Dancer Archive
Thread: Can't Buff Ourselves Dev Response
Esharra
Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:15 am
#105
Ok..here's the feedback I'm providing to the devs on this issue. Rather than continue the discussion with more commentary regarding how this is effecting us, I'd like for everyone to discuss potential solutions. As a group, is there a compromise we can settle on amongst ourselves for this? I'm not saying that the devs are open to change regarding self buffing (I don't know that they are or aren't), what I'm saying is that I want us to come to an agreement of what change to this we would find acceptable.
Regarding Dancers and Self Inspiration
It is not fun to provide others with a commodity that you could benefit from
but are unable to providefor yourself. Many dancers play hybrid characters with
combat skills. They are in the habit of joining their guild's combat groups and
providing Inspirations to the group during hunts. To bring along an additional
entertainer so that the dancer/combatter can also receive the benefits of
Inspirations would require eliminating another guild member from the already
limited group space available.
Dancers thought their inability to self buff was an injustice throughout the
mind buff era and were very happy to gain the ability to use their own skills
to their benefit with the pre-Publish 23 Inspiration. Loss of the ability to
utilize their own skills has been very disappointing and the majority are very
angry about it. They have asked me to submit to the developers the following
feedback.
Some dancer verbatim:
"Social players do not need to be forced to talk to other social players and
interact with them. We already do this on our own. We do have encouragement to
interact with each other to put on performances with bandflourishes. That is a
good example of encouraging inter-Ent socializing with out holding back what we
can do on our own. We still have all of the same flos solo, we just can put on
a better show together. That's why we need more group tools and also group
missions/quests/activities. Encouragement to interact with Ents is welcome.
Forcing it is not."
"Crafters who will want these buffs should be allowed to provide them for
themselves. They become a part of the Entertainer player group as soon as they
train in the needed skills. They can still sit in with a band or dance with a
troupe just as if they had picked up the skill boxes for other reasons."
"Not allowing people to buff themselves does not encourage interaction. It
encourages alt accounts. Which may make SOE very happy, but makes those of us
playing the game very unhappy. Encouraging people to buy more accounts to have
more access to having fun with the game is fine. Gimping a skill set so that
people feel like they must get an alt to have access to the content is not
fine. If you are willing to train the skill to gain access to the use, then you
should be allowed to do so on the character you actually play. Again, gets back
to that whole fun thing."
"Being interdependent on each other does nothing for us economically. The point
of buffing is to make cash flow from the non-entertainers who are doing
missions or selling goods to the entertainers. Entertainers buffing each other
transfers funds (if any are transferred at all) within the same community. A
musician needing a buff will pay a dancer, and then that same dancer will turn
around and pay a musician for a buff. It's a zero sum prospect, and ends up
being a time-sink in which we are buffing each other for no profit rather than
buffing non-entertainers for profit."
"We already socialize amongst ourselves, we don't need to be FORCED to do so.
If I'm in my private cantina and want to inspire myself, then I should be able
to as I have since the CU went Live - not necessarily go find a Dancer to let
me "play music better" or play different instruments. I shouldn't even need to
find another Musician - when I play, I inspire myself."
"Is there another proffession in the game that does not benefit from thier own
skills? A weaponsmith (assuming he has the ability to fire a gun) can fire his
own weapons. An armorsmith (assuming he has the certifications to equip it)
can wear his own armor. Why in the world would we not be able to benefit from
our own abilities? It's the most retarded thing I've ever heard of. If we're
supposedly encouraging interdependance lets see what happens if you take away
the crafters abilities to use the items they have crafted. Or if healers (to
include jedi) were not alowed to use thier abilities to benefit themselves. It
would be an outrage. Jedi can now only apply cloaking to another player, docs
can now only heal others and not themselves, crafters can only use items made
by other crafters."
"I spoke with another entertainer last night who had gone out with a couple
groups just so the hybrid could get buffed. She said while she didn't mind it
because she wanted to support other entertainers, she felt as though taking up
a valuable slot in the group. I'm all about some grouping with support classes,
but it really is silly to have to take two entertainers."
"Alowing low level combatants the option of self buffing in a cantina would
serve to bring them into the cantina and alow us to interact with them. Since
this is our only content, i see it as a good thing. Back at the beginning of
the game, many combatants had novice entertainer for the purpose of healing bf
when they could find no entertainers. I found that to be a lot of fun and I
really liked jumping into a lower dance and partying with them. It made the
experience of healing BF that much more fun. Furthermore, I can name 3 or 4
quad mastery entertainers that started out that way. Why should we gate this
area of game play? Noobs can dabble in anything else and benefit from it. Why
not entertainer?"
Chessack
Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:37 am
#106
Esharra wrote:
"Not allowing people to buff themselves does not encourage interaction. It
encourages alt accounts. Which may make SOE very happy, but makes those of us
playing the game very unhappy. Encouraging people to buy more accounts to have
more access to having fun with the game is fine. Gimping a skill set so that
people feel like they must get an alt to have access to the content is not
fine. If you are willing to train the skill to gain access to the use, then you
should be allowed to do so on the character you actually play. Again, gets back
to that whole fun thing."
I would NOT include this in your communication to the devs. Let's not tempt SOE's greed any more than necessary. I'm sure they can figure this out on their own but let's not draw attention to the connection, eh?
Because whatever the programmer-devs might want, I can totally see the SOE management/marketing nimrods seeing this as something they need to expand on (the need for alt accounts) as much as possible, and that will only make things worse.
C
PoetDancer
Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:57 am
#107
I think she should, Dejah. And I'll tell you why.
We have players right now (myself included) who are under the impression that they intend these professions to be stand alone professions, worthy to be played. If this is not correct, and we are simply seen as an "alt profession," then we need to know about it, and not waste our time here trying to make it work for us as a real game carreer choice.
It does us no good, and SOE no good, to keep us here complaining about the game not working for us, when it was never intended to be anything other than a guild ornament.
Caerwynn
Wed Sep 07, 2005 12:02 pm
#108
The simplest way to avoid people getting novice ent just to buff is to make it a novice musician/novice dancer skill as it was in the days when mind buffing was around. With self buffing at tier4 or master level, then hopefully we would preserve our role as dedicated Ents. I may be a hybrid, but that doesn't mean I'm not a dedicated Ent too.
This won't stop the alt buffbot situation, but at least they have to be atk, even if it is only briefly.
Metricula
Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:55 pm
#109
Esharra, that sounds great so far and thanks for taking the time to compile it.
DanceRulez
Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:59 pm
#110
Now that I'm about caught back up with the recent threads, lemme see if I can still contribute a little to this discussion.
On the point of interdependency and why we should be able to self-buff at all.
To this I say that we are already as interdependent as we need to be. Musicians have the dance buff and Dancers have the musician buff. If you're a musician only you will need to seek out a dancer if you want a buff and vice versa. Entertainers already have incentives to seek out other entertainers because the ability to dance to music, perform band flos, and syncronize effects or routines is far more fun than just performing alone somewhere. Not being able to use our own skills on ourselves really doesn't add anything to our interdependency. It's also not going to cause us to lose any income from other ents because I don't know of a single entertainer that would charge another entertainer for an inspiration buff anyway.
Why should we be able to self buff if we have the skills? Well let's look at it this way. Say I was a Tailor. I can certainly wear all the clothes I make. Why shouldn't I be able to? Let's say I want some BE modded clothes. Well, I need to get the BE supplies to make them. If I don't have BE, then I'll need to buy them from one. My other option, is to Master BE myself. Then I can use my BE skills to make the tissues, and then use my Tailor skills to craft the tissues into clothing which I can then still wear all by myself. I may be completely self sufficient in this respect, but I have made my choice and spent the skill points to do so. This is no different from a player who invests their skill point in Musician and Dancer. If I have only one of the two, I would need to seek out the other if I want a buff. If I have both, I should be able to use the skills from one to enhance my gameplay in the other. Why should this be any different for us than for any other professions in the game?
On the point of what is our give and take to the game as a whole (i.e. interdependency with other professions):
Well part of our problem is that we don't have a whole lot to give in terms of mechanics. What we do have are these buffs to offer to others and hopefully to receive credits or other items in exchange. From others, we want things like clothes from Tailors; cantinas, theaters, houses, and furniture from Architects; effects, playback, and just storage droids from DE's; we may want some food items from chefs for decorational purposes (though we don't need them to perform); pet companions from BE's or CH's; vehicles, droid batteries, and miscellaneous resources and other items from artisans; and also rare and interesting loot items mostly for decorational purposes from adventurer players (though in general these types of items tend to cost far more than these types of players are typically willing to pay us for what we can offer them, so this is a fairly lopsided exchange). I won't add ships and ship components here as these are specific to the pilot profession which has it's own source of income and can be very profitable on its own.
Finally, on the point of other players using hybrids to avoid having to deal with seeking out entertainers:
Basically I'd have to say that there's not much that can be done about this type of player. If anyone is deadset against having to rely on another player for entertainer (or other) services, they will find a way. Players have been doing this already, and they will continue to do so. If there's something they can't do themselves and they don't want to rely on others, they will create an alt for it. This is another one of those arguments where I don't understand why we seem to be singled out as somehow different than all other professions. People have alt crafters, alt combatants, alt, medics, and alt entertainers. There is no way to protect any profession's viability when it comes to people who are willing to pay more money to have access to more abilities on their own rather than relying on others.
As to the hybrids themselves, people should have access to the skills that they invest skill points in. Personally I think that the skills available at the lowest level should be the most basic, so perhaps what they might want to do is to lower the duration at Novice level to, maybe, a half hour, and increase it quickly with increasing dance or music skill. That way, anyone who just dabbles in Entertainer only as far as Novice ent would have access to the benefits, but would have to stop fairly often to reapply which is probably less convenient than seeking out a dedicated professional who could apply a buff for much longer. Anyone who is dedicated to the profession will quickly advance through the lowest levels and improve their skills and their ability to buff quickly and not mind spending the skill points to do so. I don't have a problem with those who pick up just a little bit of the profession for whatever basic benefits they can provide. It exposes more people to the ent profession. They might find they like it and want to level up more, and why shouldn't they be able to benefit from their increased abilities? If they don't and they're such a misanthrope that they keep it only so that they don't have to deal with others, then I'm fine with just letting them keep to themselves.
If they are really concerned about protecting entertainer viability, then they need to remove the ability to AFK the entertainer profession and skills. How much opportunity are live ents missing out on because of all the passive buffbots at Dant's Mining Outpost? There are lots of hunting groups who meet there, but with all the AFK ents there, there is little need for a live entertainer to go there nor would many ents enjoy the experience with the cantina filled with spamming, lifeless bots. Why is it that that is deemed to be 'ok', yet somehow we would be at some vast disadvantage if a few combat folks decided to take up Novice Entertainer? It just doesn't make sense, and sets no logical precedent.
Bottom line, there is no good reason that we should not be able to use the skills that we have paid skill points on and taken the time to learn and perfect.
On the point of interdependency and why we should be able to self-buff at all.
To this I say that we are already as interdependent as we need to be. Musicians have the dance buff and Dancers have the musician buff. If you're a musician only you will need to seek out a dancer if you want a buff and vice versa. Entertainers already have incentives to seek out other entertainers because the ability to dance to music, perform band flos, and syncronize effects or routines is far more fun than just performing alone somewhere. Not being able to use our own skills on ourselves really doesn't add anything to our interdependency. It's also not going to cause us to lose any income from other ents because I don't know of a single entertainer that would charge another entertainer for an inspiration buff anyway.
Why should we be able to self buff if we have the skills? Well let's look at it this way. Say I was a Tailor. I can certainly wear all the clothes I make. Why shouldn't I be able to? Let's say I want some BE modded clothes. Well, I need to get the BE supplies to make them. If I don't have BE, then I'll need to buy them from one. My other option, is to Master BE myself. Then I can use my BE skills to make the tissues, and then use my Tailor skills to craft the tissues into clothing which I can then still wear all by myself. I may be completely self sufficient in this respect, but I have made my choice and spent the skill points to do so. This is no different from a player who invests their skill point in Musician and Dancer. If I have only one of the two, I would need to seek out the other if I want a buff. If I have both, I should be able to use the skills from one to enhance my gameplay in the other. Why should this be any different for us than for any other professions in the game?
On the point of what is our give and take to the game as a whole (i.e. interdependency with other professions):
Well part of our problem is that we don't have a whole lot to give in terms of mechanics. What we do have are these buffs to offer to others and hopefully to receive credits or other items in exchange. From others, we want things like clothes from Tailors; cantinas, theaters, houses, and furniture from Architects; effects, playback, and just storage droids from DE's; we may want some food items from chefs for decorational purposes (though we don't need them to perform); pet companions from BE's or CH's; vehicles, droid batteries, and miscellaneous resources and other items from artisans; and also rare and interesting loot items mostly for decorational purposes from adventurer players (though in general these types of items tend to cost far more than these types of players are typically willing to pay us for what we can offer them, so this is a fairly lopsided exchange). I won't add ships and ship components here as these are specific to the pilot profession which has it's own source of income and can be very profitable on its own.
Finally, on the point of other players using hybrids to avoid having to deal with seeking out entertainers:
Basically I'd have to say that there's not much that can be done about this type of player. If anyone is deadset against having to rely on another player for entertainer (or other) services, they will find a way. Players have been doing this already, and they will continue to do so. If there's something they can't do themselves and they don't want to rely on others, they will create an alt for it. This is another one of those arguments where I don't understand why we seem to be singled out as somehow different than all other professions. People have alt crafters, alt combatants, alt, medics, and alt entertainers. There is no way to protect any profession's viability when it comes to people who are willing to pay more money to have access to more abilities on their own rather than relying on others.
As to the hybrids themselves, people should have access to the skills that they invest skill points in. Personally I think that the skills available at the lowest level should be the most basic, so perhaps what they might want to do is to lower the duration at Novice level to, maybe, a half hour, and increase it quickly with increasing dance or music skill. That way, anyone who just dabbles in Entertainer only as far as Novice ent would have access to the benefits, but would have to stop fairly often to reapply which is probably less convenient than seeking out a dedicated professional who could apply a buff for much longer. Anyone who is dedicated to the profession will quickly advance through the lowest levels and improve their skills and their ability to buff quickly and not mind spending the skill points to do so. I don't have a problem with those who pick up just a little bit of the profession for whatever basic benefits they can provide. It exposes more people to the ent profession. They might find they like it and want to level up more, and why shouldn't they be able to benefit from their increased abilities? If they don't and they're such a misanthrope that they keep it only so that they don't have to deal with others, then I'm fine with just letting them keep to themselves.
If they are really concerned about protecting entertainer viability, then they need to remove the ability to AFK the entertainer profession and skills. How much opportunity are live ents missing out on because of all the passive buffbots at Dant's Mining Outpost? There are lots of hunting groups who meet there, but with all the AFK ents there, there is little need for a live entertainer to go there nor would many ents enjoy the experience with the cantina filled with spamming, lifeless bots. Why is it that that is deemed to be 'ok', yet somehow we would be at some vast disadvantage if a few combat folks decided to take up Novice Entertainer? It just doesn't make sense, and sets no logical precedent.
Bottom line, there is no good reason that we should not be able to use the skills that we have paid skill points on and taken the time to learn and perfect.
Lilithiel
Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:52 pm
#111
DanceRulez wrote:
Personally I think that the skills available at the lowest level should be the most basic, so perhaps what they might want to do is to lower the duration at Novice level to, maybe, a half hour, and increase it quickly with increasing dance or music skill. . . . I don't have a problem with those who pick up just a little bit of the profession for whatever basic benefits they can provide. It exposes more people to the ent profession.
As far as the issue of self-buffing causing a supposed reduction in demand for dedicated entertainers, I think the above (a low duration self-buff at novice levels) is a good proposal. 
Self-buffing in the master level boxes could work, but wouldn't provide much incentive for people to take up entertaining and dabble. There used to be many players who started a dedicated entertainment “career” (not buff bots/alts) in SWG by having novice entertainer just to heal their own battle fatigue and mind wounds. They wouldn't have been exposed to the profession and ended up mastering it if they hadn't had the option to benefit themselves at novice levels.
This is probably beating a dead horse, but I think making the inspirations currently available “with just a few basic skills” active instead of passive would go a lot farther towards increasing a demand for dedicated entertainers than refusing to allow entertainers to buff themselves. Any reduction in demand for dedicated entertainers is more likely caused by the fact that anyone can buy a few basic entertainer skills for the convenience of their friends/guild/etc and set up shop offering the basic inspiration while AFK.
Metricula
Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:43 pm
#112
Lilithiel wrote:
DanceRulez wrote:
Personally I think that the skills available at the lowest level should be the most basic, so perhaps what they might want to do is to lower the duration at Novice level to, maybe, a half hour, and increase it quickly with increasing dance or music skill. . . . I don't have a problem with those who pick up just a little bit of the profession for whatever basic benefits they can provide. It exposes more people to the ent profession.
As far as the issue of self-buffing causing a supposed reduction in demand for dedicated entertainers, I think the above (a low duration self-buff at novice levels) is a good proposal.
Self-buffing in the master level boxes could work, but wouldn't provide much incentive for people to take up entertaining and dabble. There used to be many players who started a dedicated entertainment “career” (not buff bots/alts) in SWG by having novice entertainer just to heal their own battle fatigue and mind wounds. They wouldn't have been exposed to the profession and ended up mastering it if they hadn't had the option to benefit themselves at novice levels.
This is probably beating a dead horse, but I think making the inspirations currently available “with just a few basic skills” active instead of passive would go a lot farther towards increasing a demand for dedicated entertainers than refusing to allow entertainers to buff themselves. Any reduction in demand for dedicated entertainers is more likely caused by the fact that anyone can buy a few basic entertainer skills for the convenience of their friends/guild/etc and set up shop offering the basic inspiration while AFK.
I agree whole-heartedly with both of you!
DanceRulez, that was a great argument. Lilithiel, I'm with you on making everything active. Then everyone would have to find an ATK entertainer to get any real benefit. Again, leaving the common combat buff passive was actually insulting to me as an ATK entertainer. Saying they care about the "viability" of my profession while simulataneously continuing to encourage AFK buffbot services makes no sense.
--Qilue-UCW--
Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:53 pm
#113
Scruffylooking69 wrote:
If a combat or hybrid character has novice entertainer (or more), they are basically "weakening" their combat potential (by that I mean 15 skill points is a lot of potential combat skills). If someone can succeed at being acombatant while making use of non-combat skills they have (entertaining, crafting), I say more power to them.
Esharra wrote:
When a player whose character's template is a hybrid of combat and either crafting or entertaining is engaging in combat, the player is playing the game as a combat character (not as an entertainer or crafter). There are players of combat professions whose preference is to be able to avoid having to find, hire or otherwise engage an entertainer (why there were buff bots to begin with). If a player can avoid going out of their way to engage an entertainer to enhance combat xp simply by taking novice entertainer (keep in mind that the Inspiration that bonuses combat is not desired by full template combatters, hence those who want it most have unspent skill points), what can be done to protect the entertainer professions' viability in the interdependency?
Its not really THAT crippling...
You can be CL 80 and still have at least one branch of the Eliete professions.
Caerwynn
Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:41 pm
#114
--Qilue-UCW-- wrote:
Scruffylooking69 wrote:
If a combat or hybrid character has novice entertainer (or more), they are basically "weakening" their combat potential (by that I mean 15 skill points is a lot of potential combat skills). If someone can succeed at being acombatant while making use of non-combat skills they have (entertaining, crafting), I say more power to them.
Esharra wrote:
When a player whose character's template is a hybrid of combat and either crafting or entertaining is engaging in combat, the player is playing the game as a combat character (not as an entertainer or crafter). There are players of combat professions whose preference is to be able to avoid having to find, hire or otherwise engage an entertainer (why there were buff bots to begin with). If a player can avoid going out of their way to engage an entertainer to enhance combat xp simply by taking novice entertainer (keep in mind that the Inspiration that bonuses combat is not desired by full template combatters, hence those who want it most have unspent skill points), what can be done to protect the entertainer professions' viability in the interdependency?
Its not really THAT crippling...
You can be CL 80 and still have at least one branch of the Eliete professions.
But not if you are RPing a qualified dancer and this is part of the issue. It is becoming harder and harder to RP the character that I created and people just don't change personality or background overnight. My girl would not just drop dancer or smuggler because they don't fit into what has become SWG's divisive form of enforced play style.
--Qilue-UCW--
Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:57 pm
#115
Caerwynn wrote:
--Qilue-UCW-- wrote:
Its not really THAT crippling...
You can be CL 80 and still have at least one branch of the Eliete professions.
But not if you are RPing a qualified dancer and this is part of the issue. It is becoming harder and harder to RP the character that I created and people just don't change personality or background overnight. My girl would not just drop dancer or smuggler because they don't fit into what has become SWG's divisive form of enforced play style.
True.. You dont just change over night....
I was getting into this same conversation with aguildie.. We came to the conclusion that to most non Dancers/Musicians the Exotics show Mastery.. and most non dancers can not telll the exotics apart from one another.. so as long as you can do the exotics, you can still RP that your character is a qualified dancer.You can always find a RP excuse as towhyyour girl wontdo Exotic 3 or 4.
Olana
Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:47 am
#116
As usual Esharra, a pretty good summary of the feedback. Thanks for all your hard work
My twopenn'orth:
I'd beok withpeoplebeing able to self-buff even at Novice Ent, just to show them a bit of the world of dance. I'd be a bit happier with it being a Master Ent/Novice Dancer/Novice Musician thing ... or even 0 0 4 0 in Ent.
And I too would like to chime in on the hybrid aspect. I've always been a hybrid, first dancer/pistol, then through rp to dancer/tk ... I'll be Master Dancer till the point Lyrical2 isn't in that box, but not to be able to buff myself is insulting & ridiculous. Zilda has the FS healing & persuasion lines, which in rp, though no longer in reality, improve her ability to calm & inspire others & herself. As a TK, she can heal & boost herself. Why can'tshe inspire herself also?
I too dance rl, just as an amateur... I do it because like yoga or a long walk in the countryside, I can refresh & inspire MYSELF.
It's unfair & it's unrealistic not to be able to self-buff at some point in the Ent/Dancer career.
Zilda Zin, Sunrunner
EH_Merlyn
Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:54 pm
#117
Caerwynn wrote:
But not if you are RPing a qualified dancer and this is part of the issue. It is becoming harder and harder to RP the character that I created and people just don't change personality or background overnight. My girl would not just drop dancer or smuggler because they don't fit into what has become SWG's divisive form of enforced play style.
yes this is exactly what I mean. One of the things I find most wonderful about this game is teh ability to hybrid and mix and match. So yes, I agree with this 100%.