Entertainer Archive

Before I start let me add1 caveat: I do not regularly post on the entertainer boards, so I have no idea if this has already been proposed. Please don't flame me if it already has.

Background: As I was playing today, a thought occurred to me as I went through my usual routine...

I found a doctor in coronet who was buffing, paid him 10k credits, and then sat in line for 10 minutes waiting for him to buff me.

I then went to the cantina, looked around until I found a dancer and musician thatlooked non-AFK, watched and listened for 30 seconds to heal my mind wounds and BF, and then tipped each 5000 credits.

Afterwards, the dancer sent me a tell saying "That you for the tip, that is more money than players tipped me all day yesterday."

The thought occurred to me:

Why are entertainers getting shafted by (1) AFK entertainers who can do everything a live entertainer can do, and (2) services that are totally free to anyone who watches them, when players are willing to wait and pay thousands for doctors to personally applybuffs every 2-3 hours?

Why are doctors getting rich for healing, where entertainers can barely afford shuttle tickets on their healing money?

TH's most recent attempt at "personalizing" the entertainer experience is crap.The proposaldoesn't even come close to what entertainers need to survive...entertainers need people to NEED them. Inserting a game where you get to ask for flourishes is NOT need, it is exactly that (a game), that people will not pay to play.

The Solution: By taking making a couple of simple changes, I think all entertainment professions can be totally fixed for good.Those changes include:

(1) Targeted Battle Fatigue Healing - Currently anyone who listens to/watchesan entertainer automatically heals battle fatigue. This is the one of the main sources of entertainer abuse, as players can utilize entertainer's services and heal themselvesfor free. The funny thing is that battle fatigue was DESIGNED to provide a market for entertainment, but it is not doing so because the system makes it free.

In order to provide entertainers viable services, BF healing needs to be limited to targeted healing ONLY.

Entertainers have a function whereby they can direct their performance at another player, thereby increasing that player's healing. What needs to happen is that this function be changed so that it heals battle fatigue instead of merely increasing healing.With that change, theONLY way playerswould be able toheal battle fatigue would be by asking an entertainer to targeted heal them.

In this way, entertainers would be able to request money for their services BEFORE they provide them, just like doctors do, and entertainment would have a market viable product. Additionally, this would totally eliminate AFK entertainers healing battle fatigue, as there is no way to macro target other players to heal them.

(2) TargetedMind Buffing- Currently the main problem with mind buffing is that it only requires that you be in a group with an entertainer for you to be buffed. This has resulted in "buff-bots" sitting in all cantina that, FOR FREE, spam "Invite me to your group, I will accept and buff you."

Mind buffing needs to be restructured to be just like my proposal for BF healing....No more group rules...eliminate the. To buff theentertainer must direct their performance at another character for a certain period of time. As I said above, this would (1) allow entertainers to charge money in advance of providing their services, (2) provide a market for entertainers, and (3) eliminate the use of AFK buff-bots to buff other players.

As a side consequence of implementing this idea, the time it takes to mind buff another player would have to be DRASTICALLY increased. My suggestion would be that a player is fully buffed after the entertainer directs their performance for 30 seconds.

(3) Leave Wound Healing the Same - To not inconvience other players too badly, mind would healing would remain the same....if you watch/listen to an entertainer, you heal your mind wounds.

Implementing this triad of ideas would result in the following:

(1) Players could still heal their mind wounds (which can be game breaking on a nightly basis), and can tip the entertainers if they desire.

(2) When after a couple of days (or one grueling day) a players BF gets high, the player would have to pay an entertainer for the special service of healing their battle fatigue (via directing their performance). Battle fatigue can get as high as 400 and 500 before players really start feeling the effect of the fatigue, so this would probably mean that players only have to do this a couple of times a week.

(3) When a player want a mind buff, they will need to find and pay an entertainer to do so, just like with doctors and all other buffs.

(4) AFK entertainers would be limited to wound healing, thereby preserving healing activities for live entertainers to get paid for.

What do you think?

Definitely not a flame for you here - even though we've been discussing active-onlybuffing andtargeted healing for some time now in the entertainer forums. I think it's more a matter of recognizing that everyone seems to be having the same ideas surrounding this.

I think that the vast majority of the posting entertainers are in favor of it. We need to be the ones to have control over the services we provide. In fact, my initial thoughts on replying to this post have blossomed into another chapter ofDeila's Philosophy on the State of Entertainers. I'll move this new novel-length reply/post to its own thread.

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Thanks for a thoughtful post.Weentertainer Correspondents have indeed raised many (though maybe not all) of these ideas with the devs. They say they don't like AFK'ing either, but they sure haven't done much about it yet.I think one concern about proposals for targeted heals and buffs is that buffbots will just find another way to circumvent it, thereby inconveniencing those of us at the keyboard without accomplishing the goal. I mean, I play music to groove on tunes, not to heal or buff people, and I worry that targeted buffs/heals will put more pressure on me to be a buffer/healer than to be a performer. Instead of just coming in and schmoozing, people will come into the cantina and hector me to be next in line for a heal or buff.

Personally, I think the simplest approach would be to abolish the recursive macro, but the devs seem to think it has its uses. Why they think this is unfathomable to me.

Hmm I think I would rather have all the ATK ents getting pestered by patrons to get healed or buffed. Rather then be ignored by them. I mean if you don't want to do it right then don't. They'll then go to another atk entertainer. Ohh if only we had this sort of problem. When you want to make some money you could. And instead of fear that your turning another person off live ents and on to afk/bots you know they will just seek out some other live ent to help them. I would make the trade off gladly.

Oh-Orb Rizo Twi'lek
Just hanging out... watching with interest what changes do or don't happen.

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