Dancer Archive

Alright, I promised I'd do some testing but there was no need. I've been putting off posting anything here hoping I could get some more information, hopefully some good news or feedback on the subject but I've kept you waiting long enough so I'll tell you what little I know.

It is true that the dance you do does have some bearing on the rate of healing we do. Supposedly, the healing lines have a lot more to do with this but the dance definately does affect it. They did it this way so people couldn't dancebasic and heal just as well type of thing.

Alright.. I can understand that, but it just brought up a whole other line of arguements about the way action cost goes up and several other things in general. Right now I've gotten him to agree to look into this more and consider reducing the effect dancing has at least but theres no promises yet, nothing may change. I am pushing for a change tho and won't be backing down anytime soon.

Oh yeah, and I may as well mention he's agreed to look at the action costs for the high end dances at least, as well as the fall rate. From the way the conversation is going people are falling more then was intended and action is being used up faster then he intended. (in my opinion at least) We're discussing some ideas to reduce the overall action cost used while dancing as well as critical failure changes (fall rate) but dont' expect anything to happen soon or at all necessarily. (no promises in other words)

Just know that I'm doing my best here to improve things here with both of these and I'm personally fairly confident something good will come of it. If we get some changes to these like I hope we will it definately won't be in this next update and we'll be lucky if its in the next but don't loose hope on these issues, I'm really confident they will improve.

I personally would like an explanation why dancers have to fall and musicians have no similar problem. From what you are saying, it sounds like they consider this "critical failure" some sort of game balancing thing, when in fact it has no effect on gameplay except to make us look idiotic and isn't balanced across the entertainment professions. Can image designers "critically fail" and make comsone's hair turn purple?

At the very least, can they put in a snippet of code that says master dancers no longer have to fall? My god, this seems like such a simple thing and they apparently don't understand the frustration it's causing...all for what? So they can justify the money they spent capturing those animations?

Do I sound bitter yet?

- J

The other odd thing about falling is that you still get the experience as though you had successfully done the flourish. So...I'm not sure what the point is. Does anyone know?

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NotYourAvgEwok wrote:
The other odd thing about falling is that you still get the experience as though you had successfully done the flourish. So...I'm not sure what the point is. Does anyone know?

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My point exactly. It's not any type of a "critical fail" that matters in terms of game mechanics that I can see. It's just a visible thing that seems to serve no purpose other than to make us look foolish. After two months of us complaining about this issue, having it even rise to our top five, this is the best answer we can get from them on this issue?

- J

Don't go an panic about it just yet. I'm very confident things will improve with the fall rate. The fall rate is not working properly for one I can tell you that. I'm sure once our dev can verify this something will be done about it. It may take a while tho.

As for the whole critical failure thing and its purpose? This is considered to be a critical fail, its only purpose that i can see is to try and make things more realistic. The problem is people are falling too much and making it less realistic instead. Also theres no opposite effect of the critical fail.. no amazing success so to speak to offset the falls. I can tell you all of these things are being discussed right now and hopefully everything we want will come of it. I'll update you all some more when I have more information I can share.

Also so you know I did bring up the fact that musicians don't suffer from this critical failure thing as well and thats also being discussed.

Just remember, changes to these systems are most likely a good ways away. I can't give you any guess because the devs get grumpy about that. I wish I could tell you more but technically I probably shouldn't of mentioned any of this yet at this point to be honest. However I think you people have been very patient and deserved to at least know whats being discussed right now. So please hang in there and be patient a while longer, I'm very confident we'll see some improvements.

"Just remember, changes to these systems are most likely a good ways away. I can't give you any guess because the devs get grumpy about that."

Yeah, I get kindagrumpy about the fact that I'm paying a monthly feetoplaytest what appears to bea pre-beta product. I wonderhow muchthe developers care about that? If this game had beentested properly and well-balancedprior to release we wouldn't need to be pushing them to give us deadlines for making the dancer profession work. Now the decisions of a few money-hungrysuits in marketing may not be the developers' fault, but all I care about is that my money is being spent monthlyon a product that is unfinished, andthere seems to beno end in sight.

If the developers are grumpy about being questioned regarding when the game will finallywork, maybe they should focus that grumpyness on the people whose fault it is, rather than focusing it on the victims of their company's apparentgreed and theshoddy quality assurance that results from unrealistic releasedeadlines being enforced.

In my opinion, they should have held back this product for a Christmas '03 release. The time spent fixing a product after release is NEVER as effective as spending the time to fix thingsbefore release.

BRILLIANT IDEA TIME:

Add a "Dancing Finesse" skill to the Techniques line that reduces fall frequency and makes HAM usage more efficient! And make the shininess flourishes come out of health/mind or all three pools at once (at a lower cost to each)?

"to use the argument that "dancers are falling too much" and calling it a "critical failure" as though it IS a game mechanic when it serves no purpose and none of the other entertainer professions are saddled with someone so undesirable makes it sound as though they are searching for an excuse to keep something in the game that should never have been there in the first place."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Even at low levels of skill, real world dancers simply don't fall very often AT ALL. This should not even be in the game at the lowest levels. But if it MUST be in at all, it should not affect anyone who is above Dancing level 4 in the Entertainer skill tree. To have what the game callsa 'choreographer' fall every few minutes is completely ridiculous.

Thanks for the update Raven.

make sure our voices are heard, raven

a couple quick comments i've got:

- what is the purpose of falling anyways? what does it add to the game? what does it add to the immersion? as a profession, we're one of the least respected, yet at the same time vital groups. i guess i can see a novice entertainer falling once in a while, but i really question how this helps us, or the game.

- argh, missions. for me, this isn't really just about missions though, its about ham costs/benefits too. i've been doing some combat lately, and have sacrified some action pool, and put my stamina down to minimum so i could boost my health pool, and max my mind stats (which works out well with medical skills to heal health + mind pool). anyways, i can't even DO a mission anymore without chugging a sunburn, which costs me about 250c per drink, from a good friend. the mission payout? 123c. not to mention i had to use basic1, still. i'm sure i'm not the first person to rant about this, but its really, REALLY ludicrous that a master dancer has to use a buff that costs twice as much as the payout, AND use her lowest dance to complete a mission. throw me a frickin bone here.

- why have looping macros not been fixed yet? this affects us more than any other profession.

- i WANT to hang out with other people, and socialize with them, whether it be in my own house, a cantina, someone elses house, etc. i DON'T want to have to run missions as an entertainer that takes away that time, but i have no other source of income being a dancer. musicians are pretty much in the same boat... they can at least make instruments.... but every musician i know makes their own instruments most of the time. can we get some commodity we can sell, or something... that players will actually value? a lot of people tip 100, 200 credits, but for a casual player like me, i'd have to spend ALL my time in the cantina, just to earn enough tips to pay the maintenance on my house for the week. we need something else that people value.

sorry this was so long... catching up on a lot of ranting, here

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Haerb wrote:

Add a "Dancing Finesse" skill to the Techniques line that reduces fall frequency and makes HAM usage more efficient!

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We already have that skill. It's called "Master Dancer".

As a Master Dancer, I have perfected my craft. I cannot improve more than I have. I am at the pinnacle of my profession and yet I fall on my butt just as much as the novice on stage next to me. I also burn up action just as fast - faster, actually, since myflourishes and special effects burn more action. If I don't have a doc buffing me while I dance, I couldn't last through the first movement of Swan Lake.

Ravenmist, thank you for the update. It's very gracious of you to try to keep us in the loop, and it is appreciated. Please express to them that we do NOT want musicians nerfed with critical failures - we'd rather just have critical failures removed for Master Dancers altogether

I want to make it clear that pointing out that musicians and image designers do not have a similar "critical failure" in their professions was not any sort of attempt or desire to have one introduced. I pointed it out as an example of how falling looks to us to be a sad joke placed upon our shoulders by a designer with a sick sense of humor rather than an actual game mechanic. So to use the argument that "dancers are falling too much" and calling it a "critical failure" as though it IS a game mechanic when it serves no purpose and none of the other entertainer professions are saddled with someone so undesirable makes it sound as though they are searching for an excuse to keep something in the game that should never have been there in the first place.

I'll be very interested in hearing what they intend to do to balance this out with a "critical success". However, given that those successes are not in the game currently and probably won't be for months, I would like to propose that they remove "critical failures" for dancers until those balancing successes are introduced, or at least severely tone down the frequency.

Perhaps the devs should go check out a few master dancers trying very hard to perform a routine for an audience at a party or other performance and see exactly how stupid it is that with a group of 4 dancers doing an advanced dance, on every flourish, there is a high probability one of them will fall, thus ruining the entire effect.

In short, I find their response completely unacceptable on this issue, especially on a change that should be so minor.

if (master dancer)
ChanceOfFalling = 0;

- J

"- why have looping macros not been fixed yet? this affects us more than any other profession."

What is there to be fixed about looping macros? If you're saying we should get rid of them, I think you're wrong. There's nothing wrong with a looping macro. I use them all the time. What's wrong is using them while you're away from the keyboard. Looping macros are a way to take the drudgery out of entertaining so that we can concentrate on other game stuff. What needs to be addressed is the AFK problem. Looping macros aren'tthe part of that problem that needs fixing.