Entertainer Archive
Thread: Buffs
Very good descriptions Travin... but you forgot another important buff source.... ENTERTAINERS!
While Doctors only have the ability to buff you Health and Action (along with their respective secondary pools), Entertainers have the ability to buff your Mind attributes. Specifically, Dancers can buff your main Mind pool and Musicians can buff the secondary pools (Focus & Willpower). And same with Docs, the higher level the entertainer is, the better their buffs are. Entertainer buffs will double your mind stats for about 2 hours.
What do you expect us to do? Stand around doing a /shout in spatial ever 2 minutes, "BUFFING MIND FOR 2K SEND TELL"? Well, I guess some would do that. Not me though. Probably few would who frequent this forum.
Me, I can't give 75% buffs away (not a master yet). I offer them free to my guild. Nobody ever takes me up on the offer. /shrug. I'd buff myself if I could, but I can't... so I just don't worry about it.
I'm not sure where I'd even go to "sell" buffs. So few people come into the public cantinas anymore, except in the huge venues like Theed and Coronet, where they certainly don't need me, that I can't imagine I'd make as good a living doing that as I can using my 3rd profession -- Carbine -- and doing some hunting.
I leave my "Choreographer" title up all the time so people can tell I am a dancer. I figure if they want a buff, they'll send me a tell and ask. Few have... in the months since the ability was given to us, maybe 5 or 6 total. Otherwise sometimes I can persuade large groups that I am hunting bolle bols with that because they hit mind it might be a good idea if the master musician and I (the dancer) in the group buffed everyone before we start. But that takes 15 minutes and most people don't want to sit around that long.
Of course when they get mind-incapped 10 minutes later by the bolle bols I am not very sympathetic. But oh well, that is their choice.
In general I have had very few requests for mind buffs, and since most people don't even want one for free when I offer it to them, I can't imagine it'd be very profitable to stand around "selling" them. So I've never bothered. As I say, I make my money from carbine anyway...
C
One day when trying my Imperial Ballet outfit ( ST Armor ), I was shot by a rebel. Due to a SOE bug, I cloned overt and was shot by another rebel. And cloned overt again and was shot on the way to the recruiter to go covert by a third rebel ( you feel the imperial oppression already, don't you ? ). The next day, I was still seriously pissed about what had happened, SOEs fault, but it's easier to blame the rebels 
So I got out an imperial uniform, got myself a military style haircut and went advertising free mind and focus buffs for any imperial who would like to get it. I felt like a spambot announcing the free buffs every five minutes. I was in Theed. I was in an Imperial Outpost on Dantooine. On my way I passed through Bestine and had a brief stop there. In 6 hours gametime at the weekend, I had a whopping 5 ( five! ) customers for a free double buff. For three of them it was the first entertainer buff ever and they were quite impressed.
The going rate is 3K for a buff. Say only half of them would have paid this price instead of getting it for free, that would leave 3 at best. One player every two hours. In 6 hours I would have gotten 9K credits. Wow. I got a 15K tip for a new haircut recently and it only took me 3 minutes.
In addition, if I want to advertise my services, I have to be in a public cantina. I don't like public cantinas any more and from what I see it's little different for the others masters.
So whats missing ? Public knowledge, demand and a marketplace that is actually enjoyable for those that sell.
However, that doesn't change the fact that few have ever asked for one, and when I offer it free to guild mates and hunting group partners they aren't interested. You get enough, "No thanks for the free buff" responses you have to figure it'd not be wortwhile to sell them.
I'm not a dancer to make money and I don't need the dance XP (I already have all but the last couple of healing boxes). I dance to socialize, have fun, and put on a show. Buffing accomplishes zero of those goals.
Now, that doesn't mean I won't do it. If someone asks, I will comply. If it's a friend or a guild mate, it's free. If it's a stranger, I'd charge 1K (it's not a full buff so I wouldn't charge the "going rate" of 2K). But I'm not really going to wander around "selling" my mind buff ability because it doesn't seem worth it. Even if I could make 1K per buffed person, at 10 minutes per buff that's 6K an hour. Again, I can make more by picking up a carbine and hunting bolle bols for 15 minutes.
The question was, "Why don't I see more people buffing?" I think my answer sheds light but was too personally focused.
Here's why, in a nutshell.
The real performers who both know how to give one and are around to offer it (rather than being AFK) probably are like me and don't have much interest. That is, we'll do it if asked, but we're not going to stand around being bored shouting to offer mind buffs. It's just not in our nature. Like me, most of the real performers are there to have fun, socialize, and put on a show. Again... none of these is consistent with mind buffing.
The grinders (for holo or AFK) are either not there or don't care about buffing, and the instant they're able to give the good one (at master) they're going to sell off the ability anyway. And since you need the tech tree to give a buff, they'll get that ability last, since it is more efficient to go up the knowledge tree first. So they can't give a buff till the very end, and they won't have the ability long before moving onto the next holo-induced profession to master.
Mind buffing is, I think, something most of us will do willingly, but it is not as if we are going to stand around hawking mind buffs in the Dantooine cantina. That's just too boring for most good entertainers to want to do. We'd rather be off somewhere putting on a show.
C
soooo you counter your own argument at the end by saying that 'we all do it anyways' so that negates your post, the most meat i can see in it is that you have a problem with the Holo-Daze'd dancers who end up making money off of it when your not?
I'm in no way trying to make you frustrated i'm just trying to get a clear idea of where your comming from. It sounds to me that you want to give buffs but that the holo-dancers are taking all your customer base? Also don't take offense to someone who doesn't want a buff from a non-master, they don't last as long and they don't buff as high... not worth the overall wait IMO.
What i could suggest to you though is when people come into the cantina, check them out, if their mind is lower then the rest of their stats just do a /setperf on them, most of the time they will look at you and start to talk if for nothing else. Be more proactive in educating people on buffs as well, i don't clog up chat by any means but if i mention a buffing here and there in casual conversation it usually sparks some intrest. You can also get tips for just setting your performance to a random person that walks in too, happens to me all the time.
Rizzaka wrote:I'm in no way trying to make you frustrated i'm just trying to get a clear idea of where your comming from. It sounds to me that you want to give buffs but that the holo-dancers are taking all your customer base?
When the heck did I say that? If anything I said the opposite: that the hologrinders are unlikely to be either able or willing to give a mind buff (since they are there to grind and leave, not make money, and buffing doesn't get you any substantial experience). I never said the hologrinders are taking my buff customers away. I said I don't really care if I have buff customers or not, that buffing really is not something I am intensely interested in (best way to describe it: I'm ambivalent -- I'll give it if someone wants, if not, I couldn't really care less). I can't see how you could get, "I think the hologrinders stole my customers" from that.
Rizzaka wrote:Also don't take offense to someone who doesn't want a buff from a non-master, they don't last as long and they don't buff as high... not worth the overall wait IMO.
I don't take offense.
Personally I think my hunting group mates, when we are going after things like bolle bols that specifically target mind, the one stat that you can't heal with stimpacks, are fools for not wanting a 75% buff. Often we will take 2 bolle bol missions each, x 5 or 6 people = 12 missions. A 2 hour 75% mind buff to do 12 6K credit missions is well worth it IMO, and it only takes 15 minutes to do (we're already grouped so they get the passive buff). Occasionally they will agree to it but most of the time they don't. But then most of them are also too cheap to spend 400 cr on a Tat Sunburn to buff their strength and stamina... I buy them by the crate (they work out to be way cheaper than doc buffs if you use them wisely).
Rizzaka wrote:What i could suggest to you though is when people come into the cantina, check them out, if their mind is lower then the rest of their stats just do a /setperf on them, most of the time they will look at you and start to talk if for nothing else.
I don't want to sound melodramatic here but this, I view as unethical. What if the person doesn't WANT the buff? There could be several reasons for this. At a minimum you have to ask if they would like one. I wouldn't want some random doctor just showing up and doing stat buffs to me either. Not that I don't want the buffs, but it's my character... I get to decide when it gets buffed or not.
Someone /watching you might just want a heal, not a buff. And once you start then that's it, the buff "takes" and he can't get one from another dancer. If he doesn't want one or is in the cantina waiting to meet a master dancer to buff him, then you've just screwed him over. Bad idea.
Rizzaka wrote:Be more proactive in educating people on buffs as well
I have posted several long explanations on my guild's web forum. Lots of people were glad to know it and had not understood them before, but it did not result in any more requests for buffs.
Again, I don't personally care. If they don't want it, it's no skin off my Lekku. I gain nothing from buffing them.
I was trying to explain why you don't see more people out there "offering buffs." Not lamenting the fact that I can't do it.
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Rizzaka wrote:
Also don't take offense to someone who doesn't want a buff from a non-master, they don't last as long and they don't buff as high... not worth the overall wait IMO.
Actually, if I recall, all buffs have the same duration regardless of skill level. The big impact is the time and flourishes (with whatever arcane means they use to calculate that). But yes, a "Skilled Dancer" is only 75% and not a grand 100%.
That being said, I never had anyone say, "Oh, it’s only 75%. Well, that sucks." So few people know about buffs and so few Masters offer them that the educated people are just happy with 75%. Heck, I bet they’d be pleased as punch just to get 50%.
And we have to give credit to JoriQ for being educated in this department. Sadly, I think JoriQ suffers because of server-wide ignorance. Not enough patrons know about it to justify keeping Dancers in the cantinas. So those patrons like JoriQ who do know about it have to hunt far and wide for these things.
My advice to you, JoriQ, is that when you find an eligible Dancer (and even 50% can be workable), then you add that Dancer to your Friends list. Actually, find out if the Dancer is a serious dancer. You don’t want to have a list of eight people who aren’t normally at their keyboard. That would be frustrating to send messages to them with no response. Then when you log on and want that buff, check your Friends list. After a week of exploring, I’d hope that you accumulate a good list so that there is always someone on. Place the value of the buff in the comments field so you can hunt down Masters first.
I do some buffing, but interestingly enough I don’t have that large of a demand. Someone was in the cantina asking for buffs. I said I can do one. He watched me and said nothing happened when it was all done, even though I watched his Mind go up. His buddy came in and laughed when he heard what happened. He told him, "You idiot; I told you to go get a doctor’s buff. We have Muon Gold for the Mind." They tipped me for my troubles, at least, but I still couldn’t believe that my services were shunned in favor of spice. You could do both, after all. Oh, and I told them that when they ask for a buff in a cantina, it means Dancer or Musician, so they need to elaborate.
JoriQ wrote:Mypoint was that I have asked many people to buff and they say no. So I guess the answer I'm getting as to why is that its's a pain in the ass cause it takes ten minutes. Makes sense, that'a all I was wondering. BTW I got my first one from a very nice lady in Coronet.
I agree with K, it is odd that you are regularly told "No."
The only time I've ever said "No" was when I had a big group of non-entertainers waiting for me to go and do a hunt with them. I apologized profusely to the person asking for the buff. This happened just this weekend and the others had already had to wait 10 minutes because I missed the stinkin' shuttle by 2 seconds... So I didn't feel it was right to make them wait another 10 minutes to buff someone.
I don't find them all that fun to give, and they gain me no appreciable healing xp (supposedly they give you some but I have never seen it happen), and the money I'd make is trivial. So I don't go looking to buff people. But other than that one case, I have never said, "no" to someone asking for a buff. That's just... strange.
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Groovymarlin wrote:Chessack if you are at all interested in buffing people you could respond to those requests (if you ever hear them) with a tell informing the patron that you can give them a 75% buff if they can't find someone to do the 100%.
Honestly, never seen it happen on my server. But again, I don't go looking to buff people. It's a nice little side ability. I use it if asked, but I am not "into" buffing people.
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Mypoint was that I have asked many people to buff and they say no. So I guess the answer I'm getting as to why is that its's a pain in the ass cause it takes ten minutes. Makes sense, that'a all I was wondering. BTW I got my first one from a very nice lady in Coronet.