Entertainer Archive
Thread: Please welcome our new Entertainer Correpsondent!
SlickRiptide wrote:
Tiaga wrote:
They don't want anything under ME.. They feel it would be taking away from their class.
Well, if you're putting something under there that didn't exist before then I can't see how it's taking away from their class.
I'm all for Master Entertainer sharing something with Novice Image Designers, but there will be many upset Image Designers if you try to get at Image Designerability placed in Master Entertainer only. Having been in beta, you must know how painful it was for dancers and musicians to lose two dances, a song, and the mandiovial to a box only because too few people were taking it up. Many left the game over it, and the change was madeat the end ofBETA (because it was so late in beta - I hope that's why anyway - they snatched abilities from Musician and Dancer instead of giving Master Entertainer unique abilities). You say you have never even looked at the Image Designer forum, anddo not seem to considerImage Designersto bepart of the Entertainer tree (agreed,there is nothing in common between dance/music and ID), yet you are all for petitioning that an Image Designer skill be granted to Master Entertainer only?I was about to type upmy little welcome to theEntertainer correspondent post,andwas horrified to see you winking aboutputting ImageDesigner wish list abilities in Master Entertainer only. As Tiaga says, there is an extensive discussion on the topic on the Image Designer forum. A few thoughts...
1/Manyplayers are already maxxedwith skill points.This isn't beta anymore, you can't take a profession's wish list itemsand put them in a non elite box. It would be like giving a new droid or building schematic to Master Artisan.
2/ Image Designers are already lacking in substance. We need every single one of our wish list items. The ID forum community is the most patient I have ever seen. We did not even get replies to our correspondent issues until last week. Yet everyone has kept upbeat and positive, and is very excited at the prospect of any of our wish list goodies being approved and implemented.
3/ Brainstorm unique ways of making Master Entertainer exciting and valuable. I am going for Master Entertainer myself on Test Center, and would love to have some unique abilities. Maybe a way to /band flourish getting dancers and musicians in sync, while allowing everyone to get experience? How about one special flourish for each song/dance that every dancer and musician has access to when working in a band headed by a Master Entertainer? Just a couple of examples off of the top of my head.
I wish you luck in your quest to enhance the experiences of all entertainers. We have a lot of creative people, I'm sure if we put our heads together we can think up some awesome ideas for both the Novice and Master Entertainer boxes, and everything in between.
Kwee wrote:
Having been in beta, you must know how painful it was for dancers and musicians to lose two dances, a song, and the mandiovial to a box only because too few people were taking it up.
You could look at it that way. There were many reasons for people not taking up master entertainer. In beta, music healing XP was terribly difficult to get. You'd have people get both music 4 AND dance 4 and still not have enough healing XP to make the transition up to musician or dancer. Image design XP was even worse. I never met a single image designer during beta. I assume someone had the tenacity to grind it through but I never heard about it happening.
The problem of the "hook", though, was also apparent. I think the devs did the right thing by putting the unique dances back into the dancer tree. There were (and are) too few unique dances.I don't see any problem at all with putting a unique instrument and a unique tune under ME, though. Look at it this way - If everyone in beta was mind-wiped to forget that mandovial and ceremonial had once been place differently in the skill tree, what would be the effective difference from the current situation? The master musicians wouldn't say "Oh, I guess ME should have its own unique music." They'd still say "I'm a master musician, dammit, I should be able to play everything!". Say they "lost" something is ignoring the fact that "beta" is, by definition, NOT the final arrangement of things.
As for the dancers, I don't really think you can claim that they lost anything. I've never, ever heard of a dancer complain that they have to grind ME to get those dances. The variations just aren't valued at all. That's a problem, frankly. There ought to be something under ME for a dancer to strive towards. The fact that there isn't is a reflection of the redundancy in the dancer skill tree. The designers thought that dancers would be sensitive to the nuances in the variations but it turns out that most of us just don't look that closely at them. I couldn't even have told you what the difference is between formal1 and formal2 until the appropriate designer mentioned it in a conversation about such things.
Many left the game over it, and the change was madeat the end ofBETA (because it was so late in beta - I hope that's why anyway - they snatched abilities from Musician and Dancer instead of giving Master Entertainer unique abilities).
I don't mean to be an apologist for the devs but you're being unrealistic. The changes were made and re-made in an attempt to reach a final balance. Anyone who saw things, even towards the end of beta, and expected them to stay that way was someone with unrealistic expectations. I imagine a few people DID "leave" (i.e., refuse to buy the game) over it. There was certainly a huge outcry of people lamenting "Nobody will EVER try to get Master Enterainer, what a waste!" To date, that dire prediction has not only been untrue, but the placement of desirable abilities under the musician portion of ME are the direct reason why they have been proven false.
There were many who "left" beta over other issues as well. The majority "stayed" though. I knew plenty of entertainers (who mostly went to starsider and chilastra, rather than Bria unfortunately) who had no problems with the new arrangement. They certainly weren't going to "quit" over it.
You say you have never even looked at the Image Designer forum, anddo not seem to considerImage Designersto bepart of the Entertainer tree (agreed,there is nothing in common between dance/music and ID), yet you are all for petitioning that an Image Designer skill be granted to Master Entertainer only?I was about to type upmy little welcome to theEntertainer correspondent post,andwas horrified to see you winking aboutputting ImageDesigner wish list abilities in Master Entertainer only. As Tiaga says, there is an extensive discussion on the topic on the Image Designer forum. A few thoughts...
I'm sorry to have horrified you, but it stands to reason that if you're going to put an ID skill under ME that it out to be a desirable one! Baldness is just that, a wish list item. Why not, then, have the image designers that really, truly, must have every style be willing to invest in some extra skill points to get that last elusive one? That's really kind of the point of ME. Nobody "needs" any of the things that ME has. You earn all those skills and bind up those skill points because you WANT them.
Now, to put your fears to rest - On the one hand, nobody in entertainment is "married" to the idea that ME ought to have baldness as a skill. It was just an example of an ID skill that doesn't exist and therefore would be a candidate to represent a skill that is unrepresented in a master skill that is supposedly above that other skill. I'm well aware that the image designers would have fits if it was given to ME. (I also suspect that they'd have fits if some brand new ID skill was created out of thin air and given to ME, but that remains to be seen.)
On the other hand, the devs say it's simply not possible to do given the current implementation of image design. You don't gain certifications as you advance in ID. Your abilities are predicated off of the numerical value of your face/hair/etc... skills. The only thing that could be done without redesigning ID is to give a point bonus to ME. If you did that, all you would do is give yourself whatever skills went with your current point total. There's simply no way to assign a certain ID skill to a certain skill box on the tree.
You may have mis-interpreted my goal as being "make Master Entertainer more useful/powerful/interesting". That's not it all. I want it to be more desirable for the branches of the profession that currently ignore it. I want to see the fashions that only an ID who bothered to grind ME can fashion. I want to see a dancer walk into a cantina, step out to their ME dance, and get the kind of attention that a musician currently gets when he whips out his mandovial. I want to see ME be something more than just a specialized subset of musician.
THAT is what would make ME be "worthwhile".
"You may have mis-interpreted my goal as being "make Master Entertainer more useful/powerful/interesting". That's not it all. I want it to be more desirable for the branches of the profession that currently ignore it. I want to see the fashions that only an ID who bothered to grind ME can fashion. I want to see a dancer walk into a cantina, step out to their ME dance, and get the kind of attention that a musician currently gets when he whips out his mandovial. I want to see ME be something more than just a specialized subset of musician."
Very well said, Slick. I recently surrendered the points from Image design and music so I'm no longer a master entertainer. I wasn't in it for the music, so while I do sometimes miss trotting out my mandoviol to make SW1 sound pretty good, I don't mourn the loss of one dance which is pretty universally hated by dancers (footloose2) and one dance that doesn't properly display to the audience anyway. It doesn't matter if I do formal 1 or formal 2 as no one watching sees the actual steps the way I do unless I'm flourishing. Since the entire dance tree consists of recycled dances with their base animation smoothed out (there's a reason you *never* see anyone do exotic, because you stand there with this 'what am I doing' look), dropping master entertainer wasn't a loss to me at all as a dancer.
I sincerely wish it had been.
SlickRiptide wrote:
There were many reasons for people not taking up master entertainer. In beta, music healing XP was terribly difficult to get. You'd have people get both music 4 AND dance 4 and still not have enough healing XP to make the transition up to musician or dancer. Image design XP was even worse. I never met a single image designer during beta. I assume someone had the tenacity to grind it through but I never heard about it happening.
There were actually several Image Designers in beta, but you're right the exp was horrible. A friend and I were practicing on each other and never made it to Master Image Designer, but got some boxes into Novice ID twice (due to the Ahazi player wipe). Despite the ages it took to get to Novice ID/Dancer/Musician though, there was nothing to draw people to Master Entertainer initially. I still hope Master Entertainer gets some unique abilities that enhance music and dance
Say they "lost" something is ignoring the fact that "beta" is, by definition, NOT the final arrangement of things.
You're right, and I explained my point badly. What I was trying to say was...people got were very upset about things being moved around in beta (when we should expect and accept change), they will be a whole lot more upset if what are perceived to be specialized skills are given to a loosely related box.
I don't mean to be an apologist for the devs but you're being unrealistic. The changes were made and re-made in an attempt to reach a final balance. Anyone who saw things, even towards the end of beta, and expected them to stay that way was someone with unrealistic expectations. I imagine a few people DID "leave" (i.e., refuse to buy the game) over it. There was certainly a huge outcry of people lamenting "Nobody will EVER try to get Master Enterainer, what a waste!" To date, that dire prediction has not only been untrue, but the placement of desirable abilities under the musician portion of ME are the direct reason why they have been proven false. There were many who "left" beta over other issues as well. The majority "stayed" though. I knew plenty of entertainers (who mostly went to starsider and chilastra, rather than Bria unfortunately) who had no problems with the new arrangement. They certainly weren't going to "quit" over it.
I agree that there are a lot more Master Entertainers today than anyone anticipated. I'm hoping to be one myself as I said. Why? I enjoy all three branches: image design, dance, and music, and I may as well pick it up
The mandiovial is attractive, but I wouldn't get Master Entertainer just for that if I didn't enjoy one or two of the branches to get there. I'm still disappointed that some of the great ideas being bounced around for Master Entertainer on the Entertainer forum in beta were not able to be implemented. What did happen was a quick fix, and similarly I feel giving something Image Designy to Master Entertainer to pump it up would be a quick fix, and a shame. So many neat things could be done
I'm sorry to have horrified you, but it stands to reason that if you're going to put an ID skill under ME that it out to be a desirable one! Baldness is just that, a wish list item. Why not, then, have the image designers that really, truly, must have every style be willing to invest in some extra skill points to get that last elusive one? That's really kind of the point of ME. Nobody "needs" any of the things that ME has. You earn all those skills and bind up those skill points because you WANT them. I'm well aware that the image designers would have fits if it was given to ME. (I also suspect that they'd have fits if some brand new ID skill was created out of thin air and given to ME, but that remains to be seen.)
Well I wasn't truly horrified, I just write in an overly dramatic way
*blushes* Though do know I was not referring to someone's post about baldness. On the Image Designer forum thread Tiaga was referring to, he brought up putting unnatural hair colors (if ever implemented) in Master Entertainer. We have all been drooling over the thought of maybe having that one day, as it is often requested by customers but we are not able to do it. It would be a sad thing if customers were to come to Master Image Designers and ask for unnatural hair colors (after they were theoretically implemented) to be told that they could STILL not do it (as usual) but that Master Entertainers could
The only thing that could be done without redesigning ID is to give a point bonus to ME. If you did that, all you would do is give yourself whatever skills went with your current point total.
That's an interesting idea, somewhat similar to the experimentation bonus of Master Artisan. If I understand you correctly, and Image Designer that only had enough skill points to do two boxes, could (if also a Master Entertainer) do three?
You may have mis-interpreted my goal as being "make Master Entertainer more useful/powerful/interesting". That's not it all. I want it to be more desirable for the branches of the profession that currently ignore it. I want to see the fashions that only an ID who bothered to grind ME can fashion. I want to see a dancer walk into a cantina, step out to their ME dance, and get the kind of attention that a musician currently gets when he whips out his mandovial. I want to see ME be something more than just a specialized subset of musician.
THAT is what would make ME be "worthwhile".
Well it is my hope that you do strive to make Master Entertainer more useful and interesting Yes I want to wow the crowds as a Master Entertainer but with something unique of my own. I don't like the sound of "to be more desirable for the branches of the profession that currently ignore it" and "only an ID who bothered to grind ME". It sounds as though you are bitter that you had to grind through Image Design (which I agree is unrelated to music/dance if those are your interests) and want to try to force Image Designers to grind through music, dance, AND entertainment healing (3 mini-trees versus 1)to get something of theirs. I want ME to be worthwhile, but I want it to be worthwhile because it has abilities that are unique AND enhance its related professions (Music and Dance). I still like my above suggestions, I also think it would be so fun if Master Entertainers could juggle Flaming swords and all that Anyway I'll stop rambling, please do reconsider your priority. Don't strive to make Master Entertainer desirable to those that ignore it (they will not valueit, they will view it in the way many Master Entertainers now view Image Design I-IV), instead make it desirable to those that want and have it What is a Master Entertainer? Someone who entertains in a wide variety of ways, ways we may not even have begun to imagine There is a big wide world of entertainment out there and SWG is only touching a tiny part of it so far, there is so much potential.
You're right, and I explained my point badly. What I was trying to say was...people got were very upset about things being moved around in beta (when we should expect and accept change), they will be a whole lot more upset if what are perceived to be specialized skills are given to a loosely related box.
I agree, but I don't see any easy way around it that doesn't involve an overhaul of the game system. That's not going to happen anytime soon.
And there's still the problem that anything really "keen" is something that's going to make the three elite classes wonder why they don't get it too. I think a unique dance for ME would be a great thing but I guarantee you that all hell would be breaking loose in the Dancer forum if three new dances were added and one of them ended up under ME.
That's an interesting idea, somewhat similar to the experimentation bonus of Master Artisan. If I understand you correctly, and Image Designer that only had enough skill points to do two boxes, could (if also a Master Entertainer) do three?
Yep, that's how it works. So, a master ID who is also a ME would have more points than there are skills. hehe. That's the primary reason that no ID skills were put under ME, according to the devs.
Well it is my hope that you do strive to make Master Entertainer more useful and interesting Yes I want to wow the crowds as a Master Entertainer but with something unique of my own.
I thinkthe base assumption for any of us is that we want our professions to be useful and interesting on their own.
I don't like the sound of "to be more desirable for the branches of the profession that currently ignore it" and "only an ID who bothered to grind ME". It sounds as though you are bitter that you had to grind through Image Design (which I agree is unrelated to music/dance if those are your interests) and want to try to force Image Designers to grind through music, dance, AND entertainment healing (3 mini-trees versus 1)to get something of theirs.
If you took that out of something I said then I said it poorly. I think I might be getting misquoted there but I'm too lazy to go back and look. The basic column of ID skills is not a grind. If you partner up you can get it done in a few hours, as little as one play session. That's not something I'd resent.
Now, dancing - THERE'S a grind! /grin Ravenmist
Like I said, it goes without saying that all of us would like to improve our professions with new and special abilities unlike anyone else. There are limits to what can be accomplished, especially if they involve creating new game systems. If I focus on the near-term on some things, it doesn't mean that I'm not bugging the devs about what they could accomplish in the long term. They have their own ideas as well. We juast have to see how they play out.
Ultimately, too, my opinion on anything is just that - my opinion. It's not special just because I'm the correspondent. The weight of the community's aggregate opinions are what matter, which include you and anyone else who's interested in the profession.Don't get the feeling that because I have a point of view and even defend it that I'm shutting you out. I take my job seriously, so you can bet that even if we disagree on something that the devs will still hear about the all sides of the debate. Heck, the fact that something causes a debate is probably the most interesting news we can bring them in the first place. 
Again, best of luck to you, I hope you get to see some improvements during your term.
I have to throw my support behind Kwee here. I'm currently trying to get my way to Master Entertainer for the mandiovol and, aside from that, I see it as nigh-worthless. That said, adding an image design feature to it would not make it any more appealing to me.
To figure out what a Master Entertainer needs to be, we need to look at the other "beginner Master" professions. Having been a Master Artisan (which isn't an extrememly worthwhile profession, at least for me, anyway), it's apparent that the profession is intended to be a kind of support profession for those that come from it.
For example, there are a few Architect pieces that require items that only a Master Artisan can make. Torches being the one I remember most. To make Master Entertainer more desirable, what's needed is for some similar item to be introduced. Perhaps a Master Entertainer can make some instruments that a Master Musician can't (say, the mandiovol, which any musician should be able to play). Perhaps a Master Entertainer gains an ability to "conduct" a band and dancers, producing a more structured and professional show. Maybe they can time flourishes and band/dancer stage effects. The point being, nothing in Master Entertainer should be something that was taken from an elite profession, but rather, something that brings them together as a whole. Personally, I think the idea that a Master Entertainer functions as a dance and music conductor is a pretty good one. Kind of like a squad leader for entertaining! It's too bad that IDs don't have any cosmetics or alteration kits they can make. It'd be a simple thing to allow Master Entertainers to make a particular component for some of them. Oh well.
Master Scouts don't get to handle creatures or use tracking. Master Brawlers don't get to meditate. Master Entertainers shouldn't get to play instruments or dance dances or image design styles that the elite professions can't.
Oh, and welcome Slick! 
I've already enjoyed our interaction on the trigger words and theatre topics. *thumbs up*
Anyway they TRY to fix ME, something else will happen.
THIS:
WHY DO I HAVE TO GET ME TO GET THAT?
Sigh...Adding something will bring the same problem. It might help a little, but many will say what is said above...