Dancer Archive
Thread: Protest the 2 minute delay on (addition to) buffs!
Message Edited by Groovymarlin on 04-25-2004 11:16 AM
Groovymarlin wrote:
A forced 15 second pause between stopdance and startdance (or stopmusic/startmusic, if you're a musician) is in the patch and would eliminate the 30 second buff exploit. This makes a two minute delay before buffs can begin to work an unnecessary burden on entertainers. Please let the devs know how we feel about this!
Post your comments to this thread in the In Test forum:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=in_testing&message.id=10214&page=1
Its a burden I can bear, La'lepa, if its going to solve the problem of "flourish packing." The key is to make the patron feel as if the two minutes is two seconds, rather than two hours constantly looking at their watch. Seeing as how three months ago I used to make ten minutes seem like two, two minutes is hardly asking much of an entertainer. It puts the emphasis back on where it should be: filling in the time by doing entertaining things, rather than figuring out how many flourishes one may pack in the shortest time.
I agree Sirii
There are some customers that come in to get a buff from me. They ask how long it will take, I tell them, they don't sound too impressed but say what the hell.
If I do my job right, ie ENTERTAIN them, then when I tell them the buff is done they are like, "Wow, already?!?". Sometimes they even stick around to talk to me further.
We are not primarily buffers. We are entertainers. Buffing is just a bonus.
Now, that being said, I have to at least say that the Devs need to decide how they want to fix the 30 second exploit. Either they add the 2 min non-buff or they give us the 15 second delay between /stopd and /startd. Why both?!?
And have we heard if the 2 min delay at the beginning of our buff is included in the buff time, or in ADDITION to our buff time? I haven't heard confirmation one way or the other...
We havent heard from the devs...but all testers currently have surmised that the 2 minutes is added on to the buff time. The buff cannot even start being applied until the patron has watched for 2 minutes..so now what used to take roughly 8 minutes is going to take 10. IT may not seem like a big deal, but coming from my point of view its a big deal. I am both a dancer and a musician...and adding 4 to 5 minutes on top of the 16 it takes to do BOTH buffs, this borders on outrageous
Ceta
Master dancer / Musician
Bloodfin
If that's true, then it's completely unacceptable to me as well. We don't need more time added to our buffs. I may not agree about the time being shortened, but I certainly don't agree with it being lengthened.
Devs! Don't do this!!
Any time sink is a burden on the majority. While the minority may enjoy your performance the majority finds it a waste of time at best and an intolerable burden at worst. Adding time to anything an entertainer does is going to decrease the amount of players interested in our buffs and increase the amount of players that go AFK while /watching.
PoetDancer wrote:
Its a burden I can bear, La'lepa, if its going to solve the problem of "flourish packing." The key is to make the patron feel as if the two minutes is two seconds, rather than two hours constantly looking at their watch. Seeing as how three months ago I used to make ten minutes seem like two, two minutes is hardly asking much of an entertainer. It puts the emphasis back on where it should be: filling in the time by doing entertaining things, rather than figuring out how many flourishes one may pack in the shortest time.
That is correct, they have changed mind buffing so that the buff doesn't even start until you've been dancing for two minutes.
Not only has this NOT fixed our problem... it's actually made it worse, because now even MORE people are going to be using the quickie buffing method so they don't have to keep their client so long. Come ON, devs, where are your brains? This is not the answer.
The only thing this change will do is decrease the number of times I call on an entertainer for a buff, and increase the amount of food/drink I buy from chefs.
This is a great change... just not for the entertainers.
Agreed. If the two minute minimum allows us to be buffing for two complete minutes, then yes, its a change worth having. But to say my first two minutes is less important than my last two is kind of upsetting.
I find it hard to complain about this but perhaps it's because of how I've played it before. I have this problem when I go shopping IRL. If something is 1.50 I round UP to 2.00 so that I end up with change left over.
So when I read about buffs they said "8-10 minutes" I just rounded up to 10 minutes. Since buffing came out (and because I had been a master dancer for a long time before that) I have ALWAYS taken 10 minutes to do a buff. Never 8. After a while, if I had a devoted healer or if I had secondaries buffed I did drive it down to 5 minutes, but no more than that.
So. Everyone had to deal with only a 10 minute buff from me, or a 5 if they were lucky. And you know what? No one ever whined or complained to me about it. Frankly when I started doing the 5 and told people they were done they were surprised that it was so fast.
So. Now you've spoiled them with this 30 second one (which I also agree is an exploit) so NOW they will whine about it because they've had it. But I find when people tell me "Hey, do it as fast as you can" and I tell them "Sorry, no one is able to heal me fast enough. I can only do a 10 minute one" they don't seem to mind. And if they did then I would suggest that they find someone else.
I won't be pushed around by my patrons. Sure I cater to the customer but there is a difference in catering and succumbing. 2 minutes won't kill the customer. Heck- if you have a line, then all but the FIRST person has already been watching for 2 minutes by the time you get to them.
It's not the end of the world.
Though yeah, the 2 minute minimum should be that we were buffing for2 minutes. all of our time is as valuable as any other time. Though I wouldn't mind it being that you have to be buffing for 5 minutes- but that's just my comfortable rut. It gives us a chance to talk to people instead of the typical "Hi. Want a buff? Get in line." "Your turn" "You are done, bye!" thing that makes me think of "Wham bam thank you for the buff ma'am" but maybe I'm the only one who feels that way.
This is unacceptable. I have never done a 30 second buff. If this goes in to effect I will stop doing buffs and may just drop Dancer and Entertainer all together. We have been abused, lied to and neglected this is the final straw.