Dancer Archive
Thread: State of the dancer profession as I see it.
Couple of problems I see in this:
Whats the solution for this? We obviously need something to draw folks to player cantinas for starters. Off the top of my head I would suggest bonuses to buffing. I am rather hesitent to say bonuses to healing or quicker buffing time, I dont feel that either of these take too long as it is now. I also think that turning them out quicker does little to help our profession, its rather nice to come into a cantina and see a few folks sitting around chatting together while resting and healing up. Ifyou speed this process up, you are just going to have more turn around, not a more cantina like atmosphere with more patrons at once.
Problem with this is that it bases and entertainer's "worth" on something other than being entertaining. For example, let's say there is a dancer in Kor Vella who works hard to greet the patrons, crack jokes, and makes for a lively performance. Shouldn't we be encouraging patrons to go to this dancer?
Conversley, let's say that there is a player city about 2000m away from Kor Vella that is run by a guild who bought an extra account to serve as a "buffbot," who stands doing exotic 4 all day in her taped up +25% exotic uber-leotard which she never changes, working 24/7, for no tips, to serve as a complimentary "tourist trap" so that people will visit this city? Do we really, really want to hand out a mechanics advantage to this dancer over the one that works harder at the keys?
Because this gives an advantage toward one player over another for reasons that have nothing to do with being entertaining, and EVERYTHING to do with dispatching some sort of "goodie." Because I tell you, people who have no intent to even play this profession care nothing about what we do. They just want "the goodies."
... lower the amount of healing experience needed to progress and balance things out a little. The change that benifits one group of players seriously set back another. Balance needs to be brought about to counter act the change.
The healing XP has always been there, and its not due to the combat changes. If anything, there is MORE healing XP out there to be had, due to the effects of mind disease in PvP. The problem is we have too many entertainers, and not enough entertainers who make the effort to get people to watch them. This problem should solve itself once the holocrons disappear.
All in all, however, I like the changes you have proposed, ESPECIALLY regarding missions. We just have to keep in mind what it is we are, what it is we do, and not make changes that disrupt this notion.
PoetDancer wrote:The healing XP has always been there, and its not due to the combat changes. If anything, there is MORE healing XP out there to be had, due to the effects of mind disease in PvP. The problem is we have too many entertainers, and not enough entertainers who make the effort to get people to watch them. This problem should solve itself once the holocrons disappear.
I find myself in a rare disagreement here, PoetD.
I've been a dancer since July. Around late September, without me changing one single thing about what I do and (for a couple of months) where I performed, or the hours at which I performed, healing XP vanished. I have been stuck trying to get fatigue 4 (and needing wound 3 and 4 on top of that) literally since October. I cannot, using my normal M.O. (which is to dance anywhere BUT Theed, Bestine, Anchorhead, or Coronet, because I just can't stand them), get any healing xp at all. Even Dantooine is useless now. If I am lucky for a full day of work I may get a few thou. I need like 300,000 to finish. A few thou a day means... 100 days. To get 3 skill boxes?? That's nuts.
At least on my server, all the healing XP has now been concentrated into the 3 or 4 most odious and unacceptable places one could possibly dance. I won't go there. I can't. I hate it. I would be miserable the whole time. It's not worth it, and what's more, it should not be necessary. Healing should be a natural part of the profession, but for some reason, it's not anymore.
There isn't more healing XP to be had out there. There's less. I don't know why. Maybe it's just because there are less players out there (seems like it, anyways, on my server). Maybe they just only go to Theed anymore. Maybe they aren't getting hurt. I dunno.
I do think there have been some changes to how wounds are done. I remember over the summer and into early fall it was not at all uncommon to see people walk into a place even like Keren (which is tame and not like, say, Dantooine or Lok) with a completely black mind bar. Now, I never see that. I haven't seen that in months.
I've basically given up trying to get heal xp. I made one final attempt tonight, since no one was around my player town. I went all the way from Naboo to Dant, only to find both outpost cantinas manned by AFK heal bots. So I give up. I'm not even going to try anymore.
Something is wrong when someone who plays as much as I do can't fill in a couple of skill boxes. Don't try to tell me "I'm doing it wrong." I'm a Master Entertainer/Near-Master Dancer. I got 29 other entertainment boxes filled out with no problem at all. Now suddenly these last 3 are going to take 4 months? No... it's not me. Something is wrong with heal XP. It's coming in way too slowly.
C
I'm sorry to hear that Dejah, and believe me, I understand.
But you see, the grind capitals are where they need people like us the most. Sad, but true. And I know you hate to dance there, but that's EXACTLY where the XP isto be found. The patrons havecome to expect very lousy, unattentive entertainment, and they look at going to the cantina as a big chore. And hundreds and hundereds of players keep filing in and filing out, not even knowing why they should care, because the dancers there don't care. So what is needed is for someone to go there that actually makes them get their BF and wounds healed in the right way in which the developers intended.
I cannot tell you how well I amreceived in Coronet EVERY time I go. I even got a /cry once from a patron who told me "you are the first dancer I ever met who actually talks." Funny thing is though, I never even had to work very hard at all to amuse this patron, because I was talking with another patron at the time. But the mere effort to do something other than the same old lazy thing is appreciated. Yes, you get the occasional bad patron. Let me tell you something though, when that bad patron discovers how bad his time getting his BF and mind wounds healed can be, he'll appreciate you more and more.
Now maybe your RAM and computer setup can't handle Coronet. Not too many really can anymore. But you have to understand that the principles and values that you have as a dancer doing this job the right way aren't present in your competition. And they make no bones about the fact that they are lazy and don't care,but that they'll dispense their shoddy workmanship for free.
But I'll tell you something else. Players around the servers are sick and tired of people doing things on the cheap. They hate the people who sell AP. They hate the AFK beggars at the starport. They hate the fact that when they go to the med centre that the medic would rather heal the tumbler than the patient who is injured. They hate the people who pay people to run in and out of their houses to look at vendors with more goods. And they hate the madness that is going on in the big cantinas. These are people who have plenty of credits, and plenty of BF and wounds, who are willing to wait the extra time and tip BIG just so that they can take comfort in the fact that something is going right in this game.
So did I answer your question, Dejah? Probibly not. Yes, perhaps something should be done about the fact that all the XP to be had is welled up in the three and four cantinas. But I'll tell you something else, the characters are now doing quests and theme parks again. So it might be good to go back to Wayfar, Kor Vella, Bestine (The small cantina off the shuttleport), and Moenia. At least these solutions may provide some recourse until the developers can distribute player activity in places other than Coronet and Theed.
PoetDancer wrote:But you see, the grind capitals are where they need people like us the most. Sad, but true. And I know you hate to dance there, but that's EXACTLY where the XP isto be found.
The XP is not worth me being miserable. I am not going to go AFK, which means I'd have to sit there and watch it. Sorry, not worth it.
My point is, there is NOT more healing to be had. There is LESS. It's just that what little there is of it, is concentrated in a few places. So if you can stomach Coronet, then sure, it feels like there is tons of healing XP to be had out there. But that's inaccurate, and I wish you wouldn't say things like "there is plenty of XP to be had out there" when it just isn't true... but it's exactly the kind of thing someone like TH can latch onto and fool himself into thinking the rest of us "just aren't doing it right."
No... we specifically are doing it right by servicing the other 99% of cantinas out there and can't find any XP. Something is wrong and the developers need to understand and face it. Let's not give them any excuses to ignore it beyond what they already have.
C
Last week, on Wednesday night, the Class 7 radioactives were still on Naboo, with about a 20% concentration right in front of the Theed Cantina. Rather than dancing that night, I went out front and sampled those radioactives, taking about 160-300 wounds to all3 bars and about 200 BF for each successful sample. I hada medic friend with a droid there to heal my H&A wounds, plus several Novice Docs and CM's came by every so often and were more than willingto heal those wounds forxp.From the entertainer group, I had a Master Dancer and the highest level musician in the place come into the front anteroom of the cantina so that they were in range for me to watch them while I was outside sampling. As a result, most everyone in the group said they got 40-60 EH xp per tick for the 3 hours that I did it for them. Avg of about300 xp per minute, times 3 hours = about 60K xp for everyone in the group -- except me *sniff sniff* 
There was also about a week where a CM and a tailor had an ongoing duel macro'd in. The CM would poison the tailor's mind every 10 minutes or so as a result and the tailor never stopped watching the group while this happened. The EH xp was pretty good during this time too.
Should we have to resort to tricks like this to gain EH? I don't think so. But is it possible to do? Yes, absolutely. For the radioactives thing, you can just grab a small generic house and drop that on a radioactive site anywhere you find the radioactives, if it really comes down to it. So there *are* ways to work around it, and help out budding docs and CM's while you're at it. Sure, I lost out on the xp that night, but I made some nice doc friends and the company was good, and we all still had a good time. They all got to laugh at me every time I incapped myself, and instead of the groupchat always complaining about how there's no EH xp, we all had a fun time actually visiting with each other. I jsut wish those radioactives were still there. Only have class 2's on Naboo this week. . BF damage only.. .Oh well. It actually only takes about 5 minutes to get 1000 BF, then run to the cantina to get healed of that to give the xp too. And while I may not be getting the xp now, I'm making a lot offriends, and THAT's why I'm playing the game. To enjoy myself, not see how fast I can get Master.