Dancer Archive
Thread: FOCUS: Skill Point Cost
Thank you for asking! 
Since the proposed changes now have dancer doing zero game play interface.
The SP for Entertainer and Dancer should be reduced to ZERO.
Here's the thread where-in the up-coming changes are discussed. Note that all dancer healing (BF Reduction) will be eliminated from the game, leaving us with only our mighty inspiration buff as our role in the game.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=61474
Kandi Flyer
Message Edited by CandiDance on 06-20-2005 10:49 AM
Crucial Functionality
^
Zone I | Zone II
Powergamer Skill | Buffbots
No SP Cost <-----------------------------o------------------------------------> High SP Cost
Zone III| Zone IV
Informal Hobby | Roleplay/ceremonial Profession
v
No Functionality
This chart I think shows the ramifications of different choices.
On the horizontal plane, we see from left to right an increase in skill points. On the vertical plane, we see an increase in what I call "crucial functionality," or utility in the day to day effectiveness of other game sectors.
Zone I is a situation where there are a lot of crucial benefits to /watching a dancer, but relatively little or no skill point cost. This will make it worth pretty much every combat professional's time to take up dancing, purely for the mechanical benefits that result from dancing. It may make dancer simply another prerequisite for competitive PvP or PvE at the highest level, and flood the profession with pretty much everybody, whether they really want to dance or not.
Zone II is a situation like we had before the CU. The functionality was very high, and some would say, crucial. However, the skillpoint cost was so high that one couldn't be both a dancer and a high end combatant at the same time. Dancing was very valuable, but it just wasn't worth one's time to play a dancer. As a result, it gave players and guilds the incentive to create "unattended skillpoint mules" to give them access to the crucial benefits, without having to sacrifice combat skills. It was too important of a profession to not have, yet too specialized to justify playing.
Zone III is a situation like the Politician profession. There is very little daily utility in that profession, and the skillpoint cost is nil. As a result, it becomes a sort of hobby or "secondary concern" that nobody really considers to be a career or a defining aspect of one's gameplay. It is simply something to do when not doing one's "real" profession, and certainly nothing that one can call a "profession" in the same manner of the others.
Zone IV is in many ways similar to what we have now, post CU. Our skill point cost has remained unchanged, but our functionality is less crucial. As a result, there are less players who are willing to devote themselves to this route, and no real need to spend the extra money for an unattended mule. However, it also doesn't really give the players who play a dancer much to do, other than, as Panthu said, facilitate a virtual birthday party or perform gigs that have very little to do with the day to day running of the servers. As a result, we basically see ourselves as "special occasion characters" that are logged on to do a Cantina Crawl or another event, and we do our "real playing" on other, more crucial, characters.
To sum it up, I think what we need is a proper balance. Crucial functionality must not be so great so that it gives an incentive to unattend rather than play, but not so little that it doesn't give dancers anything to do. Skill point cost must not be so high that it gives an incentive to create mules, but not so little that it makes dancing a mere "hobby," or unavailable as a true SWG career choice.
Cons for keeping skill point cost the same as it is currently:
Pros for removing Sp cost all together:
Cons for removing SP cost all together:
I think Sirii's graph pretty much sums everything up -- we need to find balance between SP cost and usefulness. Be wanted, but not required. Involve a sacrifice, but not a crippling one.
Here is why I ask: If things stay as they are now, we need a skill point reduction. Why? Because a novice with 15 pts spent can do exactly what a master can do (it takes longer, but there is no functional difference). It should not cost another 80+ points to just speed up what we do. If the entertainer profs stay as they are, I would advocate making them all be like ID in terms of cost.
HOWEVER, if things are going to change and the dancer and musician profs are going to get serious improvements, and become things that will be actually useful to master rather than just additional eye/ear candy, then skill point costs should remain high.
The bottom line is, I don't think people should be able to get nearly the same benefit for 15 points as for 85 (or so) points, so something has to give. Either the 85 points needs to be made WORTH IT, or the total cost needs to be reduced.
With politician, they got rid of the skill point cost rather than make mastering it be actually worth while. If they want to go that route with entertainers, that's fine with me.
Basically, skills cost should scale with how useful the skills are. IDs are just eye candy now, so they are getting skill cost reduction. If we remain just eye candy as dancers, then a skill point reduction is also in order. If we get actual useful things to do in game (which I would like to see ALL profs have, including ID) then the skill cost should stay as it is.
I guess that is not the kind of answer you wanted but it's all I can give you.
C
- currently, the SP requirements for the returned usefulness in game is out of sync. Dancing was a dual profession to me :
* enjoying the dance itself, chaining flourishes, adding visual effects, holoemotes etc... which is totally independant from the rest of the playerbase.
* providinggame benefits to the playerbase (healing BF, buffing, [healing wounds]).
Considering buffing is not a major factor as before and healing wounds is no longer existing, a logical step would be to reduce the SP accordingly.
However, such statement is supposing entertainer professions are going to be kept in their current state, something I don't know (and wouldn't like to see).
That's the only "pro" I see : acknowledging a post CU situation with no developments on horizon. Call it fatalism.
- considering the service to the playerbase is achieved at Novice Entertainer (while it takes a bit more time), two branches of the elite entertainer professions have a very low to 0 value (dancerfatigue healing and dancer wound healing). The tech branch is also of low value for many of us.
(It's a situation I have trouble to compare to any other profession : where do we see a Novice Base Profession able to do the same thing than an Master Elite profession ? No Novice Base Crafter is able to do the same thing than a Master Base/Elite Crafter, even ifhe works five times longer. Not even a Novice Politician and his 0 SP career !)
- so, I can't really have an advice on a profession that I no longer consider achieved, completed. I believe we really need to know the dev team intents about developping our professions, filling the gaps left by the CU before being able to say if we still find fair to invest that much SP.
I just feel that unless I am able to kill something, provide direct support to fighters, if I don't craft something lethal, or an armor, if I am not able to tame a rancor, poison someoneetc... I am just worthing less. I don't mean less to the eyes of some other players, something I already live with, but to the eyes of the game system as a whole. That's a major redirection from the original game concept.
Again, my advice depends on the projects of the team : if they want to transform SW:G to a full battle arena whereentertainer professions are just eye candies, so let's go that path. Just be sincere and tell us. I then may choose mine considering that choice and it may not be a dancer path, whatever the SP requirements.
Chali
Quiet master dancer on Starsider...for how long ?
It’s really very hard to form an opinion without knowing where we are going.
I’m sure my opinion would change in unknown directions as the game progresses, but atm I feel lowering the SP needed would do more harm then good.
If we get SP reduced and/or totally eliminated then in all fairness rest of the non-combat professions should also. They face many of the same post-CU issues we do. But doing that would only widen the already existing rift between combat and non-combat even more. I really can’t see that as a good thing.
There has to be a better way, a way which would let us do what we like and still feel important and equal part of the whole game, way which would address not only pure entertainers laments but also those of hybrids.
Mastering a profession should mean something, something more then just an extra dance. If master titles of any kind would all posses some kind of plus which would be stackable depending on variation of players templates, it would sounds more logical to me then just gutting our SPs. Pure combat templates already have that bonus, now devs need to come up with a bonus for stacking non-combat masters and for mixing combat with non-combat.
menyou wrote:
On the subject of nitpicking
If you use the remaining point left over from Master Dancer/Master combat elite in combat you should hit CL57 so the OP was correct.
With Smuggler the specials are now spread throughout the tree. Therefore there are 4 lines which provide combat boosts now.
As for Skillpoints - no I'd like to see more usefull stuff but not keep the SP costs as is.
I suppose my questino to that would be"Where exactly did you spend them?"
I have Master Dancer, Master Rifleman, and Pistolees 0004, and 4 points into SF, and I am CL 60.. I guess im just wonder how the skill points would need to be spent to hit 57
Right now our game related role is achieved with 15 skill points. Which is to say, one combat branch. In other words, at the cost of ZERO combat levels. If this will always be the case, I don't see any reason to have any skill point cost at all for the entertainer professions or just spread the 15 point cost out over the entire Elite Profession and do away with the starter profession of entertainer entirely. (I.e. make ID, Dancer and Musician all novice professions, move the skills acquired in Entertainer into the unused Elite boxes and then call it a day.)
Right now we have the worst of all possible worlds. High skill cost, punishingly long time to mastery and no game role. Something has got to give, as this is just not a sustainable situation.
Master Dancer + Master Combat Elite = CL 54
Master Dancer + Master Combat Elite + 1 branch of another combat elite = CL 60
Example: one of my characters is level 60 with Dancer, Fencer, 4000 TK and 1144 Entertainer. During the respec I dropped the TK boxes and had Master Entertainer on her for a few days. At that time, she was CL 54.
Message Edited by Esharra on 06-15-2005 11:07 AM