Entertainer Archive
Thread: We should get the mind heals state your facts and reasons here or it will go to the Squad leader
***2) Reason: Having this implemented on us, will make more people come to cantinas, AND get us more money from tips, or more tips period.***
This is perhaps a good reason to submit. It will give entertainers a source of income. Although, from what I've heard, many medics are not compensated for healing the damages of other groups. So, what would make those people suddenly pay us? And medics have costly materials.
***3) Reason: There are more Entertainers than Squad Leaders***
This is a horrible reason to submit. It does not address any issues. In fact, it lets the devs consider why so few people are taking on leadership roles. This would actually be a better argument for why Squad Leaders should get this ability.
And to address another issue:
***Whoever even thought about giving Squad Leaders healing for mnid abilities needs to really pull their head out of a shoe over at SOE. sorry to sound so harsh.. but this is and always should have been an Entertainer abilitiy to heal mind.***
And why is that? What gives entertainers the realm of healing? It was something the devs decided to give us so that people would have other reasons to watch entertainers. When someone thinks of, "Hmm, who should heal mental wounds," the first thought is rarely "entertainer." It's more like "psychiatrist," which is a type of doctor. But the devs didn't go that route.
I'm sorry, but just saying, "It always should have been an Entertainer ability," is not a persuasive argument.
And the argument of an entertainer soothing the minds during combat does not hold water either. In the middle of a fight, you don't want your mind soothed. You want to stay focused and diligent. You want every muscle in your body tensed so you can pull that trigger with celerity and concentration. For RPing purposes, combatants should not be soothed during the fight. They should be soothed after the fight, and that's exactly what we do!
Now, let me address the notion that
Squad Leaders = Leaders
Squad Leaders != Healers
Tell me why these are mutually exclusive. The Squad Leader--as I understand it--motivates the troops to perform better. How can you perform better in combat? By doing more damage and by not falling down yourself. A Squad Leader can do both if he heals the mind. Riflemen can continue doing Head Shots with impunity. The troops will be less likely fall to Head Shots as well.
And this is already present in gaming. Look at Rise of Nations. The general inspires his troops to take less damage. He is the most influential figure during a fight. Not an entertainer. The entertainer is the most influential figure during times of peace.
That could be an interesting split. The Squad Leader can heal mind damage, but it only works on people who are in combat. The Entertainer can heal mind damage, but it only works on people who are not in combat. There is no reason for there to not be an overlap in abilities.
But this ability does not scream out, "Only entertainers should have this!" Try a better argument. That won't sway anyone except for those who share the vision.
I was merely trying to state the "basic" roles which they have portrayed for each class since the beginning of the game.
Healing the mind thus far has always had to do with resting and relaxing (hence watching entertainment to heal your mind wounds, or sitting and waiting for your mind to heal). And if you take the healing of a mind out of the game entirely and bring it into the real world.. how do you heal your mind? do you put a bandaid on it? No, the simple answer is rest and relaxation are waht help you become rested and rejuvinated within your mind. When you are drinking and you get intoxicaated.. how do you start thinking clearly again? Wait a few hours sitting around.. or take a nap. Thus resting your mind. Who up to this point have been teh ones who soothe and rest our mind wounds? (Entertainers).
Now I ask.. how a "Squad Leader" is supposed to help you relax? Does he massage everyones shoulders during combat maneuvers? Does he speak soft baby words to you saying "Dont worry.. everything is going to be ok" .. No they should not be doing things like this in combat.
The simple raw point I was pointing towards is that Squad Leaders are supposed to bea "Leader" Revel the troops lead them into battle and come out victorious! Have you ever been part of a military organization?
I was in High School and College ROTC and I can defiantely state that not ONE leader I ever had helped sooth my mind.. they kept all the subordinates on edge and ready to react.
Therefore from the above explanation.. I am trying to say that Entertainers are the ones who should be soothing peoples minds.. and helping them relax.. while a squad leaders role should be "Kill kill kill!".
The real problem is that Squad Leaders are not effective "yet".. and they think taht by throwing them a bone like this it will quiet them down for a while.. subdue them if you will. They need to give SL's BETTER abilties.. not give them healing.
Leadership = Influencing others to accomplish the same goal.
Speaking only for myself, I think entertainers should getsome ability to healmind damage. Keep in mind that highly-skilled Musicians already do have weak mind heals -- a heal over time, in the form of the Musician's buff to Willpower (and Focus). This buff speeds the rate at which others regain their Mind. The devs have already crossed the conceptual Rubicon ofa combat-support role for entertainers in other ways, too. Wecan healMind wounds in camps. We heal battle fatigue. Plainly it's envisioned that we function, partly, as a combat support class.
I could imagine some compromises. One might be to require that entertainers have some combat skill, or at least wield a weapon, in order to heal. Conceptually, the idea is that Bruce Springsteen might boost my morale if he were blasting away next to me and yelling at me not to be a wuss, but not so much if he's hiding in the quartermaster's tent with a guitar.Another might be to limit mind heals to Master Entertainers to makeMastery of that novice profession more appealing.Still another might be Waho's idea ofa new elite entertainer class -- the Morale Officer or some such -- but that wouldn't be easy to implement, and SWG has many more pressing needs. Another might be a crafting-based solution -- holostims or some such.
I also think Squad Leaders should get some sort of mind heal, but one of a different character. Perhaps a very effective group-heal that can only be used once a minute or so -- a rallying cry.But just as elite Doctors are not the only professions that can heal health/action, I think elite SL's shouldn't be the onlyprofessionthat can heal mind.
One thing most of us do seem to agree on: *someone* should be able to heal Mind. Nothing's more frustrating than watching your blue bar go down and knowing that there's nothing you can do about it. I'm not worried, as some are, that groups will be able to fight nonstop. I die from low Action and Health all the time, even though those things are healable. As with health/action, mind heals should be put on a timer, and they should deplete the healer in some way. Besides, PvP battles could stand to last a bit longer.
-NewJedi, a/k/a Ricky Starwalker, Master Musician,Master Entertainer, Novice Carbineer, Chilastra
I dont understand....WHY SQUAD LEADER? do you need medic skills for it?
Yeah, that was a horrible reason....it would bring more people to that skill, but i do like the idea of them BOTH getting them
Cirga wrote:
Healing the mind thus far has always had to do with resting and relaxing (hence watching entertainment to heal your mind wounds, or sitting and waiting for your mind to heal). And if you take the healing of a mind out of the game entirely and bring it into the real world.. how do you heal your mind? do you put a bandaid on it? No, the simple answer is rest and relaxation are waht help you become rested and rejuvinated within your mind. When you are drinking and you get intoxicaated.. how do you start thinking clearly again? Wait a few hours sitting around.. or take a nap. Thus resting your mind. Who up to this point have been teh ones who soothe and rest our mind wounds? (Entertainers).
That's your interpretation of healing mind wounds. This isn't the only way to explain healing mind wounds.
First off, trying to come up with a RP reason is mostly absurb: Getting shot in the temple with a blaster fire will NOT be fixed by someone's soothing tunes. You cannot justify this with 100% satisfaction. Don't even try.
So, why would you think that soothing words and undulations are the only way to heal mind wounds? Here are a few examples from RPGs everywhere:
You recover "mind" by talking out your problems with a shrink.
You recover "mind" by meditating and renewing your inner focus.
You recover "mind" by kicking back and taking some needed R&R.
You recover "mind" through neurosurgery.
One of those examples is appropriate for entertainers. The other three are not. So, who should heal mind damage? The medic? The TK Artist? The Doctor? The entertainer?
You can prove anything with a faulty assumption, and I consider it to be a false assumption indeed to presume that the only way to heal the mind is through soothing music. You won't convince anyone of your point if you won't broaden your scope.
NewJedi wrote:
Still another might be Waho's idea ofa new elite entertainer class
I definately support it, but cannot take credit for the idea.
The reason I think we should have this is because it's somewhat fitting, and it gives us something active to do. There is *absolutely* no reason to make yet another entertainer profession just to have this ability. I'd rather see it go to the medics or the squad leaders.
An idea that came up in chat tonight: what if musicians had some ability to heal in battle, but lost all buffs, and dancers gained the remaining buffs (and the buffs were somewhat increased in efficacy, maybe through the use of some consumable devices so that Doctors don't scream about us buffing mind so well for free)? That would somewhat fix the "dancers shaking it out on the battlefield doesn't make sense" problem, divide up abilities in an interesting way, and make sure both professions are useful in the field.
Still not a perfect solution. I *so* do not want bards. I just want something to do out there.
Hypatian wrote:
I *so* do not want bards. I just want something to do out there.
Take some combat skills man! There is nothing preventing ANYprofession from being effective in battle. If you have any skill points remaining, you are wasting them.
Why Entertainers Should Heal Mind:
It makes sense, they heal mind wounds...they should heal damage.
It will bring people to the cantinas with intentions of actually intertacting with the entertainers. BUT it will take some entertainers away.
Why Squad Leaders Should Not Heal Mind:
Once they are "fixed" they will have a lot of responsibilities in the group without worrying about healing mind, and they would only really use the skill while grouped. Giving it them to use solo would be antithetical to the profession.
Why Current Entertainer Professions Should Not Heal Mind:
Dancer and Musician are the two most well implemented and working professions in the game. I'm sure having fun with mine...don't want the change.
A new elite profession could bemade more suitablefor healing mind in combat.Or Image Designers. They need something...they're elite entertainers, no? 
I don't know. The problem is that if you're in a cantina, the skills seem useful. Yay, you're helping tons of people, having a good time and what not. You can easily spend all night doing this. While in the cantina, your combat skills have absolutely no use except to bounce people who insult you and then foolishly /duel you. Whee.
If you're outside in the wilds, the combat skills are handy--yay! You can shoot things. You can assist the rest of the party. Of course, you can't do the things that a non-performer can do: you can't become a doctor (not enough points for master medic if you have master pistoleer: you can become a master dancer/master doctor, but then you have no points for anything else). You can take one level of exploration to keep you up with the group, leaving you... 35 skill points which you can use to take some medic abilities so you can heal yourself in an emergency. (Assuming that you didn't take any ranged support abilities.) And in exchange, you can heal wounds in camp, and provide some small buffs to mind that make 1/3 of your group's time into downtime in order to keep applied.
Now, forgive me if I'm mistaken, but say I become a Doctor with master wound treatment and advanced medicine knowledge. At this point, I believe it's possible to use practically any medicine in the game (although it may have to be experimented down a little.) You can heal massive amounts of damage using Stim Ds. You can heal wounds incredibly quickly (in camp, as well as in the field with a droid). You can revive players who've been killed. You can use powerful doctor buffs. If you like crafting, you can spend your time crafting good stims up to C level, and B woundpacks. If you like crafting enough, you can get expert crafting skills instead of expert wound healing skills (giving up the ability to revive.) Of course, heck, it only costs a few more points to master doctor completely, and be in high demand.
And you've used about the same number of skill points as a master dancer who's completely ignored the rest of the entertainment tree. As an added bonus, you don't get the feeling that maybe you should drop dancer so that you can be more useful to the group.
In short, entertainment is fun, but it has no *skills* associated with it. There's no need to go out into the field (as an artisan has) to get the best supplies, or need to experiment with schematics to get the best mix of attributes on items. There's nothing active at all, except for the roleplaying and social aspects. So: does the roleplaying and social aspect of entertaining make up for the use of that many skill points? Are the performer professions only for people who don't want to go into the field and do something useful and active with their hard-earned skills?
A friend of mine is a master dancer. She's also a novice rifleman (with level 4 ranged support), a master medic, and has exploration 1. She's out of skill points. She, in fact, gave up her surveying skills to get that far. She, like myself, thoroughly enjoyed performing early on. But as more and more of our friends are out in the field, being a master dancer feels less and less important--and there's more and more urge to surrender those skills for something useful in what you are doing. After all, with only novice dancer, you get less attractive dances and heal almost as well. Healing wounds in camp takes maybe the first minute of downtime, while we're usually camped for five minutes or more in order to craft stims or just chat, or go off and take care of the necessities of RL. My character prefers popular2 to all of the other dances: so should I drop everything except dance knowledge 2 from dancer and move on?
In the end, it all comes down to this: is it reasonable to tie a set of *character skills* (not player skills) that is totally passive to such a large investment in skill points? By passive I mean that there's no need to go and hunt down resources (buying or harvesting), no real ability to support in the field, and no ability to create anything of lasting value.
I guess that I am a poster child for "people who should surrender master dancer since they obviously don't enjoy it enough." But I'm still left feeling that I would rather have been able to keep it--but having novice dancer is almost enough from a roleplaying point of view, and I just don't feel right using only half of my character when I'm out in the field.
The final note I'll make is that the performance professions seem very very well designed for people who never want to go into the field, and want a sense of advancement and accomplishment while they're in town. That's great and all--but it seems sad when you have to leave that all behind when you do move into the field: after all, changing professions is part of this game. Even though I've tried to encourage other people to not worry so much about surrendering skills, I guess I'm pretty attached to this one.
End of rant.
Kuildeous,
My argument is more based upon the fact that Squad Leaders should "not" be the ones who get a healing ability. I really dont feel that is the right place for it. Quite frankly I could care less if Entertainers "dont" get it.. but why a Squad Leader? There is no valid argument that I have seen yet that really proves that a Military leadership position should be a healer of "anything". Motivation is not a healnig method.. its a driving force. And taht is what I "thought" a Squad Leader was based upon.. the motivator of the group. In all reality I think Docotors woudl be better off with it.. since it makes more sense to me that a Stim Pak would revitalize the mind more.. but this post was about why entertainers should get it.. and I am against Sqaud Leaders getting it is all.
The entire "soothing music" part was to back up why an entertainer should get it over a Squad leader who barks orders which are jarring to the mind and least of all helpful to any healing.