Entertainer Archive
Thread: In Concept Inspiration Buffs
Message Edited by RSQViper on 04-05-2005 09:23 AM
canova wrote:
Jutewr wrote:
I agree with NJ's post, and would like to add a few of my own words.
I think it is a huge mistake to make the buffs the same for a novice entertainer and a master dancer/musician. The old mind buffs couldn't even be given until novice dancer/musician, and got better with each level in the appropriate branch. Why was this changed?
Problem with the old system is that as long as you were not a master, no one would need you, since you were not able to buff in a decent proportion. Now, entertainers on the way to mastering will also have somethign to do and a way to earn their live. Masters will still be looked for cause they are just faster, and we all know people looking for buffs, for the most of them, do want to spend the shortest time possible getting the buff.
So when no master is around, the novice dancer/musician has something he/she can do, and a way to earn their live.
Also that will entice them to go and perform in remote areas where buffs might be needed but where no master is present (outposts, camps etc...).
So I think it is a GREAT idea. I remember when I was leveling dancer up, I wish it existed yet.
Yes, but there really needs to be a benefit to having a mastery. Novice brawlers cannot fight as well as master TKs, novice artisans cannot craft as well as master weaponsmiths, so why should novice entertainers buff as well as master dancers or musicians?
I also worry that the devs are throwing us a bone and saying, "There we changed something, now we don't have to look at entertainers for a year or so." The inspiration buffs are a nice idea, but what of replacing mind wound healing and the buffbot problem?
One cannot say there is a need yet to replace mind wound healing. We do not know the details of the CU and I bet that the battle fatigue will have an increasing importance. Even if that importance is not increased, customers will still come to you to heal their battle fatigue. If they adjust the level of xp you gain by healing battle fatigue the change for you is 0. The only difference is that now you will have requests for buffs from warriors AND crafters, not warriors only. So cheer!
I do like the idea of these buffs, and I look forward to buffing crafters, but I think that the way the buffs are given out needs to change. And what do you mean by "One cannot say there is a need yet to replace mind wound healing."? They are removing mind wounds in the CU. That makes one entire branch in both dancer and musician absolutely pointless. This branch needs to be reworked to provide bonuses to something that is actually remaining in or being added to the game.
NJ62 wrote:
Granted, I've had a horribly busy day at work, so all I've really read is the description of inspiration buffs and not the 9 pages of commentary that followed. This is what I posted:
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I have the following concerns:
1) Buff bots. Same mechanics as before will lead to buff botting. I'm concerned that we will just go from mind buff bots to inspiration buff bots, and this will not do anything to alleviate the #1 concern of the communities.
Very true, the most we can expect from thisis to no longer have buffbots, but simply AFKmacrotainers again. A lesser evil, in peoples' eyes who try to put labels on different levels of evil. You're correct as far as I can see that the inspiration buffs will not solve the underlying problem of buffbots--the ability to gain and perform every skill in our profession while AFK.
2) Not enough of a functional benefit to being a master. You can get a full buff from a novice, it just takes longer. Not enough bang for your skill point buck. In general, not enough content to justify the skill point costs.
I think they've actually tried to address this somewhat, see (3) for more.
3) Professional overlap. Dancer and musician will do essentially the same thing with different aesthetics. In other professions, you get some sort of bonus for having two professions, whether it's stacking of abilities or diversity of abilities. This combo has neither because of the duplication of abilities.
It's true Dancers and Musicians will do exactly the same thing, but that's exactly what a lot of people were asking for out here in the forums. They wanted Dancers and Musicians to give all three Mind bars buffs. So I'm choosing to believe that a Dev actually came here and read that and thought it was a good idea for the Inspiration buffs. Also, they've attempted to give us a bonus for having a double Mastery in both Dance and Music. As I understand the description, Novice Entertainer is very slow, but as you go up the proper trees, you get faster and faster. Someone with a Double Mastery will be able to buff even faster than someone with a single buff. I don't think there will be any difference between Musical Inspiration and Dance Inspiration. They will "stack" as it were.
4) How will entertainers be able to gain money from this? ID's got a secure interface, but I'm concerned that customers running off and stiffing someone will be no better than before.
It will be more like the old days when we started Entertaining. We didn't have any way to demand payment, we don't have any way to demand payment now, and there is no reason, in the Devs' eyes, to give us a way to start demanding payment. On a positive note, buffbots as we know them now will be gone. To the negative, we now have a huge playerbase which thinks our skills are valuless, because they've been trained to use buffbots in much the same way people inadvertantly train puppies to use the house by not being there to take the puppy out enough. We all need to get together and decide the best method of housebreaking...cantinabreaking these folks who are so accustomed to using buffbots. They're in desperate need of the training.
5) ID's have had their "essential function" taken away without compensation. What is in the works for them?
You've got me there. The most money I've ever made, I made as an ID doing stat migrations for 100k a pop. Sadly, when it comes to regular changes, I'm really weak and pretty much anyone can convince me to not adhere to my pricing system and they'll end up getting changes for next to nothing.... I'm interested to know if IDs will be getting anything to replace migrations. From what I've seen of the Rage of the Wookiees, IDs won't even be able to install cybernetic parts--that ability has been given to an NPC.
6) CU group limits of 8 harm entertainers because it limits patrons for a buff and it limits XP gains.
Well, buffswillall bepassive anyway and will not require a group, but beyond that it will be difficult to coordinate large bands or troupes with only 8-man groups. Also, it's quite likely we'll see a major xp drop simply because there are fewer people allowed in groups. Not to mention the severely reduced Battle Fatigue numbers. It'll be difficult for new people to make it to Master, simply because of having to fill 3 lines worth of healing with only BF xp.
We'll see what happens, I guess...strap in, it's going to be one weird ride. Previously, posters, myself included, suggested that musicians and dancers should have all 3 buffs. For me, though, it wasn't that I wanted to make the professions the same, it was that buffing either the secondaries or the primaries was not enough content for the skill point cost. Now I would have loved if there were enough content for both dancers and musicians to have varied and unique abilities, but that hasn't happened. So we end up choosing between duplication of abilities, or splitting up abilities so that each profession doesn't really have "enough" to make it a worthy profession. Not a nice choice.
As for "profession stacking" - well again, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, there should be some advantage to being a musician/dancer. On the other hand, we don't want entertainers to feel that they *need* to be double masters in order to get any business. For example, in the crafter market, 12 point crafters are now the "norm" and it's hard to sell if you are a 10 point crafter. Will it be hard to sell your inspirations if you're a dancer, but not a musician?
About getting money:
This could be solved by making entertaining active instead of passive, like a doctor. Then we simply choose not to provide the service until the client pays up. It's just that simple. I really don't see a downside to it.
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How does an Entertainer give an Inspiration Buff?
Entertainers will give an Inspiration Buff exactly the same way that they current give Mind Buffs. When a player watches or listens to an Entertainer, each successive "Entertainer pulse" will result in adding more time to the buff in progress up to the maximum amount of time just like the current Mind Buff mechanics work.
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This confuses me. Currently, what I consider a REAL buff requires the entertainer to target someone and use the /setperform command. This sounds completely passive, a great deal like the current BuffBot group buff without needing to be grouped.
This sounds like, as long as I'm performing, someone's getting a buff.
This sounds like, regardless whether I WANT to be buffing someone, they're getting a benefit from it.
This sounds like, I have no way of knowing who the hell is benefiting from my performance.
This sounds like it was tailor made for combat players, with absolutely no thought going into what an Entertainer might want or need - you're not an Entertainer if your sole purpose is to be a bot for combat players to wipe their feet on.
I want a way to control who I buff. I want a way to see who I'm buffing at any given moment. I want a reason to be sought out over bots. I want a reason to interact with my fellow players.
I don't mind the "the longer you watch/listen, the longer your buff will last" part. I DO mind the way this sounds entirely out of the entertainer's hands.
The equivalent I see here is, Any time a doctor heals a patient, everyone within range gets the same heal benefit if they have the doctor targetted. Any time a doctor buffs a patient, or cures a patient, everyone who has the doctor targetted gets the same buff or cure.