Dancer Archive
Thread: Call for Action: Ravenmist?
Yes, Master Dancers still fall down too much. Our flourishes need lots of work. Other issues we submitted to the Devs are still issues.
But I'm becoming more and more convinced that Dancers are facing a very real crisis which will not be addressed by anything on our list. The culture of the Dancer is reflected by the mostly wise and thoughtful posts on this board, and what I'm seeing here is also a direct reflection of my own experience in game on Chilastra. Something is happening and it is not positive.
I don't want one more flame war over AFK macros or tips or flesh wraps. Please, we've had enough of those. I want our voice to get to the Devs and convey the crisis atmosphere most of us Dancers (the ones who care) are feeling.
AFKers have taken over the public cantinas. Entertainer missions don't pay enough to be worth while. Perhaps /denyservice did something to address public sexual harrassment (though I'm still dubious, myself), but it will probably not solve the problem it was meant to solve - which boils down to respect for Dancers. Mostly, we are finding that there isn't a place in the game world where Dancers are important at all. Overall, the image and respect of the Dancer class has been tumbling so badly that we are losing Master Dancers right and left. And we will lose more (possibly including myself if I'm convinced SOE isn't going to change things).
I don't even think a fix would be all that difficult. I'm a firm believer in "less is more", aka the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid
)... Two or three simple things could turn the Dancing class around and make it worth keeping, thus preserving the third leg of the game triad (socialization) as a complement to the crafting and hunting.1. No more XP if the server detects that the player has not touched their keyboard with anything but a macro for more than 2 minutes. The XP clock would resume once they did -- if they're doing their job entertaining, this is a non-issue.
For AFK samplers, this might hurt, but Raph himself said once "Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun." I hope he keeps that in mind when the issue of botting comes up - it may not hurt surveyors, but it's playing hell with entertainers.
2. Don't let our mind and focus/willpower buffs remain passive, free for anyone who /watches or /listens. Bump the effect a little so it's noticeable and extend the duration so it's competitive with the better Doc buffs, and then make it so that a Dancer or Musician must target the customer and /buffmind. Again, this cuts down on what the AFKers can do and it also has the benefit of offering something that is valued by the other players - we would actually have something to "sell" for income. We can now do mind buffs in camps, and this should be kept.
3. Raise the payouts for entertainer missions so that they are worth taking. We're not asking to get rich off them, but currently a full set of roundtrip entertainer missions barely pays for shuttle tickets. A minimum increase of 50% would help greatly.
To me, these ideas would have a cascading effect on the entertainment profession. I don't think we can ever completely eliminate AFKers, and we certainly can't force anyone to tip us. But by making AFK macros less attractive and by giving us the power to influence the abilities of other players I think more of us would take pride once again in being Master Dancers. We might just regain the respect we've lost these past few weeks.
Given the slow motion that is game development, I'm afraid it might already be too late for many of us. You should see my friends list, most of which is populated by other Master Dancers. It's gone dark and cold of late.
Oh yes, Sinda raises an excellent point. Please do! I was all happy to try them out and discovered that they pay less than the shuttle ticket to go where I have to perform them does.
It doesn't take an economical genuis to take one look at these missions and ask themselves "Now why would I even do this once?"
Who wants to do a mission at a loss?
Adding more variety to the trees would help eliminate the boredom from say, having to play SW1 for an hour or two at a time when you're a newbie. Or floundering around at footloose.
Musicians need variety too, especially in the higher trees. There's a whole long box to get where 'all' you get is a new instrument (bandfill), which sounds just like Omnibox. Why not throw a new song in there.
Why not add a song that is APPROPRIATE to the exotic dancing everybody is going to be doing as they reach Master Dancer? Perhaps visit the dancing XP and figure out a way so that dancers can, without penalty, change dances to be appropriate to the song. Musicians don't all have to play different songs. It looks pretty stupid to be exotic-ing to an upbeat tune like SW3, or formal-ing to Folk. But what can you do if you don't want to take an XP hit.
I don't care about AFK folks. Especially dancers (AFK non flourishing musicians? Ouch, my ears
But do, please do, get rid of the falling. It accomplishes NOTHING. It's also inequitable that dancers fall, but musicians play perfectly all the time. Yeah, I know a horrible sounding band is worse than seeing a dancer wobble, but still.
my two cents,
Aa'Mi on Sunrunner
Yes would you please make another list of items for the developers even if they never respond to the first one?
I see other correspondents doing it weekly.
I also see no problems with readdressing some of the old issues so they know how important they are to us.
What I don't see are a lot of dancers even posting on this forum like they used to, of course I'm forum happy now and posting too much not being able to play. So that's probably my own fault.
I think falling needs to be readdressed
I see the ridiculous action cost for the high level dances needs to be readdressed
Thank them for putting back into place motion capture and promising more dances and ask if there's an eta for it.
I don't really have a problem with what Sinda proposed.
Missions should be at least what delivery missions are.
And for me adding in a toggle allowing a /changebanddance would be high priority maybe even give that ability to choreographer levels.
I completely agree with 95% of what you said Sinda (I think everything in your post is on my list of things that need dev attention) and I watched my own friends list dwindle as well.
It is incredibly frustrating but there is almost nothing I can do about it until they get the person hired who's going to be dealing with us which is suppose to be done within a week or two. Even then it will take a while to get the ball rolling again as they get organized. Once things are moving again tho I'm going to do my best to get these issues addressed and try to save our profession and make something of it. I appreciate the support I get from all of you, I'm a real lucky Correspondent to have almost the complete support of the profession I represent and I don't intend on letting any of you down or doing anything but my best to help you all.
I really wish there was more I could do. All I can do right now is promise that once my hands are untied I'll continue to fight tooth and nail for all of you.
Tandava wrote:
Yes would you please make another list of items for the developers even if they never respond to the first one?
I see other correspondents doing it weekly.
I know for a fact that no other correspondents are turning in weekly reports and that only a few turned in a second report and those where the ones that didn't catch the email that they where not suppose to send in a second report. We've been asked not to send any reports until they are ready for us again and the fact that as time has gone on our major concerns have changed is exactly why I haven't bothered putting up another thread for people to post concerns on because many of those concerns will change between now and then.
So no, I won't make another list for the devs because there is no point in doing so and no other correspondants are doing so either that I've noticed and if one is then they really need to get with the program. I email and PM some of the devs on a fairly regular basis, thats about all I can do right now. Oh, and FYI, when things do get moving again and they are ready for us its going to be MONTHY reports, not weekly like you said above. Any more questions?
Ravenmist,
What you say resonates with their admissions that they were not even close to being ready to handle the Correspondent program. That is in NO way your fault, and I think most of us understand that. We know where the real blame lies
Anyway, it's always good to discuss the current problems and knock solutions around. That's why I posted what I did. When they're ready for us, maybe we'll be ready for them if we talk about solutions more.
Those very problems are what made me and TWELVE other Master Dancer completely delete our characters and start new ones just because the Entertainer profession is an absoltue waste of time, all we get from it is the joy of dancing and or playing music, wedidn't provide any true service to anyone besides healing mind wounds and battle fatigue, and that's not a service that many people give a rip about, no one showed us respect, rarely did we get tips and even rarer did we get a simple thank you.
If all we get is grief put downs and harrasment eventually you're going to have a server full of nothing but AFK macro entertainers, and eventually even they'll quit, then you'll have a server full of combatants with 300 battle fatigue and fully black mind bars, then you'll have no customers ebcause everyone quit because they couldn't heal and kept dying practically instantly.
The devs HAVE to address the issues with the entertainment professions.
Image Design is a joke, dancers are ridiculed, male dancers are considered homosexual and musicians are virtually ignored.
I agree on all the points you brought up Sinda. If only one of them would be introduced ingame I think it would do alot for our profession, hopefully all three points will be in time.
Well written post.
2. Don't let our mind and focus/willpower buffs remain passive, free for anyone who /watches or /listens. Bump the effect a little so it's noticeable and extend the duration so it's competitive with the better Doc buffs, and then make it so that a Dancer or Musician must target the customer and /buffmind. Again, this cuts down on what the AFKers can do and it also has the benefit of offering something that is valued by the other players - we would actually have something to "sell" for income. We can now do mind buffs in camps, and this should be kept. - Sinda
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I really really like this idea, in my opinion it would combat afk-ers far better than shooting ourselves in the foot by asking for macros to be changed.
One thing i would like to add and i dont know if its something thats been addressed on these boards but id like to see a small self staminabuff added to each of the healing trees. This would help master dancers dance for longer periods of time and use more visual effects. I also think it would give the player more of a sense of her character developing more than just being able to get someone healed and out of the cantina faster. From a RP point of view also as dancers get better im sure their stamina increases.
Anyway, just a thought.
Serae
Sinda wrote:
Anyway, it's always good to discuss the current problems and knock solutions around. That's why I posted what I did. When they're ready for us, maybe we'll be ready for them if we talk about solutions more.
I totally agree Sinda, and its the main reason I read these boards every day.
Ravenmist I wasn't asking you to send anything to the developers but asking about makingmore current posts to this board as ideas for the developers that we can track up top. I used the term because that's what the name of the thread is. Like the Merchant correspondent and the chef correspondents do on their boards.
They put up weekly "what are our main problems right now" posts on the top that everyone can look at. Seeing one old post on the top with the date of over a month ago doesn't generally invite people to look at it. As Sinda says the landscape has changed.
I'm not saying it has to be every week but it would be nice if every few weeks you did like you did before and put together our current concerns we think important to development.
Whenever you eventually do another letter to developers you can announce that but this is a way we can track changes without going back through 10 pages of disparate board threads.
To clarify again, I'm not asking or assuming you correspondents send anything into the Dev's. I'm asking for posts here for "us" that track the changes.
You guys chose the title of the thread for the Dev's I'm referencing that not asking anyone to send in a report.
I would think this would make it easier on correspondents too because when they do want to send a report or letter or whatever you do in, you can peruse the timeline of collective issues instead of reading hours of threads.
It would also make it easier for casual readers or those without much time to catch up on topical events and concerns.