Dancer Archive
Thread: Poll: Entertainer Mission Payouts
Landlubber
Mon Jan 17, 2005 1:12 am
#14
Xyrdre wrote:
Interesting ideas here as always, but this poll was really asking about payout ranges with nothing else changing in the mission structure.
Baby steps here... if there can't be significant reform to entertainer missions yet, but there was a chance to adjust the mission payouts (as they are now... assuming no additional development, but only changing the payout amounts), what would be good, reasonable and fair?
Just to answer your question then, they should at least be similar to delivery missions in payout. So anything from a few hundred credits (for those which arein the same city) to around 10k. Possibly a bit more, because the time investment is higher.
(I think it makes more sense to compare them to delivery missions than combat missions. And when I can make 10k just by going from Theed to Moenia, I should be able to make at least that as an Entertainer)
Rabenschwinge
Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:11 am
#15
Hello...
well I don't like the way entertainer missions are made up currently, but if it just the payment to be changed I'd like to see it somehow linked to recon mission (in case you don't know what this is: try the second tab on explorer mission terminals).
The danger of the location should somehow translate into the difficulty of the dance and the number of flourishes to perform.
I think that would be fair, giving anyone enough money to pay for the travel.
Greeting and little white bunnies,
Sharven
well I don't like the way entertainer missions are made up currently, but if it just the payment to be changed I'd like to see it somehow linked to recon mission (in case you don't know what this is: try the second tab on explorer mission terminals).
The danger of the location should somehow translate into the difficulty of the dance and the number of flourishes to perform.
I think that would be fair, giving anyone enough money to pay for the travel.
Greeting and little white bunnies,
Sharven
DanceRulez
Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:33 am
#16
To answer this question I would refer to current artisan and delivery missions. Right now delivery missions require no skill or risk of any kind and give payouts based solely on distance - anywhere from about 50 credits for in-town deliveries to about 1k for the most distant same planet deliveries. I would expect there to be more offworld deliveries - and last time I checked, the only way to get these was on non-core planet terminals where you are often required to deliver to another world, but the payouts on these never made much sense. They seemed to have less payout than a distant location, same planet delivery so I don't really count these. Artisan missions often seem to pay around 1k or so and seem to be distance based as well, though the distance I think always ends up being not much farther than a neighboring city. Here there is no cost as the NPCs will provide you with a schematic and the ingredients. Enough skill to operate a generic crafter is required and there is a risk that the crafting will crit fail and you will be unable to complete the mission. Still they don't take much longer than a delivery mission to complete.
So for Entertainer missions it seems reasonable to me that they could start at maybe 500-1000 for same city missions, and go to 3k to 4k for the most distant city missions. Then maybe 4k to 6k per mission for off-world missions (assuming they add this feature that is). This could be for starter novice ent level missions. Maybe this seems like a lot, but it's really not considering that right now delivery missions can earn you about 2k in 5 minutes or so between the most distant same world cities depending on your luck at catching the shuttle (or if you have JtL). That's about 4k per 10 minutes, requiring no skills and no risk. Right now I think a dance missions lasts 10 minutes or so just to do so it seems to me it ought to pay more than missions that require no skill at all.
Unfortunately the artisan missions don't scale with level nor do they scale with group size so for scaling, I'm not sure the best way to do it. I suppose you'd have to use the combat missions to get an example. It seems to me that missions could scale up to 10k-15k per person for master level Dancers/Musicians. It's still not all that much for the skill level requirement and the time commitment involved - they could even increase the time requirement on these a bit if they wanted. At 10-15 minutes a mission you couldn't complete more than 6 an hour.
Now the only other factor I can think of is what importance do they want the mission terminals to have. I think they were intended to be primarily for getting people started in the game or just to supply an alternative income source or source of missions. I remember reading something from one of the devs that they hoped players would find better and more interesting quests from NPC's rather than just the mission terminals. I don't think there is such a system in place in the game yet as all NPC quests either seem to be one time opportunities like the themeparks, or junk quests from the NPC's that give you endless, randomized mini-missions with mostly junk rewards. If they ever do get a good NPC quest system going, they may want to decrease the payout system on the terminals to make the NPC missions payouts better, but that remains to be seen. For now I think all we really have are the terminals.
So for Entertainer missions it seems reasonable to me that they could start at maybe 500-1000 for same city missions, and go to 3k to 4k for the most distant city missions. Then maybe 4k to 6k per mission for off-world missions (assuming they add this feature that is). This could be for starter novice ent level missions. Maybe this seems like a lot, but it's really not considering that right now delivery missions can earn you about 2k in 5 minutes or so between the most distant same world cities depending on your luck at catching the shuttle (or if you have JtL). That's about 4k per 10 minutes, requiring no skills and no risk. Right now I think a dance missions lasts 10 minutes or so just to do so it seems to me it ought to pay more than missions that require no skill at all.
Unfortunately the artisan missions don't scale with level nor do they scale with group size so for scaling, I'm not sure the best way to do it. I suppose you'd have to use the combat missions to get an example. It seems to me that missions could scale up to 10k-15k per person for master level Dancers/Musicians. It's still not all that much for the skill level requirement and the time commitment involved - they could even increase the time requirement on these a bit if they wanted. At 10-15 minutes a mission you couldn't complete more than 6 an hour.
Now the only other factor I can think of is what importance do they want the mission terminals to have. I think they were intended to be primarily for getting people started in the game or just to supply an alternative income source or source of missions. I remember reading something from one of the devs that they hoped players would find better and more interesting quests from NPC's rather than just the mission terminals. I don't think there is such a system in place in the game yet as all NPC quests either seem to be one time opportunities like the themeparks, or junk quests from the NPC's that give you endless, randomized mini-missions with mostly junk rewards. If they ever do get a good NPC quest system going, they may want to decrease the payout system on the terminals to make the NPC missions payouts better, but that remains to be seen. For now I think all we really have are the terminals.
Ikewe
Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:24 am
#17
I agree that our mission payouts should be similar to others already in place such as delivery or exploration. If I take a delivery Rebel Faction mission in Dearic, Talus, I can make 500 credits simply for running 200 meters and talking to someone. Currently if I take an entertainer mission in Dearic, Talus I must dance for 10 minutes to earn 100 - 200 credits. So if I'm interested in making money, it makes a lot more sense for me to simply spend my day running the delivery missions. They don't give me a TEF, I don't have to purchase accarragm, and I can avoid areas in the town where thugs might spawn. The best way to keep entertainers in the cantinas is to make the missions pay us what we could make if we went outside the cantina.
So here's my scale:
novice entertainer mission: 500 credits for solo mission
as the novice entertainer gains skill boxes the mission payout and difficulty level should increase to the point that:
Master Dancer or Master Musician mission: 10,000 credits for solo mission
As for mission length, I don't think they should ever take longer than 10 minutes to complete. It would also be helpful if there were some indicator for us to know when we are close to completing the mission. The firstday I took an entertainer mission, I aborted the mission a few times because I thought I was doing it incorrectly. It was by shear accident (someone actually came into the cantina so I kept dancing to heal them) that I got the mission complete message. And we won't mention that at first I danced in the waypoint "beam" instead of inside the building...boy they sure make you feel like a dork when you're new.
I also think that just like current combat missions the payout should increase slightly on more hostile planets. If I travel to Dantooine and choose the Smuggler's Outpost the risk of my getting killed by pirates while loading is fairly significant if I do not have combat skills and have my weapon equipped.
If I am grouped when I take an entertainer mission then the payout and difficulty level should be scaled, just as it is for combat missions. There's no reason 20 entertainers should have to split 100 credits. I like the idea of simply making it so that the mission payout for each individual in the group would be the same as if they had taken a solo mission but that might be too complicated for programming with so many different levels in the same group.
Ikewe, Master Dancer Shadowfire
Groovymarlin
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:15 am
#18
Else, they HAVE to include money to cover travel costs. Otherwise, why would anyone take a mission to the Dathomir Research Outpost cantina? Or the Narmle Cantina? Or the Endor Smuggler's Outpost cantina? Or any of the other underpopulated or far-flung worlds? If you're only going to pay max 1000 credits for an entertainer mission, then you're ensuring that people will only take missions in the cities where they are, probably mostly Theed, Coronet, Bestine, and a few others.
If you include some extra money relative to the travel expense then chances are much better you'll get a live entertainer in some of those out-of-the-way places. In this way entertainer missions could be used not only as a reward and income source for entertainers, but as a way to populate more cantinas, theaters, and hotels; maybe even player city cantinas and theaters (well, if they ever fix those). And that makes it a reward for ALL players.
I agree with the person who suggested 10k as a reasonable payout for master-level missions. I believe the current entertainer missions require you to perform at the venue for 10 minutes. That could be bumped up to 15 or 20 minutes, even 1/2 hour. But even at 10 minutes, let's say I do a 10k mission every 10 minutes. That's 60k an hour, assuming I can find them all at the cantina I'm already performing in (if not, then subtract travel costs). Subtract maybe 1500 for the cost of accarragm that I'd use in an hour. That leaves what, 58.5k assuming no travel? That's not a lot of money, and is certainly less than I used to make during peak times in the Theed Cantina before the AFK zombies and buffbots took over.
If you include some extra money relative to the travel expense then chances are much better you'll get a live entertainer in some of those out-of-the-way places. In this way entertainer missions could be used not only as a reward and income source for entertainers, but as a way to populate more cantinas, theaters, and hotels; maybe even player city cantinas and theaters (well, if they ever fix those). And that makes it a reward for ALL players.
I agree with the person who suggested 10k as a reasonable payout for master-level missions. I believe the current entertainer missions require you to perform at the venue for 10 minutes. That could be bumped up to 15 or 20 minutes, even 1/2 hour. But even at 10 minutes, let's say I do a 10k mission every 10 minutes. That's 60k an hour, assuming I can find them all at the cantina I'm already performing in (if not, then subtract travel costs). Subtract maybe 1500 for the cost of accarragm that I'd use in an hour. That leaves what, 58.5k assuming no travel? That's not a lot of money, and is certainly less than I used to make during peak times in the Theed Cantina before the AFK zombies and buffbots took over.
Sunjammer
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:32 am
#19
I would like to see mission payouts be tied to the time spent performing in some way, as well as the location. What the rest of the player base needs from us is to be available, in as many locations as possible. Therefore entertainer missions should encourage us to go to a certain cantina/hotel/theatre and stay there. The longer you're there, the more money you get.
Perhaps the amount of money per hour could be based on the current skill level.
Mission payouts should increase per person for groups, and at the same time, the XP bonus for being grouped should be eliminated. This will encourage group performances in a wide variety of cantinas, while actively discouraging the "clumping" of entertainers into one or two places. I'm sure a lot of people will hate that suggestion, but I stand by it. We need to spread out. As passionately intolerant as I am of AFK, I do recognise that the rest of the playerbase have a legitimate gripe about us being hard to find.
This would also eliminate any value in AFK grinding in public. If possible, the XP bonus should remain for groups while they are doing a terminal mission as a group, but I don't know how feasible coding that would be.
J.
Umiio "Umi" Panwanga • Rodian party girl • Bria
Iba'onchab • Gets boarded sometimes • Chimaera
This random sig quote is brought to you by Doonesbury:
"It must be hard working with amputees. My daddy's therapist is very sad."
"How do you know, honey?"
"He says she's a total sadist."
Perhaps the amount of money per hour could be based on the current skill level.
Mission payouts should increase per person for groups, and at the same time, the XP bonus for being grouped should be eliminated. This will encourage group performances in a wide variety of cantinas, while actively discouraging the "clumping" of entertainers into one or two places. I'm sure a lot of people will hate that suggestion, but I stand by it. We need to spread out. As passionately intolerant as I am of AFK, I do recognise that the rest of the playerbase have a legitimate gripe about us being hard to find.
This would also eliminate any value in AFK grinding in public. If possible, the XP bonus should remain for groups while they are doing a terminal mission as a group, but I don't know how feasible coding that would be.
J.
Umiio "Umi" Panwanga • Rodian party girl • Bria
Iba'onchab • Gets boarded sometimes • Chimaera
This random sig quote is brought to you by Doonesbury:
"It must be hard working with amputees. My daddy's therapist is very sad."
"How do you know, honey?"
"He says she's a total sadist."
Else-Whira
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:42 am
#20
What I am saying is that our missions shouldn't encourage travel. If combants want us to be on Dantooine rather than in coronet or theed THEY should ask with their wallets. Entertainers should be able to earn credits while no combatant comes through the cantina that the entertainer has chosen to play out of, not be forced to go to cantina's like the terrible ones on dantooine, dathomir and endor just to get a higher paying mission. It's counter to what the core vission of entertainer embodies.
A major reason it's not a good idea to encourage masses of entertainers to those cantina's is that they aren't designed for it. hey are tiny cantinas designed for groups that brought a long a dancer or musician not huge parties of entertainers like the big cities on the core planets.
A major reason it's not a good idea to encourage masses of entertainers to those cantina's is that they aren't designed for it. hey are tiny cantinas designed for groups that brought a long a dancer or musician not huge parties of entertainers like the big cities on the core planets.
Va-Mei
Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:17 am
#21
I think the entertainer missions should be as profitable as the combat missions, but remember to factor in the cost of buffs, meds, food & equipment loss into the profitability of the comabt missions.
On Friday, I geard up my rifleman with all new guns, armor, food, & meds because the stuff I had was falling apart. 200k for armor(unsliced), 100k for guns (500k actually, but I buy 5 times what I really want,keep the best slices & sell the rest for what I can), 220k for a case of brandy & ahrisa, and another case of stim-Bs. I don't even want to get into the cost of the armor attachments on the armor <wince>. After a weekend of fun, the guns & armor are at 1/2-2/3 condition, & half the ahrisa is gone. I was big game hunting with no good drops worth mentioning, so my gain was nada.Next weekend, I'll need to start repairing equipment (and replace anything with a failing repair)& buy ahrisa again.
For the moment, my most profitable money missions are picket plains walkers for about 10k. I can do those solo at about 5 min a lair, with no armor loss,using a well sliced laser. The payout is lower, but so are the costs & losses. I hear about people doing 3 minute missions, but I can't seem to really pull off more than 12 missions an hour.
If I choose to take my danceron someentertainer missions, my expenses would amount to shuttle fair & bike maintenance.
All that said, I think the problem with setting payouts low for the entertainers is the cost of prestige items. My rifleman can makegood money, and that money gives him choices. He still has to choose what to buy and what not to, but at least he has the choice. "Do I buy that shiny newrifle speed attachmant, the new armor, the twillek portrait... or thatmonster kryatrifle.../drool Oh that's pretty... But if I buy it, I'll be killing pickets forever till I can get the new armor..."
Entertainers whorun missions and make10-25k an hour(arbitrary number for AFTER payouts are fixed) will be able to affordnew clothing to fit their mood, & some nice BE stuff after a bit. Entertainers whobuff for tips to get by, can afford clothes, and can usually get buffs& accarogram. I have yet to see a way for a pureATK entertainer to think about filling a nice house with some of the high ticket decorations, let alone consider putting together a +25 buff suit.
NeillM
Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:57 am
#22
I would argue that an Entertainer mission should payout at leasttwice, possibly three times,that of a delivery mission. Here is my reasoning:
The level of danger is equivelant.
The traveling is equivelant
The time taken to complete isabout same as doing two/three consecutive delivery missions, here is my reasoning for for this:
1 d) Take a single delivery mission travel to NPC in city and get package go to Shuttle, wait max 5 mins. Arrive at NPC city find delivery contact and make drop.
1 e) Take single Entertainer mission got to shuttle, wait max 5 minutes. Arrive at NPC city find performance location and start performing.
2 d) Take another single delivery mission travel to NPC in city and get package go to Shuttle, wait max 5 mins. Arrive at NPC city find delivery contact and make drop.
2 e) Entertainer now about halfway through performance (5 minutes of performing)
3 d) Take another single delivery mission travel to NPC in city and get package go to Shuttle, wait max 5 mins. Arrive at NPC city find delivery contact and make drop.
3e) Entertainerfinishes performance (10 minutes of performing)
4 d) Goto 1 d
4 e) Goto 1 e
This shows that certainly 2 deliveries can be made to each Entertainer performance (under the longest shuttle wait), three may be possible.
Since in the current system there is no difficulty attached to the missions there should be no extra for being higher up the profession. The credit value should be affected by group size in the same way as that of delivery missions.
xixi
Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:51 pm
#23
As it stands, combat missions pulled from a regular mission terminal do not require a combatant to jump planet.
If they're not already, ent missions should be limited to the terminal's planet, which would control the travel costs, similar to the combat scenario.
They could, perhaps,make the payouts higher on higher level planets, provided we're required to travel a bit outside of outposts to speak to an NPC or something.
As to the increase itself, payouts should be commiserate with combatant pay, with similar 'formulas' for ability level a/o group missions.
For instance, if you're soloing on say... Naboo, the highest payout mission you can pull--even as a master-level combatant--is around 3.5k. Grouped, you can pull much higher payouts than that, and there's a much wider selection of missions to pull.
Yet if you were soloing on Yavin, the highest payout would be 12k (klikniks). Grouped, again, it goes higher, and more choices are available.
(I think you need at least six in the group to haul up the expanded choices. 13 to bring the payouts up about as high as you can go.)
There should also be an extra xp benefit to lower-level entertainers grouped with higher-levels, similar to a noob marksmen grouping with a bunch of TKMs who can save their keister when they get in trouble, thus kill things that would normally eat them alive and cough up huge xp.
I can see some tweaking to account for the lack of expenses such as armor and weapons, but if the missions were loaded with flourishes and whatnot, we should not necessarily be able to complete them easily without chef or doc buffs--at least for the big payouts. Because as far as I know, flourishes do drain our action, causing us to stop dancing/playing for a period of time, similar to a combatant becoming incapped or what have you. Yes, that requires content tweaking, but if the mind-set is that ent's have it too easy to earn non-insulting mission payouts, then make it harder. We won't complain. Will we?
And while we're on the subject, you want to cure (some of)the AFK problem? Let dancers and musicians incap themselves while skill animating when their action gets to zero, then die if they incap 3 times in 10 minutes. While this might sound a bit offputting, it would certainly raise our profile a couple miles with the other player classes, and I, for one, would not complain. (Thus making chef or doc buffs, or properly managed stats necessary. And /gasp we might have to pay attention! God forbid.)
As an aside, targeting these desirable payout missions to non-player cities with starship terminals would help solve some problems as well.
Enough /pondering--
Xixi
Esharra
Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:01 pm
#24
A sliding scale based on level with maximum for master being 9k (about the same as the payout for a gurk mission which can be completed in 5 minutes by a buffed novice TK without armor).
Xyrdre wrote:
Alright, here's one of those things that's bugged us for a long time. Low entertainer mission payouts. But, have we really come to an agreement as a community about what we thinkthe pay range should be for these, rather than just 'more'?
So, I'd like to poll and start discussion on what we as a community think entertainer mission payouts should be. Let's limit this to one variable... discussion about how to make missions more fun and such we'll leave for another day.
What do you think the existing entertainer missions should pay out, to bring these in line with other basic profession missions in SWG?And be fair here... be ready to back up your thoughts with at least some reason, rather than just "they should pay a million credits, because then I'd be rich!"
Groovymarlin
Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:41 pm
#25
Else-Whira wrote:
What I am saying is that our missions shouldn't encourage travel. If combants want us to be on Dantooine rather than in coronet or theed THEY should ask with their wallets.
Well that's a nice idea but we already see it doesn't work that way.
Missions should encourage us to stay in the cantina longer by requiring a longer performance, and they should take travel costs into consideration when the payout is calculated. If a mission requires the entertainer to travel, the payout should cover the cost of traveling as well as a decent payout for the time expended actually entertaining.
Lonaris
Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:02 pm
#26
I am of the mindset that the price should work with what level in dancer you are. Like have higher level dances give larger rewards ... the problem is I get the same missions at basic dance I did as a master Dancer ... the payout now is in line for when you first start out. Yet there is never ever an increase. So say have missions that give larger payouts but require you to use the higher level dances. Not sure if that can be coded. ... just an idea I thought I would throw in the pit.