Dancer Archive

--If they are active, what is the extent of our activity?

We have to group with patrons or /setperform on them, ensure that the required number of flourishes are performed, time the buff, and tell the patron when to stop watching. Most importantly, we have to instruct patrons who may be unfamiliar with the process in all of the above.

--If they are passive, then why are we so worried about techniques to give buffs on these boards?

They are not passive. See above.

--If they are a combination of both, then who should take responsibility if the buff goes bad?

In my experience, a buff goes bad for one of three reasons: I forget to setperform, the patron forgets to watch, or a bug. In the first case, it's my responsibility; in the second, the patron's responsibility; and the third, nobody's fault except SOE. In all cases I offer to re-do it at no additional charge.

--If its a shared effort to give and receive a buff, then why should the dancer get tipped for doing something that they cannot do without the other?

It's not really a shared effort. The dancer gets tipped for making the effort to give the buff, for being available to give the buff, and in some respects, for investing the skillpoints necessary to become a master dancer and give the best mind buff available. I mean, if anyone could give mind buffs, regardless of skill, I don't think anyone would get tipped for it.

--Should a patron have to pay for a "wonked buff" when its his or herfault it got wonked to make up for the wasted time of the dancer?

Really the only way they can "wonk" a buff is if they don't follow instructions. ("Watch me, don't listen to a musician at the same time," etc.) If this happens, I offer to give the buff again. If the patron doesn't want to wait, I offer to give their tip back. In terms of fairness, I don't have to do this. In terms of customer service/relations, I think it's a good idea.

--Should a dancer have to tip the tip back if the buff gets wonked--even if its not his or her fault it got wonked--or EVEN pay the patron damages for wasted time?

See above.

--How are we to tell who wonked what?

I'm not going to go into detail here, but there are certainly indicators one can look for to tell where the buff process broke down, and they're fairly obvious.

--And even if it is the patron's fault it got wonked, what real recourse do we have if they say, "dancer so and so is a lousy buffer?"

I really don't see this as a risk.

--Are we somehow culpapble if we /setperform or /invite someone and buff them in a manner not to their liking? Can and should they seek damages for a procedure that cannot be removed once given?

What's not to like? The patron either gets the buff or they don't. If they don't get it, I try again (see notes above). Honestly, there's no real quality attribute to a buff. Two master dancers give exactly the same power mind buff, unless one of them has mind enhancement tapes/clothing; and they give the same duration mind buff, unless one of them doesn't do enough flourishes. The only real difference is in the process itself, one dancer might not drink accarragm or have buffs and therefore takes 8 minutes to do it, whereas it takes me 4 minutes. Or one dancer may chat a lot with the patron, while another does not. Just a matter of personal preference really.

So what's the point of all this?

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PoetDancer wrote:

--If they are active, what is the extent of our activity?

They are 95% active. The only way someone can get a buff from me without my control is if I'm not the leader of the group I'm in, and someone gets invited and starts listening to me to get a 'stealth buff,' and I'm not paying enough attention to notice it. Other than that, I control the process for someone who wants to get buffed.

--If they are passive, then why are we so worried about techniques to give buffs on these boards?

They are not passive, but we're worried about the techniques because no one likes for a buff to fail, and most everyone likes to be most efficient at their job.

--If they are a combination of both, then who should take responsibility if the buff goes bad?

SOE, plain and simple. Every time I'm buffing and it fails, I explain to the customer that the buffing system is buggy, and that the entertainer community has been trying to get it fixed for some time. "Feel free to file a bug report for your experience today," is not uncommon for me to say when this happens.

--If its a shared effort to give and receive a buff, then why should the dancer get tipped for doing something that they cannot do without the other?

It's not a shared effort any more than purchasing an item is a shared effort between the seller making the item, setting a price, and placing it in a position to be bought, and the buyer travelling to the place to buy the item, and handing over the money for it (as well as actually taking the item I guess). All the customer has to do is watch or listen, and ask for/pay for a buff. That's not exactly effort. (And the effort that *is* involved in unequipping weapons, not meditating, not listening/watching to anyone else, is not effor inherent in the designed system, but a result of bugs, and should be fixed by SOE).

--Should a patron have to pay for a "wonked buff" when its his or her fault it got wonked to make up for the wasted time of the dancer?

This is a case where there's not really a 'should' about it, since it's neither the dancer's nor the customer's fault (aside from perhaps the case where the customer isn't even watching the dancer, in which case, I could argue for compensation being due for the dancer's time). It's like asking whose account gets debited when a tornado hits a bank vault. It's not the bank's fault or the bank customer's fault that a tornado blew the money away, so neither should have to lose money.

--Should a dancer have to tip the tip back if the buff gets wonked--even if its not his or her fault it got wonked--or EVEN pay the patron damages for wasted time?

If it's a non-bug wonk (the customer isn't watching), then no, the dancer should not have to tip back or pay the customer for damages. I can see where one would do it as a policy for good customer relations. (I don't consider forgetting to /setperform or /invite a wonk, as that's just a failure to even begin a buff. In this case, services were paid for and not rendered, and money should be returned).

--How are we to tell who wonked what?

Depends on what's going on, but without being able to see both computers, can't in all cases since it's just one person's word against the other's.

--And even if it is the patron's fault it got wonked, what real recourse do we have if they say, "dancer so and so is a lousy buffer?"

The only recourse would be friends and reputation, and those can be powerful recourses.

--Are we somehow culpapble if we /setperform or /invite someone and buff them in a manner not to their liking? Can and should they seek damages for a procedure that cannot be removed once given?

If we know our procedures well such that they should always result in full buffs (and it's not hard to develop these procedures), then the only way for this to happen would be that the customer did not follow directions in terms of when to watch and stop watching. From a real-life analogy perspective, if I'm, say, singing a song, and I tell the person listening that if they listen to my whole song, they'll hear a secret message of some sort, and they put on their headphones at some point and don't listen to the beginning of my song or the end of my song, I'm not going to feel bad about them not getting the secret message. In fact, I myself might be offended that I'm putting on this show for them and they've got headphones on listening to someone else.

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Message Edited by PoetDancer on 09-05-2004 07:49 PM

Message Edited by PoetDancer on 09-05-2004 02:57 AM

Message Edited by PoetDancer on 09-05-2004 07:52 PM

I agree with Drygo in that we should cut away the semantics from this and just discuss/debate the buff system, how it exists now and how we might like it to exist later, rather then posing it in the form of a question of poll. I'll answer some of the points below.

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PoetDancer wrote:

Say two players walk in the cantina: player A and player B. They both have Battle Fatiuge. Both /watch you. You /setperform on player A. You flourish once every two seconds, and both players /stopwatching after 4 minutes. Now, both player A and player B see the same visuals, see the same spatial chat, and get the same effort from the dancer in terms of energy expenditure. Yet both get diffrent results at the end of their /watch. Why? The ONLY reason for this difference in result is that the dancer did a "/" command on one and not the other.

Now does this make sense in terms of realism? I don't think it does. Now you can argue that this is the way it has to be for the game and the professions to work, but I wonder what utility there is in all of it? Why does one get the full effects simply because we do a command, while the other does not get the full effect for /watching the same number of flourishes for the same amount of time?

I'll answer this in terms of gameplay, and in terms of roleplay (or realism).
First, in terms of roleplay, there are a lot of aspects of the game that do not appear in the game, through lack of animation and such, but that happen nonetheless. You never see a character physically take a drink or eat anything, for example. The /setperformance command does have accompanying text, saying "You direct your performance at %TT" (where %TT is supposed to be the name of the character you're directing your performance toward). Now, your character doesn't appear to do anything different when you /setperformance, but from the text you can imagine something like a musician pulling a screaming fan onstage, or a dancer leaning toward and winking at someone watching him/her. The fan being pulled onstage is going to get more of a rush than the fan who was standing next to him/her and didn't get selected to go onstage. Similarly, player A gets special attention and more of an effect than player B. That's the argument in terms of realism.
In terms of gameplay, you could also argue that a novice entertainer dancing basic is doing just a good a job as a master dancer dancing exotic. In fact, there may be players who prefer the visuals from basic to the visuals from exotic. Yet after you've danced for enough people in the game, you somehow magically know how to heal them better. This just adds levelling and progression to the profession, and without it, there's not as much to strive for in terms of achievement in the game. So, similarly, there's some game mechanic for how the buffing system works simply so that there's something to it.

Say 21 people come into the cantina. Which one is going to have to wait? Why should they have to wait at all to get what we give? After all, we expend the same energy. The effort that goes in to making healing shorter is the same effort that goes into making buffing shorter. The only difference between the two is that we can heal an unlimited number of patrons at one time, while we can only authorize up to twenty players at one time using our authorization systems.

I think the group aspect of buffing has more of a gameplay argument than a realism argument. I think the /setperformance text works well in terms of roleplay/realism, but less so the group buff. Perhaps the roleplay argument is you select a group to perform some sort of semi-private dance for. That's why I personally would prefer something that makes the buffing process one-on-one rather than the entire group. Anyways, the '20' limit is basically because the devs decided the way to get more than one person buffed would be to use the group mechanic, and thus the max size is the limiting factor. Similarly, only 10 people from a group can go to the corvette (or so I've read).. why not 11? It's just the way they decided to do things, and I don't think there's much of a realism argument for it.

That is why I don't think that buffing is some sort of active art exclusive from healing. It is only as active as healing is active. There really is only one thing different between the two. The authorization in the form of a /setperform or an /invite; a system that we never had at launch, and came as a result of this thread well after launch:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=392005

You see, it is very, very easy to see buffing as something active on our part. That is how it was presented to us by our fellow player testers. But think about this. Has any Developer of the buffing system come forth and proclaim buffing as active? Or are they under the assumption that buffing is simply the same procedure as healing, with an authorized protocol attached?

I don't think any developer of the buffing system's made such a claim, because I don't think any developer has really made any statement to the entertainer community. That's neither here nor there. Really, my response to this paragraph has to do with not fixating on the past and how things used to be (you've made vague references to the professions as they were before, when you started playing). The past experience can be a good reference point to try and make points about future development, but it won't do any good to just yearn for things as they were, because as a MMORPG, the game is subject to change drastically at any time.

/Setperforming on a player or /grouping a player does not take us out of the game. This makes us different than doctors, who cannot use their medical skills for a short time while they tend to a particular player. Even when we are buffing, we can still are heal players. We can still amuse players. We still influence the cantina environment even if we are buffing at the same time.

So why do you two think that buffing is some special process that is different than the other things we are doing at the same time?

Once again, in terms of directing your performance at someone, just because the musician pulls a fan onstage, doesn't mean that the rest of the audience isn't going to still enjoy the show. But as I stated, the rest of the audience won't get the same high as the fan onstage. Similarly, you can watch a dancer from afar and enjoy the performance (in fact, you can enjoy the performance without the dancer even being aware of you), but if the dancer is tailoring the dance moves specifically to please you, you'll get more of a high than the person watching from the opposite side of the room. This is the main reason I think of buffing as a special process.

Message Edited by PoetDancer on 09-05-2004 01:40 PM

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I am confused. Nothing new. IF you are saying that dancers should have full control of the buffs and be able to apply them the same way that doctor buffs are performed - without the customer needing to do anything then I totally agree. One thing customers hate is how stressful the current buff process is. Make it dummy proof from their end and I think they will be happy.

As an image designer I always educate my customer on how to properly migrate their stats. It is frustrating when it goes wrong. Right now dancer/music buffs seem like they are someplace between stat migration and doc buffs. They should be completely like Doc buffs. That way the entertainer can concentrate on their best/favorite technique and the customer just has to enjoy.

If you are saying ALL ent healing should be like this - actively applied like wound packs, then I don't think I agree. I like the current system because you don't have to worry about missing anyone in a busy cantina. However, if enough people want it like that then I would learn to adapt. It wouldn't be too much to do an /applyhealing or something. And in a customer starved cantina they would sure be healed fast! Couldn't be done afk either.

I hope I didn't totally misunderstand your point Poetdancer. I'm still a little hazy on technique myself. Whichever way is best, I think most people will just continue to use whatever their preferred method is in whatever system is available. I am constantly amazed at the intricate lengths some people go to perfect their buffing technique. Its awesome! I hope someday I am half that good! If the customer action side is taken away then the buffers can be assured that all that effort is not wasted. A lot less frustration on all sides.

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PoetDancer wrote:

But we have controls right now. REAL controls. The most obvious one is to go to a cantina which will tip us better. The other control is /deny. And the good thing about either of these methods is that it prevents those who we see "ninja watching" from getting anything from us, be it buffs, BF healing, or wound healing.

And when you consider that we do have these controls available to us, we may even be able to say that BF healing is active too. Because they have to be in a position where we see them in order to /watch us, and it is only because we don't /deny them that they are able to get their BF down.

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Certain controls such as /denyservice or moving to another Cantina is useless because of the fact that should I decide to use either one of those controls there are countless other options that anybody can use to get free healing or buffing. There's no point in me using /denyservice, in fact I never have because whoever is the brunt of my /deny can turn their virtual heads about 3 centimeters and watch somebody else.

What we need are controls that require at the keyboard play. Anything short of that is simply cutting off your nose to spite the face. Surely, anyone who has annoyed me to the point of ever warranting a /denyservice could honestly care less if I /deny service. They *might* care if I was the only way they could get healing or a buff. Or at the very least if they needed someone to be at the keyboard to provide those services for them. Until that time happens, it's merely an attempt in futility to try to use the "controls" that we have as leverage for services rendered and paid.