Dancer Archive
Thread: Mastering Legitamately takes too long
Shyloche
Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:19 pm
#14
I've only mastered Dancer once, and that was earlier this year. When I mastered musician the first time, it took me 3 months. Tailor took me 4, weaponsmith 3 months, rifle 1 year and still not master. Merchant took about 2 weeks I think. I couldn't imagine being done with something in 2 days, or 20 hours or whatever these rediculous grind times are.
Reachwind
Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:59 pm
#15
Holocron said just before the game went live that every profession should take one month to complete for someone playing 20 hours per week.
Right now on underpopulated servers damcer takes as long as four weeks with a character logged in 20 hours a day. That's excessive.
Right now on underpopulated servers damcer takes as long as four weeks with a character logged in 20 hours a day. That's excessive.
Petronela
Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:40 am
#16
I don’t think at all that mastering dancer or musician takes too long.
Took me about 5 months to get all 3 entertaining masters (dancer, musician, entertainer).
And I believe that’s how long it should take for all professions.
In my book there is nothing more annoying then dealing with some power-leveler who has no idea what his/her capabilities as a master are.
I had a master doctor once asking me what he should use to heal me with.
Now how lame is that.
The way I see it anyone who masters any profession in 2 or 3 days is not only hurting their own game experience but also anyone who may have the misfortune of grouping with them and gods forbid having to depend on the person knowing what their role in group should be.
Deli'ah
Took me about 5 months to get all 3 entertaining masters (dancer, musician, entertainer).
And I believe that’s how long it should take for all professions.
In my book there is nothing more annoying then dealing with some power-leveler who has no idea what his/her capabilities as a master are.
I had a master doctor once asking me what he should use to heal me with.
Now how lame is that.
The way I see it anyone who masters any profession in 2 or 3 days is not only hurting their own game experience but also anyone who may have the misfortune of grouping with them and gods forbid having to depend on the person knowing what their role in group should be.
Deli'ah
LyteFoot
Tue Dec 21, 2004 6:34 am
#17
Well I agree that the core problem is that it doesn't take long enough to master some of the other professions. However the shear frustration of needing 1/2 of the healing boxes and no healing experience available does get to be too much at times. We are too dependent on the whims of others to select our group, come where we are, etc. Combat professions are barely dependent on anyone outside of using vendors to buy equipment. Those vendors exist not because people want to help but because they have a game profit motive so there is rarely a shortage. We need an adjustment to the healing experience, plain and simple.
There are a couple of things you can do to speed up that healing experience in light of the slow trickle we get today. Our group has used both to help a dancer or musician through those last healing boxes when the frustration really sets in. Both can be fun as well. The first is to have some friends sample radioactives. Its a hoot to see those black bars and you get a big laugh when someone samples a bit too long and incaps themselves. Keep them in group so you can chat with them while they lie there 
. The second is what we call an "Insane Asylum" party. A CM will duel everyone in the group and hit us with mind disease. It's a really funny sight to see a band and a dance line all with the disease graphics floating over their heads and to laugh at each other for being a mindless bunch of ents.
. The second is what we call an "Insane Asylum" party. A CM will duel everyone in the group and hit us with mind disease. It's a really funny sight to see a band and a dance line all with the disease graphics floating over their heads and to laugh at each other for being a mindless bunch of ents.These are both ATK activities that show how we support each other, make for some fun conversations, and move you through those last boxes quickly. It short circuits that frustration and turns it into a feeling of being supported and appreciated by your peers.
One other thing we often do for an ATK performer is get all the masters to group up and get one or two novices in our group. We form our band, get the dancers lined up, and put on a show. Having 4 or 5 masters or more in a group will draw all the combatents to us and insure that the ATK novices get the experience not the big AFK group.
Maisland
Tue Dec 21, 2004 7:13 am
#18
Word of caution about doing the CM trick. If you have a mind disease and are performing, you heal yourself and no one gets any xp from it. For this trick to work, you need to disease the audience only. If you disease the performers, it's a wasted effort.
LyteFoot wrote:
There are a couple of things you can do to speed up that healing experience in light of the slow trickle we get today. Our group has used both to help a dancer or musician through those last healing boxes when the frustration really sets in. Both can be fun as well. The first is to have some friends sample radioactives. Its a hoot to see those black bars and you get a big laugh when someone samples a bit too long and incaps themselves. Keep them in group so you can chat with them while they lie there
Ikewe
Tue Dec 21, 2004 8:00 am
#19
I can tell you that when I hear people saying I reached Master "insert profession name here" in X hours or X days or even X weeks I know they had no where near as much fun as I did. Yes getting the last box of healing XP seemed to take a lifetime and there were times I wantedto go out and bash people in the heads just to give them mind wounds. I'm proud to say that I achieved Master Dancer in just over 2 months (playing *very* long hours). Most of that time I wasn't even in a group because going into the Coronet Cantina on my server is like descending into one of the lowest levels of Dante's Inferno. I met so many great people during those long hours in the cantina. It would have been great to have fellow entertainers to perform with and learn about the profession with but anytime another came into the cantina they either left immediately because the xp was too low compared to Coronet or they instantly went afk. I did have friends who offered to deliberately get mind wounds either by dueling or by sampling radioactive materials. I told each of them the same thing. "I will not cheapen my path to an elite professionby cheating." It's a game. If you aren't having fun getting your chosen profession then what's the point?
Ikewe, Master Dancer Shadowfire
rayill
Tue Dec 21, 2004 8:24 am
#20
Another good trick to help speed up Entertainment Healing XP is to take a group up into the Corvette. Make sure to be wearing "trash clothes" or "trash armor" since they will end up completely disabled. I've had a lot of fun just seeing if I can walk the Vette with some friends. We've gotten badges and almost taken it down a bunch of time, but it's a fun little hour game. You will walk out of there with black bars and 1000 BF. It's a good source of XP for people working on entertainer/dancer/musician. Even as a Master Dancer, I would go find someone ATK who was working hard on the profession. That's a good steady flow of XP for that person. Sure I can heal it ten times quicker, as both a TKA and a Dancer, but I knew that someone else would be able to benefit from my wounds. I know plenty of people who were thankful for my help. It doesn't necessarily help you if you need it, but if you have friends who enjoy a good combat fest, it can be fun for them, and you can tag along too if you wanted.
ChiiTWINS
Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:38 am
#21
"I can master TKM in 4 days."
Can't tell you how often I hear that.
I am in full accordance that most other professions take too long. Yes, healing xp sucks. But fact of the matter is, they've set us up so every profession depends on another profession, or group of professions, in some way. Dancers *need* nothing. We can go, dance in our newbie clothes, and not have to buy buffs, armor, or any sort of special equipment to do our thing.
Yes, it's *nice* to get the clothes, the accarragm, or the quickness buffs, but it's not needed.
So there's our exchange. In exchange for having what many agree to be one of the most fun professions, we have to hang around and wait for people to need us. I think it's a fair tradeoff.
But no, I don't think it takes too long. I'm working on mastering dance again for the third time. 
And I'm being stubborn -- yes, I am using a macro, but only for ease of conversation. No AFK dancing, except the occasional potty break. I am not AFK-macroing this time, and I am curious to see how long it takes me this time.
And I'm being stubborn -- yes, I am using a macro, but only for ease of conversation. No AFK dancing, except the occasional potty break. I am not AFK-macroing this time, and I am curious to see how long it takes me this time. My first time through took almost three months, and I did not know what a macro was. All of it was done by hand, button-pushing, in Eisley and Anchorhead. 
Praying for the raids to come through so someone would get hurt for us. Sometimes I wonder if any of them realize how many of us are secretly praying for them to get beat up..... [giggle]
Praying for the raids to come through so someone would get hurt for us. Sometimes I wonder if any of them realize how many of us are secretly praying for them to get beat up..... [giggle] Seriously, though. Most professions, especially the pure "blast and slash" ones, are far too fast. People rush through them, and are even encouraged to do so by the game mechanics, and thereby gain no respect for their own profession. Half the time they don't even fully understand it. It's really rather sad, for example, to tell a master TK that yes, you *can* target any HAM pool....
I think if you wantmastery bad enough, the time isn't so awful. It's because of the quick-mastery that people are getting tired and bored and leaving. They've already done it all - literally. This is something you just did not see as often in something like, for example, EQ. Yes, perhaps it was an endless "treadmill"... but it kept you doing something.
When someone can master every profession in 6 months, do just about every quest, and maybe tack on another two months to master pilot several times over, they get bored. And they leave.
When I get bored, I can go dance instead. In conclusion: I think we're just fine the way we are.
In conclusion: I think we're just fine the way we are. Except for those blasted broken base dances.......... [growls]
LyteFoot
Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:50 am
#22
Maisland wrote:Word of caution about doing the CM trick. If you have a mind disease and are performing, you heal yourself and no one gets any xp from it. For this trick to work, you need to disease the audience only. If you disease the performers, it's a wasted effort.
LyteFoot wrote:There are a couple of things you can do to speed up that healing experience in light of the slow trickle we get today. Our group has used both to help a dancer or musician through those last healing boxes when the frustration really sets in. Both can be fun as well. The first is to have some friends sample radioactives. Its a hoot to see those black bars and you get a big laugh when someone samples a bit too long and incaps themselves. Keep them in group so you can chat with them while they lie there
Yes most of us become an audience for the ones needing experience. Also if a musician watches a dancer and a dancer listens to a musician you still get some of the experience flowing and believe me with 10+ people mind diseased there is a lot to flow and a lot of fun conversations about who is losing their mind the fastest. It's also funny to see the people who attack the CM because they don't aren't actively performing. Entertainers can do a little damage even with zero combat skills LOL.
Reachwind
Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:55 am
#23
To anyone saying that dancer or musician is easy right now; Drop your skills and start over.
I have trained the skill from 0 on different servers multiple times now. Only on Bria was I able to come close to the EH experience I would get from the first 6 months of playing the game.
Right now on under populated servers the time to raise the skill is not working. I have a good friend that is training up dancer right now on Tarq and she is lucky to get 1000 entertainer healing experience per hour. Most of her healing xp came from mind diseases applied by combat medics to help the entertainers. The only profession in the game that even comes close to that amount of gating on skill gain is politician.
I have trained the skill from 0 on different servers multiple times now. Only on Bria was I able to come close to the EH experience I would get from the first 6 months of playing the game.
Right now on under populated servers the time to raise the skill is not working. I have a good friend that is training up dancer right now on Tarq and she is lucky to get 1000 entertainer healing experience per hour. Most of her healing xp came from mind diseases applied by combat medics to help the entertainers. The only profession in the game that even comes close to that amount of gating on skill gain is politician.
LyteFoot
Tue Dec 21, 2004 9:59 am
#24
Ikewe wrote:I did have friends who offered to deliberately get mind wounds either by dueling or by sampling radioactive materials. I told each of them the same thing. "I will not cheapen my path to an elite profession by cheating." It's a game. If you aren't having fun getting your chosen profession then what's the point?Ikewe, Master Dancer Shadowfire
Woah cheating? Ok each to their own opinion but thats a bit harsh on yourself and your friends. We do have fun and thats the whole point. When a mechanic makes it frustrating, and there is no denying that all the uber gear, dimenished damage, and buff bots getting the healing do make it frustrating, then the game is broken. It takes far too little time to master most professions and their dependence on us is significantly reduced thanks to the previously mentioned issues. That last box of healing can be a nightmare when you've got everything else completed and you are just sitting there hoping for someone with mind wounds to come along day after day. Instead we turn around and make our own games, fun, and content while helping our friends with that last mile. I call that the proper use of a game and a group.
CristineA
Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:52 pm
#25
The journey to Master is actually more fun to do, then having Master itself. You meet a bunch of new ppl along the journey, it's fun.
Ikewe
Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:54 pm
#26
Elwyn, It is indeed harsh of me and I recognize that.My friends were shocked but they respected my choice. I don't point the finger at anyone who chooses to use those tactics but I didn't want to. To me it was no different than having someone use the /activateclone command to get a black mind bar and 1000BF that was fairly common for a while on my server. My friends can get just as many mind wounds in "real combat" without hitting each other with DOT's just so I can get the last healing box. Krayt dragons are fun to hunt and inflict some pretty serious BF and wounds. There arealso plenty of nice, black mind bars with all those "eject into space" adventures going on now. I'm an odd character. /shrug When I started dancing everyone told me to go to Coronet because I'd get xp faster. I thought "what's the big rush?" If I had gone to Coronet then every single person that came to Dearic on Talus would have had to go else where for an entertainer and I wouldn't have been able to meet so many of them. My fun path to Master Dancer was the slow path. It's the path I chose and I enjoyed every moment of it. Yes calling those "mechanics" "cheating" is indeed harsh and perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully. It's just that to me it's like having someone tumble so you can make Master Doctor faster. Plenty of people do it but it's not for me.
cheers,
Ikewe, Master Dancer Shadowfire