Dancer Archive

• Totally automated, unattended gameplay has de-valued active practioners


• Holocrons swamped the professions with legions of people who did not care about them, resulting in hordes of AFK "players" and again de-valuing active practioners


• Player cities spread out the population substantially, making NPC cantinas that were once the focal point of entertainer interaction far less meaningful

The above is merely a very brief summary of the problems facing the entertainer profession at a fundamental level, it's been covered in far more detail far better in other places, but I felt it important to include a short summary here.

The Solution
Until now probably not a lot of entertainers would disagree with what I've said. I expect my proposed solution to potentially cause substantial controversy. But I've come to think that it has a good chance to make things much better than they are now.

Currently all player houses can be used to heal mind wounds and battle fatigue as well as give mind buffs, in addition to player cantinas, medical centers, NPC theatres, hotels, cantinas and certain special hybrid NPC structures such as taverns. The upshot of this is that there are potentially thousands of locations where buffs can be applied andbattle fatigue and mind wounds can be healed. The result is a huge dilution of entertainers to far flung corners of the galaxy. Some perform in their player city cantinas, others in private, pay to enter buffing buildings (typically buff-bots), others in NPC cantinas.

The solution I propose is simple... remove the ability to give mind buffs anywhere but NPC cantinas, theatres, hotels and the hybrid structures. Allow healing anywhere it is allowed now. In addition, up mind buff duration to 3 hours to match typical doctor buff duration.

How does this solve the problems of entertainers? First, it will remove a critical advantage that the unattended macro entertainer holds: convenience. No live entertainer wishes to sit alone in a player city structure, far from others in order to provide a buff or two an hours. It runs contrary to the playstyle typically desired by social players. Unattended macro entertainers have no such limitation. But forcing buffing to occur in a relatively small number of centrally located positions, and the fact that live players can typically buff more quickly (4 minutes vs. approximately 8) than unattended entertainers and the live entertainer now has a critical advantage in game mechanics. This will substantially reduce the appeal of buff-bots both to players and to their owners.

Second, it focuses live entertainers who work at entertaining as a living in a smaller number of places. This helps entertainers find other entertainers to socialize with both while learning their craft and while practicing it at a master level. This should make live entertaining more fun andhelp players find the relatively small live entertainers more easily.

For the most part the end of the holo-grind will eliminate a large portion of "AFK grinders" that plague certain typical NPC cantinas (usually Theed and Coronet in most galaxies.) With this problem removed, all NPC cantinas should again be relatively welcoming locations for live entertainers. Focusing all entertainers then in these venues will have a positive reinforcement function, allowing the entertainers to interact with one another, and allowing players to find them relatively easily. This coupled with the critical live player advantage over buff-bots in buffing speed should be enough to substantially rejuvenate the professions for live players while not horribly severely impacting the game for non-entertainers.

Upping buff duration will help players coordinate hunting trips. Start in an NPC town, get doctor and entertainer buffs, then proceed to hunt. At the end of the hunt, heal mind and battle fatigue anywhere in anticipation of the next days adventures.

Conclusion
I welcome all constructive comments, suggestions and criticism of this proposal and hope you find it thought provoking.