Dancer Archive

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Esharra wrote:

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Jaktar wrote:

You can add to your list that /bandflourish only grants dance/music xp to the person who is doing the /bandflourish. Other members only get EH xp.

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Dance/music xp for all members of the group when using /bandflourish was removed during beta due to exploitation toward leveling while AFK. Keepin mind, at that point in the game's development, and until a couple of months after launch, macro recursion did not work a lot of the time.Kind of seems redundant now.

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You know.. I kinda think that if they had not taken out /bandflo Xp,we would not be where we are today., with AFKers and Bots

People would not have worked so hard at figrueing out how to make recursive macros... They would have joined the group gone afk and left the bandflos up to somone who actually cared about keeping the group looking good...

At least then AFKers would have been helping to make the group look semi cool...

Ithink SoE sould brind back the /bandflo xp, make it so that if your in a group doing band flos you get a bigger Xp bonus then just being in a group doing your own flourishes

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Chessack wrote:
The only thing I would modify to your list, Esh, is when you say, "Heal XP is too low", I would insert the words, WAY WAY WAY in front of "too low." I have spent periods of up to 2 hours in Coronet cantina during "prime time" and the number of patrons is so low I can't imagine anyone needing heal XP would be able to make even noticeable progress, let alone gain a skill box. Of course, I am heal-xp capped so I'm guessing, but even a few hundred XP per patron times a few patrons = maybe 2,500 xp for a good couple of hours of play. That's just not going to cut it.

C

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CandiDance wrote:

Skill Points

Dancer takesas many skill points to master as other professions and yet nothing in the way of game enhanced play is earned to warrant that investment; plus, its extremely difficult for the pure dancer to survive outside of the Cantina.

Solution- Give master dancers the same additional hit points given to those that master a combat profession

or

reduce the number of skill points to master dancer

or

eliminate Dancer, Musician & Image designer and replace with just one elite profession.

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This has long been a complaint of mine, even more so since the CU, being an entertainer has become nearly useless, and having these skills is a penalty to players instead of a help or bonus. I have always been a Pistoleer/Dancer, Pistols for combat, and dancing because it was fun! However, with the CU, in order to be competitive anymore in the combat arena, I have to drop the entertainer skills and take up a second combat profession which I didn't want to begin with. I feel the CU is forcing me into playing a certain way, and I would much prefer to be able to keep on dancing! Well, enough with the rant, now for some possible solutions:

Adding hit points the same as other classes is a great idea, personally I feel if you've invested the time and skill points to master a class, you should be comparable to any player who has spent the same number of skill points, if you're going to use a level system it just makes sense. I'd take this a step further though: raise the character's combat level accordingly as well. I know what you're thinking, "but entertainers have nothing to do with combat!" Well, yes and no. The skills that make you a good dancer are skills which enhance your strength and agility. SWG makes minor acknowledgement of this in that with Master Dancer, you get a +7 to Melee and Renged Defense because you are better at dodging attacks. While a nice token to the dancing skills, this bonus is really too small to be much use. Solution? Raise it. Give incremented defense bonuses at various skill levels, maybe with each techique level, then those effects would be good for more than show, the skills would boost your overall defense.

Also, entertainers need a more involved role in the combat arena. I hate to suggest anything that makes SWG more fantasy-game like, but we seem to be heading that way inevitably, so here it goes. Entertainers should have a role similar to that of bards in the fantasy genre. If they perform right before a battle, or even during it, they should be able to give their group special bonuses, such as keeping their minds focused and defending them against dizzy and/or stun, or inspiring them to fight harder and granting an attack bonus. Different songs/dances could have different effects on a combat group, and the effect for some could last just a few minutes after the performance, others may only be active while the entertainer is performing. Something like this would make certain that entertainers were included in the game as a whole, have involvement in game content, justify giving entertainers combat level, and even be able to participate in aspects of the GCW. We would actually be useful again!

I realize this is the 'Dancer' forum, but its the same category, and since a few other posters have expressed their concern about related classes, lets take Image Desigenrs for a moment. I haven't figured out how to work them into combat, but there is one ability I'd like to see them get that would make them a much more valuable profession. Take for example Joe Rebel, who has to make his way through a starpot and city crowded with Imperials who want his head, or perhaps Jack Jedi, who has a bounty on him larger than Jabba's granddaddy and can't show his face in public. Here's an idea! Go and get some plastic surgery, change your appearance, and no one will find you! No, wait, that won't work, because there's still that stupid name floating in space over my head! So here's what you do, add a 'disguise' ability to ID. If this ability is used on a character when they have their appearance change, have a temporary effect (maybe one hour) that will remove your name and keep you from showing up in searches. Better yet, have it randomly generate some generic name to be displayed in place of yours, and also remove faction standing (any action against opposing faciton would of course negate this). You could even make the effect level dpendent, for example, if a BH is after you, his chance of finding you may pit his tracking ability against the disguise ability of the ID who disguised you. It would give players a reasonable chance of escaping without being foolproof, even add a random element to the comparison so that there is always a chance of seeing through the disguise. It sounds complicated, but would make ID's much more needed and add a whole new element of covert gameplay to the system.

Are these ideas ambitous? Definetely! Are they too much? I don't think so, considering that Dancers, Musicians, and Image Designers are a class of player that has long been forgotten and overlooked when it comes to game content and group value. It's about time we had our own piece of the game that brought us to a level with everyone else. So please, if you like these ideas, spread them around, if you have more ideas, add them to it, lets make entertainers an active and valuable part of SWG!

I would like to second any issue brought up thus far.

And to the previous poster above me, your points are very valid. On the flip side, as a pure entertainer, the fact that pre-CU I didn't have to fear for my life nearly as bad when I explored the wilderness or shopped around,whereas now I can be incapaciated by a little womprat and killed by a weakling snake, makes me wonder why I reactivated my account.

I took a 4 month break because as an entertainer I couldn't keep up business with the afk-bots, and there was no other content for me to do. Now, not only am I 100x weaker than before, but theres STILL nothing for me to do. I can't do fun non-entertainer quests because they require combat. The only combat I CAN do is space combat. But forget quests that require space AND ground combat. I'm toast on the ground. Oh, and the entertainer quests that I CAN do, to get a new dance/song, takes 24 hours if I fail, and I've been failing a lot cause the npc's won't tell me what I need to do or not do (I've submitted it as a bug, not that anything will happen). Why on earth would a performer want to wait 24+ hours to try again? This isn't the Jedi Village, for crying out loud.

All in all, I find it hard to believe how bad the Combat Upgrade and the change to entertainer buffing has weakened our profession to practicaly nonexistent. 30 seconds for a buff? No one is going to want to pay for that, maybe 500 credits at the most. The /covercharge change isn't going to really help. All it's going to do is make people in an npc cantina avoid players with a covercharge and make them go find someone who isn't charging anything. And in the long run, NO ONE makes any income.

There HAS to be content changes to add MORE income for entertainers. The current mission terminals giving out 1k per mission is a slap in the face. LOL like I would ever waste my time for a measly 1k. Why not 100k? Why not 1mil??Don't REAL entertainers like Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts make millions??? Come on, this is Star Wars, we deserve big payouts. We can't fight like the rest of the combat players.

Please please PLEASE help us make a living and give us things to do!!!!!!!!!!

Ribeeka Jiggy

Master Entertainer, Master Dancer, Master Musician

Radiant Galaxy

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DanceRulez wrote:


Blackbird, these are ideas that have come up before. The bard one is interesting and has been discussed before, but I think I've heard that the devs are generally against it as they don't see it as our role and it's not the direction that they want to take us (not that we know what direction it is that they *do* want to take us, but oh well). Even within the community it's a bit controversial as some see it a potentially fun and useful skill, but others think it's out of context of this genre of game or not they way they'd want to play. Either way, I don't think it's too likely we'll see this.

Your suggestion for Image Designers is another familiar one, but it's also one that I happen to like a lot, and would like to see as well. I have no idea whether this is one the devs would consider. However as this is the Dancer forum, this is not really the appropriate place to discuss this idea. If you're interested in this idea, I would recommend taking it to the ID forum and maybe there they could tell you whether there has been any discussions from the devs about it.

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Thanks for the feedback, would you like to take a shot at the other 3 posters who mentioned the ID profession? Or how about the two who referenced games other than SWG? I am well aware this is the dancer forum, I thought I had made my reasons for including this suggestion clear. Other Dancers also ID, and expressed concern about both professions in the same thread, so spend more time reading and less time shooting from the hip please. I'd be more than happy to see these ideas on the ID boards, but since I'm not an ID and don't participate in those boards, it was offered as a suggestion to my fellow dancers who are concerned about their ID skills. If it still bothers you, I'll take it out.

Believe me, having entertainers more "bardlike" would be the last option I would choose, but SWG has become an EverQuest clone with a star wars skin (now we can even chat with players in EQ!), so if the entertainer professions are to survive as a viable and valuable class in a pseudo-fantasy world, I see few options left. I'm perfectly open to other ideas, why don't you consider coming up with some instead of just trashing others? Sorry to get a touch sarcastic, but if your only reason for posting is adding to the problem instead of coming up with solutions, what's the point?

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Blackbird71 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback, would you like to take a shot at the other 3 posters who mentioned the ID profession? Or how about the two who referenced games other than SWG? I am well aware this is the dancer forum, I thought I had made my reasons for including this suggestion clear. Other Dancers also ID, and expressed concern about both professions in the same thread, so spend more time reading and less time shooting from the hip please. I'd be more than happy to see these ideas on the ID boards, but since I'm not an ID and don't participate in those boards, it was offered as a suggestion to my fellow dancers who are concerned about their ID skills. If it still bothers you, I'll take it out.

Believe me, having entertainers more "bardlike" would be the last option I would choose, but SWG has become an EverQuest clone with a star wars skin (now we can even chat with players in EQ!), so if the entertainer professions are to survive as a viable and valuable class in a pseudo-fantasy world, I see few options left. I'm perfectly open to other ideas, why don't you consider coming up with some instead of just trashing others? Sorry to get a touch sarcastic, but if your only reason for posting is adding to the problem instead of coming up with solutions, what's the point?

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I'm sorry, Blackbird, but my post was in no way intended to criticize any of your suggestions. As far as which posts I reply to, it depends on their content, my opinion at the time, whether I feel like posting at the time, and whether I think I have the time to write a post. I can promise you that I did not just arbitrarily swoop in and pick on your post because I didn't like your forum handle or something silly like that.

The intent of my post was to be informative and let you know, to the best of my understanding of what has been discussed here in the past regarding the suggestions you made. In regard to the Entertainers as bard idea, I made no judgement whatsoever of the merit of it. I was simply letting you know that the idea has gotten mixed response from other dancers, but that the devs don't seem to want to go that route. I never said anything about my own opinion on it. As far as where we are going with respect to our role in the game, there are several ideas, but the devs haven't really stated very much officially so we don't really know.

With regard to your idea for ID's. I never said anywhere that it bothered me. In fact, I said I liked the idea. Perhaps you were offended by my choice of words saying that it was "inappropriate" topic for discussion in this forum. Maybe my wording came across a little harsher than intended, but all I meant by it is that this is a forum for discussing mostly issues for Dancers or that affect Dancers. It was not my intent to try to censor you by telling you not to post that here, but rather to suggest that if you really want to discuss the merits of this part of your idea, find out if there have been any dev comments on it, or present it somewhere where it has the best chance of being represented to the devs, that you should bring it up in the ID forum in your own post or some existing thread for suggestions. After all there is no requirement that you have to be a member of a profession to post in its forum. I'm sure that any suggestion made in good faith for the betterment of the profession will be welcomed. Besides, especially in service professions such as ours, feedback from potential customers who don't play the profession is as important as feedback from those of us who play the profession regularly. In order to be successful we need to like what we do, and others need to like the services we provide and the way in which we provide them.

As to your last statements, I disagree that I in any way "trashed" any of your suggestions. I did not in any way criticize anything you said. I also don't feel I have contributed to any problems, and I freely offer up ideas or suggestions for the improvement of this and other professions whenever I can take the time to write them down. I'm sorry if you somehow feel I attacked you in my previous post, but I think if you take another look at it especially in the context of what I have written here, you'll see that my only goal was to try to give you some more information on some of your ideas, and to help you find a better way to make others heard.

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Blackbird71 wrote:

... Entertainers should have a role similar to that of bards in the fantasy genre.

I realize this is the 'Dancer' forum, but its the same category, and since a few other posters have expressed their concern about related classes, lets take Image Desigenrs for a moment. I haven't figured out how to work them into combat, but there is one ability I'd like to see them get that would make them a much more valuable profession. Take for example Joe Rebel, who has to make his way through a starpot and city crowded with Imperials who want his head, or perhaps Jack Jedi, who has a bounty on him larger than Jabba's granddaddy and can't show his face in public. Here's an idea! Go and get some plastic surgery, change your appearance, and no one will find you! No, wait, that won't work, because there's still that stupid name floating in space over my head! So here's what you do, add a 'disguise' ability to ID. If this ability is used on a character when they have their appearance change, have a temporary effect (maybe one hour) that will remove your name and keep you from showing up in searches. Better yet, have it randomly generate some generic name to be displayed in place of yours, and also remove faction standing (any action against opposing faciton would of course negate this). You could even make the effect level dpendent, for example, if a BH is after you, his chance of finding you may pit his tracking ability against the disguise ability of the ID who disguised you. It would give players a reasonable chance of escaping without being foolproof, even add a random element to the comparison so that there is always a chance of seeing through the disguise.

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Tch... while i agree and am enthuisastic about some of these proposed changes as a dancer on an alt or two myself.. the sentiments of being a forgotten prof are... Silly. we are in a class of our own, i suppose that IS something of a problem, but we have no competitors. thus far devs have changed up dances twice to my recollection to keep things from getting stagnant. want to be a neglected proff so you can cry out to the heavens and ask the devs... WHY!? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!!" master Commando.

personally what i love about Dancer is it gives you an excuse to be a socialite, play a game and do nothing but chat and be silly. you have no real worries, and no reason to have extra HP! you might say well.. dancing is physically tasking and would build physical condition. you are right, it would. it would NOT how ever make you hardier, more used to taking damage, pain. matter of fact due to the nature of it, you'd be less likely to be able to take a punch then a crafter, who have far more proffessional risks then you, unless you count rapists in the back alleys of cantinas after hours. but still.

and actually an effective tactic i've found for AFK people is.. well go afk yourself and make an anti-afk macro. list AFKers, bots, or have fun with it and make a joke. make the macro long so its not overy redundant. i myself make my macro 45 mins long and say a total of 2-3 lines every fifteen minutes. it was fun watching the amount of AFK people drop down a noticable bit.

Asking devs to get rid of AFKers is like asking a woodsman to remove some cancer, hes good with a chainsaw and thats about it, and you can expect significant damage to yourself aswell as the remove of the problem.. but hes not a surgeon so he will prolly miss a bit of it, and it will continue to grow in some new and -exciting- way.

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FaithenDaRou wrote:

Tch... while i agree and am enthuisastic about some of these proposed changes as a dancer on an alt or two myself.. the sentiments of being a forgotten prof are... Silly. we are in a class of our own, i suppose that IS something of a problem, but we have no competitors. thus far devs have changed up dances twice to my recollection to keep things from getting stagnant. want to be a neglected proff so you can cry out to the heavens and ask the devs... WHY!? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!!" master Commando.

personally what i love about Dancer is it gives you an excuse to be a socialite, play a game and do nothing but chat and be silly. you have no real worries, and no reason to have extra HP! you might say well.. dancing is physically tasking and would build physical condition. you are right, it would. it would NOT how ever make you hardier, more used to taking damage, pain. matter of fact due to the nature of it, you'd be less likely to be able to take a punch then a crafter, who have far more proffessional risks then you, unless you count rapists in the back alleys of cantinas after hours. but still.

and actually an effective tactic i've found for AFK people is.. well go afk yourself and make an anti-afk macro. list AFKers, bots, or have fun with it and make a joke. make the macro long so its not overy redundant. i myself make my macro 45 mins long and say a total of 2-3 lines every fifteen minutes. it was fun watching the amount of AFK people drop down a noticable bit.

Asking devs to get rid of AFKers is like asking a woodsman to remove some cancer, hes good with a chainsaw and thats about it, and you can expect significant damage to yourself aswell as the remove of the problem.. but hes not a surgeon so he will prolly miss a bit of it, and it will continue to grow in some new and -exciting- way.

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Well all true except you miss one important point.

Would you say a Novice Marksman is the equal of a Master Commando? Commando kicks butt when combined with other professions. The ability to use a special and apply that over several targets? So yes, maybe it needs a little work but you don't face the question we face. No one is saying Why be a Master Commando when Novice Marksman can do everything a Master Commando can.

However, With the exception of a few trivial min to get the full benifit of the abilites that is the problem we are facing.

And Yes trivial. Alot of people will /watch or /listen, get up, take a bio break, get a drink or something to eat then come back.Tip if they feel like it. Then leave.They may be theredoing whatever AFK for 10 to 15 min.

Politician, Image Designer, Merchant are all social professions that have something to offer at the master level that people want. Take a note because 'want' is the keyword and it isn't 'need'. Someone selling armor dosn't need a specific vendor to catagorize the armor they sell according to type. One vendor would work and fill their needs. They simply want to do it that way. Someone dosn't need blue hair to hunt but they just want it anyway. A city dosn't need a garden placed in front of the city hall. The people living there just want it.

Master Musician and Dancer lack the ability to fufill a 'want' now.

I realize this is the 'Dancer' forum, but its the same category, and since a few other posters have expressed their concern about related classes, lets take Image Desigenrs for a moment. I haven't figured out how to work them into combat, but there is one ability I'd like to see them get that would make them a much more valuable profession. Take for example Joe Rebel, who has to make his way through a starpot and city crowded with Imperials who want his head, or perhaps Jack Jedi, who has a bounty on him larger than Jabba's granddaddy and can't show his face in public. Here's an idea! Go and get some plastic surgery, change your appearance, and no one will find you! No, wait, that won't work, because there's still that stupid name floating in space over my head! So here's what you do, add a 'disguise' ability to ID. If this ability is used on a character when they have their appearance change, have a temporary effect (maybe one hour) that will remove your name and keep you from showing up in searches. Better yet, have it randomly generate some generic name to be displayed in place of yours, and also remove faction standing (any action against opposing faciton would of course negate this). You could even make the effect level dpendent, for example, if a BH is after you, his chance of finding you may pit his tracking ability against the disguise ability of the ID who disguised you. It would give players a reasonable chance of escaping without being foolproof, even add a random element to the comparison so that there is always a chance of seeing through the disguise. It sounds complicated, but would make ID's much more needed and add a whole new element of covert gameplay to the system

what a fantastic idea, why arent you a dev btw