Dancer Archive
Thread: Petition For Longer Lasting Dancer/Music buffs and time to buff
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picklesSW
Tue Aug 10, 2004 2:57 pm
#14
Look, folks, buffs are not a god given right. You don't need them. If you want one, go and find an entertainer to give you one. What they've been discussing as part of the removal for looping macros is finding additional options for healing because that is a need. And I approve of that because I don't want people at off times getting frustrated with huge downtimes any more than you do.
But buffs are fine as they are. They're not a requirement to play the game successfully. If you want buffs, make friends with entertainers. Invite them to your groups. Invite them to your PAs. Travel to where they are and tip them well. This in no way needs an improvement in my opinion.
But buffs are fine as they are. They're not a requirement to play the game successfully. If you want buffs, make friends with entertainers. Invite them to your groups. Invite them to your PAs. Travel to where they are and tip them well. This in no way needs an improvement in my opinion.
Drygo
Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:04 pm
#15
picklesSW wrote:
Look, folks, buffs are not a god given right. You don't need them. If you want one, go and find an entertainer to give you one. What they've been discussing as part of the removal for looping macros is finding additional options for healing because that is a need. And I approve of that because I don't want people at off times getting frustrated with huge downtimes any more than you do.
But buffs are fine as they are. They're not a requirement to play the game successfully. If you want buffs, make friends with entertainers. Invite them to your groups. Invite them to your PAs. Travel to where they are and tip them well. This in no way needs an improvement in my opinion.
I agree with you. In fact, I don't even think healing is an issue. I have *serious* doubts that people can't find one novice entertainer at any hour of the day. But, that's besides the point I suppose.
But consider this. As happy as I am about the end of the recursive macro, I still have fears. A lot of players, call it "scrambling," or whatever are still pretty convinced that this won't end buffbots, that people will find some way around it. It may or not be true. I don't know the answer to that, but it is certainly a big fear of mine that they might be right. The reason I'm an advocate of holovids, and making some way thata live player to outperform a bot is precisely because of that fear. What happens when this nerf hits and the bots are still there and we're still screwed? I'm just trying to look at some options to make us competitive, so that people will choose us over them.
If you or anyone else can *assure* me that buffbots will, unequivocably be gone, then please do so. I'm tired of fighting and feeling down because of the buffbots.
picklesSW
Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:10 pm
#16
"If you or anyone else can *assure* me that buffbots will, unequivocably be gone, then please do so. I'm tired of fighting and feeling down because of the buffbots."
I wish I could. You're right in what you say, SoE could mess it up and buffbots could find a way around the changes. We have to wait and see. There are, in fact, other ways to enhance at-keyboard play over buffbots that have been suggested, but those were ignored.
What I do know is that replacing live entertainment with something that can be bought off the bazaar and used in our place is like treating the disease by killing the patient. You bet, the buffbots are gone. So is the social gaming style. The idea is to save it and keep it intact, not turn it into a crafting profession.
I wish I could. You're right in what you say, SoE could mess it up and buffbots could find a way around the changes. We have to wait and see. There are, in fact, other ways to enhance at-keyboard play over buffbots that have been suggested, but those were ignored.
What I do know is that replacing live entertainment with something that can be bought off the bazaar and used in our place is like treating the disease by killing the patient. You bet, the buffbots are gone. So is the social gaming style. The idea is to save it and keep it intact, not turn it into a crafting profession.
SmedleyLlama
Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:19 pm
#17
picklesSW wrote:
"And, the thing is too, I also agree that we shouldn't be forcing people to go to Cantinas if they don't want to."
And yet they do. And for good reason. This dates back to beta when the only people ever in a cantina were the entertainers. They had no audience. There was no incentive for people to go into a cantina, so guess what, they did not. Cue battle fatigue and mind healing.
I consider myself a reasonably good study of human nature, and I'm telling you. If you don't have a game mechanic to force people to visit the cantinas, almost no one will ever go there. Especially now with the level of resentment floating around. If you make that change, you may as well remove our profession and create a new crafting profession to take our place. It won't be a 'social' profession any longer.
You're right. A lot of people would never set foot in a cantina if they didn't have to.
So, what does that tell you about the cantina?
Doriana
Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:59 pm
#18
Drygo wrote:
If you or anyone else can *assure* me that buffbots will, unequivocably be gone, then please do so. I'm tired of fighting and feeling down because of the buffbots.
I honestly don't know if even the devs think this is going to really solve the problem. But it's a first and necesary step... They can't take other steps to stop it until they do this one.
Why? Because everyone says "I'm justified in doing this because you gave me the tools to do it."
Now, we can sit here and say just because you can do something doesn't mean you should until our lekku turn blue and people will still say AFKing is sanctioned because the tools were given. Despite the dev quotes. Despite those quotes, IMO, being warnings to the community that bigger steps would have to be taken if they didn't stop it.
So I view this as another warning, one step above the last. Removing the in game tool paves the way for future action... if they took other actions without removing the in game tools people would say "Then why do we have recursive macros in game if we can't use them to run our characters for us while we go AFK? That's not fair! Let us AFK!"
If it doesn't solve it? Well, now that I'm looking for it, I rather see a pattern of warnings in their recent messages. So I feel a lot more at ease about this being just the beginning, and not the end....but I also see a dev team that's stretched thin right now attending to all the problems. So we might have to wait a bit for the next step.
At the least I think this will curb it, and it gives me more moral oomph when I say AFKing is not intended and therefore those who do it are breaking rules.
Maybe I'm delusional and the devs'll just do this and forget about us. I have been drinking a lot of cough syrup....
But maybe I'm actually seeing the first glimmer of hope and commitment to try to bring back what this game COULD be instead of what it's turning into.
Doriana
Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:06 pm
#19
Way to go off topic! /hi5 me
In a way I could support having an ent buff be the same duration as a doc buff. That does kind of make more sense.. but I think the issue there is that doc buffs vary in duration due to crafting variations. What if the combat rebalance simply changes doc buffs to have shorter durations, or for the resouces and experimentation to change so that DR has a different effect on duration with the effect being that the average buff is shorter?
Maybe the devs didn't intend for doc buffs to be as long as they are and that's why ent buffs seem out of line in comparison. /shrug
Also if they did that, yes, you'd have to find a way to eliminate pocket buffs. The fact that they're fiddly makes me think they weren't intended (though I don't consider it an exploit, myself, since no one's said anything about it or complained about it and you don't really have to circumvent game mechanics to make it work like the 30-second buff macros did). I personally don't recommend them to people but I don't freak out if someone is obviously getting one.
In a way I could support having an ent buff be the same duration as a doc buff. That does kind of make more sense.. but I think the issue there is that doc buffs vary in duration due to crafting variations. What if the combat rebalance simply changes doc buffs to have shorter durations, or for the resouces and experimentation to change so that DR has a different effect on duration with the effect being that the average buff is shorter?
Maybe the devs didn't intend for doc buffs to be as long as they are and that's why ent buffs seem out of line in comparison. /shrug
Also if they did that, yes, you'd have to find a way to eliminate pocket buffs. The fact that they're fiddly makes me think they weren't intended (though I don't consider it an exploit, myself, since no one's said anything about it or complained about it and you don't really have to circumvent game mechanics to make it work like the 30-second buff macros did). I personally don't recommend them to people but I don't freak out if someone is obviously getting one.
Gkarofnarn
Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:14 pm
#20
For the once of you that dont wanna see bazaar sail of holo disks =) I meant like a buff back for a doc. And what good is a buff pack whitour a doc =P. Make it so you have too be a dancer/musician too apply the buff ofc. Time and Strenght based on the lvl of the artist.
They do not force pps into Med centers, but they come too heal their wounds. What do you think will happend too cantinas even with holo disk recordings?? pps will still need their BF healed. Perhaps this will be bad for bz if you are a Buff Boot, but for everyone else this should mean a better incom =) "Dancer buffing mind 6k bank tip only"=)
Doriana
Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:23 pm
#21
Thing is that you have to remember that entertaining and medic are similar professions and draw from the same pool of people who choose to play support classes...
The main difference in SWG being that docs craft and ents don't, except musicians making instruments...
So a lot of people choose entertaining over medic because they don't like crafting.. making their income depend on crafting (even if it's not mandatory to get exp) doesn't address the economic viability of the segment of the professions that does not like to craft.
The main difference in SWG being that docs craft and ents don't, except musicians making instruments...
So a lot of people choose entertaining over medic because they don't like crafting.. making their income depend on crafting (even if it's not mandatory to get exp) doesn't address the economic viability of the segment of the professions that does not like to craft.
Xyrdre
Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:47 pm
#22
I'll begin commenting on the original topic here.
I'm not sure why entertainer buffs were set at 2 hours, when doc buffs are regularly hitting for 3, 3 1/4, 3 1/2 hours. When entertainer buffs were first implemented, were doc buffs much shorter duration? Did buff pack crafting just get more sophisticated, and the durations shot higher than expected? Or did the devs have some other reasoning for why entertainer buffs should be shorter? If there is no solid reasoning behind the idea of entertainer buffs serving some purpose by being shorter, then I say keep durations in-line with doc buffs. Makes sense to me.
I don't think that 3 1/2 minutes for applying full durationentertainer buffs is excessive, especially considering that a) that time is the resource we spend for buffing, rather than crafted packs, and b) we currently can buff far faster than docs can. A doc may buff 6 stats in a minute and a half, then move to the next customer, but we can buff 20 people inless time thanthey can buff 3. So, if your hunting/PvP group has 4 or more people, we actually buff faster than docs. (well, Havla changes those numbers a bit too, but you get the point - T'ssolok [sp?] was supposed to be the entertainer buff version of the docs Havla, but it doesn't work).
The thing that I agree is really making it rough for entertainer buff times is the bug where we can no longer do the dance and music buffs simultaneously. That's killing the time to apply, and making that 3 1/2 minute setup time into more like 10, or sometimes more, as there can be waits on the next entertainer. A skilled dancer/musician team that knows how to hit full duration buffs in 3 1/2 minutes could easily churn out buffs at a phenomenal pace using passive buffing, which was the intended use for passive group buffs. It's the equalizer, and also reflects a rewardfor combat groups. The solo combat player waits his turn, the group gets it all at once.
Now, onto the thread derailment section. 
Think about this though.. is anyone really 'forced' to go to cantinas any more than they are in going to med centers?
A lot of players pick up a few boxes of medic so they can stim themselves and heal their own wounds, in order to prevent having to go to med centers or seek out other medics. They want some basic levels of healing self-sufficiency, and spend the skill points to have that ability. Fine and good. Where's the difference with the other kind of healing?
If someone really wants to have another stage of self-sufficiency, and not have to go out to the cantina scene to heal their BF or mind wounds, and resents the whole thing, they are not forced to go. They can do what they did for Medic, and pick up Novice Entertainer as well. The option is there, and if they choose to not take it because they'd rather stack up an uber-template, that is their choice, and their fault then if they have to go to the cantina to heal BF. No one has forced their choice of how many skill points it's worth to them for varying levels of self-sufficiency.
As has been said, buffing is not a right. Not doc buffs, not entertainer buffs. If there are players who make them available to other players, the benefits can be enjoyed. Otherwise other plans may have to be made. One good environment example has been my experience playing on TC. Doc buffs are not readily available, and even when they are, often they are 1500 or lessto all stats - something that would be considered useless buffs by a lot of people on live servers. But if you can't get doc buffs other than those 1500's, they're a godsend. And life goes on just fine on TC. When you do find a doc buffing with some nice buffs, off to do some higher-end content. When not available, scale down the hunt to match what you can survive withoutthe steroids.My personal opinion andobservation: afew months playing on TC really sets perspective on how spoiled the players on live servers have become.
I still feel that catering to that spoiling will never improve the game - it will only prolong the state of being so spoiled. If you think there's whining about the sky falling with the fears of losing eternal buffbots, just wait until doc buff amounts come back down, and armor protection ratings fall to match. Are we as a playerbasegoing to somehow suggest thenthat special new buffpacks, usable by non-docs, should be crafted to tack on top of doc buffs to get them back up to the 2500+ all stats we see now? Maybe special armor powerups that will jack composite back up to 90%? Not going to happen.
I'd have to add that the contempt displayed by some of the combat players for entertainers does nothing but further dig their own graves. They want their buffs, and apparently feel that the best way to receive the service is to badmouth and denigrate the providers of those services. Well, time to sleep in the bed you've made, boys. I'd fathom a guess that if doctors were treated half as poorly as most entertainers are by that percentage of the playerbase that a lot of docs would either give up the profession or cease buffing the public just as a lot of entertainers have, and doc buffs would start to get scarce. Maybe then you'd start hearing the crying for NPC doc buffers, or "buff pill kits" that could be purchased off of vendors, or simply saved for later use.
I'm sorry, but buffing holovids in my opinion only wind up legitimizing the poor treatment of entertainers that has caused the shortage in the first place, by allowing the buffs to continue without checking the basic civility on the partof those who "need" the buffs. Basic civilized behavior is all that anyone asked for, but that seems to be too much to ask of some. Well, piss off your food server, they won't take your order. Learn to get along with others, especially when they provide something you value, and life gets just a bit easier. But teaching someone that if they can't get their order taken at the restaurant because they treat the waitresses as worse than useless, they can stilljust email their order and get it delivered just fine... we legitimize the behavior.
Doriana
Tue Aug 10, 2004 5:17 pm
#23
/agree Deila
I think a lot of the current animosity goes on because it's ALLOWED to go on. An AFK person can't say "That's out of line. You don't treat people like that and still get service." An AFK person dishes out mechanics to whoever passes by regardless of /slap, /lick, and worse.
People resent going to the cantina because they're told they should.
I think the percentage of people who really truly do hate it is much smaller and the greater player base only hates it because they can. when we're allowed to make it a more pleasant experience again will it be so hated?
I'd like to find out before we give up. People weren't this angry back at launch... until they saw all the cheaters getting ahead and started resenting them....
I think a lot of the current animosity goes on because it's ALLOWED to go on. An AFK person can't say "That's out of line. You don't treat people like that and still get service." An AFK person dishes out mechanics to whoever passes by regardless of /slap, /lick, and worse.
People resent going to the cantina because they're told they should.
I think the percentage of people who really truly do hate it is much smaller and the greater player base only hates it because they can. when we're allowed to make it a more pleasant experience again will it be so hated?
I'd like to find out before we give up. People weren't this angry back at launch... until they saw all the cheaters getting ahead and started resenting them....
SmedleyLlama
Tue Aug 10, 2004 5:21 pm
#24
Xyrdre wrote:
Think about this though.. is anyone really 'forced' to go to cantinas any more than they are in going to med centers?
Yes. BF accumulates at a much faster rate than HAM wounds. HAM wounds can be slowly healed by sitting in a camp. Not BF. BF can be healed slowly by sitting in a med center but at a rate more than three times slower than HAM wounds, even though BF is normally much higher than the HAM wounds.
Increase the healing rate of BF to a comparable level andmove it from the Med Center to the Cantina. Even without adding BF healing to camps, this would provide an alternative when an entertainer isn't available or practical.
BF was added with the sole purpose of forcing the combat player to go to the cantina and interact with the entertainers, because the Devs realized the majority of their players wouldn't go there otherwise. It is an artifical crutch, and the only one of it's kind in the game.
EDIT - Really bad typos
Message Edited by SmedleyLlama on 08-10-2004 08:23 PM
Xyrdre
Wed Aug 11, 2004 2:31 am
#25
SmedleyLlama wrote:
Xyrdre wrote:
Think about this though.. is anyone really 'forced' to go to cantinas any more than they are in going to med centers?
Yes. BF accumulates at a much faster rate than HAM wounds. HAM wounds can be slowly healed by sitting in a camp. Not BF. BF can be healed slowly by sitting in a med center but at a rate more than three times slower than HAM wounds, even though BF is normally much higher than the HAM wounds.
Increase the healing rate of BF to a comparable level andmove it from the Med Center to the Cantina. Even without adding BF healing to camps, this would provide an alternative when an entertainer isn't available or practical.
BF was added with the sole purpose of forcing the combat player to go to the cantina and interact with the entertainers, because the Devs realized the majority of their players wouldn't go there otherwise. It is an artifical crutch, and the only one of it's kind in the game.
EDIT - Really bad typos
Message Edited by SmedleyLlama on 08-10-200408:23 PM
Please read the two paragraphs immediately following the quoted sentence in my preceding post, and try again.
Regardless of BF accrual orthe devs original vision of steering playerstowards cantinas, nothing stops a player who does not want to go into the entertainer scene from picking up Novice Entertainer solely for their own use - to lose their and their friends' BF and mind wounds. They take up medic to stim and self-heal HAM wounds, and if BF accrues that much more quickly, any self-sufficiency minded player, Iwould think, wouldjump on the ability to rid themselves of it rather than be "forced" to do something they don't want to do.
I do know that BF accrues faster than HAM wounds... and much faster these days. And I am sympathetic with that. I think that BF accrual rates have not evolved with much of the rest of the game - namely insanely high doc buff amounts and armor protection ratings, which are preventing the wounds and likely the deaths that are allowing BF to rise to such heights. In short, players are now surviving what they were never intended to survive out solo, and hence are accruing huge amounts of BF.
Perhaps when doc buffs and armor ratings are curbed back soon, BF will suddenly become a much smaller issue, as characters will not be able to solo krayts any more. They will die rather than survive to build high BF levels so quicky, which is what seems to make more sense when someone takes on such overwhelming odds. If they should somehow amazingly survive, against all odds, why then should they not have incredible BF as the result of such a battle pushing them to death's door?
For additional reference, I've cross-posted my comments about BF accrual from another thread:
There are a lot of combat players going after the higher-level content now. Krayt hunting has been all-too important for supplying Jedi with pearls. There are regular Giant Dune Kimogliahunts chasing down the elusive RIS armor component scales. The proliferation and mass-production of theSuper Battle Droidin so much of the newer content involved in the game is well known. And the BF is skyrocketing as a result of players going after this higher-end content. Is it just possible that as the game has moved up into the reaches of these more extreme battle conditions that we've seen the math break down regarding the rates at which those high levels of BF are being reached? Perhaps the calculations of how much, and how quickly,BF is accumulating is no longer appropriate for the gaming environment.
I put this idea forth because in my personal experience in design/development of games, one of the things I always considered was the rates and frequencies that I wanted things to occur, on average, and design my systems to bring that play experience into reality for the player. At the end of the day, it comes down to this... is the system supportive of the intended pace of gameplay?
The example here would be,if designing a BF accrual system, I'd look at the average stuff that players were doing (what they were out hunting), figure out about how often I would think they should have to come in and regroup/reset (how many hours of combat play seemed appropriate before setting in some cantina time), and look then at kind of dividing out the amounts of damage combat players were likely to take in the given time period that I thought they should be able to stay in the field before heading back in. That would then determine for my system how much BF comes from combat, essentially averaged out per point of damage taken.
But now, it seems, that players are getting into much higher levels ofMOBs than they were when the BF system initially was instated, and t's not the Bone Armor Warriors anymore. They have the weapons and armor developed to go after much nastier adversaries. They have the buffs to do so. And those really high-level MOBs have been added in with all the new content all along the way. Has the BF accrual rate been pro-rated to accomodate this high-level play? Not that I've seen.
I was along with a small group killing GDK's yesterday (2 TKM's and 2 master rifles (myself as one)to do the job), and the TKM's had accumulated over 750 BF in far less time than their buffs existed. We actually did have to stop in less than a 3 hour time period, and run off to a nearby town to take care of BF mid-hunt.
I can well sympathize with a combat player under these conditions - 750 BF in around 2 hours of gameplay, then with the chance that the only way they can clear that BF is to spend at least as much time sitting in a cantina autohealing than they were playing the game to get that BF in the first place. And that's not good game design. Or rather, in this case it's more of a situation where I think that one part of the game system has not evolved correctly with other parts of the game system, and now leaves an imbalance. It's happened before, and will happen again... it's the nature of systems.
SmedleyLlama
Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:19 am
#26
Xyrdre wrote:
Please read the two paragraphs immediately following the quoted sentence in my preceding post, and try again.
I understood your point the first time.And if it helps any, I thought your original post on BF accrual was outstanding and dead on. If something was done in that department, there would probably be less of a problem with all of this.
But since you asked... I'll tryagain.
Ask most Combat players with medic skills and they'll probably tell you theytake up medic because A) they have a few points leftover, and B) it allows them to use Stims in battle. Unless they can suddenly dance around the opponent to heal their mind in a fight, I don't think they're quite the same thing.
Message Edited by SmedleyLlama on 08-11-2004 08:20 AM
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