Dancer Archive
Thread: So What Will Be The Point of Being a Novice Doing Basic 2?
WhiteSwan wrote:
Oh come on please. Does a Master Weaponsmith make his weapons AFK and Spams all the time NO HE DOESN"T.
Actually...yes he does. I know many AFK crafter/spammers. Or at least, macro artisans. Many good crafters have done the macro-grinding and I can understand the desire to do so. The spammers? I don't deal with *any* spammers, regardless of profession.
We're all on the same page when it comes to the point of entertaing being.. entertaining (or teaching, or gathering information, or any of the other "social" -- dealing with the interactions of people -- skills).
I've always viewed it as my job to keep patrons in the cantina but the devs' job to get them there in the first place. And I've always felt I don't have much influence over the devs' job.
But I think the root of why we're all so divided over this is the issue of being able to trust the devs to do their job and to clear the cantina of the non-players who get in the way of us doing our job. People aren't coming to cantinas right now, and the devs are doing something to try to fix that.
The truth is that if the new system is as AFKable as the current system or the old system, none of this will matter. There will never be any improvement in cantinas, and there will never be any sort of social atmosphere or community center. But that holds true for the BF system as well as anything new. Are we already forgetting that "recursive macros are being removed" thread where literally hundreds of people posted that the devs just couldn't get rid of AFK entertainers because then no one would be able to get their BF healed, and BF healing was required to function in game? Even more people used this justification than people using mind buffs as justification..
BF may have provided our platform and "hook" for being entertaining but it's also a prison in its way. That necessity is what drives and has tied the devs' hands from being able to remove AFK so far.
We keep hearing that this is just part of "the big picture." So what if the big picture is: Remove BF. Add non-combat inspirations. Remove AFK. Add combat inspirations? We just don't know.
I know it's hard after so long to trust the devs to finally do this right. But all this arguing over things that aren't even the real problem isn't going to get us anywhere. It all hinges on the removal of AFK; either system will fail if AFK is allowed to stay. We know this, and I think the devs know this too.
So why are we arguing over whether we entertain someone while they watch their BF counter go down or while they watch their inspiration system messages (or forget to watch them as the case may be) instead of focusing on the real problems and how to make this new system as effective as possible?
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 07-10-2005 06:20 PM
PoetDancer wrote:
But here is the real heart of the issue.
In my hypothetical, we all assumed the above Master Dancer is AFK.
But I intended to word the hypothetical in the "OP" to make the Master Dancer's attended/AFK status ambiguous for a reason.
What if the Master Dancer in the above scenario did all of that, and had a player behind it? Does it make the issue go away?
I am sure that most of us are master dancers. Some may even be master musicians as well. Many of us clamour for an "elite level mechanic," or "post master content" to make us special, or make what we do seem important and worth justifying why we should get paid.
But answer me this. What would we say to the novice entertainer when he or she comes here and gives us the exact same story? Are we going to say "work harder?," or "we have earned the right as masters?"
The moment we distinctions between ourselves in the mechanical sense, the less we give an opportunity to distinguish ourselves in a creative and active sense. And this will not only hurt those who are not yet masters. It will also hurt we masters ourselves, because we will no longer even have to do much but set a macro, and keep the screen on minimize. And it will also hurt the patrons, and our reputations, because they will resent being "forced" to entertain the entertainer in the above scenario.
It looks like you are assuming that these new buffs will be Master Level buffs like our last ones where only a Master Dancer could give the best quality buff. That does not seem to be the case at all from the little bit we've heard about these. We know that they are to be Elite buffs, meaning Novice Dancer and above, not Entertainer level.
We know that they are meant to encourage ATK. We know that we will have multiple types. We know that at least some of them and perhaps all of them will be non-combat enhancements. This is all we know about the current Dev plans on our new hook.
Given the way the current Entertainer Inspirations work, it seems like it is most likely that you will be able to give full quality as soon as you are able to perform a buff of that type. Gaining in skill level will most likely only increase your speed of application. If we aregiven many different types of buffs like it sounds like we might be, itis highly likely they will be spread out like our new prop certs.
So, a non-Master Dancer won't be able to perform all of the new buffs, but the ones she can do will be as powerful and useful as aMaster's.
... of course, this is all total and complete speculation.Neither one of us knows how these buffs will play out for sure or what effect if anythey will have on leveling Dancers or AFK promptings. I'm basing my speculation on what the devs have told us so far though... while you seem to be basing yours on fear and nerves.
Maybe we should just be asking Esh and Scip if they can get us more info on how these new buffs while actually work? Or go straight to our Dev's last post in here and ask him directly? That seems a lot more straight forward than just being panicked by all of this and making wild guesses, accusations, or predictions.
Panthu wrote:
Sirii, I apologize in advance for not speaking directly to your points right way, but I just can't get past this. When I read your post above all I can think is "and what is it exactly she thinks the rest of us do?"
Be self-critical.
I think it is very, very important for a profession like this.
I have bad days in the cantina. I think we all have.
When we have bad days, or when things seem to not go our way, it is very, very seductive to say, "there is something wrong with the system," and blame the bad day on the system. I have done it too.
But I think we also have to work on ourselves, and try and do better from our end as much as we can. Because I do not think that the problem is a combatant problem exclusively, or a getting rid of something bad problem exclusively, or an AFK problem exclusively. I always consider the possibility that perhaps I can do the things better on my end.
Because I have found that I have had as many good days in the cantina as bad ones. I believe in the power of this class. I have seen the good things we do work. But we have to work at it from our end as well. I can think of no other profession that has as much potential for growth as this one. And that is because just as our skills are not defined by the skillboxes, so too does the pursuit of "the perfect performance" not end at the master's box.
Ohhhh, you think because we are open to change or want improvements for the profession, we must suck at the current set up?
PoetDancer wrote:
Panthu wrote:
Sirii, I apologize in advance for not speaking directly to your points right way, but I just can't get past this. When I read your post above all I can think is "and what is it exactly she thinks the rest of us do?"
Be self-critical.
I think it is very, very important for a profession like this.
I have bad days in the cantina. I think we all have.
When we have bad days, or when things seem to not go our way, it is very, very seductive to say, "there is something wrong with the system," and blame the bad day on the system. I have done it too.
But I think we also have to work on ourselves, and try and do better from our end as much as we can. Because I do not think that the problem is a combatant problem exclusively, or a getting rid of something bad problem exclusively, or an AFK problem exclusively. I always consider the possibility that perhaps I can do the things better on my end.
Because I have found that I have had as many good days in the cantina as bad ones. I believe in the power of this class. I have seen the good things we do work. But we have to work at it from our end as well. I can think of no other profession that has as much potential for growth as this one. And that is because just as our skills are not defined by the skillboxes, so too does the pursuit of "the perfect performance" not end at the master's box.
Panthu wrote:
Maybe we should just be asking Esh and Scip if they can get us more info on how these new buffs while actually work? Or go straight to our Dev's last post in here and ask him directly? That seems a lot more straight forward than just being panicked by all of this and making wild guesses, accusations, or predictions.
No. We are going to do this one right.
If we are goingto this new frontier without first understanding who we are, understanding where we want to go, and understanding what will bring us there, we may not like what we find. Therefore, I think it is valuable for us--and for the developers--to imagine what the professions may be like with even the slightest of changes. These classes were redefined before (November 3rd) with disasterous results.
Threads like this are good to think about. Because right now, we really need to some sort of means by which we can understand and debate what the possible ramifacations the possible systems may create for us.
"Yay yay, the developers are changing us" hasn't worked to boost morale on the boards. We must work hard to think of the possibilities, yet also be mindful of past precedent.
Panthu wrote:
Ohhhh, you think because we are open to change or want improvements for the profession, we must suck at the current set up?
If I said half the crap to you that you say to Sirii you'd be calling me a psycho and getting half your girlfriends in here flaming my ass too.
Look, this is real simple Panthu. Sirii and a lot of us old school dancer types picked up dancer because of the social interaction. The BF and the healing made real good sense cause it allowed us to talk to people that weren't in a rush to get out for a days adventure or that just finished up a couple of hours of combat and were ready for a short break. Buffs came along with jedi and destroyed that enviroment for all but a few small pockets on most servers. In the ideal system the dance skill itself wasn't as important as US the player behind the character. We do love the dances and we do love the effects and such, because they are cool tools to enhance that player to player interaction. BF and wound healing were perfect for getting players into cantinas so that our real content could be created by US.
We feel like this coming change is going to take us back to the dark days of buff bots and we see NOTHING in any dev design docs to indicate that the new buffs will not be a system where most players prefer to set up one of their alts on a macro that cycles through the different buffs while spamming away. Instead of the player that this profession was designed and put into the game for, this change is there to give the alt account owners a reason to spend an extra $15 a month. I think it speaks volumes that the players pushing for and excited by this change are by and large the same players I remember on Bria talking in the ent channel about how much they hated the people that came in to watch and listen. he ones that loved chatting with other entertainers but almost NEVER did what Sirii does and take up a spot in the cantina and make it LIVE.
PoetDancer wrote:
Panthu wrote:
Maybe we should just be asking Esh and Scip if they can get us more info on how these new buffs will actually work? Or go straight to our Dev's last post in here and ask him directly? That seems a lot more straight forward than just being panicked by all of this and making wild guesses, accusations, or predictions.
No. We are going to do this one right.
If we are goingto this new frontier without first understanding who we are, understanding where we want to go, and understanding what will bring us there, we may not like what we find. Therefore, I think it is valuable for us--and for the developers--to imagine what the professions may be like with even the slightest of changes. These classes were redefined before (November 3rd) with disasterous results.
Threads like this are good to think about. Because right now, we really need to some sort of means by which we can understand and debate what the possible ramifacations the possible systems may create for us.
"Yay yay, the developers are changing us" hasn't worked to boost morale on the boards. We must work hard to think of the possibilities, yet also be mindful of past precedent.
Panthu wrote:
Ohhhh, you think because we are open to change or want improvements for the profession, we must suck at the current set up?
All I can say is thaton that criteriadear,we all "sucked" before the CU.
Myself included.
But I don't think "change for the sake of change" is a healthy attitude either, or saying that we will all be automatically and completely content after the changes.
Dancers who can do the profession now, or have no complaints,may find that they areunable to do the new requirements, or will find them ultimately unsatisfying and will quit. I don't think it can be avoided, no matter what happens. A fundamental change in the profession will change the way the profession is played, and what is expected of us from the players we serve.
PoetDancer wrote:
Panthu wrote:
Ohhhh, you think because we are open to change or want improvements for the profession, we must suck at the current set up?
All I can say is thaton that criteriadear,we all "sucked" before the CU.
Myself included.
But I don't think "change for the sake of change" is a healthy attitude either, or saying that we will all be automatically and completely content after the changes.
Dancers who can do the profession now, or have no complaints,may find that they areunable to do the new requirements, or will find them ultimately unsatisfying and will quit. I don't think it can be avoided, no matter what happens. A fundamental change in the profession will change the way the profession is played, and what is expected of us from the players we serve.
I don't think change for the sake of change is a good idea either, but I don't think that's what's going on here. We had issues, all profs in this game had issue lists from their forums, the corrs pass those on and the Devs try to address them.
All of our issue lists have been posted in here. Usually a poll is done before a new list is compiled. So, these aren't a secret. We all decided on these issues together, anyone who cared enough about this profession to come post here.
The devs have looked at our issues and made a new plan to address them. This revamping has been considered carefully and has been paced out. Do you honestly think this sounds the same as just change for change's sake?
Panthu wrote:
So, a non-Master Dancer won't be able to perform all of the new buffs, but the ones she can do will be as powerful and useful as aMaster's.
PoetDancer wrote:
Panthu wrote:
So, a non-Master Dancer won't be able to perform all of the new buffs, but the ones she can do will be as powerful and useful as aMaster's.
Don't you think this is a problem, and indeed, the real problem of the OP scenario?
The Novice entertainer can only buff 10% experience.
But the Master Dancer already does that, and so much more the novice cannot.
So who do you think the audience, given what we know about them from past experience, really would rather have in that cantina?
But my real question is this, Panthu.
What arewe going to tell that Novice Entertainer? When she comes here and says, "I can't get tipped because the patrons would rather see that alt on minimize rather than me who actually tries and entertains," what are we to say to her?
Sirii, it sounds like you have had very bad experiences with patrons to feel this way. I'm sorry for that, that's really a shame. I personally have always found that the majority of patrons that I would be interested in interacting with would choose me over an unattended av any day.
Those who wouldn't pick me are usually people I wouldn't enjoy interacting with anyway. I always received tips on my non-master or leveling Dancer chars because people who can enjoy my interaction do respond to it well and tip me.
So, why would you even want to interact with someone who is so silly in the head that they would rather get the same exact buff from a boring Master Dancer that they could get from a fun non-Master Dancer? That's no one I'm interested in talking to, lol.
Goodness, I think the baby Dancer will be thankful to be spared such a patron!