Dancer Archive

(reposted from a reply to a previous thread)

Devs; can we please get a Dance Issues thread locked at the top where we can collect all of the important issues for this profession?

This is one of the few remaining 'unfinished' professions. It would be nice to know that SOE understands this and has plans to add content to bring it up to par with Musician.

After having been in beta and now live the dance tree has the following issues;

1. The dances Basic2, Rhythmic2, Footloose2, Poplock2, Formal2 and even Lyrical2 are NOT significantly different from their counterparts to be considered a decent reward for the exp required to reach them. Either these dances need to be altered to be significanlty different (ie. like Exotic3 vs. Exotic4) OR the 2 version needs to have it's flourishes 5-8 unique to the dance and not the same generic flourishes.

2. All dances really only have 4 flourishes that fit that style, 5-8 being generic flourishes that are completely out of place in most of the dances. This is pretty pathetic actually...we do NOT have 8 flourishes per dance...Popular is really the only dance 5-8 fit with.

3. Exotic 1-4 have flourish 4 that is identical and does NOT fit with the beat of the base dance...it is way too fast. Furthermore Exotic3 & Exotic4 flourishes 3 & 4 are duplicats, leaving Exotic 3 & 4 with only two unique flourishes each.

4. Formal dance flourish 3 and 4 are identical leaving Formal with only 3 uniquie flourishes that are style appropriate.

5. The Poplock (and Poplock2) 'fall' is taken from Formal and is completely out of line with the style.

6. Footloose is a grotesque dance....enough said.

7. The two branches, Fatigue Healing and Wound Healing, offer NOTHING of any value to the Dancer. They ONLY benefit the customer is a way that is to the detriment of the Dancer - they get the customer out of the cantina FASTER, exactly the opposite of what an entertainer would want. Additionally these two lines are to the detriment of exp gain by any group the dancer is in. SOMETHING of value to the entertainer needs to be added to these branches...basically the dancer (and musician) has only two branches that contain anything interesting.

8. The Techinique line is fun BUT: Smoke effects need to last just a little longer, since not exp is given for using these then no action should be drained...

9. The Technique line should give melee and ranged defense bonuses all the way up...not just the one in Master Dance.

10. Once Master Dance is reached there really is NO point in getting any more dance or healing exp.

11. Once Master Dance is reached there should be a decrease in the Action drain for performing.

12. Once Master Dance is reached there is NO way currently to avoid falls with Exotic 3 and 4...this needs to be changed.

13. The titles available for Master Dance are...umm...limited to Master Dance. How about something fun? Like let us make our own title at that point?

Basically the music tree is nicely fleshed out. The Dance tree is honestlyweak by comparison.

We REALLY need an equivalent amount of content for having done an equivalent amount of work.

The one thing I would like to see most is basing xp earnings on the dancer's level, not on the dance performed. This would allow us to change ourdance to match the musicians'musicwithout suffering (i.e. dropping down to Formal to match a slower song). We shouldn't be penalized for coordinating our performances and improving everyone's viewing experience.

The only change I see as needed to the dance profession right now is the dances available in the dance knowledge tree. Dance knowledge I, II and III have horrible dances available. The last week of beta they did a couple of last minute changes to the design of the dance knowledge tree leaving the only decent dances in the dance tree at dance knowledge four and master dance.

The dances should be available like this;

Dance knowledge I; popular2, poplock2

Dance knowledge II; Lyrical

Dance knowledge III; exotic, Lyrical2

Dance knowledge IV; exotic2

Master dance; exotic3, exotic4

i think its fine to leave formal2 and footloose2 at master entertainer. if i decide to become a master ent, i want something there from all 4 disciplines.

here's my issues:

1. "You cannot start dancing while running." ARGH! i wasn't running, i just stood up! and waited for like 2 seconds. but sometimes i get this message even after waiting almost 5 seconds; well after my dancer has already stood up. same goes for all the other position changes, and actual character movement. this is ESPECIALLY problematic for me, since i want to occasionally create a routine that stops dancing, does a position change or emote, then starts dancing again.

2. if possible, i'd like to be able to call non-looping aliases multiple times within another alias. this makes formatting and editing dance routines a LOT easier. i realize this can also be use to create shorter AFK aliases, but i'm of the opinion that an AFK macroer doesn't matter what they have to copy/paste 1000 times, whether its one line, or 30, so it wouldn't make the problem better or worse, as long as it doesn't enable infinite looping. so if this is do-able, i would certainly appreciate it.

3. while we're on the subject of alias formatting neatness, the OCD part of me would like to be able to break lines within the text editor, but have the alias still function properly. currently, i can only get my alias to work properly by setting it all up as one line, and for a 3 minute dance, with lyrics..... <shivers>. i've tried creating an alias with line numbers (ie, breakdance, breakdance1, breakdance2, etc.) where i call the next alias line number at the end of the first line... but this only seems to function properly 1/3rd of the time, making it utterly worthless. if anyone knows how to do this, my eyes sure would appreciate it.

Tools of the trade, how many guns and weapons are there?

We need more songs, more dances, and more flourishes.

Short & sweet?

buh buh, ooo and Tarq > all

Replied to your other post before, but I suppose I should put it here as well.

You hit almost all of the major problems I see with the Dancer profession so far.

Not enough flourishes. Not enough variety between dances.

Action consumed way to fast! Especially with effects.

Getting so little benefit out of two of our branches.

The big things I'd like to throw in hereare I really think /bandflourish needs to be divided, so that the band and the dancers can flourish independantly.

/bandflourish isn't very fair exp wise but after you get master dancer is liveable. Just wish there was a more fair way to do it. Maybe reducing or taking away action cost to those not flourishing.

Other then that I think youcollected just about every major point or concern people have posted in this thread. If I remember something else I'll post it up here.

This is a very helpfulthread, which I hope will berecommended reading for whoever becomes the dance correspondent. I think the aesthetic issues for dance are really well covered, except that I really think something should be done about the base animation for formal, which is really no improvement over footloose, at least in my opinion. I think there is every justification for having the first version of basic dances at the I & II level look a little shaky, but once dancers have progessed to levels II & IV in entertainment, their highest experience dances ought to be entertaining to those waiting for mind healing in a cantina.

I think that the basic inability of dancers to obtain income from their skill except through thecharity of other players needs attention. Dancers should not feel the compulsion to dunn other players for tips, and those with little money who need healing should not have to put up with being hounded for them. It is just a source of friction for players who have no choice but to go to catinas to recover from injury. Being an entertainer should let you make the recovery process for other players more enjoyable, not less. I am not sure what the solution is. If there were a reliable source of dance-related missions (performing in cantinas in other cities or planets for example) that might help enormously. Is there a reason dancer mission terminals could not be implemented?

As for the healing lines, I really think that adding other healing powers in the dancer lines should be considered. One possible idea isa regeneration ofaction points and wounds to the action bar . (Not the health bar; I think I would leave that as the exclusive province of doctors and medics.). Ifregeneration effected bothdancer and audience, dancersmight become a more desireable personto bring along on group missions, and it certainly would help to resolve the really enormous issue ofaction-point consumption of dancing.

Ilooli,

There are "dancer mission terminals", they're called gigs. Play only slightly less (less risk to the character, though, and if you don't think delivery missions are tough, just ask my Marks/Scout who got randomly attacked in Eisley on a delivery mission) and you get them by going to the theater guild hall and taking them from the dancing trainer.

There is a FAQ about it in the Entertainer forum...

Lovi

I tried getting a mission from the dance trainer before becoming a novice dancer and it did not work. I have not tried it since moving to dancer, and perhaps that was the problem.in any event, NPC missions are not on a par with mission terminals when it comes to solving the dancer's probelms of never knowing if you can make money. Random NPC missions do not generate predictablerewards and there is no ability to chose which missions you want. WIth a mission terminal you can at least take twoin similar locations and get two tries at it. I also have gotten looney rewards from NPC missions, which as you say can be hazardous. Two such missions I did resulted in no cash but items of no use I can determine. Maybe I will end up thinking the items are valuable some day, but not today. With mission terminals you at least have a little better idea how hard your task is apt to be and what reward you will receive. For a profession with no predictable source of money, I think dancer misssion terminals would be an enormous help.

You get dancing gigs from the noble who stands next to the dancer trainer, not the dancer trainer her/himself.

As for choosing location... there is no penalty for cancelling a mission you've already agreed to take. Therefore, it might be kind ofa pain, but you could keep asking the noble for gigs, checking the info in your datapad,and cancelling and re-asking until you get one to a location you are happy with. Then go to a mission terminal and get a drop-off to the same locale. (This is what I do.)

See the gig mission FAQ for more info. In short, there is already a way for dancers to make cash doing quests that directly involve the profession's skills, which, thin as it is, is head and shoulders above a lot of MMORPG's.

To bring this thread back on topic... The only thing I would like to add is: I got to Novice Dancer last night and I am pretty disappointed by the flourishes for Poplock. Two formal "falls," in addition to other flourish repeats? This really needs some work.