Entertainer Archive
Thread: /covercharge ???
I have to disagree that entertainers shouldn't be pushing for "combat inclusion". Being included doesn't have to make us "Bards". Other non-combat profs are already included in combat centric areas and activities and there's no reason not to extend that to entertainers. The ability to charm your group past a dungeon/quest guard is certainly reasonable and should definitely be pushed for by those entertainers who want more from the profession than the cantina life.
As forthe assumption that the only way you can be killed as an entertainer is by being careless (afk in a dangerous area)... well that's just plain wrong. It's quite easy to be incapacitated by Desert Demons while searching for an entertainer mission at the Bestine mission terminal before you can run away (doesn't burst run require scout experience?). It's also very easy to be shot off your bike by Mauler Accolytes, Voritor Hunters and a myriad of other aggressive creatures on nearly every planet. Don't know about all the servers but finding PSG's on Shadowfire is like finding an ADK for 500 credits. Using a combat droid is useful but if you are in combat already then you can't pull it. Given all of that I see no reason that non-combat professions shouldn't be granted either additional health (just as double combat profs are), the ability to wear more than a PSG for defense, or some defense skill bonus. We're not asking to be able to defeat attackers. But not being able to escape from the mission terminal to the inside of the cantina 20 feet away is just absurd.
Ikewe wrote:
Given all of that I see no reason that non-combat professions shouldn't be granted either additional health (just as double combat profs are), the ability to wear more than a PSG for defense, or some defense skill bonus. We're not asking to be able to defeat attackers. But not being able to escape from the mission terminal to the inside of the cantina 20 feet away is just absurd.
Ikewe wrote:
The ability to charm your group past a dungeon/quest guard is certainly reasonable and should definitely be pushed for by those entertainers who want more from the profession than the cantina life.
As a non-entertainer, but a definite supporter of the arts
, I would really like to have a "/tipgroup [Amount] [Optional:bank]" command. Often when I walk in to a cantina, I look around to se if I can spot what looks a group with one or two live entertainers. It is not always possible to se spot a group, but I can for the most part spot at least one at first (else I just leave).And when the time comes to tip the entertainers I can notalways figure our who is in the group, it help with musicians when I can hear different instruments and look around to se who is playing them. But it is not a sure fired way.
It would be so much easier if I could just target the person the listened to or watched and type "/tipgroup 50000 bank".
The alternative is tipping only one entertainer, witch I guess is ok from that one entertainers point of view, but I would like to pay all members of the group whose services I enjoyed.
AFK entertainers won't get tips from me, so I'd probably never use a /tipgroup command.
Exactly
It’s bad enough already that if I do the Entertainer’s Missions the system forces me to split pay-out with the zombies in the group. So lately I just group with ATKs only and the “invite to grp if not grped plz..” macroing zombies just join my /ignore.
I had one actually return from several hours of AFK and call me rude for not /inviting it. Was pretty amusing.
As for entertainers going in Bard direction. No, at least not in the traditional sense of most games. Don’t take me wrong, I love bards and play one in EQ2 but this is NOT EQ2 (at least not yet 
).
However there should be more diversification to the profession. To give us options of how we want to play the character. The chain-and-ball to the Cantina is really no fun in long term, yet that is what we are reduced to with CL1.
Not every entertainer however is level 1, there are lots of hybrids and their needs should be addressed also.
What is they would go in this direction:
Entertainers, as they progress, could get variety of bonuses but some could only be used in combination with combat profession, other skills would only become more beneficial if an Entertainer holds more and more entertainers Titles.
Maybe a new Buff Line and some Defense Bonus Line.
If an entertainer wants to provide the best selection of buffs (one for each ent. master) they would stay CL1 and hold as many ent titles as possible.
If an entertainer wants to have “defensive” bonus line in combat, they would have to have combat master of course and choosen Ent Title. I don’t see how it could possibly overpower the hybrids if they could bring bonus to lets say “dodge” or some kind of “debuff” to their group.
I think this way our class would attract more variety of players if there would be more ways then one to play the class.
Why in the world would devs waste time creating a system to deal with AFK group leaders, and why in the world would we as entertainers ask that they take that time out of improving our classes in the first place? It's already ridiculous that the game has to have a chat filter for AFK people.
The solution to this "problem" is very simple: if the leader goes AFK, /disband.
Also, I agree that as both a patron and entertainer I would very much dislike a group tip command. No way am I ever giving even 1/10th of a credit to someone who is AFK, and I would never use the command for the fear that I would inadvertantly do so.
We need to focus on how to get people to want to tip us, to value the services we provide and dealing with the unatendees who kill those things. Not on how to force people to do things they don't want to do for the sake of a short term monetary reward.
As for the combat thing...with me not likeing what the CU did to combat (soemtimes I wanna go solo...can't anymore) I went back to soemthing I always liked...music. I'm master ent master music tkm and honestly, some combat help from the majority of my skillpoints would be nice. Not specials, I get all I need from tkm, but skill bumps. defense bonuses, general to hit, general speed, maybe even stat effect resists would be fine. we have, post CU, at least 1 treefor dancer and muscianboththat do minimal good right now (the wound healing). Dump the combat stuff in there. It does almost no good without a combat profession to back it up, so no biggie. Yes, it might still cap us at cl 54 (or maybe more, give us a slight bump, not enough to take us to 80 like double combat profs) but at least it would make it useful. My 2 cents.
oh...and for the record.../covercharge really sucks...I get more than enough tips being at the keyboard in a sea of afkers. somone wants to use it, fine, but not me.
I figure they should just go with a way to tip the whole band at once... like:
/bandtip
And have it split the money between everyone in that group. If you /bantip a non-grouped person, then they just get it all. No big deal.
As it is, the half naked twi'lek dancers get all the tips while us guys in the band go broke. 
I knew I should have chosen a sexier avatar. ^_^
- Amanti - Musician on Flurry