Dancer Archive
Thread: Poll: Skill Point Investment (yeah..again :P)
Chessack wrote:
People used to try to get that to change, but we now see that clearly it will not. What you are seeing is that most of us are finally waving the white flag and saying, "I give up."
QFE
Message Edited by Doriana on 10-19-2005 08:45 PM
Message Edited by Kyree-Sunrunner on 10-31-2005 09:29 PM
Chessack speaks for me and then some.
I haven't given up on the profession. I enjoy it too much when I get the chance to actually practice it. I've typed "/respec" a dozen times and still ended every session by clicking the cancel button.
What I've given up on is the devs. It's not just the obvious things. It's the whole attitude. Until the last week of beta testing, Trials was planned to have nearly all quest loot be no-trade. The devs out-and-out stated that you didn't qualify for the loot if you didn't personally do the quest. They basically told every CL1 (and heck, even the CL54's) that they not only didn't deserve any content, they didn't even deserve any of the cool items that the combat people didn't want (which incidentally included the Kayak Oar and the Wizard's Staff props).
Yeah, they've changed it to mostly bio-linked now, but that was to pacify the combat wombats who screamed about not being able to sell their unusable loot. It had nothing to do with making somepart ofTrials accessible to those unable to fight in a CL80+ dungeon.
After two years, what we have is all that we're ever going to have. The devs have shown that they see no value in our professions. I see no reason to believe that will ever change. It's not bitterness speaking (though I won't deny a certain amount of it), it's pramatism. There's no point in fighting for a lost cause. SWG has morphed into a combat-only game. If that's the only content that the devs are willing to develop, then at least give us back our skill points so we can play THAT game and just do the entertainer stuff for fun when we feel like it.
If there's a message to deliver to the devs, Esharra, it's not that many of us favor 0SP. It's that a great many of us are simply so demoralized at this point that we just don't give a smeg any more.
Message Edited by SlickRiptide on 10-19-2005 04:47 PM
Kyree-Sunrunner wrote:
KalineLessia wrote:I'd have to agree with what's been said.
Either remove the cost completely, or reduce it. There are pros and cons for both, but at this stage I think the pros outweigh the cons. There is very little for me to do with my quad entertainer now, I just spend the time on my combat character instead, and ToOW ha just enforced that even more. I'd prefer to just be able to pick up dancer on my main character again and still have her as a level 80, and pick up a combat profession on my quad-master and actually have something to DO with her.
I don't think that everyone will pick up entertainer if it's free of skill points, as long as it's made so that the entertainer xp CANNOT be traded in at the village, just like piloting.
Heck, it would be more fun because there'd be a lot less reason for people to AFK the profession once they reach master, and we'll have a lot more people to dance with.
QFE!
Remove the skillpoints and make the xp NOT tradeable for the village. I think this is brilliant!
If they were going to remove the skill point requirement altogether, then it wouldn't be enough to remove the FS XP conversion. You'd also have to remove the buffs - all of them. If Dancer and Musician were 0 skill point professions, and they still serve some support role in the game or give some advantage, then people will continue to bot them or Master them just for their own alts or friends as much or more than they do now. You would have to remove ALL functionality from the professions and restrict them to pure fluff. Even then you'll still have some people who persist in macroing the professions (badge collectors, ad spammers, those who just enjoy annoying others).
At this point I no longer fear what might happen to the ent professions if we were reduced to 0 skill points. I always thought we'd get very little dev attention if that happened, but I doubt it would be much different than what we're getting now. Sure they've given us some of the things we've asked for, but it's always been the lesser important requests, all the while avoiding the ones that have really been important to us like AFK'ing, content, a useful game function, and so on. I do think the props are pretty cool, and I like most of the new dances and songs we've gotten (although most of that Pei Yi dance is kinda ... out there). But it really hasn't made my play experience any more fun than before. The buffs are better than nothing, but they don't give people as much a reason to see us as even BF did, and the more useful general buff is botted just the same as BF healing was. Musicians really do have the most desired buffs, and there are fewer of them. The few buff requests I do see or get are mostly for the ones that I can't give as a dancer.
With a full skill point requirement our profession gets only minor attention and is minimally useful to the game as a whole. Remove the usefulness and the skill point requirement and we probably wouldn't be any worse off.
Message Edited by DanceRulez on 10-19-2005 05:03 PM
SlickRiptide wrote:
If there's a message to deliver to the devs, Esharra, it's not that many of us favor 0SP. It's that a great many of us are simply so demoralized at this point that we just don't give a smeg any more.
Esharra wrote:
I want you all to understand that if you Want me to ask..I will..but only if you want it. I strongly suggest, however, that we wait a few weeks before making any decisions.
The problem is we are in the Obi Wan Expansion publish window. Till about mid November I doubt you could find anybody to listen to you.
So, I would agree to wait, however, threads tend to die within a couple of weeks; which means that even though this thread will be dead you should go ahead and ask around Mid-November IMO.
Esharra wrote:
I want you all to understand that if you Want me to ask..I will..but only if you want it. I strongly suggest, however, that we wait a few weeks before making any decisions.
I think the thread should hang around for quite awhile longer to let folks voice their opinion on it all.
Personally I just think the Trials of Obi-Wan situation just made me really bitter.
In the future when I feel inclined to rant, I'm just going to post /wookieeroar and you'll know that in place of that /wookieeroar you would normally see me upset over the situation at hand. Saves me typing and I don't like filling the forums with such negative junk. I just get really frustrated with the way things are with these professions.
I'll wander back to the Musician forums now. Sorry to put a bad tone on your thread, Eshie.
No apology necessary, babe. I think we're all feeling pretty low about the situation right now.
Warryyr wrote:
Esharra wrote:
I want you all to understand that if you Want me to ask..I will..but only if you want it. I strongly suggest, however, that we wait a few weeks before making any decisions.
I think the thread should hang around for quite awhile longer to let folks voice their opinion on it all.
Personally I just think the Trials of Obi-Wan situation just made me really bitter.
In the future when I feel inclined to rant, I'm just going to post /wookieeroar and you'll know that in place of that /wookieeroar you would normally see me upset over the situation at hand. Saves me typing and I don't like filling the forums with such negative junk. I just get really frustrated with the way things are with these professions.
I'll wander back to the Musician forums now. Sorry to put a bad tone on your thread, Eshie.
Maybe we are approaching this problem from the wrong direction. As a dancer I like spending time in NPCand PC cantinas. It's where my audience is. Ilike dancing as it is something that doesn't involve combatand it is a nice place to chat with other players. If we completely remove buffs, then I do see cantinas becoming even more deserted. However, if we attach buffs to entertainers, it's too tempting for other players to AFK bot to get the bonus. Perhaps the bonus should just belong to the cantina similar to the inn in WoW? Pulls in a small crowd for an audience. Leaves no reason to AFK bot (aside from FS experience which could be nixed too).
I agree that since our effect on game is pretty close to nothing; our skill costs should be zero. As for the whole buff problem, maybe we are approaching this problem from the wrong direction. As a dancer I like spending time in NPCand PC cantinas. It's where my audience is. Ilike dancing as it is something that doesn't involve combatand it is a nice place to chat with other players. If we completely remove buffs, then I do see cantinas becoming even more deserted. However, if we attach buffs to entertainers, it's too tempting for other players to AFK bot to get the bonus. Perhaps the bonus should just belong to the cantina similar to the inn in WoW? Pulls in a small crowd for an audience. Leaves no reason to AFK bot (aside from FS experience which could be nixed too).