Dancer Archive
Thread: Entertainer Wishlist
What I REALLY want to see is an option for a group leader to split a tip evenly between the group, and a second option similar to thedeny service idea, only make it so that if the person doesn't tip a certain amount they can't watch at all. I am so tired of people STILL not tipping when they go into a cantina. I mean come on the game has been out for awhile, 90% of the population isn't poor anymore, hell I know friends of mine that have over 3 mil. Entertainers deserve a way to prevent people from receiving healing without paying first just like medics can.
Secondly, Entertainer lvl exp needs to be reduced by a LOT. We are healers just like Medics, why is it their skills cost so much less to raise than ours? For example, Dancing Knowledge 1 is 87500 exp, but the first level Combat Medic skills are only 12500. Ok, they have 3 skill sets that use that experience, but we have 2 sets of 2!! Scale them up so that they are equal, 18750 for Dancing Knowledge 1 and leave the Medic ones where they are.
Another thing I just don't understand, why is it I gain more experience when I am groupped with more Dancers, but when I am being watched by more people I get the EXACT same amount of experience as if I was just dancing alone with nobody there? That doesn't make any sense, there needs to be a modifier for both the number of Dancers in the group AND the number of people watching, not one and nothing for the other.
Maybe hoping too much for that second one, but I really think the first and third ones need to be dealt with please. 
2. I think the level is fine where it is, to be honest. Sure, it requires a lot more than medic, but you don't need hurt people to get the biggest of the experience requirements. You just need to play/dance. You only need hurt people to get healing experience. And I've found that in normal cantina dancing, the two reach the finish at right about the same time.
3. There is a modifyer for people watching. I've watched my experience earned go up as more people watch while I was dancing solo.
Sienna wrote:
What I REALLY want to see is an option for a group leader to split a tip evenly between the group, and a second option similar to thedeny service idea, only make it so that if the person doesn't tip a certain amount they can't watch at all.
There already is a /group split command. It doesn't work too great, but it doesn't need to be added. It needs to be fixed.
As for your second "idea", GOD NO! The last thing on EARTH we need is to start forcing an already-resentful player population to payto healthe artifical construct called "battle fatigue". If you haven't seen the firestorm over entertainers and tipping on the main boards already -- if you haven't suffered the abuse of players who think their tips earn them the right to grope and fondle you -- then you need to be a dancer for a little longer.
I am so tired of people STILL not tipping when they go into a cantina. I mean come on the game has been out for awhile, 90% of the population isn't poor anymore, hell I know friends of mine that have over 3 mil. Entertainers deserve a way to prevent people from receiving healing without paying first just like medics can.
Until we have something tangible and valuable to promote, I don't think we have any reason to gripe about tips. Sure, I never got rich dancing my way up to Master. I went some nights without one credit tip. Others, I made a killing. If you want Entertainers to have valid ways of making income, bump the entertainer mission payouts and then change our Mind buffs so we can target a player and buff their minds for 2 hours. Right now it's 30 minutes max, and takes 15 minutes to buff. Offering something valuable makes much more sense than forcing people to pay for something they don't think is important.
Secondly, Entertainer lvl exp needs to be reduced by a LOT. We are healers just like Medics, why is it their skills cost so much less to raise than ours? For example, Dancing Knowledge 1 is 87500 exp, but the first level Combat Medic skills are only 12500. Ok, they have 3 skill sets that use that experience, but we have 2 sets of 2!! Scale them up so that they are equal, 18750 for Dancing Knowledge 1 and leave the Medic ones where they are.
I'm not sure what other classes you've played, but entertainer profs are by far the EASIEST skill to raise in the game. That's part of the reason there are so many mindless bots dancing AFK in the cantinas - they think it'll be a quick, easy way to get another Master tag. Lowering XP only cheapens the value of Master. Ain't gonna happen.
Another thing I just don't understand, why is it I gain more experience when I am groupped with more Dancers, but when I am being watched by more people I get the EXACT same amount of experience as if I was just dancing alone with nobody there? That doesn't make any sense, there needs to be a modifier for both the number of Dancers in the group AND the number of people watching, not one and nothing for the other.
Group bonuses for Dancng XP apply to dancingwith larger entertainment groups. Entertainment Heal XP only gets bonuses from more people watching, and they must have mind wounds/BF to heal. It makes complete sense to me, and while I capped my Dance xp a long time before I capped my Heal XP, that was because I spent time in Theed with a large entertainer group where there weren't many customers. Once I went to a smaller cantina with a steady flow of customers, I got plenty of heal XP.
Maybe hoping too much for that second one, but I really think the first and third ones need to be dealt with please.
Sorry, but you're raising issues that are either non-issues or which indicate you haven't done detailed, lengthy testing of your own class. I don't want to come off sounding harsh here because your opinion is as welcome and valued as anyone else's, but we cannot go to the Devs and ask for things without knowing how our own class works.
I love wishlists. What I would like for entertainers:
For dancers: a /changebanddance xxxx toggle so we can do group change dances smoothly
Allow for better transition steps and programming to move inbetween dances.
Couple dancing or interactive group dancing (say like a folk dance where you dance in sets with others perhaps a /bandflourish coupledancing thing.)
More dances that are fully developed with complementary flourishes and all motion captured.
More masculine dances for everyone to use.
More support for male dancers in clothes and moves.
Dancing with props other than just weapons
Dancing while moving a few steps for easier positioning without making the dance stop.
For musicians more song choices that fit with the Dancers' dances. Music appropriate to popping, formal, and exotics and the new dances that might come out. Savage and rhythmic etc.
More variety of sounds from the instruments for musicians.
More complementary techniques with dancers and musicians.
More of an obvious difference in levels of dances say basic basic 2 or popular popular 2
Some unique dances or ability for a Master Entertainer but not something that is technically more difficult then that awarded for Master Musician and Master Dancer. Master Dancer having reduced falls reduced action cost and some unique dances.
Ability to compose new songs with flourishes from one song into another. Dancers can do change dance to get individual flourishes pieced together but musicians are a little more tied in with their songs. Allow a way to hotkey using flourishes from any dance or song with any other flourish of any dance or song in a way that allows greater composition and choreography.
Allow for differences in solo performing entertainers from group performing entertainers. Give different steps or dances or flourishes or sounds or techniques that you can only do solo or only do grouped.
Allow for some visual emotes that might be appropriate while dancing or playing an instrument.
Make more creative use of dancer's talents in quests both GCW related and unrelated. Dancers or musicians could be sent to entertain and spy at the same time some npc group or something. Allow entertainer missions that are cost effective with more restrictions to them. Send them off planet to those rare expensive places and give them a reward to cover the travel and something for the pocket too.
Find ways to fit in logically the entertainers into the theme parks that are already there. So not only can you dance in Jabba's palace eventually but you're supposed to for a quest.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=8276
A Chef's view of things. Some of these are nice its about making the npc's more detail oriented to help immersion. We know much of what some of us DONT want to see in cantinas and hotels. What would you like to see?
Number one would be positive incentives for players to congregate in cantinas rather than outside starports. Having resentful players come to cantinas only because they have to is in my mind one of the root problems for dancer economy ills. Giving players factional or skill related bonuses (for example an add skill for slicing, investigation, and maybe other skills that others could suggest) that kick in after a certain amount of time in a cantina would certainly help keep people around.
Number two is to have an entertainer solution to every quest in the game. Without a fighting skill you cannot even do the opening quest at Jabbas palace much less get to see him. Same goes for getting faction points.
Number three would be to add some skills to the dancer tree that would help to keep you from getting killed when you have to go somewhere other than a cantina or shuttle. Ideas would include a terrain movement bonus so that every aggressive creature out there cannot overhaul you with ease. Or some greater ability to invoke burst run. Some combination of defense/dodge/evade that would make it less likely you will be mauled to death running away from things. This is a practical problem if you want to perform at PAs, or if you want to plant and service harvesters. Things that a novice marksman can kill with can polish off a non-combat dancer with silly ease, Another alternative would be to give dancers a way of switching aggressiveness off.
Number four (which a lot of dancers seem opposed to) is for some skills that make a dancer worth having in a group. If you are a social player there is unfortunately more society in groups than in cantinas. Maybe with the first item granted this would be unecessary, but right now this and numberstwo and three are the biggest reasons why many dancers feel compelled to add a combat skill rather than a crafting skill as their second profession. (I know some dancers who have second accounts just so they can do both).
Number five make cantinas a safe haven from the GCW. I do not think it should be a sanctuary, but at least players should not be able to initiate faction fighting in a cantina exceptby duel. If you start it outside, you should not be able to avoid the consequences by entering a cantina. Allied to this would be giving an enterainer group of a certain size a bouncer option to eject disruptive players. If it had to be unanimous among all entertainers in a group it might not be easily abused (this is an off the top of the head idea). I worked for a while at a cantina where one persistently obnoxious player who avoided actually crossing the line into harrassing anyone so alienated everyone in the cantina that attendence of regular customers and then entertainers dropped off sharply. It would be nice to be able to avoid this.
Number six would be choreography. That is, let dancers make their own signature dances by weaving together combinations flourishes or dance moves without a macro (non macro so that you can stop, trade, etc without having to wait fora macro to time out).
Number seven take away the action cost for techniques altogether and lower the action point use for dances at least by master level.
Number eight, would be nomore falls at master level.
All I can think of at the moment.
<sigh> Sinda I have been playing since beforerelease, though I unfortunately do not have the 12+ hours a day to raise my dancing skill at any decent rate. I played in the beta, I know exactly how the class works. I just happen to resent the fact that people think just because they don't like having to go to a cantina to heal another set of their wounds they feel it means they shouldn't pay us. If the group split command is bugged I wasn't aware of it, I never hear of anyone even trying to use it.
Something tangible to promote? How about the fact they HAVE to come to entertainers to heal mind wounds and Battle Fatigue? They have to go to medics to heal their other wounds and 90% of them request payment, why should it be any different for us? The mind buff takes a long time to take affect because they want people to spend more time in cantinas, how is that our fault? People being resentful of having to see us is stupid unless they are just as resentful of having to see medics. A healer is a healer is a healer, it doesn't matter what they decide to call us, we are still healers.
It is NOT easy to raise Dancing unless you have 12+ hours a day once you reach elite. I actually spent 10 hours the other day, in a large group of dancers, and only gained 106k exp, not even enough for Dancing Knowledge 1, you can't tell me that is reasonable. I for one refuse to use that afk/macro crap, and if people hate it so much they should boot them out of the groups instead of letting them stay like I see all the time. If everyone wants to see them gone, bring up the point repeatedly and kick out anyone who tries to go afk for more than 20-30 min.
I tend to gain more Healing exp than anything else, and I spend most of my time in Coronet with 7-10 other dancers, but like I said, I don't generally have enough time in my day to spend to gain a decent amount of exp. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't expect to gain at a decent rate during the times I do spend a lot of time, like I mentioned above.
You might consider them non-issues, however I do not. I think the problem here is people hating the macro-bots so much that they don't want to lower the exp because it makes it easier on those people, but it also makes it harder on the more casual people. I also have a feeling the problem is also those who reached Master Dancer feeling that since they had to take the longer route it shouldn't be made easier for later people, because then they would feel jipped. You didn't come off sounding harsh, you came off sounding like one of those people who doesn't want to feel like they worked hard for something only to have it be made easier for others and not liking it.