CUEmu - Thread Posts

CandiDance

Mon Jun 20, 2005 7:29 am

Before responding to this thread everyone should read Esharra's brand new thread on upcoming changes. If you have already responded to this thread, I'd suggest you read upcoming changes and then respond again.

The upcoming change for dancers is that all healing function are being removed from dancers. The only role they would serve is the very minor inspriation buff role.

Bearing in mind that our "new" function is basically nothing, I change my input on skill points to be that Dancer and Entertainer should be ZERO skill points just like politician.

Upcoming changes post:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dancer&message.id=61474

Message Edited by CandiDance on 06-20-2005 10:45 AM

Hvzeda

Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:18 am

#41

CandiDance wrote:

Bearing in mind that our "new" function is basically nothing, I change my input on skill points to be that Dancer and Entertainer should be ZERO skill points just like politician.

And once that is done, expect no more changes or updates for the entertainment profession. It will be placed an never ending timetable for updates or fixes. Politicians have received nothing (including player cities) when the cost was dropped to zero skill points. Politicians and player cities are not on any timetable to be addressed.

Kyrie
I came into the SWG universe as an entertainer
and performed to a crowded cantina in Mos Espa.
I will use a respec and become an entertainer again,
pull out my last pet from my creature handler days
and dance in an empty cantina in Mos Espa and disconnect from the game forever.

Jagii

Mon Jun 20, 2005 12:05 pm

#42

People play SWG for entertainment,either through combat, crafting, social, or something in between. That being said, dancing, playing music, and image designing are worthwhile skills that demand an equal standing with combat and crafting-oriented skills.The skill point requirement should remain as it is.I know, this kind of logic isn't very convincing, but I believe it to be true. Entertainers are due for some major improvements, but reducing the skill point costis not an improvement. I see few reasons to justify a skill point reduction.

[]You want to survive - fine, I agree. I feel that travelling for non-combat characters should be less dangerous, especially on"tame" planets. Increasing our survivability is a far better option than reducing skill points.

[]You want more content - I also agree. But freeing up skill points so that you can participate in another profession's content just seems exceedingly lame to me.I don'twant a skill point reductionso I can feed off thelowerrungs of combat content.

We can't think of "high-end content" for entertainers the same way we think of high-end content for fighters. They beat the crap out of something; find some loot;keep it, sell it, donate it,decorate with it, oruse it to beat the crap out of something harder. I cannot think of anyreasonable, analogous situation for entertainers.

I believe that players should depend on entertainers for something they can't find out in the battlefield or in the workshop. Sure, players can find wit, humor, social experiences anywhere they go. The only way we can entice people to come into the cantina and allow us to do our jobs - entertain them - is if we provide an interactive audio-visual experience that they can't find elsewhere. We have some music, dance, image design, clothing, visual effects, etc.,but obviously these are (usually)insufficient tocomplete this task. Cuttingdown our skill points and settling for the same-old same-old won't help anything.

Of course my whole argument rests on my vision for entertainers.

Gah, I hate to be all preachy. Sorry about that.

= Andrew

Chilastra.Palacek

Message Edited by Jagii on 06-20-2005 12:07 AM

"There's nothing to talk about, Becky. I'm ugly, boys don't like me, and that's it!!"

Chessack

Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:09 pm

#43

Oh, I agree... they should do the changes to the profession first, and then we should talk about the skill point reduction again after that. We need to see it all in action and see how it plays out first.

Which was kind of my point -- the devs like to do everything in one fell swoop, and it is impossible when they change 20 variables at once, to say a problem is caused by any ONE variable.

C

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Dejah Thoris
Dancer, Musician, Image Designer
Kor Spera, Corellia, Naritus

Panthu

Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:16 pm

#44

Wow, Zina! Getting all fancy with the formatted reply.

I have no problem with a careful slow tweaking of our SP investment. That's already been done once with ID and I think it's gone pretty well. I still support taking us down a few points asap, maybe just one box each at firstlike C said.

I don't think that removing SP investment means removing Dev interest or commitment to our prof. The Pilot profs cost nothing and they will be getting new content in pretty much every EP for the life of the game it sounds like: new ships, new flight zones, new missions, etc.

Pol, sadly, they never intended to do anything with at all beyond what they put in at first. Other than new songs and dances, that's pretty much the same thinking they had for us at launch. It's been a bumpy road to earn attention beyond what they had planned to trickle down to us (new songs and dances), but we have and I think there is a chance Pols could too if they ever get any significant numbers in their player segment.

Anyway, I think we are much more in the boat with Pilots now and not with Pols even if we did go to zero SP, but I see nothing wrong with baby steps so if we feel like we need to try to call off that plan, we could have a chance to ask for that.

P A N T H U Y GlitterUsagi
M i n d B o d y S p i r i t
Dancer ImageDesigner Doc

ZinaTheMaker

Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:27 pm

#45

Panthu wrote:

Wow, Zina! Getting all fancy with the formatted reply.

I have no problem with a careful slow tweaking of our SP investment. That's already been done once with ID and I think it's gone pretty well. I still support taking us down a few points asap, maybe just one box each at firstlike C said.

I don't think that removing SP investment means removing Dev interest or commitment to our prof. The Pilot profs cost nothing and they will be getting new content in pretty much every EP for the life of the game it sounds like: new ships, new flight zones, new missions, etc.

Panthu, formatting is my life

Seriously tho, I'd rather see dancer/entertainer/musician keep the current skill point build for the time being, and hopefully be "revamped" to equate to the current skill point build. If then its not satisfactory, by all means, start subtracting points. While the dev interest, and commitment might always be there, the degree of severity with respect to various fixes could be effected by a profession with less SP...

Panthu for teh win

*loves panthu*

Zina
Best served chilled

Maisland

Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:34 pm

#46

I have never understood the mentality that skill point cost = value which so many people have. To me, the time and effort which I spent in getting Master Dancer (and Master ID etc) is what determines the value of the profession.

Before the CU, all of my characters were viable characters, now, in order to be viable, the way I see it is that I would have to sacrifice some of my Entertainer Skills. This is something that I do not want to do! I feel that SOMETHING has to be done, whether it is lowered skill points or a seperate skill point pool that can only be used for non-combat professions. The seperate pool is my preference... even an extra 25 or 50 skill points that can only be used for non-combat would be enough.

I survived the CU

I can not survive the NGE

Drygo

Mon Jun 20, 2005 4:32 pm

#47

I do believe investing skill points does equal some degree of worth. Everybody can be a pilot. I'm not sure I want everyone being a dancer. Maybe that's selfish, I dunno. But, despite everything we've been through, I like being known as one of the few dancers from launch. It's really a source of pride for me. Not pride in a negative way, but that I'm proud to be a dancer, one that has sacrificed the skill points and is still here. It shows my true dedication to the profession.

I don't want us to be zero skill points, I really, really don't. And, it has nothing to do with developers investing time and resources into improvements. And, even with BF being gone, I really do think that the inspiration buffs are very useful, I love 'em. However, I still do think that what we have is not on par with the skill point cost. And, if in the end, it does become on par, then we can keep the skill points as they are. But, one of the HUGE reasons I am now advocating a decrease in skill points, moreso than I have before, is because of combat levels. I hate them. I wish they would go. But, they probably won't and because of that, I would like to see skill points reduced because I like this game as a whole. I enjoy the entertaining AND the fighting. And, I now feel severely gimped with the combat levels.

- I support hawtpants

Homeslice

Mon Jun 20, 2005 8:06 pm

#48

NJ62 wrote:
My feeling is that the current arrangement is unfair. The skill point cost is not justified by profession abilities, and something's gotta give.

1. Beef up content to match SP cost. Make dancer and musician functionally, not just aesthtetically, different. The solution I prefer.

2. Lower skill point cost to match our content. This will be kind of like giving up, but if it becomes clear that new content is not forthcoming, I'd rather have the SP costs lowered than keep them as they are with little content.

Word

DivaShowtime

Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:27 pm

#49

CandiDance wrote:

... Bearing in mind that our "new" function is basically nothing, I change my input on skill points to be that Dancer and Entertainer should be ZERO skill points just like politician.

The function of a skill shall have something to do with the amount of skillpoints we have to invest to learn the skill. The only entertainer skills that will have a "real" functionin future with the upcomming changes are "novice entertainer" , all ID skills and the skills that make insp buffing faster. From my point of view the skillpoints on that skills shall stay like they are now, all other only nice to have to look nice entertainer/dance/music skills shall only cost zero skill points.

......................................................................................................
there is no biz like showbiz

Chessack

Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:01 am

#50

Now that we see what the devs are planning...

I vote for a partial reduction in skill point costs... How about, -1 skill point per box, and see how it goes.

One of the real problems with the dev team is they do not do small, well tested, incremental changes. They always go for the big "patch bomb" and then they have to spend months cleaning up after themselves.

So I would say, tell the players "we will give a a small skill point reduction and see how that works." Do we get a bunch more AFK zombies? Or less? Do the entertainers like it, or hate it? How does it work for a few months? If it works OK, leave it. If the indications are we need a further reduction, do another -1 point reduction (which would end up cutting the total cost in half). And so on.

Test, try out, see how it goes... that is my recommendation. Small, thought out changes, NOT giant untested bombs for which we have no way of knowing what the consequences will be.

C

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Dejah Thoris
Dancer, Musician, Image Designer
Kor Spera, Corellia, Naritus

Akaara

Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:24 am

#51

They should change the pre-req for novice dancer and have just ONE line to get to novice dancer. The healing tree requirement should go away, I hate having my sp tied up in that stupid branch. So that you only need one line of ent to get novice dancer. Just like tailoring, I only need one line of artisan to get novice tailor. I have no problem with the other requirements but to me having 2 lines in ent seems rediculous if you just want dancer 0040.

I don't care for making props and with the changes, I don't see why you would need 2 lines in the entertainer profession to get novice dancer.

Message Edited by Akaara on 06-21-2005 07:41 AM

_____Chiana_________________________
JEDI ELDERCL 90

Sying ~ Master Entertainer
Nikeesha YMaster Tailor

ZinaTheMaker

Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:21 am

#52

Akaara wrote:

They should change the pre-req for novice dancer and have just ONE line to get to novice dancer. The healing tree requirement should go away, I hate having my sp tied up in that stupid branch. So that you only need one line of ent to get novice dancer. Just like tailoring, I only need one line of artisan to get novice tailor. I have no problem with the other requirements but to me having 2 lines in ent seems rediculous if you just want dancer 0040.

I don't care for making props and with the changes, I don't see why you would need 2 lines in the entertainer profession to get novice dancer.

Message Edited by Akaara on 06-21-2005 07:41 AM

I agree that they should pre-req only one line. Heck, look at so many other professions...the req's were changed...

However, that leaves the "entertainement healing" line as a totally undesirable line unless one is going master entertainer. What if they added a 4th entertainer profession branching off from that? Just a few thoughts...

Zina
Best served chilled

Dancer Archive

Thread: FOCUS: Skill Point Cost