Dancer Archive
Thread: Future of the Dancer Profession? Your thoughts..
NotYourAvgEwok wrote:
And to Tiaga: Sorry, but your analogies don't hold up for the vast majority of people. All the cantinas look the same, so there's not much point in going to different ones to dance in, especially since you are restricted in the amount of XP you gain if you're not grouped. Yes, you can do different dances, and the novelty wears off after about the tenth time of seeing the same 5 flourishes for that new dance you just picked up, and knowing that you only have to do 3000 repititions of the same button pushing that you've just done. And what new places to perform? Jabba's Palace? Oh wait, it doesn't act as a cantina, so you're stuck dancing by yourself (for lowered XP) and not able to heal anyone.
If you find cantinas boring, then the profession isn't for you. To me, all creatures are pretty much the same. They are social or not, aggressive or not, they may disease, poison, or such.. But in the end, they are all just the amount of hitpoints they have. Can you honestly tell me of a wide veriety of strategies that are *required* (Note I said required, not possible) in the game? Most encounters I've seen have all been pretty much the same strategy of attack. The point I was making is that you may see dancing as boring. Well, I see fighting as boring. So instead of insisting that I should be able to be master to get it over with, do you know what I do? I go dance. And I enjoy it.
And who says you have to dance in cantinas anyway? I dance and play music in shuttleports, starports and out in the street all the time.
If you don't enjoy doing it, don't play it! Is that so hard to comprehend?
You folks need to realize that AFKing is the symptom, not the problem. Until you cure the problem, you're stuck with it. For those of you who have stuck with Dancing and still love every minute of it, great! That shows dedication. But you need to recognize that not everyone shares, or wants to share, your dedication. If you got rid of AFKing, what you would find are people stuck in the cantinas, complaining endlessly about how much dancing sucks. People will always be trying to master dancer, because of the holocrons and the Force Sensitive slot. That's the reality of it.
If you have a cold, and as a result a really bad cough, do you take something for your throat to ease the problem? After all, the coughing is just the symptom, not the problem.
Yes, I recognize not everyone likes the profession. I just wish they would recognize that they don't have to do it. I am not responsible for everyone elses enjoyment. They are responsible for their own enjoyment. If they are not enjoying it, they need to find something else to do.
Or did you want a game that <a href=http://www.progressquest.com>does everything for you</a>?
Ravenmist
As SWG has gone from a fun game to a holo-nightmare I can’t see myself playing thisgame in 2-3 month. Everywhere you go on chimeara you see afk entertainerI have travled around the galaxy to find a cantina with people so I can dance, talk and have fun again. But so far I have only found afk entertainer.
You said in the next year will it be some changes (I hope you mean this year 
) SWG's team don’t have a year. They must do something fast. And the problem is not only for us dancer. You can’t find anybody who sells anything soon. All you hear are "My holo said..."
I love the idea swg has about none combat professions. You can be a part in a virtual world and live a virtual life, but not any more all the fun is gone. Yes I have lost my faith to swg’s dev’s. SWG has some huge problem and that’s not only afk, but that’s for another part of this forum.
But the sum of all this problems makes me sad and I have now started to look after a new game, and this just after 5 month of playing this game. Most of my real life friends have already left this game because of this holo-nightmare and the bugs that no one does anything about (Yes I know they say they fix them but when you play the game after a fix the bug are still there)
I feel so sad about all this and I can’t explain my frustration when I dance and my master dancer looks as a newbie. What the point be a master when you fall all the time and you’re char/toon looks as she was drunk.
Well Tiaga, your arguement about not dancing unless you want to would mean something, if it weren't for the holocrons and the Force Sensitive slot.
Expect to see AFK dancing for a long time, and I would argue for longer than the two or three months that Ravenmist optimistically gives it. You see, first you have all the people that have "Dancer" or "Entertainer" or "Musician" as their Christmas holocron profession. Then you have people who gain subsequent holocrons who are told one of the Entertainer professions. Then you have people who have used four holocrons, and are now searching for the fifth unrevealed profession. Since there is a rather large list of professions remaining after the four holocron professions, expect to see AFKers for a while.
And to the vast majority of them, they find dancing boring. But they want to open up a Force Sensitive character, and so, for many of them, that means going through the dance profession. So you can either have them afk macro their way through it, or you can get rid of macros and AFKing and sit and listen to them complain the entire time. Although since I'm guessing 99% of you are already masters and aren't in the cantinas, I guess you'll just be performing wherever it is you perform and complaining about how AFKing ruins the game.
PROFESSIONS
Percentage of characters with specific novice skill
Live server report date: Oct 20th
Starting Professions
57.91% Novice Marksman
51.66% Novice Scout
36.47% Novice Medic
34.84% Novice Artisan
32.60% Novice Brawler
17.93% Novice Entertainer
If you were a business manager, would you spend resources fixing problems in an area of the business that almost none of your customers even see? Probably not, and I wouldn't expect Sony to either. So let's try to equate # of players with the issues they had to fix.
If you normalize this to 100, Entertainer gets pegged at 7.75% of the available resources. If you include all of the issues that are specific to the elite professions, the number grows smaller. If you include stability issues, player cities, mounts, and vehicles over the past 6 months, the number shrinks to almost nothing.
I've been Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, battling with myself on this for the past few months whether to leave or stay. I loved the entertainer professions. On the other hand,not much is being done about them. On the other hand, they don't have much time to spend on it while trying to follow through on their pre-launch committments. On the other hand...etc.
But I feel that now is the time we will see how much longer we will have to wait. We'll see if they start putting more than minor half-baked fixes in the patch notes for Musicians and Dancers. And we'll see if they're serious about trying to discourage AFK macroing.
I'll wait a little longer.
So there are 3 times more of other professions than entertainers.. Theres also more elites above other professions.
((Ravenmist, I don't mean this to sound bad, but you said on that list that those aren't things the developers promised you. Do you have a time frame yet to tell us what they *did* promise us, and when they might deliver? At the current rate, I'm not going to stay with this very long at all, much less a year like you mention. I'm lonely, and I am feeling like my profession is worthless. I asked if there was a performing troupe on my server forum, and if there is any use for a master dancer, and was made fun of. (It keeps it bumped, at least. *pshrug*)
Our buffs are much less useful and in demand than a doctor's, and take so long that even my friends don't wait for me to buff them, much less get many requests and tips from strangers. I can't help but wonder with the new combat system, and the pools regenerating even faster from being used, that our buffs are going to become even less used.
I don't mean any disrespect, and I will be quiet now because I am feeling bleah about all this, but it isn't very encouraging to hear that things might be better a year from now after the holocron craze dies down. It is hard to think of reasons to keep playing and paying for a game that might start being fun again a year from now.
Thank you for your comments and your help, Ravenmist. Your honesty and straightforward speaking are appreciated.))
Pendarin wrote:
PROFESSIONS
Percentage of characters with specific novice skill
Live server report date: Oct 20th
Starting Professions
57.91% Novice Marksman
51.66% Novice Scout
36.47% Novice Medic
34.84% Novice Artisan
32.60% Novice Brawler
17.93% Novice Entertainer
If you were a business manager, would you spend resources fixing problems in an area of the business that almost none of your customers even see? Probably not, and I wouldn't expect Sony to either. So let's try to equate # of players with the issues they had to fix.
If you normalize this to 100, Entertainer gets pegged at 7.75% of the available resources. If you include all of the issues that are specific to the elite professions, the number grows smaller. If you include stability issues, player cities, mounts, and vehicles over the past 6 months, the number shrinks to almost nothing.
I've been Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, battling with myself on this for the past few months whether to leave or stay. I loved the entertainer professions. On the other hand,not much is being done about them. On the other hand, they don't have much time to spend on it while trying to follow through on their pre-launch committments. On the other hand...etc.
But I feel that now is the time we will see how much longer we will have to wait. We'll see if they start putting more than minor half-baked fixes in the patch notes for Musicians and Dancers. And we'll see if they're serious about trying to discourage AFK macroing.
I'll wait a little longer.
that equates to 57k ppl.. i wouldnt callt hat nothing...
I haven't danced in public in a long time. I've mostly been dancing in the player city I live in and usually do a gig there once a week. We have a faction headquarters and it's been seeing lots of PvP action so my buffs have been in high demand. We group up and I dance while the doctors do buffs. So, I certainly don't feel useless.
Still, as much as I love dancing, I'm finding harder and harder to justify keeping my skill points there. For me, it really is all about the social aspect. If we didn't heal mind or do buffs, I'd still want to be a dancer. That we do means I can make credits, which is nice (but in no way covers my expenses since I'm not dancing full time any more). Without healing/buffing abilities, dancers probably wouldn't get much of an audience though, now would we?
What I miss is a packed cantina full of people who are talking and joking around with each other. I miss the novice dancers counting down the xp they need in group chat and then seeing "I got IT!! Will you teach me?". I miss encouraging the crowd to cheer for that novice to give him/her that little boost to get them over the top and I miss stopping to click the teach button.
I miss the rumors and the information that filters througha busycantina. I miss knowing who is looking for training and hooking them up with the guy who needs apprenticeship points. I miss changing outfits to coordinate with the other dancers and bandflo'ing through a few dances to see how that looks. I miss the chatter and the noise and the near confusion, welcoming those who come through the door and welcoming back the poor guy who just came back.
Better paying missions, new dances, new flourishes, and player cantinas cannot bring that back. Three months, or more realistically, six months more, is too long, too little...and maybe too late. For the first time, I've considered dropping dancer for something more fun, more interactive. For now, the buffs I am able to provide before battles will keep me going. I don't see an end to the sea of zombies that have replaced the crowds I loved. There will always be people in search of their FSCS. There will always be those who feel that the profession won't be fun until they've mastered it. Too many and nothing to deter them other than time...and I'm no longer certain I can outwait them.
NotYourAvgEwok wrote:Well Tiaga, your arguement about not dancing unless you want to would mean something, if it weren't for the holocrons and the Force Sensitive slot.
This is true for now but was not true from July to October, before people could get holocrons easily and before they knew that several-profession mastery = Force slot. What was their excuse before holocrons showed up? Even then there were lots and lots of AFK grinders who would tell you that the reason they were AFK macroing was because they didn't like dancing... yet for some reason they still wanted to master it. Without a holocron to tell them to do this... what the heck was the point? In the absence of "I need it to be a Jedi", which truthfully I do understand and sympathize with, the whole idea of, "I hate the profession so therefore I am trying to master it" is just nuts. When I dislike something in the game, I don't try to master it... I stop doing it.
C
The difference pre-holocron and post is little more than an abscence of knowledge, I think. Before people knew that you had to master professions to open the FS, there were 100 theories. Many of these theories did involve mastering professions. You had people trying to master professions without knowing for sure whether or not it opened the FS slot, but acting on various theories that said it might.
That and the fact that there are always people who want to see just how good a profession is, and in their mind the only way to do that is to become a master and see what they can do.
Tiaga wrote:
The reason that doesn't add up to 100 is because people can have more than one profession.
So there are 3 times more of other professions than entertainers.. Theres also more elites above other professions.
Yes, I realize that. That's the point I was trying to make. Excluding elite professions, 17.93% of the playerbase has the entertainer profession. But that equates to only 7.75% of the 'market share' because so many people have multiple starting professions that don't include entertainer.
sweatyclimber wrote:
that equates to 57k ppl.. i wouldnt callt hat nothing...
It's obvious my point isn't coming through so let me put it this way:
I'm suggesting that perhaps the reason we haven't been given much attention is because they don't have much attention left to give to us after dealing with the other majority professions, player cities, mounts, vehicles, and stability issues.
Ultimately, we're still not as important as the other professions in terms of the playerbase the issues affect, so we're still only going to get left-over developer time. But at least there will be more of that now that player cities and whatnot are out of the way. Sothe futuremay not be as bleak as it seems now.
We'll just have to wait and see how much effort they spend on us now.