Dancer Archive
Thread: SO don't need /deny
If you don't need /deny....don't use it.
Is there anything that hard to understand about it? People will use it. Some may abuse it. Fact of life.
It happens.
Live and let live.
<opinion>Your being either very foolish or very idealistic if you believe that this ability will only be used against abusive players.</opinion>
In my oppinion, you are being foolish if you believe that this ability will be used to extort tips. You need to consciously deny service. In a crowded cantina, that's so much work to keep up with denying the right persons at the right time, if that actually gets done... it would be so much work, they earned it.
And as long as there are people like us, there will always be an alternative to deniers. If you see an abusive architect, that doesn't mean you won't buy a house from someone else. If you see an insulting bounty hunter, that doesn't mean you will no longer heal bounty hunters per se. Don't underestimate other classes. If they see a denying entertainer, they will move on to someone else. Maybe you or me.
I'm not talking on that level. Get above game mechanics and animations. Just look at purely what the class does for others. On that level, we are the same as doctors. Yet doctors heal individually and it is accepted. We get a gimped ability to select who we heal and people cry foul.
*sigh* Then we shall agree to disagree. There is no 'going above the mechanics and animations'. Doctors heal in one manner - using stimpacks. Dancers heal in another - by dancing. It is possible to choose whom you apply stimpacks to, but impossible, without stepping outside of the RP reality, to STOP someone from seeing you dance when you are right in front of them, and thus should be impossible to stop them from being healed by it.
And regarding the fact that this won't be extorted, I'm sorry, but I disagree. SOE posted a thread asking how to help entertainers make money. 90% of the responses were from entertainers, and 90% of those were begging for /deny, so that money could be the primary controlling factor in when to use it.
And if you feel that doesn't do damage to our profession, decrease tips for those who don't use it to extort, and is in no way damaging, I just respectfully disagree. That would be the same argument AFKers make, and I disagree for the same reasons. Our profession has lost a great deal of respect because a huge portion of the non-entertaining population believes we do nothing, and have nothing to offer to the game, because AFK bots do it just as well. That, in my opinion, rests solely on those who AFKed their way to master, cheapening the work the rest of us put into what we do, and who perform because we enjoy performing - all parts of performing.
*shrugs* Philosophical difference in the way folks look at things. I've stated before and will again.. this will not ever, under any circumstance, be used by me, and I think that it is one of the most damaging things SOE could ever implement to our profession.
I wish I could have total control over my own healing abilities (that's a lot of skill points I never get to use). Unfortunately the game wasn't designed that way. The way the /deny feature is being added makes no sense.Iit only saves which players you want to deny through the individual performance. It's basically worthless. As a dancer I start and stop constantly. There is no way I could use the /deny feature to have control over my healing abilities in a crowded cantina.
Targeted healing should have been in from the start. It wasn't so now it's really too late to change. Players expect to get healed for free on demand. Some players like that they can feel powerful by throwing us some spare change after we heal them *claps*. Most players just want to get in and out of the cantina as fast as possible and resent everything about us (havingto be healed by us, having to put up with our dancing and music)and respect us accordingly.
The only way entertainers are ever going to be fairly paid to perform in every type of cantina (crowded or not, in a good location or not) is for an NPC solution to be available (missions). Making these missions fun and profitable should be our #1 dancer issue right now. Forget tipping... Players that tip do so reguardless of what we look like or how we act.
AdaraX wrote:
*sigh* Then we shall agree to disagree. There is no 'going above the mechanics and animations'. Doctors heal in one manner - using stimpacks. Dancers heal in another - by dancing. It is possible to choose whom you apply stimpacks to, but impossible, without stepping outside of the RP reality, to STOP someone from seeing you dance when you are right in front of them, and thus should be impossible to stop them from being healed by it.
Okay ignore what you know about doctors and entertainers, and lets go to generic terms.
Lets say there are 3 classes of healers... Healer type 1 picks who they heal and heals one at a time. Healer type 2 picks who they heal, and heals in groups. Healer type 3 heals everyone without choice in groups. Now, without trying to draw parallels to SWG, which one has the most ability to cause grief through extortion?
I don't know about you, but I'd say the first two have equal ability.
Now drawing parallels to SWG, healer class 1 is your medic, class 3 is your entertainer. Healer class 2 is your entertainer with /denyservice. Now given the above conclusion that medics and healers with /denyservice have the same ability to extort money from other players, why isn't anybody going after the medics who already have this ability?
The answer is because it's not a problem. If it is not a problem with the entertainers, why should it be a problem with doctors?
Yes, it was a popular idea in the thread about making money, but that is a worthless statistic. The idea is an obvious one that is merely adapting the ability of the medics to pick who they heal. The thread in question is merely a brainstorm, and in a brainstorm, the popular idea is likely to come up a lot, especially when nobody bothers to read the thread. I'd say that increasing entertainer mission payouts is just as popular an idea, because it is another obvious one. On the other hand, if you had a thread about "ways for entertainers to deal with harassment" the denyservice idea would probably come up even more than in the money making thread.
If you don't like it then fine, don't use it. However I like having the ability to deal with harassment, as it is something I have to deal with quite a bit as a male dancer. I'm not so naieve to think that some people won't abuse it, but I think they will be in the minority and will find it's not so effective for that..
In crowded cantinas, the chance that one person using /denyservice to extort tips is going to convince all the others is minimal. Someone out there will be someone like you or me who just doesn't play that game, so they will have at least someone healing them still. So using denyservice to extort tips in crowded cantinas won't work.
In empty cantinas.. Well, /denyservice offers nothing over what entertainers have right now - the ability to just not entertain. So denyservice offers no extra benefeit in empty cantinas.
However, in harassment cases, usually the entire band sticks together to deal with it. I've had cantinas that got so bad because of a few people, that the band just got up and took the show out to the street. So using denyservice in this case will be more effective, as the whole band will be standing behind the decision. Well, most at least. I'm sure there will be a few who refuse to do it.
The simple solotion to that is just to create a macro that has the names of all jerks you've encountered and hit that whenever you start dancing.
Reachwind wrote:
I wish I could have total control over my own healing abilities (that's a lot of skill points I never get to use). Unfortunately the game wasn't designed that way. The way the /deny feature is being added makes no sense.Iit only saves which players you want to deny through the individual performance. It's basically worthless. As a dancer I start and stop constantly. There is no way I could use the /deny feature to have control over my healing abilities in a crowded cantina.
It's all about feeling that you have some control: that you don't need to serve people who give you no respect without punishing others.
It's not going to solve a lot, really. But it will give me peace of mind again. That's all I want.
My opinion (So please take it at that):
The people who whined about not getting enough tips are the ones who have no clue what roleplay is if it ran up and slammed on their forehead a few times. so instead of trying harder to roleplay with people or just talk to htem to get tips.. they whine until their fingers are tired here on the forums asking for some way to punish people because they cant interact enough.
Adara you are an amazing entertainer. I witnessed your show at the theatre in Vagabonds Rest and it was amazing. Your whole group made the show give insight to just how creative entertainers can be.
Yes that does sound harsh.... and thats how I meant it to be.
That story gives me a new understanding. I didn't think I'd need /deny except in extreme cases. This showed me a new way to deal with these cases without having to resort to /deny. I can't say that I'll NEVER use it, because there may get to a point where I have to, just like I may have to Ignore some player who refuses to let me be. But I'd rather be optomistic that this will work.
It's true, /Deny can not be explained in an RP way. Good way to avoid it! ::claps::
Tekoa- Ahazi
The day before /deny went live, I was in a cantina where an Imperial decided it would be cool to run his three AT-STs in laps around the room even after being politely asked to stop. Fortunately there were no AFKers that day, so the whole band stopped and sat down, explaining to the rest of the cantina why we were no longer performing. Everyone cheered us on (even the other Imperials present) and after a few minutes the obnoxious Imperial slunk out the back door.
But the day after /deny went in I was in another cantina that had a similar problem, so we all decided to try out the new feature. Unfortunately, this time there were two AFKers there, so the guy just laughed at us and asked why he should care that we denied him, when he can still get as much healing as he wants. That is my biggest problem with AFKing--it prevents the rest of the band from actually acting as a group when they need to.
Another problem with /deny is that not everyone harassing entertainers needs healing. Plenty of creeps come in and hang around just to make rude comments and gestures and don't even bother to /listen or /watch. If someone's being rude, just having the whole band sit down will often take a lot of the fun out their activities and they'll usually get bored and go away. Or, if you're really lucky, one of your regular customers will challenge them to a duel and take care of the problem that way.
