Dancer Archive
Thread: Combat Balance Issues for Dancer: Ent Healing, Bards, and our Future in the Game
Cassie, love your idea to change Battle Fatigue into Fatigue for everyone. I think thats one of the best ideas I've heard for the the Entertainer professions yet. It would need a little balancing but it's certainly workable. For example experimentation should increase the crafter's fatigue, schematics (more it's to make the more fatigue?) should also. General item making should depend on the complexity of the item and the profession it comes from too, Tailors craft a lot of items by hand usually where as weaponsmiths for the most part factory produce their items. You'd need to balanceeach profession's items so they gain fatigue at around the same rate overall. Unless some profession's items intentionally make you more fatigued from making them?
As for the crafting buffs idea, I can't say I'm a huge fan of that but they should probably follow some of the chef's items system, buffs with a certain amount of uses, for example +10% to experimentation for the next 5 crafts. What if it was just an additional property of our mind buffs?
The Theatre idea sounds a great way of differenciating the two locations. It would work well with my fatigue band aid idea, meaning that the combat types would have the option of seeing more of entertainers so they can hunt for longer at a time or sticking to what they're used to at the moment.
) when this discussion comes up, so I want to make sure I'm following everything. I don't think this profession can survive a nerf. We really need to be ready to present a clear, well-thought out and organized case when the time comes. Thanks for being on the ball.
My only concern with the idea of expanding fatigue to crafters is... will it open up a whole new range of professions that hate us because they too are now "forced" to the cantinas to serve a game mechanic?
I think that entertainers need to be integrated into the overall game system interdependancies - I've done a couple of lengthy posts about it. I'm not certain yet what the best way to involve us in that umbrella-system is. I do think that the strongest way to involve us as a "social class" is in some way having entertainers provide positive reinforcement (in the form of perks)to players, thus making us a benefit (and more likely accepted with open arms), rather than through negative reinforcement (we remove the bad) and giving players the impression that we are the ones they are forced to go see against their will (breeding resentment).
I think that we entertainers want not only audiences, but audiences who want to be there... who will appreciate us. I fear that including more things to drive players through negative reinforcement will create additional hostilities towards entertainers, even while expanding our 'audience base'. I'd personally rather have a smaller happy audience than a larger hostile one.
Perhaps through more thinking along the lines of how entertainers could fill roles in providing bonuses to players rather than removing imposed negatives, wecould set the stage for larger happier audiences who love their local entertainers. That alone would enrich the playing environment for many entertainers a great deal, I'd wager. Additional considerations would need to be made in how to prevent an even larger-scale buff-bot scenario, but that can be taken in stride as we go.
PoetDancer wrote:
But maybe we need to think outside our current role into areas not yet explored. The Chef redesign really opened my mind to this. For example, why really must entertainment deal with ONLY BF, Mind Wounds, and Buffs? Is there any rule which says that we cannot enhance other things as well, like combat bonuses, or other stats like dodge or experimentation bonuses? Because you see, SEA tapes are permanent alterations to a template, but they are expensive. However, an armoursmith may not need +10 ALL the time, but maybe only a short time to create a schematic. Maybe a combat character does not need +10ALL the time, but only for a short span of time. Of course, how does one make the performance watched possess these different qualities? THE DANCE ITSELF! Just a thought I am currently pondering.
This is an interesting concept. I like it. I think it should be looked at more.
There are so many good ideas in this thread! My mind is just going in circles!
I agree the bf has to have more of an impact. The fact it takes 250 bf before it affects buffs and doesn't hurt all that much in other combat areas (as far as I can detect anyway, correct me if I'm wrong please)is rather sad. It takes that much longer before some individuals need healing considering they don't rack up bf very fast. (I didn't bother healing my own bf until it reached over 360 and I needed new buffs ).
I don't think dancers should be in the field in the thick of battle. If they were in the middle of it, they would have to have combat skills ( for those who don't already) because those in the battle can't worry about keeping the dancers alive obviously. Or the effect would have to be from a distance. I think camp is good enough, though we should be able to heal bf there.
Fatigue for everyone? Like that one. Even if crafters got less fatigue then those engaged in combat. I think this is a good idea too.
Crafting in cantina is a great idea but I don't think it would help anything.
Make buffs stronger and longer. Docs can buff for over 3 hrs so we should be able to.That would make them more worth while. I couldn't find anyone to buff last night. Just bad timing I guess for me. So, while doing the geo cave, (mind at 1100 to start) I ate vercuppti (sp is wrong) which increases HAM by 1128 for 7 min with no downer affects(compared to pixie which is baaaaad for that), ( mind now at 2228), and popped 2 brandies ( mind now at close to 3000). Now watch people who do that and can powerboost as well. My husband (rl and he's also in-game) gets his mind up over 4000 doing all that and a muon. He keeps it about 2500 regularly without a buff. Granted I had to keep eating food and took brandy a couple more times but did I really need a buff from a dancer? I would rather that so I don't have to think about taking the food etc. and just enjoy my combat but I can manage without one, unfortunately. Costs more, yes, but this is how some people think. I should have been able to buff myself.
I don't mean to offend anyone with my last paragraph but I thought it needed attention. Our buffs need to be better I think. Just another reason for them to come in, maybe, if they were better.
This is an awesome thread! I think all the ideas are valid and worth considering. Nice to see maturity on a board instead of what I usually see on my server board.
The main people this will benefit are those novice medics who make their own meds. (And for me, when doing medic, I didn't want a crafting station around me when crafting in a cantina, as I was using stimsthem as fast as I could make, and havinga crafting station nearby,even unused,doubles crafting time in my experience because you need to click 2 more buttons.)
As far as I know this does't kill the plan as you have to be close to a station for it to work, though how close Im not sure, and buffing them even if they don't stay to craft would probly still be a nice way to get these poor guys out of their houses for a little while. I'd say before we go nuts about it we should ask them in the crafting forums if they would walk across the street for these buffs if they where in the game. I will certainly give them the buff for free if they ask, but if they would rather not bother with geting it then it's not somthing we need. I think they will probly like the idea myself, I hear crafters often coment they need to get out more.
Message Edited by Sultrina on 05-04-2004 09:24 PM
Just to very quickly get back to Morphemet's original post, which Panthu, you attacked her for, I do have a question. I believe I asked in my post as well. Could someone explain this?:
"(2) Exactly what do you mean by "The time to talk about it is now, not four months down the road when we are crying because the Cantinas are empty and we have no one to watch us." Are you suggesting that there are changes in the wind that is going to take away our role in the game? Could you link us or give us more information on "Our role as Healers is being threatened by the CB. " If I recall correctly, this has to do with healing the "white" damage of the mind and not black wound or battle fatique, which has been our traditionally role."
Because reading Panthu's original post, I wondered these same things. Are there changes in the combat balance that will affect the dancer's role? Is our role as a healer being threatened? How so?
Panthu wrote:
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.
(1) Hm, I think you are referring to me...and sorry, hun, this isn't a second account. Anything beyond that isn't your business.
(2) I tried very hard not to make my post sound like a personal attack, because that was not its intention. Giving my opinion on content of a post is NOT a personal attack. If you are referring to my comments regarding whether or not the Devs are ignoring us, you opened that door and I stepped over the threshold. I have had the opportunity to have many different careers in this game and I go to their boards and I have to listen to the same whines over and over again--The Devs don’t listen; The Devs don’t care. Sorry, but I wanted to remind the community that the Devs do care. I thought about making it its own post, but I didn’t. Maybe that was bad judgement on my part.Some things that am concerned about as a dancer:
While questing forentertainer healing xp, I found that the game was really lacking on letting me know where the combat classes were and where I was needed. I know to use the register command for letting the combat classes know where to find me, but what I really wanted, was a convenient way to find them. Can we have a player terminal or some sort of in-game communication that allows the players to flag areas where and when dancers are needed?
While I haven’t had the opportunity to get involved in the GCW as a dancer, I have had the opportunity to do so with other careers. I would like to see a more performance-friendly area in the bases for the performers. While getting squashed in the corner with a wookiee-butt in my face as I am playing the drums leads to some interesting role-play, it does nothing to make my character’s performance presentation the way I want it. I have more space performing for players in the cloning center, but, since they don’t have a way to deny access to the other side, I am forced to use /denyservice. I would like to see /denyservice removed from the game as I think this ability is too open for exploitations, but I understand that there are valid reasons for it. I would much rather see a way for private city structures to be the ones “denying service” than the performers.
I agree with the people who want to have more control over their player cantinas (and theaters). If I am in a public cantina (commonly referred to as NPC cantina), I have no expectations on having any control over my audience or who I dance with other than being able to deal with it in-character. However, in a private cantina (commonly referred to as a player cantina), I think the owners should be able to dictate the rules of behavior, after all, it is a private club. I can see this being accomplished in two ways. The first is a system similar to what the merchants use to charge entry fees into their establishment. This would allow the owner to state the rules of behavior and an automated system to flag these rules on the player. This allows the owner to have a “bouncer” because the players have already agreed to the playing field, however, the owner still has to police their cantina so I am not sure about how useful this would be in the end. The second option is to make the stage area a second area similar to what we see in the theater with all the same housing options in place so that you can make the stage area public or only allow certain players access.
I would like to see the entertainer droids be accessible to entertainers. I am not sure what the Devs feelings were on the use of the entertainer droids being limited to novice dancer/musician skills and above. It they wanted to keep it in the second tier skills, then can I suggest that they open the access to Master Entertainers as well?
I am intrigued with the idea of having a buff system to help crafters. Although I am not sure that I want to become a buff-monster, I do like the idea of drawing another audience base into the cantina. I also like the idea of having dancers make better use of the hotel and theaters as well as the cantinas. I just don’t have any good suggestions for these two areas at this time, I am just letting you know that I am concerned about these issues.
nvoigt wrote:
I really like the idea of general fatigue for everyone.
. . .
Make every action give a bit of fatigue. Getting hit by a flamer is surely more exhausting than crafting a pair of shoes, but you get the idea. Fatigue should effect every single skill by a percentage. Every skill, like dancing, . .
)Message Edited by ArgentWulf on 05-05-2004 11:20 PM