Dancer Archive
Thread: Castaspella still sees room for Change
Sirgleno wrote:
Some new ideas:
1.) Unique profession specific buffs:
Frankly, this could really set the Dancer as a key member of the whole revolving Star Wars Galaxies universe. Let us grant a variety of powerful long lasting (3.6 hours is very nice) buffs that are unique to dancers, perhaps musicians can have their own, let them come up with those of course. I do think there may be merit to the whole profession specific nature of these buffs, perhaps you would have to be a master marksman to be granted a certain buff, this will have to be thought out properly.
2.) Some type of grantable bonus to group mates.
Something along the lines of a +10 melee defense/+10 ranged defense at master, only while the dancer is actively performing. To expand on this old idea, I wanted to offer another description for this type of enhancement. While a Dancer is both in a group and performing, they may target a group member and /setperform on them, this could grant a very short term buff of sorts, that could simply ehance the characters luck, persuasion, general accuracy, general speed, defense. With this new conceptual short term buff, it would of course have to be balanced properly, we couldn't have it so powerful that dancers were always wanted in every group (this would be stupid), but what we could do is lend a place to a well formed top tier group if the focus of the group was such that it needed a top quality Dancer. I would only want this to be a small subset of the formed groups, perhaps a group of Smugglers would benefit from having a Dancer head through a busy starport with them, but we of course wouldn't want a Dancer to be viable in a group of front line Melee Fighters, unless this specific Dancer was well suited to roll with the bawler type. I don't want to drag on with these examples here, I would be happy to lay out a properly thought out proposal if anyone would take it seriously, although I don't want to go into some properly thought out design at the outset of my call for Dancer advancement here.
3.) Skill Re-development
We should have many of the skills we have today, as well as many more. We should of course have a prop crafting skill, that is unless you would like to give prop making to the artisians now, I wouldn't mind. We should also have an enhancement skill, this should be the skill to advance if you want to apply buffs more quickly and potently. There should of course remain the certs for the dances and the props, this only makes sense as we are today. We could have a general dancing ability, this could have to do with falling down on dances, halting dances on a dime, and general dancing ability, this ought to come with the certs for dancing, as it seems it could. There could then be the moves, such as /smoke, /spotlight, etc., I agree that these are neat, quite nice, quite nice, so lets have these certs too, although I wouldn't mind having more certs to correspond with the different versions of the same move that are doable. This could then free up focus to move on some new skills for the Dancer. Lets have some good ideas, although I mention a couple of possible new directions for Dancer above, these could be anything under the sun.
4.) Allow us to maintain and use concurrently our buffs while we perform, simple.
Oh, and some consistancy here with musicians would be nice as well, not that I don't want to dance inspired, I do, but both professions here should be fixed (just wanted to be clear I don't want Dancers to be like Musicians are atm, heh).
5.) Allow Dancers to have the full ability of enhancement when in a Theatre, Cantina, Active Guild Hall, and High Tech Field Base Camps.
Performing to enhance in any other venue should be limited to a degree.
Message Edited by Panthu on 08-27-2005 04:35 PM
Kindly,
1.) Unique profession specific buffs:
Frankly, this could really set the Dancer as a key member of the whole revolving Star Wars Galaxies universe. Let us grant a variety of powerful long lasting (3.6 hours is very nice) buffs that are unique to dancers, perhaps musicians can have their own, let them come up with those of course. I do think there may be merit to the whole profession specific nature of these buffs, perhaps you would have to be a master marksman to be granted a certain buff, this will have to be thought out properly.
2.) Some type of grantable bonus to group mates.
Something along the lines of a +10 melee defense/+10 ranged defense at master, only while the dancer is actively performing. To expand on this old idea, I wanted to offer another description for this type of enhancement. While a Dancer is both in a group and performing, they may target a group member and /setperform on them, this could grant a very short term buff of sorts, that could simply ehance the characters luck, persuasion, general accuracy, general speed, defense. With this new conceptual short term buff, it would of course have to be balanced properly, we couldn't have it so powerful that dancers were always wanted in every group (this would be stupid), but what we could do is lend a place to a well formed top tier group if the focus of the group was such that it needed a top quality Dancer. I would only want this to be a small subset of the formed groups, perhaps a group of Smugglers would benefit from having a Dancer head through a busy starport with them, but we of course wouldn't want a Dancer to be viable in a group of front line Melee Fighters, unless this specific Dancer was well suited to roll with the bawler type. I don't want to drag on with these examples here, I would be happy to lay out a properly thought out proposal if anyone would take it seriously, although I don't want to go into some properly thought out design at the outset of my call for Dancer advancement here.
3.) Skill Re-development
We should have many of the skills we have today, as well as many more. We should of course have a prop crafting skill, that is unless you would like to give prop making to the artisians now, I wouldn't mind. We should also have an enhancement skill, this should be the skill to advance if you want to apply buffs more quickly and potently. There should of course remain the certs for the dances and the props, this only makes sense as we are today. We could have a general dancing ability, this could have to do with falling down on dances, halting dances on a dime, and general dancing ability, this ought to come with the certs for dancing, as it seems it could. There could then be the moves, such as /smoke, /spotlight, etc., I agree that these are neat, quite nice, quite nice, so lets have these certs too, although I wouldn't mind having more certs to correspond with the different versions of the same move that are doable. This could then free up focus to move on some new skills for the Dancer. Lets have some good ideas, although I mention a couple of possible new directions for Dancer above, these could be anything under the sun.
4.) Allow us to maintain and use concurrently our buffs while we perform, simple. Oh, and some consistancy here with musicians would be nice as well, not that I don't want to dance inspired, I do, but both professions here should be fixed (just wanted to be clear I don't want Dancers to be like Musicians are atm, heh).
5.) Allow Dancers to have the full ability of enhancement when in a Theatre, Cantina, Active Guild Hall, and High Tech Field Base Camps. Performing to enhance in any other venue should be limited to a degree.
Please add your own suggestions, and save the "Dancers should only be eye-candy" comments for another thread.
Castaspella Perfect
Double Master Dancer, Double Master Image Designer, Ex-Master Musician
Bria
Esharra wrote:
The combatniche often described as "bard-like" would be more suitably assigned to Squad Leaders in SWG than to entertainer professions.
Which is exactly what the Devs have always said, so there is really no reason at all to freak out on other posters in here that share that opinion.
Castaspella, you are ignoring the fact that we did try to get improvements when we were tied to the combat cycle and no matter what we asked for, we were told no. Why were we told no? Because the Devs said it would make us too bardlike - even when we were just asking for improvements to theabilities we already had.
I didn't say these weren't valid desires in my opinion, I said it was unlikely that anything will ever be given to us in this vein unless it is granted through a Spy or Informant themed role.
Even with that, they wouldn't let us mirror SLs (and why would we even want to, poor SLs don't even fit that Bard role well enough on their own - I doubt we'd fare better by simply sharing their frustrations), but they might let us do something just as active that does have some limited combat cross over as Informants.
They haven't said no to that unlike the "bard" thing, so that is the direction you should pursue if these are your desires. It actually might have a chance of happening.
Message Edited by Panthu on 08-28-2005 12:19 PM
Sirgleno wrote:
I have been on this forum a long time, and while I commonly hear that "the devs say no to bardlike abilities", I never hear exactly what these off limit abilities are, or more importantly, I have never seen such a claim by the devs, and I have looked.
Yeah, I didn't buy it until I heard it myself, but unfortunately the Devs tend to say things to a corr in the corr forum over and over again that they will not just come out and say in the public forums. I don't know why. Corrs are expected to pass on what they are told though, so I try to pass on what I was told back in my active days. Just like RM did before me, Deila did after me, and Eshie does for us now.
I know you have been here forever, but for some reason I think you must have been on a break from the time I started posting and all through my corr term. So, here's some background on me and the bard debate -
My first full on pitch for combat additions. Notice C, nvoigt, and La - all Dancers I came to respect a lot and adore - trying to straighten me out.
Me saying "what would it hurt?"... which was pretty much my mantra up until becoming corr when I had to start speaking for everyone in here and not just myself.
After being blue for a while and hearing how the Devs see us from the horse's mouth, I panic a bit about the upcoming CU changes which I am worried will leave us with even less of a role. I ask the Dancers for the first (and last I think)time as a corr if they would consider pushing for the bard option. I dug up an old post of Holo's saying it might be allowed, though honestly I knew that it would be a hard sell Devside.
The result of this thread was me pulling out the universal BF, crafter support, and field band aid ideas which were passed up to the Devs from TH. TH and other Red Tags read the thread - in the end the crafter supportidea got the most support I guess, because that was the one they didn't flat out say no to and that's basically what we have now on TC.
It's not that I didn't ask for all three to be considered, that's just the one that fit in best with their vision of us it seems. If you'll just look at where we are now and compare it to that thread, I think it's pretty clear what the Devs' think of Entertainers and what acceptable roles are for us: Buffer - Yes, Healer - No, Direct Combat Role - No, Some combat inclusion not directly through Dance - Eh, Maybe (more on this one in a sec)
Further proof that this was a personal concern for me and I talked about it a lot in the corr forum - Randon's infamous CU Diagram jokingly patterned after the first one the Devs showed us (which did not have Ents in the Healer spot, which I had known was going to be the case for many months, but still pitched a T-total fit when I saw it - I fought for that Healer title kids, they just weren't budging). Anyway, the area for SLs was replaced with "Squad Leader will now be combined with Dancer - Should shut Panthu up!" or something like that. I mean, I was so well known for talking about Dancer vs SL and Dancer vs Doc it was crazy! *cough* Anyway...
My feelings don't really matter other than to prove to you that I am not what I call a Bardophobe. I did pitch every single angle for getting us improvements, but we were seeming locked in some weird limbo in between Bard and Healer but not allowed to improve at all in either direction. The combat thing just wasn't working out for us.
Here's a quote from a fairly recent interview if you want it straight from the source... I think it says a ton.
So, to repeat: Bards - No, Healer - No, Informant? Spy? Seductress? - Eh, maybe.
Here's a pitch Scip and I put together... who knows if it will ever be used, but it was submitted. They didn't say no. I never saw any Dev say no to this particular angle ever.
Also, here's a Dev talking about something very much like this. Again, who knows if it will happen, but I'd say it has a much much much better chance than Bard or Healer even for that matter ever did. So if you want something like this, you should work it in this way. Cause the Bard thing doesn't seem to have a chance in Hades.
I apologize for the "me me me" effect with talking about myself so much and linking to all my posts, but I want you to know that I am not anti-bard, I once thought it was a decent angle too. People are not comfortable with that fiction though, more importantly, the Devs aren't comfortable with that fiction - this Spy thing might have a chance though. *shrug* I say go with what works. I'll be pleased even if they gave us a Flower Picking mini game though I'm so hungry for Dancer activities, heh.
Sirgleno wrote:
I have been on this forum a long time, and while I commonly hear that "the devs say no to bardlike abilities", I never hear exactly what these off limit abilities are, or more importantly, I have never seen such a claim by the devs, and I have looked.
I "grew up" with a slightly different perspective on the Dancer as Bard concept in SWG. I played for a long time in a band with NewJedi and when we weren't playing or planning performances we were talking about game design elements for entertainers (game design being a hobby we had in common from pen & papers to MUDs to my stint working for MMOs). Whenever I'd bring up bard-like ideas of bringing us out of the cities and into combat (a role I was accustomed to from other games), he pretty much let me know that it had been discussed and that the devs saw us as support outside of combat with Squad Leaders providing support within combat. He was always quick to point out that the boundary between what could be our turf and what was definitely that of SLs was the line where combat started and ended.
Mega thanks for putting all this together, I've gone through it a little, and so far I must say I find myself agreeing with pretty much everything that you are saying. I will be looking through this a little more and hopefully refining my perspective.
Panthu Said: "I'll be pleased even if they gave us a Flower Picking mini game though I'm so hungry for Dancer activities, heh."
Didn't we just get props?