Dancer Archive
Thread: You people need to learn how to dance
I know I'm going to throw this topic off but is the original poster telling us to learn how to dance an actual dancer him or herself?
Relica Tremayne
Master Dancer / Master Image Designer / Novice Gunfighter
Jesters PA
Eclipse
Relica wrote:
I know I'm going to throw this topic off but is the original poster telling us to learn how to dance an actual dancer him or herself?
The topic is still there...sort of.
In summary, the original poster asked us to vary our dances. Drop down to Rhythmic or Formal periodically, just to spruce things up.
Beery said that going to a lower dance reduces the healing, so we'd be doing the customer base a disservice. Various speculations and anecdotes went flying.
I did do some informal testing last night. I can conclude that you do not need any flourishes to heal. I started a dance (and did not dance for about 45 mintues before that in order to test another theory that dance heals carry over) with no flourishes and started healing.
Now, with my informal testing, I'm starting to side with Beery on the type of dance affecting the heal rate. I started with Basic and was ungrouped (no musicians around so my subjects couldn't contaminate the experiment). The feedback I got is that I healed 2-3 points. I did a Basic flourish. It jumped to 5-6. Coincidence? Perhaps. I had always heard that flourishes speed up healing, and this experiment is helping support that assertion.
I warned my subjects that I was changing dance and switched to Popular (my highest dance). Boom, healing shot up to 9-11. Interesting.
I'd love to see a Master Dancer do the same test jumping from Basic with no flourish to Exotic3 with no flourish.
So far, it looks to me like the type of dance does affect healing. So, varying your dance doesa great service for the aesthetics of the dance floor, but it would reduce healing (grouping may help you out here, but that's another experiment). Has anyone seen any evidence to the contrary?
But this brings up another problem. I saw this in another thread. Since we're talking about experimenting, I think it's worth bringing up here in this message. In that thread, someone claimed that by not knowing any Dance skills, his Entertainer Healing IV did just as much good as not having it at all. But taking Dance to level II, it worked as well as Entertainer Healing II. I'm paraphrasing here, but the idea is there.
So, my character has no Dance Knowledge. But she does have Fatigue Heal IV. So, are my extra points in Fatigue Heal wasted because I don't have Dance Knowledge IV? That is my latest question.
I'll be out of town soon, so I won't be able to play SWG. Before I leave, maybe I'll try this experiment. I have enough Ent Heal xp to buy back Fatigue Heal if I choose to sacrifice them. Basically, I'll find another subject and have him watch me dance popular. Go through about 10 ticks and figure out the average heal. Then I'll sacrifice Fatigue Heal (probably all four ranks for the sake of science) and see if the average heal is the same.
This would be easier if the healing was more uniform. I expected to see a flat 5 points or something every tick. The fact that it varies makes me wonder if A) there is a random number seed in there to shake things up or B) other factors, such as amount of damage, action pool of dancer, or some other outside influence, are affecting the amount we heal. It would make the experiment a lot easier. But that goes back to the joke about the spherical cow.
Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to sort this out for the benefit of Dancers. Perhaps someone will want to compile a FAQ based on our findings.
I concede that you don't need flourishes in order to heal. Tests I didyesterday show I was mistaken in that. However, I'm still pretty convinced that the type of dance does matter - and that was (I think) my main point in response to the originator of this thread.
"Now, with my informal testing, I'm starting to side with Beery on the type of dance affecting the heal rate. I started with Basic and was ungrouped (no musicians around so my subjects couldn't contaminate the experiment). The feedback I got is that I healed 2-3 points. I did a Basic flourish. It jumped to 5-6. Coincidence? Perhaps. I had always heard that flourishes speed up healing, and this experiment is helping support that assertion. I warned my subjects that I was changing dance and switched to Popular (my highest dance). Boom, healing shot up to 9-11. Interesting. "
How do you see the numbers on this? All I can see is the black bar dwindling in size - I've never been able to bring up a dialog box that shows actual healing figures as I'm dancing. If I could find out how to do this, I could give precise examples to back up my argument.
Beery wrote:
"You can often make some pretty good inferences based on two studies. But if you come to a conclusion which is immediately shot down by someone else, then it's time to reevaluate the data."
Assuming the data HAS been shot down. Saying something isn't so and proving it are two very different things. The time to re-evaluate the data is when someone posts contrary data and you run the same test that they did in orderto verify it. You don't throw out your test results based on someone saying that they performed a test a while back, and that they don't have exact figures, but they think you're wrong. That is faith-based science of the kindperfected bythe Spanish Inquisition.
I find this sort of funny considering your postand test had no figures to speak of at all which is one of the reasons your not getting much credibility here. Just watching some guys blue bar. 
That doesn't mean your wrong tho Beery. I use exact numbers like this other guy did above but his results and numbers are greatly different then mine. I haven't tested this since the change that added the mind buff a update or two ago and I was a Master Dancer already so theres obviously a lot I need to test and a lot of numbers I need to gather to nail this down. Won't be possible for me to test at different levels tho to judge the difference until I can raise and lower my skills as needed which will happen soon. And to answer your question on how he got those numbers. I did it the same way I'm assuming he did in my tests, you need to have each person you experiment on watch their character sheet and report every change to each of the stats including BF and have them do so every tick.
"I find this sort of funny considering your postand test had no figures to speak of at all which is one of the reasons your not getting much credibility here."
I'm not interested in credibility. I'm interested in the results I see. I'm not going to go around believing every opinion I see on a forum without checking it out myself, and I don't think anyone else should either. At least I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, but that in no way means that if I turn out to be wrong, that I shouldn't have argued as strongly as I could for my position.
Oh, and are you a Master Dancer yet Beery? If you are that would be great. Using the method I describe you could at least test out the effects dance skill has at Master for me, would be one less thing for me to worry about when I start working on a larger test. If you do please test it at least 5 times, and try to keep the circumstances as close as possible. Using the same person or the same two people with close ot the same BF or Mind wounds at the start would be really helpful. The way I did this was you need someone to sample radioactive material, (thats one way to get mind damage at least easily) and once they get down to the bottom have them sit and watch you while you do one dance taking notes, then do it again with another, then try mixing both in the same dance and watch for a change in the numbers as you switch. Its a lot of work but if your willing to do it I'd sure appreciate it. 
Could prove me wrong on my old tests... and if it you are right and the dance does matter I think we just found another thing to add to my list to pester the devs about changing.
Speaking of credibility, I would hope that any credibility I got was due to players seeing the same results as I'm seeing, rather than on blind faith in my arguments. Clearly I didn't get much credibility on the flourish issue. Maybe you should consider why I'm getting a lot more credibility on the 'type of dance' issue (which was my main point). 
I'm planning on testing this at every level of the dancer tree with different levels of healing skills as well, its going to take a lot. Any help you could offer would be great.
To sort of get back to a point on the first page...
Some of us don't dance to heal at all. Some of us don't run a cantina to have dancers that heal, we are there to roleplay dancers, who ... dance and entertain. Healing just does not come into it no one asks us to dance during open to heal them hasn't happened in over a month and it would be like someone asking in the real world if they did. We'd tell him to go to a doctor.
As such the show is all that is important. People do not come into the Glitter Pit during open hours to heal fast. And we're not there to heal them except in an accidental game mechanic way. So knowing how to dance for us is essential, and I feel I have a lot to learn. We have no master dancers but most of us are at lyrical or exotic with one girl training up toward novice dancer someday.
And I get plenty more than enough patrons for the 8 hours we are open. All the rest of the time as an entertainer its at a gig which also has no point in healing. So I think what you say for your character is valid but absouletly healing is not important to every entertainer or dancer or cantina or venue. We're about trying to make the entertainer a fun and viable class apart from the healing and its happening on Kettemoor for many entertainers, I'm sure on other places too. I don't think we'll every be highly valued for healing because we're so limited with it (and somewhatrightly so I think)we'll be highly valued for entertaining and the healing is there to justify us to those who don't roleplay. But it will always be a harder road for us. I'm okay with that.
Learning how to dance should be part of the roleplay of being an entertainer. Go to a master dancer and take lessons. Get your dance troupe to practice choreography, work with musicians, incorporate singing, props, band flourish dancing (have doctors around to heal you for big gigs) do not keep dissing those low level dances.
/basic 2 looks GREAT with 5 dancers in stage patterns, on steps, in diamonds, wedge or line formations synchronized to a band with timing for synchronized flourishes and light shows.
formal/lyical goes togetherbut so does rhythmic2 fl 1 with that group
rhythmic2/popular2 go
basic/popular1 go
etc etc I'm sure some of us are playing with combos more than others. We change music sets and change dances and so a show can have poplock and formal in it to keep things interesting if done well.
We're just sort of scratching the surface of choreography I wish we had ONE command to make it more fun
/changeband dance
Musicians can change songs now in midstream, if a band lead doing the dance flourishes could change everyone from formal to lyric without everyone doing it on their own it would be a marvel in allowing choreography. Make it a toggle on/off command so its usually off and our individual dance training is preserved, but give us the tool to entertain.
Beery wrote:
Speaking of credibility, I would hope that any credibility I got was due to players seeing the same results as I'm seeing, rather than on blind faith in my arguments. Clearly I didn't get much credibility on the flourish issue. Maybe you should consider why I'm getting a lot more credibility on the 'type of dance' issue (which was my main point).
But the patrons could be mistaken too. This is why we need to do these tests in a vacuum. The test I did is inherently flawed. How do I know that these guys reported accurate results? When one of them said that the healing jumped to 9-11 points per tick, do I know that he watched the numbers consistently? Do I know that he didn't knock over his soda and spent some two or three ticks cleaning that up so his reading was wrong? I don't know. I'm willing to accept that his testimony is accurate, but I am not 100% certain.
I'd rather see the results myself. I can watch my own battle fatigue go down. I'm assuming that my BF is treated exactly like everyone else. But I don't know that either, and my assumption could impact my conclusion negatively. I like Ravenmist's idea, and I encourage everyone with two computers and two accounts to try these tests. I just wish I could help out.
And Beery, I understand how you want results instead of credibility, but the two go hand-in-hand. To get good results, you must acquire untainted data, and credibility is a natural by-product of untainted data and logical conclusions.
Besides, your credibility is important to those of us who are trying to decipher this whole numbers thing. You're not in this alone, after all. I am relying on your observations as well as Ravenmist's and everyone else. I'd like to think that I have enough credibility that you can base some of your experiments on my observations. After all, you did check the healing --> flourishes theory as a result of this discussion. I'm sure you did it with the intent of returning with a "I told you so" post, but that's only fair because I did my basic/popular test with the same intent *grin* One-up-manship is just one motivation that creates exploration.
Hmm, but yes, this is moving away from the original thread. Would Ravenmist like to create a new thread called "Dancing healing experimentation results"? That way, those people who geek out on numbers and tests can post there. Also, if it's created by Ravenmist, it has that special correspondent color so people know it's semi-official/semi-sanctioned. Just an idea.
Kuildeous wrote:
Hmm, but yes, this is moving away from the original thread. Would Ravenmist like to create a new thread called "Dancing healing experimentation results"? That way, those people who geek out on numbers and tests can post there. Also, if it's created by Ravenmist, it has that special correspondent color so people know it's semi-official/semi-sanctioned. Just an idea.
Good idea Kuildeous, I should of probably done that a long time ago. Will make the thread there. Please everyone intrested in discussing the topic of Healing related to dances post there and lets leave this thread alone.