Entertainer Archive
Thread: What are the two most important issues facing entertainers today?
Yetimann wrote:
(any other professions wares have a monetary value and ours do not)
That is changing. The Test Center currently has a lot of enhancements to the entertainer mind buffs. You have to be a musician or dancer with experience in the technique line to make them. The buffs have had their duration increased, their application time decreased and they have added a targeted buff option. That means that you can choose a person to give a mind buff to and, after listening/watching for a few minutes, that person will have a mind buff that will last up to two hours. If you're curious about it, make a character on test center and find a musician or dancer to try it out with.
While you're there, check out the new shirtless male look. 
The missions sometimes pay less than it costs to get there forcing a never ending cycle of poverty to eventual boredom and quitting of the profession entirely for a combat class orcreation class (includes docs that make medpacks)
Entertainer money-making is the primary concern of the profession. The devs are looking for creative ways to move us from being a tip-based profession to a job-based profession. You'll never get complete agreement on this because it varies so much from galaxy to galaxy, planet to planet, and entertainer to entertainer. Myself, I've never had a problem making a living on tips. I know a few people who have gotten rich diong it and I know a lot more who complain about being dirt poor (though many of those last are the sorts who do nothing but play/dance and expect an automatic reward just for their presence).
(this is because no matter what flourish button you hit you will eventually get the same flourish)
For example I have a little fat old man named Eldoo Hispi on the Shadowfire server (Bespine cantina most days) When I am dancing or musicing I go through each flourish button and I found out after a short time that no matter what one I choose I get the same flourishes over repeat hits of the same key.
I don't quite understand what you're trying to say here. When you bind a flourish to a hot key, that hot key will only produce that flourish. I would **edit** an eyebrow if you hit the same key over and over and got DIFFERENT flourishes, not the other way around.
Are you referring to the animations being the same in each tune, or the duplication of certain flourishes from dance to dance?
I don't think I can add anything on this subject that hasn't been said 100 times. Get rid of it. All of it.
Issue 2: entertainer missions
A little to add on this one. Maybe entertainer missions could be like the old deliver missions (that actually paid money.) You should be able to buy a ticket, wait 9 minutes and 55 seconds, and play at a obscure cities cantina for 15 minutes and still feel like you accomplished something in the game. I would expect at least 500 credits more then the cost of a ticket to travel to planet X.
On us having money, everything we use will last forever. We would be more respected and be regarded as actually earning our money if dancer's shoes wore out, musicians instruments broke strings, and Image designers needed rare resources to do good image desigining.
Making us put back the money we've taken out will give us our proper posistion in this player based economy.
AFK Macroing - I do, I admit it. I always spend 50% of my time running missions and working my way up as Smuggler, I spend the the other 50% of my time in the cantina cracking jokes, engaging the audience and getting people to tip the dancers. Take notice of that, "tipping the dancers" NOT myself. When I'm not actually engaged with the crowd or running missions, I'm macroing. The people that drag themselves into the Cantinain Kor-Vel and find it empty except for me don't seem to mind too much. It is a little hard to engage in a good conversation while pausing to hit an F key every few seconds.
I get money from running missions and looting the occasional corpse (when not grouped, cause we know how well that works). I have developed a good repor with the other Entertainers that frequent the Coronet Cantina. I'm quick to help everyone I can, and I find the crowd receptive to the tipping suggestions for the dancers and band members AND medics that work hard to keep the show going.
No one seems to be offended by my AFK periods and I'm well greeted upon returning. I'm not certain about all this angst towards AFKers. How does it hurt the profession? My status as Master generates a bit more attention and as such benefits the others when i'm joking with the patrons and scoring tips for the hard working people of the cantina. My presence when AFK shows that I'm dedicated to healing those people even while dealing with the real life world.
Perhaps my galaxy just sees it differently, but at no time has anyone given me grief over this. I suggest everyone worry more about their own characters and their own play styles and less about everyone elses. I have heard complaint about AFKers taking space in a group. SIMPLE, have the leader remove them. It's not as though once in a group you are magically bound to that group. The big L can punt an AFKer to make room.
I do not AFK for the experience and if I ever recieved a complaint from either the patrons or the other entertainers I would definately eliminate my AFK time all-together but it seems to me the only complaints are here on the forum.
Morphink wrote:No one seems to be offended by my AFK periods and I'm well greeted upon returning. I'm not certain about all this angst towards AFKers. How does it hurt the profession?
Here's how. You said it yourself... You are in Kor Vella, an entertainer-poor environment, and so you AFK. Follow the chain of logic. A fighter comes in. You are there AFK. You heal him. He walks out. End of story. You "helped" him, right?
However, ask yourself, what would've happened if you had not been there? Same fighter walks into the cantina, and finds no one. Now he is heavily wounded, and needs help. What does he do? Two choices. (1) Ctrl-v and look for a cantina with a * next to it. Then he goes there, and gets healed by someone else. While there he might point out that Kor Vella needs entertainers, and one or two entertainers might leave crowded Coronet and set up shop in Kor Vella. (2) ctrl-p, search, look for entertainers. Send a /tell to someone asking them to come to the cantina.
Either way, he'd have an impetus to find active dancers and persuade them to go to Kor Vella. They would get cash, he would get healing, and in the end the cantina is manned just like it was with the AFKer... only this time it is with people actually at keyboard.
All the people who AFK Macro-bot in the "remote" places are missing the point when they say they are "helping." Yes, you are helping THIS fighter here, right now. But what you are doing is harming the "entertainment economy" which, if it weren't for you, would result in warriors contracting with live dancers to have "gigs" in far-off remote places. AFK Macro-botters on Endor means the fighters don't have to find an active dancer, pay her two-way space ticket, and then tip her handily for entertaining them for an hour or three -- because there is a free-of-charge, always-present Macro-bot there to be an NPC auto-healer for them, and thus they don't need to do it.
This is why AFK entertaining harms the profession. It skews the economy, which ends up leaving active entertainers with no reason to go to far-off places, which leaves far-off places empty, which leaves people saying AFK Macroing is needed in those places... blah, blah, blah... etc.
Get rid of AFK Macroing, and now you have a profession that will be in high demand and will be contracted out to go to the remote locations. How does it harm the profession? It takes that away, making the active dancers have absolutely no chance of a real reward for going somewhere remote, and thereby taking away a large chunk of potentially pleasurable experience for them. Going ot Endor becomes incurring a LOSS... rather than a profitable venture.
But no, AFK macroers don't hurt the profession... uh HUH...
C
Oh my!
Entertainers actually leaving big cities...that would be a sight. However, most of the entertainers that do it full time (that I know) do it for the social experience.
Not much social experience outside of Coronet, Bestine, etc. It would be nice to see entertainers spread out, but a lot of them pursue other professions too, and aren't going to be bothered camping out in empty cantinas...unless they are AFK while not running missions...which doesn't contribute to a social atmosphere to bring the hardcore entertainers in...I hope you see what I'm getting at, because I'm losing track....hehehe.
Anyways, to make a long story short. There is nothing in small towns like Kor Vella to bring entertainers in.
Personally... as an ex dancer i feel the whole elite profession is not rewarding in anyway. It's a great place to meet people and talk with your friends while helping them mind heal, but as far as monetary gain.. it's sad.
The crafters and artisans are in the same position. These people are the ones that need higher paying missions due to the fact that they have to buy much needed resources to even finish thier professions. On top of the fact that they can't do thier job without it.Name a fightingclass that has that problem? All the fighting classes make tons of money and xp on missions. If they choose to use up much needed skill pts to pursue these professions, they lack the monetary gain to buy their much needed resources. Doctors are also in that category. The mission payment for these classes are just silly to bother with. And waiting to make money by being tipped is as silly as expecting someone to tip you for training them. Hum... think it cost me 9K to train in my last dancing skill. Good thing I have a BH for a partner or i wouldn't be able to afford that easily.
I propose that these professions become alternate skills, using none of the original skill points to achieve them. Or at least lowering them enough so that these people that chose to help others are not lacking in ways that could earn them money or for that matter protecting themselves just getting to their pa halls and or harvestors. Dancing/entertaining/tailoring ect.are not skills that can be used well out in the field. Therefore it should be an elective, a choice for fun and helping others in your own way.
Segla'ne
ex Dancer
Most of the entertainers on Kauri/ dearic have quit their professions because of this by the way.
Seglane wrote:
Dancing/entertaining/tailoring ect.are not skills that can be used well out in the field. Therefore it should be an elective, a choice for fun and helping others in your own way.
I was with you up to here. Entertaining is NOT about having skills that are useful "out in the field". The whole point of entertaining is that you have a profession that DOESN'T go out in the field. It promotes the idea that the game is NOT all about combat.
Entertaining, tailoring, whatever are valid professions as evidenced by the number of people that choose those to be their primary activity. We are not all sitting in the cantina or the shop enviously wishing that we had some battle skills so we could play with the other kids.
I understand why some players focus on combat as the lynchpin of the game. They've been brought up that way. For a huge number of us, though, we are specifically here because we can play combat or not play combat and still have a fun time.
If I want to go out in the field, I see a marksman trainer and pick up a pistol. I don't lament the fact that my profession doesn't have any skills useful for "out in the field".
SlickRiptide wrote:
I was with you up to here. Entertaining is NOT about having skills that are useful "out in the field". The whole point of entertaining is that you have a profession that DOESN'T go out in the field. It promotes the idea that the game is NOT all about combat.
Entertaining, tailoring, whatever are valid professions as evidenced by the number of people that choose those to be their primary activity. We are not all sitting in the cantina or the shop enviously wishing that we had some battle skills so we could play with the other kids.
I understand why some players focus on combat as the lynchpin of the game. They've been brought up that way. For a huge number of us, though, we are specifically here because we can play combat or not play combat and still have a fun time.
If I want to go out in the field, I see a marksman trainer and pick up a pistol. I don't lament the fact that my profession doesn't have any skills useful for "out in the field".
I think i was missunderstood there. My point wasn't that i felt they could or should be part of a combat team. It was to point out that since these professions are basically in town players, they should be compensated in a way that it's beneficial for them to stay there. Having those skills as a sideline would ensure the cantinas and fun are ongoing! And a great place for everyone and their friends to socialize on much needed downtime.
I mean... really, have you prices clothing for the fashion concious dancer?
Seglane wrote:
I think i was missunderstood there. My point wasn't that i felt they could or should be part of a combat team. It was to point out that since these professions are basically in town players, they should be compensated in a way that it's beneficial for them to stay there. Having those skills as a sideline would ensure the cantinas and fun are ongoing! And a great place for everyone and their friends to socialize on much needed downtime.
Hmmm... I'm sorry, I've re-read your original comments and I don't think I misunderstood them. Paraphrased, what you said was "Crafting and Dancing aren't real professions and should just be hobbies that don't require skill points and don't require much in the way of advancement." Essentially, you're claiming that they should be EQ-style tradeskills instead of "classes" and that everyone in the game should be able to do them.
Once you delete the crafters and the entertainers, what's left besides the combat professions and the medics?
My point is that we have these activities as professions BECAUSE a huge number of us playing this game like the idea that we can play with as little combat as we choose. Entertainers don't need more incentive to be in town - That's where we already are. Combat dudes who spend all their time in the field are not going to spend more time in town just because entertaining becomes a tradeskill. Heck, it only costs 100cr and 15 skill points to take up entertaining. Lots of combat dudes do that just for self-sufficiency, but you don't see them partying in town just because they have the skills. Turning us from a profession into a hobby isn't going to result in packed cantinas every day but it WOULD result in a large number of people leaving the game for something more to their liking.
MY point is that the game doesn't revolve around combat unless you want it to. Combat is just one cog in the engine that drives the game. Viewing the non-combat professions as disposable is a way of ignoring what it is that makes this game different and worth playing for all of the people that choose to follow a non-combat profession.
This discussion is drifting off topic, so we should pursue it in a new thread if we're going to. I'd like to keep this one for ideas to send on to the devs. I just don't think you should be surprised that someone would take a bit of umbrage when you come into a forum and say "I propose that we get rid of your profession (and every other professions that doesn't wield a blaster) and give your skills to every player in the game instead."
Maybe we need to just take it from the top then, Seglane, and have you rephrase your idea in a different manner. I just can't read this...
I propose that these professions become alternate skills, using none of the original skill points to achieve them. Or at least lowering them enough so that these people that chose to help others are not lacking in ways that could earn them money or for that matter protecting themselves just getting to their pa halls and or harvestors. Dancing/entertaining/tailoring ect.are not skills that can be used well out in the field. Therefore it should be an elective, a choice for fun and helping others in your own way.
...as anything other than "let's get rid of entertainers entirely and let everyone in the game have dancing and music abilities for free instead." If that's the "half-empty" way of reading this then I'm honestly interested in hearing what the "half-full" interpretation is. The only justificationyou provide seemsto be that entertainer missions don't pay as well as other missions and it might be difficult for entertainers to do destroy missions. It strikes me that raising the payout of the missions would be a better solution than dissolving the profession...
In any case, pay isn't that interesting of a reason for doing anything to the profession (and remember that this also includes two other professions, musician and dancer). You'll never get good agreement on what a good pay level should be or even on the fact that tipping is a bad way to be paid. Just yesterday, I made 40,000 credits entertaining at the Dathomir Trade Outpost. That makes tipping look pretty good...
As far as pay goes, the developers have realized that making us a primarily player-paid profession was a mistake and they have it on their agenda to change that. Just HOW to change and retain the flavor of the profession is what's up for debate. I'm all ears for any suggestions along those lines.
SlickRiptide wrote:
As far as pay goes, the developers have realized that making us a primarily player-paid profession was a mistake and they have it on their agenda to change that. Just HOW to change and retain the flavor of the profession is what's up for debate. I'm all ears for any suggestions along those lines.
Wow... that's great news Slick! 
Now 1/2 my glass if full! And by the looks of 90% of the posts here... others will be SOOOO happy! Whoo hoo!!
Segla'ne
Well, don't celebrate yet. Nobody's made any commitments to anything. In fact, I probably said more than I ought to have. Suffice to say they're aware of the concern and are, themselves, concerned. A change might be as simple as increasing mission payouts, but the people involved are interested in making changes that promote the profession rather than just give us handouts.
We DO have other ways of making money. My toon's personal fortune is right around 900,000 credits, earned as part of a thriving mining business. Nothing stops entertainers from doing deliveries even if we design our toons in a way that makes them poor at combat. Now, (assuming they get the stat-borking bugs fixed) we can also sell our targeted mind bufs if we're in the musician/dancer professions. Entertainers CAN make money without ever doing an entertainer mission or receiving a tip.
The reason it's an issue at all is because people want the validation that comes from earning their keep with their primary profession. This is why it's a GOOD thing that the devs are taking their time tackling this problem. They want to do right by the profession(s) and make something that's interesting and fun, not just a rehash of the existing entertainer missions with a higher payout.