Dancer Archive
Thread: Force Dancing
picklesSW wrote:
I have a few questions about all this. I admit I was away for a while and maybe missed something.
Assuming one now does quests or something to become 'force-sensitive', is that what we're talking about here? Once you have that invisible switch turned on, you somehow become a better dancer? Or do you invest skills into the Jedi tree or something to get these enhanced skills?
Does this mean now that there will be Jedi Dancers? My understanding was that Jedi was a profession in which you could be NOTHING else. Has that changed?
Thanks for any information, I'm just a bit confused.
My understanding is a bit rough, but from what I remember when you complete the jedi quests, your MAIN becomes force sensitive. I think you get another character slot as well to start a new toon, but it isn't force sensitive. You can do the quests for it as well.
Also, you no longer are a jedi and nothing else. Force skills, as I understand it, have a skill point cost. So, you can gradually give up your old skills to become a jedi.
There are stages as well. First you're force sensitive. The skills you gain from that are, I think, mostly passive. So you don't get that jedi TEF. Once you have the right skill boxes you can do quests to become a Padawan. That's when you start to get force skills that give you the Jedi TEF. Then once you get enough skill boxes in that you do quests to become a Jedi Knight, where you become overt permanently, and the only way to get XP is to kill other jedi or through jedi quests.
That's my understanding. If this is wrong, please correct it 
I like the idea of more additions to dancers, but not at the expense of skill points. I don't want to have to ditch my tailoring mastery just so I can get the latest and greatest dancing skills. If these things are achievable by running quests or in some other way, great!
Tell me this. If we're going to ask them to put in more labor by adding all these cool new features for dancers...why can't they just add them to Master Dancer?
Quck concept... anything that costsentertainers more skill points favors buffbots, as they do not need, care about or want otherskills and/or professionsto vary their "gameplay". They're fine being one-trick ponies that take all the points needed to maximize whatever mechanical funtions are their purpose, because they are not generally being actively played. Characters that are "mains and only's" need some measure of variety to not lose interest in gameplay. Costing more skill points in one area will take away from theversatility ofthe game experience for single character players, to whatever degree the added skill point cost is taken.
Xyrdre wrote:
Course, what I heard coming from FF regarding there being no FS skills for entertainers was a response of "oh, yeah... wow, you're right", in so many words. That does sound a bit like forgotten to me.
Well, the only time I remember it being brought up in a panel was in the Jedi Panel... and the question was mine. There was one other Ent question, but it was about the quests and how easily Ents could complete them.
Keldarin said that we were left out because "there isn't a way to add new songs and dances." I said "well, what about adding us to the existing heal line. I know how you feel about Ents as healers, but could we just have our bonus there since we do have those modifiers?" or something like that.
I believe Keldarin designed the majority of the FS boxes and I know he did the Ent trees way back (we were his first job) so, he meant it when he said he didn't think we fit here. Knowing how he feels about our functional elements, I understand this better and am no longer just feeling ignored.
However, I think we are a lot more dependent on our limited functions than he ever intended. *shrug* I have no idea how RS and the rest of the Dev team feels about this... anyway, if we got something like these "FS Dancer Tricks", that would be something special just for us. It would not fit in with the other skills at all.
The FS boxes are like trainable SEA bonuses. They are not new abilities. Since we have only four skill mods and all but one of our abilities are "functionless", I actually do think something special would be ok... I just don't think it's very likely for anytime soon.
Panthu wrote:
However, I think we are a lot more dependent on our limited functions than he ever intended. *shrug* I have no idea how RS and the rest of the Dev team feels about this... anyway, if we got something like these "FS Dancer Tricks", that would be something special just for us. It would not fit in with the other skills at all.
The FS boxes are like trainable SEA bonuses. They are not new abilities. Since we have only four skill mods and all but one of our abilities are "functionless", I actually do think something special would be ok... I just don't think it's very likely for anytime soon.
I appreciate that you've shared your insight on this with us, Panthu. It appears that the eventual outcome of any bonuses provided to entertainer profession skills, within the framework of what it appears the devs have envisioned for the FS trees (ie: trainable SEA bonuses), would contribute to making the existing problems within our professions worse.
I am for anything that reduces the number of buffbots and unattended game play. As unpopular as it might be, I would prefer no dev attention, as opposed to further competition with unattended avatars. I would Love dev attention, but not at the price of damaging us further.
Panthu wrote:
Well, the only time I remember it being brought up in a panel was in the Jedi Panel... and the question was mine. There was one other Ent question, but it was about the quests and how easily Ents could complete them.
I remember clearly (I was scribbling notes on everything said) that someone brought it up in the entertainer panel. That panel was a bit chaotic, though, so you may have just missed it Panthu. Anyway, someone said "Hey you know there aren't any FS skills planned for entertainers" and Kirk (Runesabre) wrote something down and said, "Oh yeah...you're right..."
Keldarin's refusal to view us as any kind of healer just astounds me. I mean, hello? We know that Runesabre views our role as social, but they had to integrate us into the game mechanics somehow. So they made us able to heal battle fatigue and mind wounds. In other words...healers! Maybe we're not primarily healers, but we certainly have a healing function.
As far as the FS skills, I don't expect them to include anything entertainer-specific. Let's face it, that part of the design and development is done, and the chances of them adding something as extensive as entertainer benefits before publish 10 goes live are slim to none. Once again, the ultimate irony. How many players had to master an entertainment profession on their road to unlocking force sensitivity? Almost all, I'd wager. Yet it's the one type of class with no FS benefits, further reinforcing the perception that entertaining professions are the "throwaway" professions. 
RS is our top Design O'Mighty Dev though, so it would be nice to know what he's thinking. He wrote down pretty much everything that came up in the Ent Panel (which I actually found a little scary, lol), but I don't know what's come of it if anything.
Panthu wrote:
RS does seem to be very open to functional elements and redefining our role... while Keldarin seems to have a very clear idea of how he wants us to grow. So do a few of the other Devs we talked to in our "Corres grill Devs" sessions at FF.
Really, quite a simple solution actually, that would make everybody happy except the buffbot owners and the buffbot users. And, quite frankly, at this point after the multiple bashing threads, I have no concern over their feelings whatsoever.