Dancer Archive
Thread: Was I wrong when I tipped dancers?
Badeb wrote:don't be afraid to politely ask woundedpeople in a /tell to watch you. I find most people prefer to help non-zombies andwillswitch, although it helps if you have some strong healing skills.
This is a catch-22. How can LatH get healing skills in the first place if no one watches him/her? "I won't watch/listen because all you have is novice ent" will basically guarantee that nobody makes it out of novice ent.
With my secondary character, a wookiee brawler/scout/medic on Shadowfire, I have a character who is his adoptive sister who is an entertainer, and so when she is on I /listen to her. However, when she is NOT on, I make it a point to watch/listen to the lowest level entertainer who is at keyboard that I can find. I hope that in my own inadequate way I can encourage these people. I always try to interact and say something nice as well.
Badeb wrote:Considergoing toadventure planets if you are looking for tip income. I find the tip-per-patron rate to be around 80% on places like Dantooine or Lok. Normally I'm the only at-the-keyboard entertainer in any given cantina I visit, and afkers aren't as common as I was expecting. The downsides are worth noting though: first, the shuttle costs are substantial and second, be prepared for long stretches of boredom
Yeah people kept telling me this so finally I tried it the last two weeks -- Lok, and then Endor. This must be very server dependent because at least on my server (Naritus), they're full of crap. I costs 3200 round trip from Naboo to Lok, and I think I made a whopping 300 credits and got maybe 1,000 healing xp (oh great, that makes a huge dent in the 125,000 I need for Fatiuge IV). If I hadn't also been nearly master Marksman and been able to go hunting with friends, my entire time there would've been a loss -- a huge loss. Then I tried Endor basically all day Saturday. Went to both outposts. 600 credits a trip for that (1200 total), plus 4200 or something for the round trip space travel from Naboo = 5400 total credits spent. I raked in a whopping 3500 in tips, almost all from ONE party that came in with very few wounds, but was huge, and they were all nice and tipped a few hundred each. That's a 1900 credit loss for those keeping track, and I definitely didn't have the oomph to do any destroy missions on Endor.
So in two weekend days on two "adventure" worlds, counting tips and travel only, I spent 8600 credits and probably 12 hours of time, and I earned back maybe 4000 credits (i.e. a -4600 credit LOSS), and gained maybe -- maybe -- 4,000 total healing xps.
I make more than that just sitting in Keren on Naboo. I only need ONE person who has decent cash and forgot to clone to walk in and I can get several thousand healing xp and probably a 2,000 credit tip.
So, at the very least this is highly server dependent, and I also do not support telling someone they should go through potentially hours of boredom for a few credits and heal xp. Hours of boredom == why people macro in the first place. Therefore I regard the advice, "Go to the adventure planets" as dubious at best and my own experience pretty much contradicts the conventional wisdom on this one.
MY advice is, to find a nice, small cantina in a place like Kor Vella, Mos Entha, or Keren, and set up shop there. These places tend to have small but rather permanent populations. I see the same people week in and week out in Keren... they live outside of town. The shuttle is right near the cantina. They hear people talking inside (in spatial) -- which, by the way, happens when you are actively socializing -- and come in to take a peek, or wait for the shuttle. When they get to know you, they think of you as a friend. As a friend, they will tip you, and watch you preferentially over Little-Miss-Newbie-Macroer, for example... which will encourage the Macroer to go elsewhere to get her healing XP, leaving your cantina sanitized and healthy.
As to the original question. No, YOU were not wrong to tip. THEY are wrong NOT to tip. But I think you already knew that. :-)
C
try listening to people talking in the cantina. See if anyone is going on a large hunting party and offer to come along to dance in camps but set a price.
The best place to make tips, at least on my server Dathomir. They now have 20K missions and people have been flocking there, and they are always looking for entertainers to heal them in the cantina.
As a former master dancer, I am very strict on who I tip. I did not AFK my way to master. I earned it, so I tend to be resentful to the robots. When I walk into a cantina, I willwatch/listen someone who doesn't have the AFK tag over their head or whomever is interacting with the crowd. When I am all healed, I will talk to the person I was watching if they haven't already started talking to me yet. If they don't respond, I tell them I want to give them a tip, but only if I know they are at the keyboard. If they don't respond. I say oh well, another free heal and the entertainer industry continues to go downhill.
welcome to starsider 
i've found that its either one or the other: experience, or tips. you can get good experience in cantinas with lots of fellow performers, but you'll hardly ever get any tips. if you go to a less crowded or empty venue, then you'll get better tips, especially if you're a master. i've been getting some great tips at the dantooine mining outpost the past couple days because its been so crowded with holocron hunters it sounds like you're new though, so you'd probably want to try theed or coronet, i hear they're both pretty busy. you might also want to look Adara- she has a school for dancers and musicians, i believe on naboo. i haven't been there personally, but i've met adara, she's very nice, and i'm sure it'd be a good atmosphere at the very least.
lath, if you or any other broke novice dancers or musiciansneed some clothes, you can visit my tailor friend Saffen. his shop should be on the map, its in a player city right outside of wayfar. pick out a couple outfits from him, and tell him Dyvana will pay for it. anything you want, jewelry included. and if you need training in dancer, let me know, i'll train you for free i know how hard it is to get some credits together early on, but don't worry, it'll get a better (at least a little ) if you stick with it all the way to master
WAIT! my fault. his shop is outside of Mos Taike, NOT Wayfar.
sorry, i always get those two confused in my head
One of the other better ways to get healing and dancing XP is to get into the Entertainer group that may be in the cantina. I did the most of mine in Theed and Coronet but travelled to Moenia, Bestine, and Anchorhead. To get the cash up that I needed to support my harvesters (I'm shooting for master tailor as well) I did delivery missions between Kadaara and Moenia. I would snag 2 delivery missions to Kadaara (paying 850-950 a piece),pay 230 credits for a round trip ticket to Kadaara and back in Mo, do the deliveries in Kadaara, snag two missions that ended in Mo for the same amount and got anywhere from 2400-2800 per round trip and costing me 230 credits. I would always keep 200 credits on me to make the trip from Theed to Mo (grabbing missions before I went) and ran more if I was running low on funds.
Now don't get me wrong, I have had very good tips dancing and the highest I've made was 5k.
Congrats on trying the dancing route. Don't know if you're a male or not (snicker) like I am and if you are that's even better. Don't take the laughs too literally, you'll get twice the girls (again if you are a male) and have alot of fun (I hope).
Ptetroski
Master Dancer--Kettemoor
LadyKaySWG wrote:
Just wondering why you did not make the dancer on Bloodfin??
Because there is 0.0 roleplay on Bloodfin. I heard that Starsider is way better on the roleplay and guess what - there is.
This is what's known in the field of studying animal behavior as "risk averse" verses "risk prone" behavior. Yours is risk prone, mine is risk averse. What do these mean?
There are two types of "resources" an animal can forage on -- or in this case, a dancer can look for.
A "safe" resource is one that is constant but low. So for example, Keren is "safe." You're never going to make "tens of thousands" of credits there or get 10,000 healing xp in an hour, but you will never get zero either. You will get a constant, low amount... maybe 2,000 credits and 2,000 healing xps a night. This is a "safe resource" and you can "count on it" for low but consistent levels of reward.
A "risky" resource is one that is highly variable, and can range from 0 (much lower than the safe one) to huge amounts that make the safe one look laughable. Thus, you might get 0 credits all day on Endor, or you might make 100,000 credits, which makes the 2,000 you make a night on Keren look like a joke. Similarly, you might get 0 ent heal xps on Endor for the night, or you might get 25,000 xp, which again would make what you make in Keren look like a joke. This is a "risky resource", because you never know what you are going to get. The range is MUCH wider than Keren's, which means on some nights you can get lucky and "cash in" but on other nights you will get unlucky and "lose big."
Someone like me, who prefers the constant low level of reward available at Keren, is engaging in risk averse behavior, which makes sense because I do that with everything -- for example, I usually only attack creatures white or below, because while the XP rewards are lower than yellow or red, the chance of surviving is almost 100%, while other people I know regularly attack yellows and even reds because "if you survive you get great xps." Your suggested form ove behavior is like the guy who attacks yellows and reds because of the massive potential rewards: it's risk prone. The potential rewards are much higher, but so are the potential costs (hours of boredom, thousands of credits for naught).
Neither sort of behavior is "right." In fact theoretical studies on animal behavior have pretty much shown that, mathematically at least, the total expected average reward over a lifetime of the two types of behavior (risk averse vs. risk prone) is often identical. So the question is not really "which is correct" in the abstract, because neither really is, but which is right for your style of play.
For someone like me, who bores easily and is looking above all for roleplay, going to Endor is a terrible idea, beause the very real risk is hours of boredom with little opportunity for RP. I went to Endor just to see it, with no expectation of massive monetary gains (I was hoping for some healing XPs though, and was disappointed to get very little). I had fun seeing the ewoks and dancing for them (they watch you and react -- it's cute). So for me, the risk-prone strategy doesn't work, and while I will probably visit the other high end worlds once just to say I've been there, when I am looking for a good time dancing, I will stick with Keren or Kaadara.
For someone who doesn't bore easily or who has other goals in mind, or is looking for that big whomping payout and is more patient than I am with idle-time, then the risk-averse strategy might do better. I'm not this type of person so I can't really say a lot more about it, other than to say that I do recognize it is a valid way to go -- just not one that fits my play style.
I still consider "go to the high end worlds" to be dubious advice that has a relatively high probability of failure, and the huge monetary costs involved make it, in my opinion, an overly risky idea for a truly novice dancer or musician. You should only go there if you can take the full monetary loss of the trip, because, since it is a "risky" strategy, while you may often expect to make it back and then some, there will be some trips when you make ZERO (I know people it's happened to), and if you can't afford that, then you'd better not go until you make money somewhere else first.
But then, I am a risk averse person, so you have to take my advice with that in mind.
C
What risk is there? You lose a2-5 thousand credits if things go poorly. Why fear wasting an amount of in-game money that can be replaced doing delivery missions?
But this post was about your risk aversion, while my advice pertains to the rest of the entertainment community. Because you personally didn't like it, doesn't mean that other people won't enjoy it. I think the eating the shuttle ticketcost to give something a try is money well spent, even if you decide you don't want to do it again. It's certainly better than just assuming it's a waste.
Some responses to Chessack:
"This is a catch-22. How can LatH get healing skills in the first place if no one watches him/her? "I won't watch/listen because all you have is novice ent" will basically guarantee that nobody makes it out of novice ent."
This is not a catch-22. I maintain that if you politely ask people to watch you, even if you you're just a novice dancer, most people will accommodate you. I stated that having better healing skills makes it easier to convince someone to watch you.That is not the same thing as saying that only havingnovice-only healing skills will prevent people from listening to you. The key point here is that there is no harm in asking.
"Therefore I regard the advice, 'Go to the adventure planets' as dubious at best and my own experience pretty much contradicts the conventional wisdom on this one."
I'm sorry adventure planets didn't work for you. I believe I was honest about the risks of going out to an adventure planet in my original post: boredom and costs. Your conclusion that it's bad general adviceis incorrect. I tend to dance 3 hours or so on weeknights on adventure planets. It's not uncommon for me to pull in tens of thousands of credits on a good night and I pretty much always make my travel expenses back on even the slowest nights. I'm also not a master dancer - I only have a 30% mind buff to offer.
Sure it might be something you decide you don't want to do, but you'll never know if it's worthwhileuntil you try.
Also if you are new, 5,000 credits might be every penny you have. You run the real risk of coming back out that 5,000 credits, which if you only have 5,000, is pretty expensive.
I just want to make sure the new entertainers out there know that it is not guaranteed that they will cash in on Endor, Lok, etc, and that there is definitely the real risk that they could lose most or all of the money they spend on the ticket. If they're OK with that, great... but they need to know it and understand the risks.
Or they may end up like one person I know who just had the money to GET to Endor, and not get back, and was stuck there for DAYS until someone tipped her enough to get home...
C
"Sitting for hours on end in an empty cantina being bored out of your skull is a MUCH bigger cost than 5,000 credits. At least to me. "
My experience in adventure planet cantinas is not fundamentallydifferent than playing a quiet town on a starter planet. In some ways it's been better, becauseI typically seepeople flush with cash from high paying missions who actually appreciate the service instead of players accustomed to getting their free, convenient heal from an afker.There alsotends to bemore conversation with people, even though alot of it starts with "why are you here?" It's not like I can't chat with my friends when I'm out there.
"Also if you are new, 5,000 credits might be every penny you have. You run the real risk of coming back out that 5,000 credits, which if you only have 5,000, is pretty expensive."
Obviously you don't spend the 5000 credits you need to obtain novice dancer. You don't spend money you need to spend on other more important things like your next week's worth of maintenance on your house. I give people enough credit to be able to assess whether they can afford it, or are willing to do missions to recover it, should it not pay off.
"I just want to make sure the new entertainers out there know that it is not guaranteed that they will cash in on Endor, Lok, etc, and that there is definitely the real risk that they could lose most or all of the money they spend on the ticket. If they're OK with that, great... but they need to know it and understand the risks."
I agree with you that there is a risk of losing credits, even though I've always made a decent return. I think you're overstating the downside and it's best if people have the first-hand experience at least once.
Chessack and I have probably beat this into the ground and I'm feeling guilty for sidetracking the thread. Just to add something valuable, here are some things that worked for me on adventure planets:
- Limit yourself to short sessions, but structure the trip so that there's enough time to make your costs back. I dance around 3 hours a night from Monday to Thursday on the same planet without leaving the planet. I don't stay over the weekend in the same cantina for 8+ hours straight.
- Lok has entertainer terminals outside the back door of the cantina, so you can supplement your tip income
- Take time to go out and see the countryside of the planet if you've never been there before, even if you have zero combat skills (cloning is a good idea). If you have combat skills, ask to tag along on a destroy mission so you can see some of the fauna up-close.
- Try to be where people are going. Watch for new content which will attract players. Dantooine is popular right now with holocron hunters.Before you choose a destination, askcombatfolk which planetsthey like to hunt.
- The corrolary to the above suggestion: try to bearound when people are there - primetime US hours are best.
- Don't spend money on a ticket that you can't afford to lose.
Our feelings on how risky it is are colored by our results, of which yours are based on a more extensive sample, and mine are based on a less extensive sample. But this also depends on the SERVER.
I've been told by a server-hopper friend of mine that he's been to the high-end worlds on 3 or 4 other servers besides my main server (Naritus), and he's never seen anything so deserted as it is on my server. For some reason there just are not a lot of people on the Naritus adventure worlds, relative to other servers -- at least, this month. Who knows what it was like last month before he arrived or what it will be like 3 weeks from now?
To the other dancers: It's highly variable so you're right, you do have to "sample" your own server. Just make sure you can AFFORD it, in case your experience is more like mine than like Badeb's.
C