Dancer Archive
Thread: Supply and Demand, Keep Skills Unique Across Professions
This was a response to a different post, but I think it warrants its own thread due to the critical issue of skills being shared by more than one profession:
I seem to find that SWG has taken a lot of time to design teaming requirements into this environment, so a well balanced group will seek out and encourage participation of all professions. This reminds me of the traditional Supply and Demand curves in any economy or service industry. On one server, I am a PA leader and BH/Ranger. I ALWAYS ensure that we have a good ratio of Medics and Entertainers in our organized hunts. I take on the Ranger duties to build a Field Base camp, and the Docs, Dancers and Musicians make the camp a success - and a ton of fun too!
One reason I don't support one character having all the healing abilities or even 2/3 is it will possibly deflate the demand for any one profession. Let me give you an example:
On one hunt we could not find an entertainer to join us, so off we went with a dozen fighters and three docs into the hostile environment of Dantooine for Pubum missions ($$$ hunt). After about three hours, and several unplanned aggros later by mind poisoning flyers, we hadseveral members nearly useless as their mind wounds were almost 80% of available HAM. Long story short, I made it an urgent issuefor one of my other Guild members who was soloing on Corellia to find usANY entertainerwilling to come join us. It took him only about ten minutes in the cantina to find a willing dancer who "tell" messaged me. When I heard she was a Master Dancer, I offered her $20,000 credits to cover her expenses and time, plus she would get the group split of mission money which was averaging about $30,000 an hour for each member when we were grinding through the missions prior to being so wounded.Herarrival to our camp was the best part of the night! She had us to herself, received endless praises, and was tippedvery well (beyond my initial $20K). She also stayed with us through the hunts for the next couple of hours and had a good time.
My point here is that we would have had to abandon this hunt if we could not have found an Entertainer to come. We had a demand that needed to be supplied, and we were willing to pay for it appropriately. I was so moved by this experience that I decided to start a dancer on a different server to put myself in her shoes and live the experience. I have discovered that my situation described in this story was rare, and that everything must be done to preserve the NEED for ANY profession.Supply and Demand curves can swing violently if the devs are not careful. Duplication of skills across professions can be a major influence, so maybe just minor tweeking would be better. It is bad enough that so many people roll into a cantina, plop down for BF and mind wound healing, then dash off without a credit or word offered to anyone. There needs to be MORE done to ensuredemand like this exists in a way for ALL professions to profit better. Maybe they could charge admission to enter the Cantina and have the money split among the "registered" entertainers. Then tipping would be performance based indeed, but you get something from the cheapskates as a minimum.
Just my opinion here, from both a Dancer and BH/Ranger perspective. Oh and for what it is worth, I once posted a message wishing for BHs to have basic stimpack ability since they have the least number of skills remaining after Master level (MBH), and giving 15 points just for stims seemed rediculous for a profession designed almost entirely with solo missions in mind. I have to rethink that after this experience as well. Sorry for being long in this post. I encourage your responses, both expanding/supporting and conflicting. I am VERY curious about this topic.
PuntaSur wrote:
This was a response to a different post, but I think it warrants its own thread due to the critical issue of skills being shared by more than one profession:
All the ranting and shouting on the main boards aside, I've never gotten the idea that the Devs seriously wanted much crossover on abilities. The only time it's been an issue of late has been in the debate on Mind healing - but despite all the medics yelling for mind heals and the squad leaders begging for love, it seems the Devs understand that the Mind is the province of the entertainer. SLs may end up with some improvement to their rally ability, but it will never rival what we will be able to do for players.
I think your story about the entertainer helping on a hunt is pretty common, actually - or at least it is among those who know entertainers and value them. My PA always has our Master Musician and/or my Master Dancer along (I'm also pretty decent in a fight), and those accursed mantigrues on Endor are the only thing we've found that we really hated fighting.
Great reply, thanks. I like your phrase "mind healing is the province of the entertainer." Well said!
As for the mantigrues, I wish we could bottle them up and spread them galaxy wide to ensure we have increased demand for our services! LOL, JK
First off, excellent post. Well written and thoughtful.
Second, I applaud you and your group mates for doing what you did -- contacting an entertainer and offering her some serious money to come heal you.
THIS is what I have been telling people all along. When they justify their AFK Bot-ness on worlds like Endor and Lok saying "People there need healing," I have tried to explain that by AFK Botting, they are preventing just what you guys did, from happening. And I think what you guys did, as you say in your post also, was a very good thing. It got the dancer out into a field situation "safely" (with all of you to protect her) and it go you guys healed so you could continue with your missioning. Seems like this is a win-win situation, but it can't happen unless people feel they need to hire entertainers just like you did.
So there is the solution to the high-end worlds. Find an entertainer and hire him/her for the evening, and both sides can benefit.
C
I will have one as a pet some day, or else! Then when I'm in PvP, let's see how fast they poison those dastardly Imperials
PuntaSur wrote:
As for the mantigrues, I wish we could bottle them up and spread them galaxy wide to ensure we have increased demand for our services! LOL, JK
