Dancer Archive
Thread: New information on Dancer Mind buffing. (on TC)
Ravenmist wrote:
Almost exactly what I said to our Dev as soon as he stated the new changes Chessack. Needless to say we're in agreement here. I think the problem is he didn't realize how fast we go through action and how nearly impossible it is to dance that long with those dances flourishing the whole time without medical help. Hopefully I can get this changed to something more reasonable.
Thanks for the quick response.
LOL... this is the difference between "theory" and "practice". Sounds good on paper till a real dancer with reasonable stats tries it. :-)
Well... that is why it is on the TEST center and not live yet, to work out the kinks. And in any case other than this problem the buff situation looks decent.
C
Vodry, I think you misunderstand our complaint and intent. I think everyone agrees that macros are a beautiful thing. Many of us use them to choreograph dance productions, to free us to chat with our customers as we dance, etc.
We don't want to mess up the macro system. We just want people to be at their keyboards when they are using them. Any discussions about changing them is about preventing people to leave their keyboard then dance for hours on end. I think the majority of us are just tossing out various ideas on how that might be accomplished, not trying to hinder very useful macros.
Many of us believe that if 80% of the people working to become Bio Engineers did so while they were at work, through the use of macros, those of you who have played your characters to get that same title would be upset. It's like cheating because people are able to acquire the skill without even showing up. *shrug* Opinions vary.
I have a question too, the answer I could not find yet (if it is answered sorry).
Is it possible to buff themself with the new system? It would be fine if yes 
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Aniella (Gorath) Dancer
The main issue right now is that buffing is tied to flourishing and flourishing has to last 5 minutes... so they are basically forcing us to dance a subset of dances to buff someone. Shouldn't the higher dances (lyrical, exotic) which are more visually pleasing, buff the mind better than the lower dances? But right now if I want to buff, to flourish non-stop for 5 minutes I will have to dance popular1 and lower at best (haven't timed or tested it but this is my guess) or perhaps even all the way down to formal or footloose. And I play a Twi'lek with a huge (1200) action bar. Unless you are lucky enough to have a medic stim-packing you (which some groups do have, of course, including my own, on occasion, if our Doc is around -- he is also a part-time musician), you are going to have to do the weaker dances.
Here is my idea, and not sure if they can implement it: instead of having it timed how about having it based on # of flourishes per time but give more buff per flourish for higher flourishes? For example... Take the Basic dance. Let's say you are dancing Basic 1. Each flourish takes about 12 seconds. So you can do 5 flourishes a minute. Let's take 5 minutes as an example... you'd need to do 25 flourishes in 5 minutes for the full buff. Thus a basic1 flourish = 4% mind buff. The nice thing here is that dancers who don't flourish or who take too long between flourishes either won't buff or will take forever to do it (i.e. macroers, since most of them that I have seen flourish very slowly, clearly trying to maximize the XP/action bar ratio, which flourish-flourish-flourish will NOT do if you have to keep stopping to rest). Now let's say you learn basic2. Each flourish might buff a bit more, say 5% per flourish. So a basic2 dance might take only 20 flourishes to buff. This would make it faster (4 min rather than 5) but only a dancer with that dance can do it. Then just keep moving along, until you get to exotic which might give say 10% per flourish, so 10 flourishes will do it (2 minutes, which most of us have the action bar to do).
The other (depending on how they coded what is there right now, potentially serious) issue is that flourishes take different amounts of time. For example, the #1 flourish in Lyrical1 takes something like 25 seconds, while #3 takes something like 18. If the # of flourishes over time is tied into the buffing, then doing flourish 3 should mean you buff faster than flourish 1, and that makes absolutely NO sense to me at all. It will also encourage the twits like the AFK macroers to just keep doing the shortest-duration flourish over and over (3-3-3-3-3-3-3...ad nauseum), which will look utterly dreadful and probably start to annoy people.
So, while I like the basic idea, something needs to be done so we don't have a bunch of Master Dancers all doing Basic 1 to buff people... Not that basic 1 is a bad dance -- I actually kind of like it and I did it for a little while last night with 2 new entertainers to teach them how to bandflourish. But if you can do lyrical and exotic and popular and poplock... why wou ld you want to keep having to dance basic, basic, basic, basic... while you are buffing?
C
Okay.. let me see if I can rundown all those questions here real quick.
- Mind enhancement Modifiers..... to the best of my knowledge will NOT let you go above the 100% cap.
- And I'm not sure about the faction thing but I think you need to be overt.
- By non stop I mean, one flourish finishes, then you have to do another. Basically flourish as fast as possible. (I still think some kinks exist with the setup honestly)
- And no, you can't buff yourself, something I'm complaining about very liberally. Hopefully it will get changed.
Ravenmist wrote:
Almost exactly what I said to our Dev as soon as he stated the new changes Chessack. Needless to say we're in agreement here. I think the problem is he didn't realize how fast we go through action and how nearly impossible it is to dance that long with those dances flourishing the whole time without medical help. Hopefully I can get this changed to something more reasonable.
Or hey, they could simply reduce the action costs on dances...or reduce them as we grow in skill so we can dance exotics for more than a minute at a time.
I like that solution!
- J
Sorry to be a pain about this, but I'd like more clarification. Is the Dancer buff going to be like trading - do we have to be overt of the same faction as the buffee for an overt to get the buff? Neutrals won't be able to buff Overts of either side? Or are you saying that the TEF would only come into play if the dancer is overt?
Ravenmist wrote:
- And I'm not sure about the faction thing but I think you need to be overt.
Sinda wrote:
Sorry to be a pain about this, but I'd like more clarification. Is the Dancer buff going to be like trading - do we have to be overt of the same faction as the buffee for an overt to get the buff? Neutrals won't be able to buff Overts of either side? Or are you saying that the TEF would only come into play if the dancer is overt?
Ravenmist wrote:
- And I'm not sure about the faction thing but I think you need to be overt.
Well theres two questions here really, but I'll answer yours first Sinda since I actually know that one. Anyone can buff anyone, neutral, opposite faction, doesn't matter. So no need to worry about that, its not like trading in that sense. Where factions come in is with the bonus theres suppose to be to buffing someone of your own faction. (A rebel dancer buffing another rebel.) This bonus lets you buff for 125% instead of the normal 100%. Its suppose to give us more of a reason to participate in the GCW I suppose.
The other question was do you have to be overt to use it, or can you be covert and get the bonus. That question I don't know the answer to for sure right now. 
The last question was, do you get a TEF for buffing. I don't think so but again not sure since I'm neutral and have never caused a TEF yet that I know of, not sure if factions might tho.
I know the "I don't know" answers aren't good enough for some of you so I'll stop being lazy andget the answer. I should of before now that I think about it, sorry about that. I have 0 faction points tho so may take me a night or two to declare but I'll find out. I'll try and see if I can manage it tonight but it may take two.
Ravenmist wrote:
- And no, you can't buff yourself, something I'm complaining about very liberally. Hopefully it will get changed.
Actually, I don't mind that too much. In the cantina, you'll probably be buffing off someone else in your band anyway.
But in desolate places, you may not have that luxury. And certainly not likely in a campsite.
It just smacks of cheese to buff ourselves. But then,doctors can do it, right? So, I can see that argument.
I just personally feel this should be a lower priority, but I may be in the minority. Heh, that rhymes..sorry.
I have a question as well: Some Flourishes in say Lyrical 2 are much longer than flourishes in Exotic 3 and 4. 5 Minutes of Lyrical 2 and starting a flourish whenever the previous flourish stops animating would be easier than keeping up with Exotic 4's "quickies". How exactly are your flourishing times measured apart from the animation?
As far as flourishing nonstop is concerned... a good quickness buff from a doctor will take care of your action need for more than an hour - in other words, trade mind buff for quickness buff.