Dancer Archive

Kjeld

You should not be surprised to see some emotional reaction upon posting to the forum of another profession that that profession should not be paid for what its members do because they do not need the money. Every profession has to spend a good deal of time engaged in activities that the player does not want in order to do the parts of the game that the player does enjoy.

I have spent less on armor and weapons than I did on clothes as a dancer. The best vibroblade I have cost 3000 to buy and 1500 to slice. My cheapest dance outfit was 10,000. The fencing equipment I bought as a result of time spent fighting. For the clothes I spent time doing delivery missions...i.e. NOT what I became a dancer to go

The remark about not "needing" clothes, incidently was in my view either ham-handed or based on ignorance. Earning money in dance has very little to do with the dance you are performing. It is about getting and holding audience attention and clothes are as essential to that part of dancing as a sword is to fighting.

Craftersstarting up also have to spend a lot of time gathering resources to grind (since not very many people want or need anything you can make until novice level). But at least you will ultimatly be able to produce things that others will value and pay a premium to have. With dance it NEVER gets better. The more time you spend, the better your earnings may be, but I for one made more ina week soloing and grouping as a sword user than I made in my entire time dancing.

And let's face it every player wants some luxuries: houses, clothing and the opption to travel freely without having to do deliveries. Entertainers ought to be able to have some access to those luxuries as well. Try starting one and another server and see how easy that is.

"Are you sure it's 'The Public' and not simply you transferring your own desire for a new outfit onto your audience, and thus transferring the cost of that to your audience as well?"

Hehe, I've been dancing in the same dress for 14 days, and tips are dropping off. I couldn't care less about getting a new outfit - the one I havesuits me well enough. Besides, don'tgunfighters constantly tweak their weapons and buy different ones even if they have already found a perfectly good one? Consumerism is hardly confined to the entertainer class.

"As near as I can tell, it is comprised, in nearly equal measure, of 3 groups of people -- groups which are not mutually exclusive. These are (1) MMORPG nuts who play whatever the new cool game of the quarter or half-year is, (2) Star Wars fantatics who play anything and everything Star Wars,and (3) true roleplayers, who look for and play games with high RP and such content."

You've forgotten oneHUGE group - those who play any gamethat features gunfightsbecause they like to shoot stuff. These are the folks who ruin every type of role-playing game because they couldn't care less about role-playing. They just want to shoot stuff over and over and over again. They're the most tedious bunch of mindless reactionaries in the gaming world - they never want positivechange that mightmake the roleplaying aspects more importantbecause they're afraid it will impact their ability to shoot stuff.

Kjeld, if youignore my argument because you thinkI'm 'angry' then you are useless in terms of this discussion. This argumentis an exercise in logic, not emotions.

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What really is wrong with my logic ?

Speaking STRICTLY about game mechanics. Not player psychology, not emotions. Entertainers have no in game income (ie, ways to inject credits, created from thin airinto the economy) and no money sinks (current gig missions do not count as income, training is the universal exception common to all players, you can add cloning and shuttle trips if you want). Thus, you will have a hard time convicing the devs introducing decent paying gig missions. Their reasoning is that entertainers would hoepfuly get the excess income injected into the economy by combat missions and which didn't get into the pockets or harvesters of the crafters, in the form of tips.

Now, it is pretty much given, and I have never denied it, that entertainers will be both more successful (because people will tip more a "pleasing to the eye" entertainer) and feel more fulfilled and have a better game experience if they can dress in artistic and beautiful ways- and this means credits

I don't find anything utterly shocking or illogic in my statement (but my first post was poorly worded, I do agree).

The bottom line beeing that there is need of mutual respect between entertainers and their customers, because agreeable and not tense relationships will be, imho, the best way to ensure good tipping. In other words, I do respect entertainers that show a minimal of care about me (a few words or emotes may well be enough), and that spamming tip begging, while it may net you money in the short run, may not be a wise choice in the long run.

Actually entertainers WILL have a money sink. One of the top issues on the Tailor rep's list was clothing decay, and lack of it. Clothing decay *is* going to be added so those exotic leotards and fleshwraps aren't going to be once a lifetime purchases.

The devs would be smart to improve the entertainer missions at the same time as clothing decay goes in since, in general, a tailor's biggest customer base is the entertainer community.

I'm sure you'll be able to find the devs post on the Tailoring board.

Here's the pertinent parts of the Tailor post. I preserved the number on the correspondant's question so you can see what priority the lack of clothing decay had.

"1) Clothing Decay - The galaxy is saturated with clothing that never will disappear from the game. And because of no decay, experimentation is useless.

We completely agree and are working to implement this now. This should be in very soon, much to the chagrin of players who aren't tailors."

There's your entertainer money sink.

There's your entertainer money sink.

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And a valid and elegant one, thanks for pointing this out. With that in mind, yes, that leaves room to upgrade the gig missions quite a bit !

I am not even so sure that I follow your "game design" logic either. I am neither a game designer (or experienced player for that matter) nor a logician. But I do not even agree that entertainer missions would likely be relevant as a net inflow,which appears to be the main assumption in your argument. If entertainer missions pay worsethan delivery missions, those missions actually qualify as a sink because entertainers who pursue those in preference to deliveries end up introducing less money into the system per hour played. If the rewards are equivalent to those of delivery missions, entertainer missions probably become at worst neutral. Indeed, even if the missions paid more per mission than deliveries but took longer to finish, the end resultwould bethat entertainersgenerate less new money than they can by doing deliveries.

In general, I think entertainers are economy neutral. Most of the real sinks (travel and maintenance payments predominantly) are distributed accross the whole population for travel or housing and specifically to crafters/resource producers otherwise through factories, vendor and harvesters. The largest net inflows on the other hand are clearly for combat professions.

In fact, I think that finding a solution to entertainer earning will actually inhibit the flow of new money into the economy. Entertainers only generate new money if they do missions. If earnings for dancing without missions are high enougt to divert entertainers from doing new missions all they do is recirculate money others introducedand some of that is caught by exiisting travel and maintenance sinks. The better economy question it seems to me is how do you make missions less attractive to an entertainer. The answer is easy: make it more attractive for other players to support dancers by tipping.

I do not think that there is much doubt but that the developers assumed entertainers would be economy neutral.The developersassumed that an honor system would encourage players to tip and that dancers would spend and some of that tip income would just disappear int existing sinks.While a nice concept, honor clearly is not a commodity equally (or generously) distributed over the whole population. It seems to me that there is no doubt but that the developers by now realize that (1) the assumption about tipping was flawed and (2) that the entertainment industry is not acting as a particularly effective sink because dancers are not earning enough in the aggregate to spend into the larger sinks, for example, large housing.

Why aren't people tipping? There is no benefit to people who are not disposed to in any event. Anyone can "steal" mind and fatigue healing. Go to a busy cantina, sit to the side, watch and leave. There is no consequence (other than alienating performers and it does not seem most people care about that). If a player does tip the benefits are only psychic or social. My personal preference would be to have faction standing benefits from tipping.

Thanks for the very well thought answer.

While I am still convinced that combat missions(and to a lesser extent artisan missions - but imho even nerfed survey missions are completely out of whack and should be diminished even more. It is insane ...) should pay a bit more than entertainer's (due to those classes obvious money sinks), I completely missed the point about the credit over time generation of delivery (ie = no skill) missions vs. entertainer's.

So, in this logic, yes, they should be properly upgraded. And when tailoring decay incurs, they should be upped to be fully comparable to other profession's.

But yes, the fact that proper tips also help reduce the amount of cash generated is a very good remark. In fact, it mirrors my experience as a crafter, always under pressure to do combat missions (as artisan's didn't exist) just to meet my harv's requirements and be able to move on, until I could at least rely on my sales to earn my living. If there is enough incentives to have the money always on the move between characters and professions, and if everyone can reach a balance between income and expenses, without money accumulating in some profession's pockets, and other characters doing missions (that they feel are "forced" to do) to grind each credit they need, it may help deflate and balance the economy.

So it's all about giving "incentive" for players to tip their fellows entertainers, without beeing forced to do so by "punishing" rules (like forced tips, denial of service ...).

Thanks for the enlightenment. I still missed a piece of the puzzle to understand what the problem was all about.

If a player does tip the benefits are only psychic or social. My personal preference would be to have faction standing benefits from tipping.

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Track tips made to entertainers vs. amounts of mind wounds/battle fatiguehealed over time and render the healing process less effective/more time consumingfor the tightwads. If they chronically don't tip, they'd need to spend hours in the cantina.

"but still Dancer is right up there among the most difficult, being 7th out of 32 with a requirement of24 levels"

You are dead wrong. Entertainer proffessionsare by far the easiest in the game to masterfor a number of reasons. You have 0 risk to advance your character you are just simply pressing a hotkey/macro over and over. Entertainers are alsoable to afk macro meaning you can get master dancer w/o even playing the game. Until you actually have to earn your master title don't expect people to act like you accomplished something that was difficult.

"Entertainer proffessionsare by far the easiest in the game to masterfor a number of reasons. You have 0 risk to advance your character you are just simply pressing a hotkey/macro over and over."

And what 'risk' is there in any other profession? No one gets permanently killed in the game. At present, no belongings or moneyare lost through being killed. There is no risk in any profession. Everyone in the game basically presses hotkeys over and over.

"Entertainers are alsoable to afk macro meaning you can get master dancer w/o even playing the game."

Some do. Addressthis complaintto them, not to me. I earned my Master title fair and square, putting as much real time effort into it as any master of any otherprofession, and more than most, since Master Dancer is the 7th most difficult master title to get.

"Until you actually have to earn your master title don't expect people to act like you accomplished something that was difficult."

What have you accomplished that was more difficult? Do you really think that other professions contain more 'risk' or are more difficult? If so, let's see you become a Master Dancer. If it's so easy, why don't you just do it instead of dissing it from a standpoint of complete ignorance. I'd love to see you spend two weeks learning it, putting as much effort as I put into it, and then hear what you have to say about it.