can kill something or you can sell it. Selling a house? You can sell a house for 10K and over. But what does a dancer has to trade? Tip isn't a comission. We are at the mercy of our audience. "I" didn't like that because "I" wanted "steady" cash flow so I am finacially independent.
You also say that you need better clothes when you are better at dancing. Yes, but how much would you need? 10,000 credits can go really long way for a dancer. You can make that much with 10-15 delivery missions; you don't even need another prof. You can do them in a hour. I remember raiding a tailor after that which made that previous hour worth a while.
You call me "jaded." That is an overstatement. However,I amnot happybut not about dancer experience. I amunhappy when someone spend majority of time inside the cantina expecting to geta modestnumber of creditswhile if you look outside you will find credits all over the place. It's so easy you will be pleasantly surprised.
Besides, people always have been complacent about our profession. It was like this even before the AFKer problems. I know I was there. There wasn't "economy" you speak of. My profit went up and down day by day. Being higher level makes the peak profit higher, that was all. It's far as you can possibly be if you want credits.
You, dancers, will find it very interesting to be financially independent. You can start dancing because you like it, not because you have to. Others will find that very attractive. Also, if feels good having a choice to return the tip or give it to your poorer colleagues. And of course, you will have the best outfit credits can buy.
Dancer profession is fairly easy because time is the only factor. At least it was easy for me. I enjoyed a lot of things. Conversations, Showing off each other's outfits and new techs, etc. Before I knew it I was done with three trees. The last one took an effort but not that much. (Oh yeah, cantina is the best place to earn app points!)
"Jaded" lol ... I think you take this game too seriously, Kuildeous. I can feel the anger and the hatred ... the path leads to the darkside ... (it's not worth getting frustrated believe me)
Qui'lu of Chilastra
> Credit nerfed? perhaps.... but I'm having a hard time fathoming why entertainers
>and such are needing crates of grenandes, heavy launcher weapons, and full suits
>of composite armor......
I don't know about other galaxies/locations, but I usually dance in the Coronet cantina on Bloodfin. There are lots of reb/imp battles in there all the time. I'll be dancing along and almost get smashed by an AT-ST and shoved aside as people run through with weapons blazing. That's why I need grenades, armor, etc. A girl needs to protect herself!
Aseanie
Digitalphobia wrote:
Besides being purely devoted to one profession in this very rich game is sorta waste, isn't it?
So it boils down to "Get a real job." Granted, it's the nicest way I've seen it put. But it sounds like that's the crux of it all.
And that's a valid statement to make to anyone. "Hey you with the pets! Get a real job." "Hey you selling houses! Get a real job."
And in days past--before most cantinas erected a heal bot--the entertainer can say, "Fine, I guess I will," and the patrons ask, "Why didn't the entertainer stay?" Then the economy bounces back and forth. However, with these AFK bots, the economy swings one way and stays there. "Fine," say the patrons, "we don't need players in the cantina anyway." And people become complacent and take the entertainer for granted. Nowadays, tipping an entertainer is like tipping a medic who heals you without asking. Oh, it's nice of you to do that for me, but I didn't really need it or ask for it. Some people will tip because they realize the work it takes to be a good Dancer.
Technically, Dancers don't need money to do their job. But what Dancer is content to dance in newbie clothes? What Dancer doesn't enjoy using food (or in some circles, spice) to enhance their performance? A performance, by the way, that typically benefits the patrons. What Dancer doesn't want to buy a cute bearded jax or gnort to share the dance floor?
Dancers have wants, too. A Marksman really doesn't need to buy a 80k gun. He can level his way all the way up the Marksman tree with CDEF guns. But he wants that Scout Blaster. He wants the Laser Rifle. He wants a house so he can mount his trophies.
A Dancer is not much different. She wants those shoes. She wants a house to show off her furniture. Is she interested in playing the game just to dance 24/7? Probably not. She wants to go have fun and attend parties and do all those things that real people do.
You're right, Digitalphobia, that Dancers could pick up a gun or a crafting tool and do something else to gain money, but not all Dancers want to do that. Why should we force them to go that route? Especially when you consider the value they provide to other players? By being in the cantina, a Dancer helps a person save 15 skill points, which can go to other skills. Surely that is worth something.
And I realize how valuable those skill points are. My Dancer has made the difficult choice of dropping Medic in order to improve her other skills. Wow, what a difference that makes. I cannot just set up camp and heal my own wounds at will. I have to haul my butt to a medical center and find someone to heal my wounds. And if someone is there, then I owe that person some money for the convenience.
I understand your frustration with dancing, Digitalphobia. I'd expect you to be more supporting of Dancers needing tips. But I can tell that you are jaded about the whole experience. And I can't blame you.
Is Dancer easy? Well, you won't get DBed, true. But it still takes work and dedication to be a good entertainer. So I won't say that it's easy. It just doesn't have a death toll (normally).
It wouldn't do much to resolve the AFK issues unless we got rid of shared healing XP.. and thats an aweful big move. I don't think the devs will be very responsive to a request like that. If we did get that changed tho I'd have to try and get him to bump up healing XP big time to make up for it. Hmm.. I really just don't think this is something realistic. From an AFK perspective unless we change a lot of things I don't think they'll let us change, its not going to help. From a credit making standpoint I'd prefer our dev get our missions fixed before spending time adding a popup and theres been a large amount of posts from people against pop ups most the time the idea comes up.
Just not seeing a big enough benefit here to justify the annoyance of having to click boxes constantly. Still tho, if theres enough support I'll push the idea as always.
Nhari wrote:
Anyway, I like the idea (especially the automated /dump). I think it has to somehow work with player-tipped credits, though. I just can't figure out how player-tipped credits can apply to afkers, however, for the simple fact that not many people tip them. I could suggest something like a need to manually /collect tipped credits within 15 minutes of receiving them (the /collect command calling up a yes/no popup), but such a timer would only start once the tips had been given. Not terribly effective if Joe Afk doesn't get tipped.
Yeah, that could be a nasty trap to set ourselves up for. "If heal bots stop healing because I tipped them, then I'll tip nobody."
The economy issue is a valid concern. Of course, when you consider that a Master Pistoleer could rack up over 100k credits in one hour (with minimal money sinks), I think that giving away 1k to a Master Dancer is chump change.
My numbers could be smaller. Hey, maybe even 5 credits for a Novice Entertainer. "Good start, kid. Keep up the good work, and there's a shiny quarter in it for you!" Compared to mission payouts of Level 40 missions, this won't impact the economy horribly.
And if you want to minimize clicking, the popup could only be every half hour. As long as the timer doesn't reset (which looks to be the largest problem with the current sampling popup, if I understand correctly), then half an hour is still good. Certainly, people cannot let it run while asleep or at work. Someone could just watch a movie and keep the computer nearby, but that's not as heinous. It's still an effort to earn your XP. I know that I wouldn't want to watch Two Towers and have to turn away six or seven times to click a button.
I don't want frenzied clicking either, Digitalphobia. That's why I hope to keep it infrequent. And definitely do not mess up anything the entertainer was doing. If I'm typing in my flourish combination, I don't want anything to make it hiccup. Keep it unobtrusive during those 5 minutes (would 10 minutes be more comfortable? It still would prevent the at-work AFK).
Ravenmist wrote:
It wouldn't do much to resolve the AFK issues unless we got rid of shared healing XP..
Hmm, if you don't dance, you don't get xp, right? If the system forces you to stop dancing and /dumps your macros, then you do not benefit from a group's xp, correct?
I know that when I stop dancing, I also stop receiving heal xp. Or am I still gaining some and just never looked to see that I gained some?
Sorry Kuildeous, should of specified which pop up I was talking about. I was talking about the pop up for every time someone wanted to get healed by you.
Kuildeous wrote:
Ravenmist wrote:
It wouldn't do much to resolve the AFK issues unless we got rid of shared healing XP..
Hmm, if you don't dance, you don't get xp, right? If the system forces you to stop dancing and /dumps your macros, then you do not benefit from a group's xp, correct?
I know that when I stop dancing, I also stop receiving heal xp. Or am I still gaining some and just never looked to see that I gained some?
Ravenmist wrote:
Sorry Kuildeous, should of specified which pop up I was talking about. I was talking about the pop up for every time someone wanted to get healed by you.
Oh, yeah, right. Sorry.
I am being bad and mixing threads into one topic.
Should I pursue my own thread for this suggestion?