Entertainer Archive

If you were put in charge and given a clean slate, what kind of missions would you design for entertainers? How would you scale them for skill level between entertainer and the two elite branches? (ID don't really consider themselve to be entertainers.) What pay rate would you implement and how would you discourage macrobots and non-entertainers from exploiting the system for easy money?

Talk amongst yourselves.

You can check some of the responses NewJedi got in his similar thread on the musician board. Most of the responses would probably also apply to dancers.

1) Payout: The mission payout calculation should go something like this:
Reward = Distance *x + (Entertainer skill boxes) * y + Random(-50, 50)
x has to be somewhere in the game, since delivery missions scale by distance, and seems to take shuttle costs into effect. y can be something along the lines of25credits per box in the skills pertinent to the mission type. For musician mission: Musicianship + Entertainer Healing + Musician skills. For Dancers: Dancing + Entertainer Healing + Dancer skills. For Novice entertainers, the skill box countwill be zero, making these missions equivalent to delivery missions, but with the bonus of gaining music/dance xp.

I estimate this would cause the payouts to range from 40-50 for a novice entertainer going to an in-town venue (about thelevel of thelowest delivery I've seen, distance was under 100m) toaround 1kfor an ME/MM in another town on the same planet (about 300 for distance, plus 27 * 25 for skill boxes). Although maybe the skill box multiplier should also scale by distance, otherwise a master could repeatedly take two675 credit missions from a terminal just outside a cantina.

2) Handling AFKers: You're doing these missions for a target audience, right? So why not have requests come in the form of pop-up. You'd get a dialog box saying something along the lines of "Someone in the crowd would really like to see flourishes x, y, and z. Do you wish to comply?" While the box is displayed, your performance continues (including any macro flourishes so a macroed routine isn't disturbed), but Music/dance xp, healing xp, mission completion timer, and (possibly, I'm torn on this) healing of your audience stops completely. Other requests might be "I don't like this song/dance,do xyz", or general audience interaction: "The hot stud/babe in the corner flirts with you. Flirt back?" I'd actually like to see this in general, but definitely occur more often during missions.

3) Faction missions: I haven't joined a faction, but I have done a few dance/music missions for Imperial and Rebel NPCs. Why not add these as tabs to the faction mission terminals? This would make it easier for non-combatant performers to get faction points and contribute tothe GCW without having to grind delivery missions.

4) Newlocations: Currently missions only send you to cantinas or hotels on the planet you're on. How about going to a theater or outpost tavern once in a while? Or off planet (with suitably increased payout to cover ship ticket)? And one to tie into the faction missions: I've seen some pretty big bases spawn out in the wilderness, I'd be a little intrigued if I picked up an especially high-paying mission and the waypoint was out in the middle of nowhere, then when I got there was applauded by some rebel soldiers on the "front lines".

5) Advanced missions: These may be more for the elite performer classes.

• A mission that is a "tour" of 4-8 locations. The mission notes will say how many stops there are, but not where they are (well, maybe planets). As you complete each one the waypoint updates to the next one. The payout would be the sum of the individual venues, plus another 25 or 50%.


• Missions requiring grouping. How about a 6000 credit mission that requires a four person band? Or a 10,000 credit mission, but you have to have two Nalargons, a Chid horn, a bandfill, and a fanfarr?


• Combine both of the above.

Special bonus mission: I know you decided to leave them out, but why not have ID missions? Have you seen some of the fugly NPCs standing around? Let the IDs take missions to go out and beautify!

Merrilin's post reminded me of another advanced mission idea I had a while ago:

Max Rebo is looking for up-and-coming musicians, but they must first pass his musical gauntlet. You start a song, then Max joins in on the same instrument. He starts doing runs of flourishes, which you must then copy. Basically, it'd be like a musical version of Simon, but you have to identify the flourishes solely by their look/sound, and remember which one is which so you can duplicate them. A similar system can be done for dancers. Maybe throw in the occasional stage effect that needs to be included.

Looking back on that, screw missions. That sounds like a decent entertainer quest. Find harder and harder musicians to "duel", and the higher ones may require particular songs/instruments/dances (thus requiring certain level of skill). And at the end, you get galaxy wide fame, a few thousand credits, and a broken datapad.

I agree, sciguy, that mechanic would be a very good quest mechanic that you could build a story around.

Entertainer missions need to be structured like combat missions. A character with higher skill should get higher paying missions. The missions should be more than just running basic dance or strawars1(you should have to perform specific songs/dances with specific flourishes in order to complete them). The type of building you perform in should impact the value of the missions and the planet you perform on should affect the value of the mission.

The most important and needed change though is making the missions pay more for a master than for a novice. A master entertainer + master dance or music should make the most and it should be on par with what other elite masters can make from their missions.

Some thoughts -

Pay scales with the equipped instrument. If no instrument is equipped then it defaults to dance skill.

Destinations for performances need not always be in the "healing" centers. There are all kinds of outdoor stages. Any spot with a microphone is suitable for a mission performance.

Destinations need not be in-city. A POI system that can spawn military bases is one that should be able to spawn a cantina. Travel to these POI cantinas would then present the same risk that other outdoor missions entail.

Crafting missions could require construction and delivery of musical instruments or other entertainment-related items.

Rather than playing for a set amount of time, a mission spawns one or more NPC's at a location that have fatigue and/or wounds that need healing. A master will finish faster than a novice, and the NPC might possibly be able to time the healing and pay a bonus based on how long it took.

The only problem with using equipped instruments, is what do you do about a Master's nalargon (or the Ommni)?

And I think I might've been using delivery missions as too constraining a model, focusing too much on the mission payouts. How about using the distance calculation for the base pay (maybe scaled down a touch from delivery missions), then add money based on difficulty. The difficulty levels available would be based on the performer's skills, and each level of difficulty adds something like 5% to the base "delivery calculated" payout. Each mission has some combination of difficulty modifers in the form of gig specifications, making for more varied missions.

Some difficulty modifier options:

• Wildernesswaypoint: +2 difficulty per kilometer from nearest city. Spawns a rebel/imp base (for faction missions) or non-aggro faction (gungan, scientist, townsfolk).


• Specified song/dance/instrument: +1 for entertainer song/dance/instruments, +3 for ME/Musician/Dancer ones. This would probably be the most common mid-level mission type.


• "Flashy show": Instead of performing for 10 minutes, you have to earn Y music/dance xp within Z minutes. This might require a change to your playing style, especially if your max xp * 6 * Z is close to Y. Or if Y and Z are bothvery large, and you need some food/spice to last long enough. Difficulty bonusalong the lines ofY/(Z*6).


• "Show is starting, but previous band displeased Lord Vader": An offplanet cantinaneeds entertainers, and they need them in 30 minutes. Get to the location too late, and you fail the mission. +4 difficulty. Would also make an interesting combination with a middle-of-nowhere waypoint.


• "Big Band": You have to go to the club in a group of N performers. Difficulty bonus +N, and the payout gets multiplied by N so that the credits per person after the split is comparable. This combined with the timed gig could be exciting. Also combines well with different required instruments and dances.


• "Tour the planets": Play in a series of 3-8 venues, completing each gig updates the mission waypoint to the next. Difficulty bonus +3 per venue. And some care would probably need to be taken so that the payout at the end adequetly covers the travel expenses needed. So if you start on Rori, then go to Naboo, then Correlia, that would pay less than Rori to Corellia to Naboo (since Naboo is the only planet accesible from Rori this requires backtracking). Maybe the initial mission would have the planet/city tour stops listed so you can choose whether the payout is worth it.


• "Club needs business, draw a crowd": This is probably too exploitable, but I thought I'd throw it out there: Bring in X customers to the building. It's probably the best "immersive" reason to hire entertainers, but would either be too hard (outposts on hard planets), too easy (cantina in Theed), or too easy to cheat (bring along X friends with the same mission).

These modifiers can be mixed-and-matched to put together missions of just about any difficulty level.

StarWars2: difficulty 1
Slitherhorn, Flashy show (60 xp in 5 minutes): difficulty 3
2km outisde from Theed: difficulty 4
Poplock, starts in 30 minutes: difficulty 7
3 memberband, a kloo horn, a Trazz, playing Ballad: difficulty 13
5 member band, Lyrical, Exotic, Nalargon,Chid Horn, Waltz, 6 stop tour: difficulty 28

Now remember, all the difficulty levels add on top of the base distance calculation, so a level 0 mission requiring travel across the planet would probably pay more than a level 3 or 4 in a cantina 50 meters away.

Additionally to the prior suggestions I would like to see the following.

Give the entertainer terminals a second choice, with risky mission elements.

For example , you have to dance/play musicnear some NPCs to spy them out. Here it should be a possibility, that you will be detected and then attacked, so you have to run away or to fight.

Other example: You are sended to a location, where a account executive has to find you, to get/ give a message/ item. It could happen that a patrol of the opposite appears to prevent this.

I think here on a comparison to delivery and distroy mission or exporation and hunting missions for teh entertainer professions.

Interessant too would becharacter overlapping missions.

So you have togive the message/ item not a NPC but an other player. Like the spynet people for the bountyhunter, you give the player bountyhunter the information instet of the NPC. Or a smuggler can contact you, or an other player, who has to do a delivery mission.

I suggest this, cause I wish for myself more interaction between the different players and their professions.

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Aniella (Gorath) Dancer

Sorry I stoped to early

My example for the "complex mission terminal":

The dancer gets a mission to wait for a obscure message to bring it later without being detected to an other person.

A smuggler gets the task to find the dancer to hand out the message. Therefore he needs thw help of a bountyhunter, who has to find the dancer first.

After getting the message the dancer hast to find the new account executive, an other player doing a dilivery misson.

I know, I fool around, but I would like it.

Well to start off with I am not a game designer and have no idea what is possible. But it seems to me that to get entertainers into catinas and out and about besides tips that they recieve they should be given a reason for being there besides just leveling and this should correspond with the missions that they receive. Perhaps like a point system for healing specific mind wounds like mind, focus, willpower, and battlefatique. What I am saying is this say if you get alot of people in to the catina who say have tremendous willpower wounds you build up like points for willpower wound healing. So when you do a mission, go to an NPC your reward would be based on the amounts of willpower wound healing points you have recieved. I would also recommend bonus's for such experience in camps to encourage entertainers to go on hunting trips as part of raiding group. As it stands right now, besides the fun of leveling and the comraderie in the catina once people make master there is really no reason to be in a cantina when they can level in any other category and make more money easier. We should give them a reason to be there and to want to heal people.

Agg, Intrepid server.

i think first and foremost... if you have an entertainer who is trying to make some money, you want that person to be in a cantina of some sort... public, or player owned. and you want them in the places where the wounded players are too... not in the hotel that no one ever goes to.

so here's what i say. forget waypoints to a specific stage. forget payouts based strictly on time.

the player takes a mission that has a payout based on their skill mods (dance or music). then you have a multiplier based on either healing xp gained, or how many people watch them (whichever is easier to code). each mission lasts a set amount of time (half hour, or an hour sounds pretty good), and you get paid at the end of the time limit the amount of credits you've racked up from performing.

here's the short version:

skillmod X mission multipler(random)X (healing xp gained OR number of patrons that watched) = payout (time limit 1hr)

here's an example of what your mission details screen would look like:

Happy Hour Dancer Wanted!

Location: Your Favorite Cantina

Time Limit: 1hr (starts as soon as you accept this mission)

Payout: 34c for each satisfied customer

Description: We need dancers, ASAP! Darth's Happy Hour is the busiest time of day, and we need some enticing professional dancers to put our patrons in good spirits! Hurry over and help us keep the regulars happy!

now, we should probably only be able to take one of these missions at a time, it wouldn't make much sense otherwise. i think the time limit would prevent too much abuse from those who are AFK for long periods of time, having a half hour time limit would really cut that down i think.

i don't think this sort of system would really impact tips much at all, either. it might eliminate some of the lower end tips we get from people who feel 'guilted' into compensating us, but i think most people tip based on how entertaining and engaging the performance was.

again, whether we use this sort of template or not, i want to see us get away from waypoint based missions (distance only really serves as a time limit of sorts anyways. having a direct time limit is more in line with this profession than being gated by travel times). i'd also rather like to see a more robust allowance that doesn't gate you based on your stat pools orwhich dances/songs you use, like the current system does. and finally, it needs to have some relevance to actually helping other players in the game. this is THE most social profession group in the game, and our missions should reflect that.

What about a mission where you have to have a set amount of people /watch or /listen to you for a period of time. this would mean you'd have to put on a show, do some advertising etc. Or a set amount per person you entertain? They could even send you to a remote location and tell you that you need to perform for 5 people for 10 min each or whatever. It might take you a little bit but you'd be working your entertaining skills. You could have a big payout for entertaining 20 people at once for 10 minutes straight etc...

I think the "man-hour" (watchers x time) model is an interesting approach to mission duration, if the devs can't simply track the BF healed by the player. The inversion it imposes (slower mission with less people) on playtime bothers me a bit, however, because it more or less steers players away from venturing into the backwater regions where they are a needed rarity. Actually, that in itself may just make the entertainer more available for the sparse clientelle by keeping him there longer. It does carry the benefit of attracting players to a more social style of play which is what the class is supposed to represent.

I love the "Simon" mechanic. It's an old, proven classic for a fun game. This mechanic can even be dragged out into a new model for questing to various locations to pick up bits of a larger macro that will culminate in an entire song/dance (Jabba wants a specific dance sequence from a dancer) resulting in mission completion. Of course, if these larger macros aren't completely random then spoiler sites could easily pop up for them. Good? Bad? Dunno. If this model is used for something like an epic quest then, yes, spoilers would be unfortunate. I do have a question though that may balance out spoilers. I've seen lower skilled dancers fall on the floor doing some moves. Does this indicate that success with /flourishes is skill based? If that's the case, it may present a slight element of challenge for the lower skilled spoiler readers anyway. Maybe the success rate will have to be toughened up a bit. I don't recall ever hearing any bad notes from a musician flourish, unfortunately.

Are there any other ways we can exploit entertainer skills and chance in missions?

As far as image designers, other than a simple restyling of an NPC or even a PC, I can't think of much in the line of quests. The only possible intrigue I can see them involved in that might make for an "interesting" quest is something along the lines of spycraft disguises or witness-protection make-overs. Higher skilled quests could be based on helping to create am NPC doppleganger/decoy to help them along with their own storyline of infiltration or disinformation given a unique NPC target model to emulate. Success would depend on the degree of deviation between the player's subject and the target look, and could be a little more forgiving for the lower difficulty missions.