Entertainer Archive
Thread: Healing XP slowing to a snail's pace?
DND_Cas wrote:I don't hate entertainers because I need them; I really do enjoy down time and interacting in cantinas. Flirting with some twi'lek dancer and exchanging bon mots with a slitherhorn player is one of the better parts of the SWG experience while they're soothing away my battle fatigue. Role play is what really makes this fun, and if the Quake FPS I want a flashlight crowd doesn't like that, well, tough.
Indeed.Perhaps instead of removing battle fatigue because its forced negative interaction it would be time to look at why certain players would not like to go to a cantina in the first place. If it was a place players *wanted* to goto cantina's then getting your battle fatigue healed at the same time would not be a problem. The problem is that cantina's are simply the domain of entertainers and thats it.There's so much you could do with them:
- Move spice sales from personal vendors to certain cantina's around the galaxy
- Add sabacc and other games to cantina's.
- Chef missions in cantina's and get limited schematic speciality recipies in return.
- Move non-creature mission terminals to cantina's and have them accessed through NPC's.
Now that, would be an improvement.
They actually did that a loooong time ago, in a.. well nevermind
Anyways they did that about a month or two into the game they nerfed range to the point no one could do any damage to anyone else for a day.
Reason for said nerf was, people were complaining that the pvp moved to 'fast' and was over in a couple of shots.
So what was the answer? FULL ON NERF BABY! ! ! YEAH! INVINCIBILITY FOR A DAY!
So then nerfs were passed out like antibiotics at a flu party and next thing you know TKM's could kick the hell out of a womprat in mos eisely from bestine.
annnnnnnnnn here we are now.
Been there done that.
Be careful of joking around they tend to put it in this game. lol made that mistake myself now we have one minute shuttles.
a decent choke point where people had to gather and "socialise" for a few minutes, mangled.
JFreeman wrote:
Yes, it's too slow.
We want to change the 'healing' line to a 'props' line that allows you to craft and utilize 'stage props' (weapons, armor and so on that just look like weapons and armor). We're increasing the xp rate gain overall, and removing battle fatigue from the game entirely. We have some other enhancements to the entertainer professions that we want to do as well (profession-specific inspiration buffs for non-combat professions), but this is what is currently in development.
... it is almost impossible to find doctors, crafting is becoming a way of the past and no one wants to just drop by a cantina for entertainment ....Well apparently this thread has evolved much in a very small time span.
The point of the matter is that the Cu is here to stay and we are going to be seeing tweaks and balancing of this game for a year to come. The game is vast, it was affected by the CU more so than it is apparent.
I was as upset if not more as many about this change, but I learned to re-discover the game. Change is never easy and it is in our nature to not welcome it, but change is required at times.
I came back to this game after trying numerous others out there, this is still the best there is in MMORPG's, MMOG's if you prefer...even with the CU.
The greatest aspect of it is that like many other things the current Combat System Invites the player to play with other players and not amongst other players, as was the state of the game before by design. Yes there are still people that solo many things, even the Gorax, what is the fun in doing that alone when you can do it in groop? Personal Challenge? There is tons of solo games one can play for personal Challeneg. The challenge here is to do things in Groop, with other people other players. It is a Massivelly Multiplayer Game anyways, what good is it to play it alone? (And no I am not talking about totally removing the ability to solo).
Suffice it to say that the CU if you give it the proper chance can be very very enjoyable, just need to take Missions at around your levels as a groop or even alone, and it can be fun. Overlaying various roles in combat over the professions was a smart thing to do, calls for more tactics as well rather than just brute force.
And with the curent grooping system, even PvP capability is retained, and only Single One on One PvP is really affected and eliminated all together unless you Duel someone of equal Combat Level.
That being said.
The entertainment profession is just one of the Coolest features a game such as this may have. Curent system Invites the player to visit a cantina and discover this side of it. By the same token it Invites Player Interaction that is not only about killing Something, it promotes socialising between players outside of the Combat Arena.
It does that through the component we know as Battle Fatigue, removing it will at the same time nulufy all of the above.
Obviously, by the length of this thread and the comments of so many people, there is again resistance to this change, eliminating BF is not a popular decision.
To make matters worse, the only explanation we are given to my knowledge is that it interfears under the curent system (namelly CU) with other professions.
But that is not enough to explain to all of the entertainers what will actually happen to their Gameplay.
How will the entertainment profession experience be affected, enhanced or kept the same with this change, this is somewhat of a question mark at this point.
Is this done to enhance Role Play? Truth is that if there is no artificial need for someone to go to a cantina and watch Dancers or Listen to Mucisicians that the Professionautomatically becomes pure Role Play, and reserved to a smaller crowd than what it is now.
Is that the aim?
Lets assume that it is the aim, then, if that is the case, why not take it a step further and make this profession open to all?
Why not make Musicianship and Dancing Professions not requiring Skill Points to Raise just like Pilot professions?
I know that if that was the case I would Master Musicianship for sure! It just too nice of a feature! (Mind you if we had more than one character per server I would still make a Musician with the second Character)
And before anyone cries wolf here. Lets ask our entertainers first...
How many of you would still continue to Dance or play Music, go to Cantinas, or even use your Town's cantinas for that matter,if these professions did not require skill points.
How about actually adding a new profession in the fray and have Instrument Crafters as well as Entertainment equipment and decorations.
Do you think that everyone would be partying together all over a server?
I think the entertainers are in a position to better answer this,and maybe after that, the Devs can enlighten us some more with their plans for entertainers.
For the sake of argument...
Drygo wrote:
Ok, let's look at it this way. I personally love the inspiration buffs, and I know there are a lot of other people that do as well. I mean, for a smuggler trying to sell faction, or someone trying to purchase faction, it's a godsend. (Just one example)
But, if you look at other professions, what is it that they do? There are rare professions like smuggler that do a lot of different things. However, for most professions, they only have one game mechanical thing to do. That is, a pistoleer shoots his pistols at things, an armorsmith makes armor. That's it. The key to making those kinds of professions interesting is the variety of things to shoot, or the variety of types of armor.
And that's why when a dev says they are removing BF, and adding more inspirations, I am not the least bit concerned. After all, we still have the variety of dances, the variety of songs and instruments to play, and now we are going to have a variety of inspirations. True, I don't know exactly how it's going to turn out in the end. I don't know if different inspirations will require different types of dances or something else. But, it seems to me that removing BF is not a big deal when you compare it to offering a hopefully ever expanding variety of inspirations. In fact, this would be expanding our audience to crafters and others who may have never needed an entertainer before in their lives. I'm excited about these things, I really am. And, the removal of BF is not going to kill these professions, not by a long shot. If anything does, it will be the ever present AFK, just like it always was.
It never mattered to me to be needed. Look at things realistically. Do you need a tailor? No, not at all. You could walk around in your newbie clothes for the rest of your avatar's life and have no negative game impact whatsoever. So, then, why are tailors in business? Because people *want* clothes. Similarly, I don't care if people need the inspirations or not. But, I know they want them. I *want* them. A lot of people are also throwing around the 5% figure. Unless I'm mistaken, it's still at 10 percent. And, 10 percent really is a decent figure to make people want something and not need it like people felt they needed mind buffs (which of course, they didn't, but people said they did). Maybe my perception is skewed because I am an entertainer. But, the short time that it takes me to get a buff, is well worth the effort when I look at my experience increase. I did some ID grinding last night. I took out a minute of my time to give myself a buff. I then sat down and grinded on myself, getting an extra 15 experience points per eye color change (every 3 seconds). I don't know about you, and I haven't done the math. But, it seems to me that I gained a crapload more experience by dancing for a minute than I did if I hadn't. And, when you look at combat, it's even bigger. I mean, honestly, do people really think that watching a performer, which you can find nearly everywhere, for a minute is not worth getting an extra 500 points of rifles or pistols or whatever every time a MOB goes down? Inspirations are a smuggler's best friend when they're dealing in faction.
It seems like so far, inspirations have done a great job at balancing need vs. want. I know I have many customers a day who come in for inspirations only, and have no BF at all. I rarely get BF. But, no matter what I'm grinding, I make damn sure I give myself an inspiration. Inspirations have the added benefit of making people like you as opposed to making people think of you as a time sink. And, as I said earlier, for the first time in over a year, I now *outperform* the bots. I am now *better* than a bot. And, whatever I may think about the combat portion of the CU, I have had such positive experiences since the CU as an entertainer. And, a good portion of that is owed to inspirations.
The entertainment professions are far from dead, IMO. They were much closer to death pre-CU because of the buffbots. And, really, when was the last time we had a flamewar on these forums since the buffbots left? Things aren't perfect. But, I am much happier as an entertainer than I have been for quite some time.
Message Edited by Drygo on 06-19-2005 05:19 AM
And what raving lunatics are talking about removing WOUNDS!? Pick up some med skills, or drop a camp in the wilderness and slow-heal! It's what we did at launch...
Not really arguing anymore 
Had this thread linked in our PA's forum, and was thinking about this for few days, did not realise the thread was silent since quite a few days ago.
We do have the right to post still yes? 
Suraknar wrote:
We do have the right to post still yes?
I don't even think I read your post. 
It was basically aimed at everybody going at JFreeman's throat...It has been stated you do not want to force negative interaction, however, we have wounds in the game still and leave us to seek non-existant doctors because you felt you HAD to force doctors into combat (a place doctors should not ever have to be.)
Now, needless to see, I think wounds, as well as battle fatigue are both nescessary and reallistic aspects of this game. The things that set it apart from other MMOs that are all about "Fight fight fight! Punch punch punch!" with no non-combat side to it.
The fact you claim you want to remove forced interaction is rediculous and catering to the little FPS crowd that should simply go play Battlefront online and leave this game alone and leave it to the full interactive world it is. You don't HAVE to go to the entertainers to get battle fatigue healed any more than you have to get wounds healed. It's wise to do so, but if you want to spend your whole day pounding around out in the sticks, you're still welcome to it. It is no more of a forced obligation than seeing a real-world doctor for your sicknesses and check-ups or going to a movie to relax and unwind when you're stressed. It's simply foolish to not do so.
Please re-think the removal of Battle Fatigue, it was a painless, non-invasive service that we as entertainers offered and our last vestige of use in this game. I reallize many wish we would simply be removed but frankly, that isn't going to happen so give us a purpose.
Higher buffs, as Sirii has stated, are goingto put us back into the numbers and percentage game and the competition to be more l337 than the next dancer and kill those of us who don't get tipped often, as is, no matter how friendly and entertaining we are. I fear it is going to resurface the buff-bots and God be merciful if we see another insurgence of that.