Dancer Archive

First, I love this thread! I'm loving you guys being so supportive of each other's concerns and ideas! Go dance team go!

Second, we have some serious redtag lurkage going on here. TH wrote me not once, but twice to let me know he had his eye on this thread!! *hands TH some super secret lurking hotpants and dance slippers*

To take the dance class into the battlefield arena means one of two things
1.It will kill the effectiveness of social dancers because people will get these services in the field now
2.The “combat” class will have to have a completely different function, and so far the ideas suggested tread on the Squad Leader and Combat Medic’s toes

Since the intended function of this class is to provide social players with a viable character class and the focus of this class is dancing. I must again plead that we as dancers focus on these things and stop trying to make a grab for power. While I agree that if Blue bar white damage healing is to be expanded on we should certainly be given this ability, that should be limited to the same area’s we can currently heal black bar damage. Which would include camps but NOT during combat.

Reading through this post, I realize something, I have never seen the dancer class as a healing or a buffing class. I saw wounds (mw) and battle fatigue (bf) as tools to bring an audience to us. I saw this class as a class to boost player (not character) morale and our mind buff as a thank you to the people who come in and see us. I think we should be very careful about labeling ourselves as a “healing class”. My biggest fear here is that once we step into those shoes, we open the door to have other classes whine about getting the abilities to heal mw and bf. I mean, why should we get the corner on those markets when we insist on dipping into their piece of the pie? Perhaps our time would be better spent in defining our unique role in the game instead of trying to be competitive with other classes. I think it is really obvious that the Devs intended for us to be unique, so, let’s focus on how to stay unique. I don’t want to get caught up in the doctor/medic-chef-smuggler tangle as they push-and-pull to have a unique healing/buffing role in the game. We have an advantage because we already have unique role. Let’s fight for keeping it.

The Devs have worked really hard, invested a lot of money, and have shown tons of creativity on the first completely viable, non-combatant-based class. In fact, one could say that this is a crowning achievement for them. You don’t invest that much time and effort into a class that you don’t care about. So, why the silence* from the Devs? Why do we feel that we are being ignored? The first step in getting heard, is listening. Listen to what the Devs have told us about the entertainer classes. Why do we insist on asking for the same things over-and-over again when we already know the answer is “no” or "wait". The entertainer classes were never intended to be a bard-like class, the squad-leader was. Get over it and move on.

In short, I don’t think that the leadin for this discussion is very informative and, to me, comes off as propaganda to make the dancer a “bard”. If I go to the battlefield to participate in the fighting, I want to go because I have combat skills, not dancing skills. If I go to the battlefield to heal, I will go as a medic, not a dancer. Fortunately for us, the Devs have made these options available to us and i see no reason to integrate any of these skills into the dancing profession.

*Just a quick note here. Obviously, we aren’t getting silence from the devs. Sorry, peeps, but answers like “we get a little pat on the head and told to be patient” and “she's told Social players won't mind and the "buff machines" can still do the fast method for higher costs” are still answers. Just because we don’t like them, don’t make them less so.

I don’t think I need to address concerns coming from someone hiding behind a second account. You’ve had plenty to say in this thread already... please stop using your second account for personal attacks, it’s lame.

I’m not maligning information here. If I was going to do that, I wouldn’t have emailed TH and asked him to look at the thread, lol.

My concerns don’t have to be your concerns, I just want to give people an opportunity to talk. TH knows what my own personal agenda is… Cantina Mini Games! I’m all about them. My only interest in the field thing or the changes to Blue Healing is preparing you for the fix.

Yes, Deila was 100% dead on when she called the blue healing problem a flaw in design that is being corrected… it is a fact that we have enjoyed some unintended necessity due to that… she is also right when she says it will not be an issue soon. A lot of Dancers enjoyed this unintended “usefulness” and will miss that when it’s fixed. I believe Holo and the current Dev team want us to have the gameplay we desire as long as it fits in with the over all system and is immersive.

The talking about not stepping on SL’s or CM’s toes seems a little silly to me when we are just trying to talk about what is possible for our tie to other players. There are Chef foods that can do a lot of what we do… and spices… and there will be a lot more cross overs in the future as the game matures. As long as the over all class is protected, I think a little cross over is fine.

I don’t see anything wrong with Dancers asking for a little more as long as it doesn’t threaten anyone’s gameplay. What that little more is I’m not so hung up on. (pssst… cantina mini games, think about it )

I think part of the conflict stems from the fact that many player still see professions as classes. This is simply wrong. It leads to people asking for things for "their" class, and trying to fit their "class" to their liking.

People, stop with this. Don't define your character by your professions, look at the whole picture. You are not playing a class, you are playing a character with 250 skill points, who can be mixed and matched to YOUR liking. Pick your skill setto buildthe character you want.

Want a combat support character? Look what is offered by doctor, squad leader, combat medic and other professions, then mix it with dancer and other entertainer skills. In short, dabble! Think outside the box!

As an example, I wanted a character able to defend herself when attacked while dancing. Did I cry for unarmed skills for dancers, or some way to use dances to stun people? No, I took up TKA. I wanted some spy flair for my character as well. Did I clamor for dancer stealth skills? No, I took up some smuggler. I wanted to be able to do some first aid as well, so I... saw I had no more skill points, and decided I liked what I had more than this. I did not cry for first aid substitutes in the entertainer tree.

SWG offers 250 skill points, and 32 professions to mix and match. You can build almost any character concept with this set up, even a battle "dancer" for combat support. Why don't you try it out?

And, accept please that you can't have it all. You will have to make choices.Sometimes it reminds me of theTKA FotM crybabies who whined about kiting, but didn't want to take up any of the numerous ranged professions to be able to defend themselves against it. They insisted that TKA should be enough for combat. Or of people who want to be deadly in combat and still make tons of money as crafters.

Battle dancer? What about a dancer/squadleader? You will not dish out much damage, but you will be a good support character. With the new ability to kill vehicles for good the squadleaders speed and terrain negotiation skills will be a very valuable asset to any group in PvP, f.e.

I've been reading this thread with much interest.

After much thought...I really don't believe that Dance has a place on the battlefield. In a camp....YES...on the field...NO. I can't think of any historic examples of dancers performing during a battle. Rifle drill teams are about as close to "dance" as one gets.

However....MUSIC has a long and distinguished record for battlefield support. Drums and fifes really do have an effect on the spirt and the will. Bagpipes! GAWD...they could make ANYBODY want to fight just to get away from the noise!!!! Bugles or horns could send messages to the combatants.

Even bearing that in mind, if a "Combat Musician" did come about....there would have to be a way for the benefits of your playing to be limited to your group or faction. Not only that...but the musician would be a sitting duck and one of the first targets that the opposition would want to take out. I personally have NO interest in having a big red target painted on my forehead. *Grin*

Modern combat doesn't really lend itself to having musicians present on the field...and SWG certainly qualifies as modern combat.

If everyone would agree to stand in lines and fire at each other at 60meters...then maybe...just maybe....Combat Dancers and Musicians would have a place.

CHA

First, I'd like to say this is good discussion and I'm glad we're having it.

I understand what the above poster is getting at about seeing past the idea of classes. The tendency to see hard classes is something residual from the fact that so very many RPG's restrict you in that fashion that people are used to 'fighting for their class'. In EQ, for example, I was a Necromancer the day I started and I was a Necromancer four years later when I quit. Because that was the role I choose, and for that avatar it could not change. Although I am new to the game, I appreciate SWG's attempt at a reasonably novel approach to MMO skill ability distribution.

That said, the persons reading and actively participating on the Dancer forum tend to be very dedicated to that profession, else they would be less passionate about it's future. So this also tends to contribute to the 'fighting for the class' phenomena. So there is my attempt at explaining where some of this discussion has come from.

Personally, I think that, in theory, all professions should have some unique or near unique bit of gameplay mechanic to contribute to the mosaic of skills/needs/abilities that help define the game's player interdependent system. I think the direction to take is that if players want to 'battle dance' then provide some way for that to occur. Or, if they want to continue to 'Cantina Social Dance' then let's let that remain an optoin. I think the ability to dance in a base near the front lines would be sufficient for me to feel I'm helping the combatants.

My own plan is to get Master Dancer/Master Entertainer/TKM so I can be a performer near full time and fight when I need/want to. Mostly I want to be able to /duel unruly patrons that are hasseling my fellow peformers.

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Leonae wrote:

I think part of the conflict stems from the fact that many player still see professions as classes. This is simply wrong. It leads to people asking for things for "their" class, and trying to fit their "class" to their liking.

People, stop with this. Don't define your character by your professions, look at the whole picture. You are not playing a class, you are playing a character with 250 skill points, who can be mixed and matched to YOUR liking. Pick your skill setto buildthe character you want.

Want a combat support character? Look what is offered by doctor, squad leader, combat medic and other professions, then mix it with dancer and other entertainer skills. In short, dabble! Think outside the box!

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Thank you! My thoughts exactly. This is not another DnD rehash, it is a skill based system where you as a player can be whatever you want within the limits of 250 skill points. I don't think we as dancers need to, or should, ask for special combat abilities--if we want them, we can get them. It becomes another part of the fun juggling the points to get what you want. I spent all evening yesterday involved in PvP, dancing in a cantina to prep, becoming a medic in combat to heal, and the only time I died in over 2 hours of combat was when everyone in our group, including the uber combat types, got killed/beat up (because our group leader got a case of the stupids, but I won't go into that).

As a Dancer, however, what I would like to see addressed in the Combat Balance work is how Battle Fatigue relates to combat ability. If it had more of a direct, noticable, role in reducing a character's abilities (to do anything--craft, fight, even entertain) then the ability to heal that fatigue gains in importance.

I would, however, take it one step farther. I don't think it should be Battle Fatigue, but rather just Fatigue (or Mental Fatigue). How many of you have worked so long at your jobs or studying that you just couldn't function any more and started making mistakes? Why should crafters be able to macro-grind all day with no reduction in their abilities? Personally, if I keep scrapbooking too long in real life, things start getting fuzzy, I lose my creative edge, and I start making mistakes. My rate of "great successes" goes way down.

How do people recharge in real life? Everyone knows the TV/movie cliche of going to the bar to unwind after work. How many of you out there go out of their way to see a concert or movie or some sort of entertainment to unwind after a hard day or week of work?

Healing fatigue is important--it keeps us sharp and at our creative and constructive best. As entertainers, we allow people to watch us and let their worries drain away--recharging them so they are ready to once again perform the actions of their choice--combat for sure, but crafting and other things as well. Exhausted doctors shouldn't be able to heal as well, or perhaps as often.

Healing that fatigue takes work on the part of the entertainer *and* the character (they have to /watch or /listen) and being in a place removed from the stresses that created that fatigue. You can maybe heal the mind in a camp, but not relax enough to have the fatigue drain away as you watch the Rancors waiting for you 100m away. To enterain troops they built Theaters--perhaps crude and not in the best of places, but it was still a clearly different place that was fairly safe where a soldier could forget their troubles for a little while. Not a camp hastily set up 200 yards behind their foxholes.

THAT I think would be a change that would make entertainers priceless. If everyone in the game needed to take a break (including entertainers!) and watch a show, our worth would go up huge amounts. You would see the cantinas and theaters filled with *all* professions, not just the combat characters, because having that "social" outlet would be as important in the game as it is in real life.

To take it one step farther, you could differentiate Theaters and Cantinas by giving greater advantages to shows put on in a Theater. Cantinas are the place where people gather to socialize, get a drink, watch a nice show, and relax a little and reduce fatigue in a fairly short amount of time. A show in a Theater, on the other hard, if it involved a "production" with several entertainers, special effects, etc, could perhaps reduce fatigue more slowly, but actually make it "go negative" where the characters attending the show sort of get an anti-fatigue buff that makes it take longer before they become so fatigued that it starts to affect their abilities. For example, in a Cantina entertainers can get a character's fatigue to 0. However, in a Theater, entertainers take longer to get the fatigue to 0 (the character must watch a whole show) but it can get to -200. So the character then can take 200 points of fatigue just to get back to 0.

Make it work for Image Designers, too. Getting a new hairstyle certainly makes *me* feel good for a while. So let them reduce fatigue through their work. -25 to fatigue for a hairstyle, -5 for lip color, etc. Not only let them remove fatigue, but let them be the only class that can make fatigue go negative outside a Theater. So if their customer has 0 fatigue already, they get the fatigue "buff" and if they get a makeover might get to -100 fatigue or something like that. Cap how far negative the fatigue can go and limit each ID item to reducing fatigue once per time interval (once an hour for a hairstyle, once an hour for lip color, but you can do both in the same hour, can't do the same thing twice, though--you can do it as often as you like, but it only counts toward fatigue one in the time interval) and that should reduce exploits.

- Cassie, Dance Hall Girl

Pathu,

First of all I don't think Morpemet is personaly attacking you and secondly I knew someone would notice this sooner or later so yes I used this account to post in beta, but I am no longer conected to this account so no I am not hiding behind a second account.