Entertainer Archive

Yesterday's discussion thread was quite interesting. Lots of good ideas there.

Today, before getting to the topic, a brief summary of what's been going on behind the scenes. Right now, a lot of work is being made in responses to the top 5 issues of each profession, as well as working towards resolution of the issues. Obvioudly for many issues, resolution is not weeks or even months away, but more long term.

How many people remember the top 5 entertainer issues? I certainly didn't. So I looked it up, and it was as I was expecting. I'll go over them briefly just as a reminder.

1. Falling Down
   

   Definately something very annoying to dancers. I know, it hits me all the time. Ravenmist knows too, and it is in the Dancer top 5 issues. Once Ravenmist is done stewing Thunderheart, there will be a response.

   
   
2. More music, dances, and instruments
   

   We'd all love more veriety. NewJedi has a response for musicians. Dancers apparently had some more pressing issues.

   
   
3. Better missions
   

   I don't know of anybody who even bothers to do more than a few of these. Even getting one for the cantina you are standing next to is not worth the effort of clicking refresh for the meager pay. Both the dancer and musician top 5 lists include this as well.

   
   
4. Master entertainer needs something ...
   

   This is a debate as old as any - what master entertainers should have. Musicians don't like how it is now because they are forced to master entertainer if they want all the music and instruments. Dancers don't get much of anything if they master entertainer. Image Designers would rather be left out of things, because they don't want their profession crippled like musicians. It is my feeling that the answer to this is closely related to the question of what entertainers are.

   
   
5. Dealing with AFK
   

   The other debate as old as any. This was also touched on by the musician top 5, so I won't go into any detail.

All important things, however only one of these issues has no coverage - the master entertainer question. And I'm not sure we even know what sort of answer we want. Since the issues are the same as dancer and musician issues, the responses are the same. For that reason, I don't plan on pressing forward on posting responses at this point. Of course, things could change, but that's my plan at the moment. The master entertainer issue is really the only outstanding issue left.

Now, moving on. Since our top 5 list currently consists of a combination of the musician list and dancer lists, I won't be focusing on those issues so much here. That does not mean I'm ignoring them - I'll just be lending my support to NewJedi and Ravenmist in pressing for a favorable response. These discussions are helping me get a pulse on the community as it is now, so when I get an ear, I'll be ready to represent what we really want.

So, moving on to today's discussion. The result of yesterdays discussion seems to be that entertainers need more content. Specifically, more interactive/active content perhaps enforcing groups that work together, as well as content that can be persued by a solo entertainer. Entertainers would also like to be able to stand out in a crowd, to have a reason to go back to them instead of just finding the nearest cantina and watching a random entertainer.

Today, lets brainstorm what would make entertainers more interesting. This will be a little bit more focused than the first discussion thread, but still try to keep focused on the big picture of entertainers, not focusing on musician, dancer or image design. Possible ideas might be the street performances, methods of advertising performances, fame/fans. Perhaps something to satisfy the achievers, or part time achievers.

So what do you think would make entertainers more interesting? Again, I'd like to hear from the usual people as much as those who are here just to get master and don't enjoy the profession.

For some reason...this just hit me. I find myself as a long time master musician, almost master entertainer (lacking apprentice xp) and still working onDancer - As I start my day of entertainment, the first thing I think of is my character. Now, if anyone knows Otiz Bluesweaver on Tempest, then you know what I'm talking about. I like to roleplay alot of the time. Otiz is a laid back Rodian, old style jazz player. He likes the Nalagron and also wanders around alot. So what do I do? I don't stay in the same cantina for too long. Once a few people are healed up, or there's a lull in the action, I'm on my swoop and speeding to the next Player Cantina or NPC Cantina. If no one's there or the scene is real bad <coughANCHORHEADGRINDCAPITALOFTATcough> I'll just keep going. There are days when I make it completely around to every cantina on the planet two or three times. It just keeps the mood interesting. Anyways...so it hit me.

One method of eliminating AFKers, as well as keeping entertainment interesting is to somehow limit the amount of playing / healing / entertaining you can do in a PARTICULAR cantina at one time. For instance, lets say I play 2 hours at the Eisly NPC cantina. Well the limiter (insert creative explanation here such as a "Groove Meter" or "presence" or somthing like that) hitting the limiter would force me to either-

a) Go to another cantina untilmy personal"Groove meter" or limiterfor that cantina built back up.

b) Stop entertaining at that particular cantinaand restfor a little while to let the meter / limiter build back up.

c) Initiate some kind of event where I would be forced to initiate clicking somthing to continue. In other words, alot like the survey events in surveying, only you could be forced to expend a small amount of heath, action, mind or whatever to continue playing. I'll elaborate more on this.

Want more ideas? What about a "Cantina level" which fluctuates with things like the average skill level of the entertainers present and performing in the cantina at that time? Cantinas with a higher level would be harder to play in (cost more action to flourish) especially for novices trying to play in the same group with masters. (Novices would have a hard time keeping up with masters, even playing a basic song). Masters playing with Masters would suffer no penalty, and could even get a BONUS when playing. Make it somehow so Master Dancers and MasterMusicians cancombinehealing powers / abilities to generate somthing really spectacular. Possibly implement a technique, healing ability or buff that can ONLY be possible whena MasterMusician grouped withaMaster Dancer "dual flourishes" or somthing like that. But getting back on topic...

Better missions could possibly include "touring" several consecutive cantinas alone or perhaps with a band. The missions would pay more accordingly, and the performances could perhaps get judged by each cantina. A better score would lead to better pay. Bigger, better, hardermissions would come through a higher "fame rating". Fame could be built by successfully completing missions with good reviews. That's right, so eventually a musician or dancer could possibly reach "rock star" status, earning alot of money for their talents. No I'm not saying they should be paid millions or become some credit farm, but in the REAL WORLD and even the SW universe, famous and talented musicians are paid exponentially more than the common working person or even the successful mercenary. This could be over a long period of time, the highest level of fame taking many missions and successful tours around spanning different planets and whatnot.

1. Entertainer missions that encourage grouping.




• dispense a time-limited non-tradable travel ticket to an entertainer


• entertainer goes to cantina


• entertainer must group with one other entertainer to complete mission


• ideally, at a certain time missions would all lead to the same cities (i.e. today missions will lead to Kor Vella, Mos Entha, and Kadaara only)


• you would never be able to take a mission in the city where you already are


• considerable payout


• possibly specific instructions (i.e. dance basic 2 or use the fanfar)


• missions would be slightly longer (i.e. dance/play music for 20 mins) because of travel time


• make some sort of announcement so players know where the entertainer hot-spots are (maybe posted on all cantina doors every day, as a "sign" that can be read)


2. An effective bandflourish system




• Lately nobody wants to bandflourish because of the lack of xp. Strangely, bandflourish xp was taken out of beta to discourage afk-ing, but has been ineffectual because of the macros. Why not put it back in, can't make the afk situation worse.


• Bandflourishing would increase mission payouts, so that would cause people doing missions together to group and bandflourish


• Bandflourishing would cost the "flourisher" extra action points, while costing the passive members fewer action points, making it such that bandleaders would switch around (making sure that people were not afk, and causing coordination within the group)


• dancer experience scaled to level of dancer, instead of level of dance, so that dancing with a group doing bandflourishes would be preferable to dancing exotic in the corner.


• synchronized lighting effects


3. Advertising




• Hearing the music without listening to it - possibly from a good distance away


• seeing lights coming out of the cantina, indicating that there's something going on in there


4. Random fun doodads (technical term)




• Dancers with trailing ribbons!!! /drool


• forget dancing with a weapon - props that are actually cool to dance with!


• entertainer-specific clothing (status) obtained when getting dance 4, Id 4, music 4,i.e. ballet shoes for dancers (I think we're all tired of seeing girls hunting in fleshwraps, makes it less fun for us to dance in them)


5. Active participation in healing




• I'll say it before, and I'll say it again, more respect, more tips, less afk. Granted people will get around it with a macro, but I think it's a step in the right direction.


• I think this fits the RP. Imagine, if you will, a battle-weary guy who goes into a cantina, and all the dancers/musicians are chatting it up with each other and ignoring him. Is he going to heal? Will this be an experience that takes his mind off his travels? On the other hand, if the dancers or musicians pay attention to him when he comes in, he'll heal.


6. Something really unique for master entertainers




• And not a musician, dance, or ID perk. Like how master artisans got vehicles. Highly desirable, unrelated to any elite craft.

And again, a note about image design - at this point I am not focusing on it because most of the dissatisfaction expressedcomes from the dancer/musician issues. I think ID could reasonably be integrated better into entertainer, or reasonably be split off even more with craftables or the ability to dye inanimate objects. I don't think people expect or desire ID rewards with master entertainer, and indeed it would be a huge burden on the content of ID because as it is, ID is lacking anything new, with the exception of the elite hairdos, which are inapplicable to many races(and other starter professions do not necessarily have a reward for each skill line in the master box). But I'll reiterate that I would like to see the entertainer portion of ID more "self contained" so that every race could dress him/herself up for a big event. I'm hoping that when ID's get more content in the upper boxes, we can drop some more desirable changes into the entertainer tree, without gimping the "master ID" title.

How about a Master Entertainer buffing Mind (secondary and primary) but for a muchlesser amount than a Dancer or Musician would buff either individually.

Nothing a member of astarting profession can do should overshadow what a member of an elite profession can do. It can and should, however, compliment those abilities.

Give Master Entertainer some unique crafting abilities, such as instruments, but those instruments should be playable by Novice Musicians and Master Entertainers both.

Give a bonus to healing for Master Entertainers (can't remember if they get one or not)

Let Master Entertainers get a reduced mind cost for IDing (making Master Entertainer desirable, but by no means necessary, to IDers)

Allow the same (lower action costs) for Dancers and Musicians who are also Master Entertainers.

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NotYourAvgEwok wrote:

Let Master Entertainers get a reduced mind cost for IDing (making Master Entertainer desirable, but by no means necessary, to IDers)

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Love it!!!

Also, in terms of healing bonuses, we need a battle fatigue healing bonus - which normally doesn't come until novice dancer/musician. Just a little one.

The key is to get unique, and special abilities for master entertainer which do not "gimp" the elite professions or make them feel cheated.

Lets not get this too off track. I don't want to go over the master entertainer rewards just yet. It is my feeling that once people have brainstormed a series of ideas, something will stick out that people like, but that doesn't fit in musician or dancer. Trying to invent something specifically to fill that spot is too close to putting the cart before the horse.

I'll toss out an idea I had. It is similar to the fame/fans idea. However, I was thinking fame points could be like faction. You perform for someone, you gain or lose fame.

Places to go with this idea....

• Fame could be like GCW faction. There could be perks you spend fame points on - new dances, special clothes, a different instrument, new music...
• Perhaps there could be faction specific fame perks that you go to the faction recruiter to receive.
  
• There could even be ranks you have to rise through.
  
• There could be content you can only get to with certain fame. For example, if you have enough fame, you could go perform for Jabba. You wouldn't get any of the normal quest rewards for the theme park, of course. Perhaps a unique badge for it.

This could be a variation of a system already in game - the faction system. Some ideas of how you could gain faction...

• Doing entertainer missions. There could be fame rewards.
  
• Performing for very large groups. Yes, this could be exploited by big guilds, but I suspect they will be more interested in doing other things.
  
• Perhaps something like the fans idea. As you get a large number of long term fans, you gain fame.
  
• A small amount of fame every time you perform. A very small amount.
  
• Perhaps something that makes a half attempt to judge how entertaining your performances - IE are you flourishing a lot, are you using most or all of the flourishes regularly, etc.

I thought about fame too, but I didn't know how to present it. I think that there should be different flourishes that you gain through skill boxes (not all 8 at Novice), and then maybe more flourishes you could get from missions or by raising fame/faction. Then, during songs/dances, you could perform 'Combos' with your flourishes. By doing certain chains in a certain order, you could get huge xp bonuses. The thing is, the 'Combos' are randomly generated so you can't set up a macro for them.

Also, there should be new Dances and Songs you could get only through missions and faction points. I'm sure that the Empire has their own songs/dance (stormtrooper shuffle?) and so could the Rebels, Ewoks, Jabba's Dancers, etc. By offering these missions to advanced players, it could be a reason that players would seek out seasoned players. This way, there could be differences between two Master Dancers, just as Armorsmiths have to gather resources and maybe do the R.I.S. quest...

Master Entertainer needs something that defines them. I rarely see a ME, not coupled with a second tier ent profession, mainly musician. ME should have unique abilties, that do not subtract from the second teir profession, nor one up them.

Reason other professions Master first tier along with second tier professions:

Master Marksman/Master Brawler: Worthwhile bonuses to skills and serveral upgrade abilities.

Master Artisan: Crafting and Expirementing bonuses + vehicles

Master Scout/Master Medic: Needed to proceed to second teir professions

Master Entertainer: Mandoviol/Ceremonial, need I say more. The two dances are repetitions of former ones and the skill bonuses aren't worth it. I can heal 0.001 seconds faster as a MM/ME than as a MM alone.

Currently there is no reason to Master Entertainer only, other than lack of skill points to proceed intosecond teirprofessions. ME w/o the Mando and Ceremonial is jack of all the entertainer professions, master of none, but why be jack of all of them, when you can almost master all three

Some ideas:

Leadership/pseudo SL abilities/ ME as leader = group bonuses

Acrobatics/juggling (Cool, but could come under fire from dancers!)

Give them a bonus to buffing( As someone mentioned earlier: smaller buff to all three mind stats) Make this stack with Dancer and Musician buffs, to encourage them to Master Entertainer. MM/ME = small buff in mind increased buff in secondaries.

The problem is there are so many second tier ents who don't want any reason to have to master entertainer, so any bonuses ME would get (eg. Mando/Ceremonial argument) Many second tiers want to be Musician or Dancer and only that. They don't want to lose anything by not Mastering Entertainer. So either ME is useless or it is something you shouldn't have to master. "I am second tier and ME gets better bonuses than me/takes away from my profession ect.

Well enough repeating myself

                        /  \/  \                           
                       /| 0 0 | \                          
+----------------.oooO--|  /  | --Oooo.-------------------+ 
| Doasa Arsim            \_-_/       Events Coordinator   | 
| Master Musician    .oooO   Oooo.   Master Entertainer   | 
| Fifth River Cantina(   )   (   )   Four Rivers, Correlia| 
+---------------------\ (-----) /-------------------------+ 
                       \_)   (_/    

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NinjasLovePirates wrote:

I thought about fame too, but I didn't know how to present it. I think that there should be different flourishes that you gain through skill boxes (not all 8 at Novice), and then maybe more flourishes you could get from missions or by raising fame/faction. Then, during songs/dances, you could perform 'Combos' with your flourishes. By doing certain chains in a certain order, you could get huge xp bonuses. The thing is, the 'Combos' are randomly generated so you can't set up a macro for them.

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An interesting idea. However, there are two flaws I see with how you are presenting it. Not fatal flaws, but certainly things that would need to be different.

Firstly, I suspect people want more to do at novice level, not less. That is just the feeling I get reading various posts.

Secondly, on the combos, you didn't make it clear, but is the performer being told what the combo is ahead of time? (Sort of like, say, DDR, beatmania, etc, or more obscurely but possibly closer to what you mean Bust a Groove 2.) If not, then having a macro flourish for you, and you doing the flourishes by hand would both have the same chance of doing the combo.

While this is flirting on the edge of "twitch play" it isn't completely without merit. And it would give people a reward for "just sitting there hitting buttons." However, the reward would have to be great enough for people to bother. If all they got was a badge, some would go for it just for the badge, but some wouldn't consider that enough of a reward to be worth it.

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Also, there should be new Dances and Songs you could get only through missions and faction points. I'm sure that the Empire has their own songs/dance (stormtrooper shuffle?) and so could the Rebels, Ewoks, Jabba's Dancers, etc. By offering these missions to advanced players, it could be a reason that players would seek out seasoned players. This way, there could be differences between two Master Dancers, just as Armorsmiths have to gather resources and maybe do the R.I.S. quest...

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Now that's a decent idea. Maybe a more tribal dance you could learn from the ewoks, a formal dance you could learn at the emperors retreat, etc. Maybe a couples dance that you could learn by doing a quest to get an invitation to some fictional ball. (Seeing as how the empire is very strict and regimented, I imagine their dance would be something similar, nothing like a shuffle.)

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bawler14 wrote:

The problem is there are so many second tier ents who don't want any reason to have to master entertainer, so any bonuses ME would get (eg. Mando/Ceremonial argument) Many second tiers want to be Musician or Dancer and only that. They don't want to lose anything by not Mastering Entertainer. So either ME is useless or it is something you shouldn't have to master. "I am second tier and ME gets better bonuses than me/takes away from my profession ect.

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That's pretty much the reason I don't want to tackle that just yet. As I mentioned, as ideas come forth, there may be something that just doesn't really fit just one of the professions, but is entertainer related. I think people would be happier all around if that were to happen, instead of inventing things specifically for master entertainer just so there is something there.

Keep the ideas coming. Remember, it's easy to say "Oh this needs to be fixed." It's more difficult to say "And here's how you fix it." If we can answer the second when we declare the first, we're that much closer to actually getting something. Few if any of us are game designers though, so it is always possible the greatest idea may have some big technical or balance issue. Quests are a good example. It would be nice to make a quest that gives a really nice reward be something more than just a glorified multi step delivery mission. Something that involves a group working together, maybe even some danger or puzzles, would allow for a greater reward.

Message Edited by Tiaga on 01-14-2004 10:20 PM

What would make entertainer more interesting to me (the performer) has already been posted above and previously here and in the other forums on numerous threads.

To make entertainers more interesting to the audiences, however, I think that subtle rotation of cantinas (by missions) suggested above was one of the best ideas yet. With the advertising implemented (and the /register command fixed and improoved) that would make the combat people come search out the more remote cantinas while not forcing all the entertainers or combatants to move around. Not everyone does missions after all.

The fame points is also a great way, IMO, to get the audience interested in us. In addition to mission supplied fame points, include a portion of your fame decided by PC listeners where they could /startlisten, listen for X amount of time [time listening required to prevent too much abuse], and then rate you. Your PC rating would give a percent bump up or down to your mission fame points.

I would suggest making the dances/songs/instruments/new hair designs that you earn with fame points be rented with the points, not owned. perhaps rented for a long period, but not permanent so that even for us Masters we have to keep our PC ratings high (and maybe have an incentive to group with lower lvl entertainers on missions)

Another suggestion I have is to add a mission type that only a mid/low lvl entertainer could get that would require a skill they don't have. The payout is big and maybe there's a time constraint, but you don't have the skill. Maybe it's flame jet, another tech effect, or an instrument you can't play. Now you have to find someone a little higher up to help you out. These type of higher paying gigs should not be available 24/7 to your character. Maybe you get one or two gigs like this a day for your character. The reason I say that is because I think that if high-pay gigs are too easy to get then we will never get tipped.

I would like to see Entertainer have some group combat role. Not as serious as Everquest but something to get out of the cantina.

Like something just good enough where a group of 20 is gonna want / need 1 .. and not just for camps. For battle music to rally the troops up.

Didn't you see the drummers in Lotr III? lol

Vash -- Test Center Entertainer -- (for a short time)