Dancer Archive
Thread: Combat Balance Issues for Dancer: Ent Healing, Bards, and our Future in the Game
The problem with the Entertainer professions is the "old thinking" that permeates this game, despite everyone's honest attempts to think outside the box. By old thinking, I mean that although SOE WANTS to create a full game world involving more than just combat, and characters that are defined by more than one "class," we are all still thinking in the old combat-oriented, class-based RPG mode that has been with us since D&D came out in the late 70's. We are sad or frustrated because entertainer professions don't have much to do, because so little of what we do is directly tied to battle-field action...which is what everyone--we performers, SOE and its devs, the more combat-focused players--are preconditioned to think an RPG is about. Everything ties back to combat...you attack and burn energy (represented as white damage), you get hit and take injury (white damage and black wounds). Every other activity--crafting, performing, surveying, healing, etc.--is tied to this model. That is fine for a pure combat game, but SWG isSUPPOSED to be more than that.
In real life,work hard all day at creative profession (when I don't spend 3 hours reading a thread on this board). I do not suffer head injuries, either temporary or permanent, while performing my job. I DO get tired...I become fatigued, and my effectiveness at my work, and any other task, diminishes. What rejuvenates me? Rest...often sleep, but that isn't much fun to roleplay...but just as importantly, entertainment. Do I go to a doctor to get better? No, I enjoy some entertainment, I recuperate, and I am ready for work the next day.
What I propose is a fairly major change, but it is in keeping with the concept of Fatigue as it exists in the game, and the role of entertainers in the game world. As it stands, Battle Fatigue (appears) to accrue primarily from sustaining injury in combat. I base this conclusion on my personal observation that it ismy characters who GET hit (meleers and pistoleers) that buildBF up much faster than the ones who don't (riflemen and medic-types). This makes BF just another kind of wound, which is inappropriate. Fatigue should not come from taking damage, but from DOING things. Any activity--be it an attack, a heal, a crafting attempt, a flourish in a performance--that costs HAM pool points should also add tothe accruedFatigue total, in an amount proportionate to the HAM cost paid for the action. This means that anyone doing anything--be he an artisan, a medic, a combatant, a performer, whatever--suffers fatigue from activity, which is exactly how things work in the real world.
The penalty for attempting to function while heavily fatigued should be a reduction in effectiveness at any task attempted, just as it is in real life. This should be fairly easy to implement...as a character's Fatigue index rises, his effective skill modifiers (his Melee Defense, his Weapon Crafting, even his Dance Healing!) should diminish proportionately. He can still attempt tasks, but he is less likely to succeed at them, if he is heavily fatigued. His assembly attempts are more likely to fail and his products of lesser quality, his attacks are less accurate, his buffs and heals less potent, his performance less refreshing. If he wants to function at peak efficiency, he needs to find some form of entertainment to help him unwind.
Entertainers should NOT be viewing themselves as head-wound healers for combatants only...they should see themselves (and be set up to function as) stress and fatigue relievers for followers of ALL professions. For this reason, I would suggest that Mind Wound healing be taken AWAY from entertainers, and returned fully to the medical professions, where it belongs. To keep the elite entertainment professions as 4-line trees, the Wound Heal lines would be removed, and the Techniques line broken out into Techniques (the special effects) and Enhancement (the buffing). (Using the special effects from the Techniques line should enhance the effectiveness--in speed, potency, or both--of both heals and buffs.)
The combat balance situation involving the Mind bar is currently being messed up by the fact that the devs are trying to protect the entertainers (you believe I said THAT?) by keeping the medicos blocked or at least gimped as Blue-bar healers. I say let them HAVE Blue-bar healing, but instead impose the same sorts of penalties for action on EVERYONE that combat currently inflicts upon combatants in the form of Battle Fatigue, and make the entertainer professions the sole source of relief in this area. Thus, the medicals have complete control over all wound and damage healing, while the entertainers assume responsibility for EVERYONE'S effectiveness and morale. We performers wind up with slightly less to do for the combatants, but more to do for the non-combatants, so we at least net out, to the benefit of the medics (who have more to do) and the fighters (who can get Mind healed in the same way the can get their Health and Action fixed up).
A side benefit of the General Fatigue concept is that it will diminish the importance of AFK macro-grinding of almost any kind. The diminishment of skills shouldn't be so great that it keeps a crafter from working 2-3 hours straight. But if a player leaves his character grinding in practice mode over night, or dancing afk in the cantina, his fatigue will accrue, his effectiveness diminish, and after 6 or 8 hours, he should be failing far more than succeeding. Thus, the xp rewards for playing unattended go away, so the dancing zombies in the cantinas clear out, and the crafters have to come out of their workshops and be seen in public once or twice a night. This also takes away the AFK/macro advantage that all the non-combat professions have over the combatant types.
I should point out that under this General Fatigue model, performers DO accrue Fatigue from /flourishing, and CANNOT relieve it themselves. Just like anyone else who is all worn out, they need to kick back and enjoy some mental diversion, which in the context of this game, is the performance of a Musician or Dancer OTHER than themselves.
As for the role of Dancers and Musicians in combat...bottom line, folks, there isn't one. The desire for this is an artifact of that old combat-and-class RPG thinking. In real life, and in the Star Wars source material, no one is playing a bagpipe or dancing a jig on the battlefield or on safari. If you want to be effective in combat, don't try to shoehorn combat abilities into a profession where they don't belong. Remember, you have 250 skill points, and being a master in an elite entertainer profession doesn't even take half of those points. I personally am a Master Dancer, and will soon be a Master Rifleman. Would I be a BETTER performer if I gave up the combat skills, or a better fighter if I gave up the dancing? Probably...but I don't need the developers to define a hybrid class for me. They've provided me a flexible enough system that I can do that for myself already.
This is a LOT to choke down in one post, and would call for a fairly major revision in the game (perhaps enough to be a whole Publish in and of itself), but I see it as nothing more than the logical conclusion of the aims set out by the developers when the game was created. They wanted to make a world in which combat was only a part (if an important part) of what was going on. Separating Fatigue andits relief from battlefield injury and its healing, and the assignment of a separate professional cluster (entertainers vs. medics) to handling each one, is the natural completion of the evolution of thought away from a combat-centric game to one a fully-realized online society.
Khia Ka'Zrai, Master Dancer/Sniper of Bria
Groovymarlin wrote:
I'm more and more interested in just what the devs intend for the combat balance. Maybe they're already planning a different/expanded role for battle fatigue. Who knows? Panthu...?
No, I am not sure of their plans. I do have a feeling BF is being looked at... but I'm not sure how much and what the options are... or how much player feedback will be taken into consideration. We are not currently on the list of proffessions actively being considered in the CB. Because our functional elements will be at least passively effected by any changes to BF or Blue Healing, I'd like to see us actively considered.
I'm trying to get a clearer picture of what our feelings are on these functional elements so if I ask for us to be included in the discussions, proposals, and testing on the CB... and if they say yes, I'll know what our views are. 
Sometimes changes have to be made for the health of the game and player feedback is notable to be considereduntil after the changes have been made (like the ID stat migration)... in other cases, player feedback is considered actively throughout the process (like the CB, we just aren't in on this ).
Sirii and morphemet's concerns are my own... as many of you have said, we don't want more resentment.I think BF is not working correctly and is going to change, maybe drastically, maybe not. I think GF is a very valid option. I would like to know what the Devs think about it... if they are already considering something like this, if they did in the past and already threw the idea out for some reason, mostly I'd just like to see if they are open to our input on the Fatigue System and our other functional elements.
TH has not gotten back to me since I wrote him yesterday (he's been a little busy with the ID and Smuggler posts I believe 
). If he does get back to me, I should have a clearer idea of what's possible for our input. If he doesn't, I'll have to wait for our next weekly feedback session. I know he approves of us talking about our functional elements and this thread, so that most likely means the Dev team will be open to considering our ideas at this point. How much and to what extent, I don't know yet.
Battle Fatigue (BF) represents the mental shock of being in combat and thus it is well within the entertainer healing ability to heal.
Here is where sadly the whole system will start to fall apart. You see, if UF reduces the ability of a character to perform actions some classes will barely feel it while others will be double hurt. Our class for example the only two things that come to mind are you will fall more often and you will heal more slowly. While for many falling more often will be punishment enough it hardly stands up against getting eaten by a rancor because you have too much fatigue. We could restrict certain dances if fatigue is too high, but I’m not sure this is a good idea either. Ok lets take a look at the other side of the coin, doctors, they heal less effectively because they have fatigue, but the person with fatigue also has his healing rates reduced therefore their class gets a double hit. This is one of the main reasons for keeping BF and UF separate so that UF would only affect skills YOUR character uses and BF could affect your healing rates as it does now.
This is the real problem because we said it was universal the answer is NO ONE should heal it. UF should be healed by sitting quietly and letting it work itself off.
Hm, Groovymarlin, I may be mistaken. Maybe the autohealing only applies to wounds and not bf. It's been so long since I've cared, I don't remember anymore.
To start off, I wanted to say that I'm not sure what Panthu was referring to at the very beginning of this thread. (As it was it took me a while to figure out that CB wasn't some profession that I wasn't familiar with.
) Since then I read a little more about the Combat Balance, but so far I haven't come across anything that relates to our profession so I'm still not sure what exactly is at issue here. Still after reading some of the posts and realizing that a rebalance certainly COULD affect the entertainer profession, I do have some thoughts on this. First off I would have to say that I am against anything that dilutes or removes our pretty much exclusive ability to heal mind wounds and BF. I'm also leery of changes that duplicate our ability to mind buff. When I first started my character as a dancer it was because I really do dance and wanted to see how a dancer was treated in the game, and it was also because I knew I was going to be some sort of healer and that was going to be my role in the game. Healing the mind and BF is the raison d'etre of the entertainer class - our role in the game. In practice I found it to be a necessary and used profession, though not that rewarding monetarily. On the other hand I found the social aspects of it to be very rewarding, and I had some great experiences and made some long term friends working my way up the skill ladder. I rarely felt it was a 'grind' earning my dance and healing XP. (Of course this was back in the first few months of the game when most entertainers were ATK and socializing.) When buffing was introduced it finally added a real opportunity for me to earn some decent money dancing which I had almost given up on as a profitable skill, and was one of the best additions to our profession in my opinion. While there might be those who would be willing to forego our role as healers and buffers and become purely a social class to play just for the sake of entertaining, I would have to firmly oppose this. As much as I enjoy playing with my dance skills for fun, if I no longer had a game purpose for my skills, I think I would ultimately give them up for something more 'useful'. Furthermore if musicians and dancers were nothing more than just social or artistic professions, they would probably attract fewer people to them (why 'waste' valuable skill points on professions with no 'use' in the game?), and the devs would have no reason to add any new content to them (you think you feel ignored now?). In fact I rather imagine they would sooner just remove them from the game entirely. Why bother supporting them at all? Thus I would be against any such changes as doctors or foods or spices that heal mind wounds and BF if indeed such ideas are being considered. As it is, I think the chefs do offer us some competition on the mind buffing front, although I'm not sure how much of a concern it is. I think perhaps the cost is high enough, and the duration and effect of it is low enough that many people do still prefer dancer/musician buffs whenever possible so perhaps this is not too detrimental to us. However I'm afraid any further encroachment on our core abilities may be fatal to our viability in the game.
As far as entertainers as bards (in the EQ sense of the bard anyway), I personally don't see that fitting well in to the game or into the 'Star Wars' feel. While there is certainly a historical precedent for musicians in battlefield situations as has been pointed out, such as drummers, pipers, even flag bearers for example, I don't think there are any real examples of dancers. Even if there were I still don't really feel that as an entertainer we have any justifiable use of our dance or music skills in combat. If this were a more fantasy or mystical style game perhaps we might use them to distract or mesmerize (as in the EQ enchanter) the enemy or rally or group heal our forces (EQ bard), but I'm not sure I can really be convinced that this belongs in SWG.
What I DO support, however is increased value for entertainer skills in the field. One of my biggest disappointments as I was leveling in dance was that my only real use was in the cantina. I often wished that some of the groups that came in for a heal would find my skills useful on their next adventure and invite me out to Endor or wherever they were going. Unfortunately while a skilled dancer might be a convenience to have in a successful adventuring group, it was certainly not necessary, and I never saw any group find enough value in one to actually make an effort to find one. Perhaps since the introduction of mind buffs this has improved somewhat, but I still think that entertainers are little more than a convenience to adventuring groups. Now what I'm not saying is that we should be required for a group, and I'm also not saying that we should be forced to group with adventurers if we don't want to. I am saying that it would be nice if our profession were useful enough to be desirable on group missions that adventurers would want to seek us out, and that we should have the option to stay in the cantinas and socialize or take our skills out in the wilds and join in on some adventures as we choose. I think the skills that we have to offer to groups are, again, our skills to heal the mind and buff. However, to this end I think that to extend our options, the ability to heal BF in the field in some manner needs to be considered. If field BF healing involves only a partial heal or only a limited time heal, that could be a useful trade-off that still allows cantinas and other venues to be useful. I also really like the suggestion about this only being available in ranger camps. I think the idea behind BF healing is a safe setting where you can let your mind relax. The little novice scout camps do nothing for this, but I have seen the full spread ranger camps complete with crafting stations - these are like small bases and surely provide a safe enough environment to put your mind at ease if only for a little while. I also like the idea that this promotes interdependence among entertainers and rangers, of all professions. It might even encourage some to become Master Ranger/Master Dancer!
It also would make the Ranger profession more useful, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind that. Along this same line, I have even one further suggestion that might be considered more radical, and that is that the duration of our buffs should be decreased - that's right - DECREASED to about an hour (of course to be fair I would suggest that doctor buff durations be decreased as well). The reason for this is that for groups that want to go on long adventures and want to keep mind buffed for the duration, will want to make sure to have an entertainer in the group (and also likely a doctor too). This might not be a popular suggestion, but as a former EQ player I'm not sure I remember a buff in that game lasting more than an hour though I might be mistaken. Most were certainly short in duration, on the order of 10-30 minutes. This did promote desirability in having diverse groups or seeking out other players to at least give you the buff you needed (though I definitely wouldn't want anything that would result in the SWG equivalent of people incessantly begging for SOW or Clarity buffs!). The point being that I would like to see our profession being more necessary and having more options.
Ok, that's about all I have time for now. I'd like to comment on the general fatigue and other skill buffing ideas that have been suggested by others, so I'll try to put that in another post later.
Shi'ann
Twi'lek of Mystery
(but not of few words)
(2) We ask for a new Dancer Class that can do "in battle patch em ups" while they stayed dependent on us and Cantinas for complete healing thereby strengthening Ent as a real game system presence (read, Dev time, hello )
(3) We play dead and let Medics (or maybe SLs, they are getting a CB vote) have it and concentrate only on Performance Enhancements (which will be ignored because we will have less impact, it will still hopefully one day be picked up as a novelty project *shrug*)...
. .