Entertainer Archive

The question I've sought an answer tois, "Why dopeople AFK entertain?".

I have 2 answers:

a.) To provide healing in places off the beaten pathor at non-peak times. People on at 4:00 am or people out off the beaten path need healing too.

b.) To progress through the profession as fast as possible. Holocroners and buffbots among others don't care about the social aspects of the profession. However, they are ruiningthese social aspects forthe majority of the people that the profession is designed to cater too.

Solutions:

a.) None needed. I personally can't have find flaws inpeople trying to help others in this way. I myself have been saved by them on numerous occasions.

b.)Slow Experianceis the root cause of the current problems. Why is there such anemphasis on experiance for a class that is designed to promote socialization?What would be wrong with lowering the experiance requirementsto allow people to learn theentire profession in less than say 6 hours? Those that will argue about the need for a sense of accomplishment,would you rather a needlesssence of futilitywith AFKers grinding, or a quick trip to masterfor the benefit ofpromoting the social aspect of the profession?

The truesolution to this problem is to makeentertaining my exciting and enjoyable, to have people want to work their way up the ladder and be at their keyboards. Dance/Musiccompetitions for prize money or fame, or some of the many other good ideas that have been stated on these boards. Allof these would requiremajor improvements to the system and will not come in a timely manner.

SoI'm back to,why not lower the experiance requirements?

I'm going to disagree with your none needed to point A.

Right now, it benefeits entertainers not to go to those places. Both financially and xp wise. If the game mechanics were changed so entertainers would benefeit from going to those out of the way places, there would be more people willing to do it.

I agree that fixing the root cause of the problem, rather than fighting just the symptoms, is the way to go.

Here's the issue with your solution to B; if it were that easy to master it, then everyone and their Great Aunt Tillie would do it just so that they wouldn't need to bother with finding a dedicated performer. So it's a balancing act between making it not so difficult that even those who want to do it often can't stand the boredom of doing absolutely nothing but performing and talking, or making it so easy that it's a token profession. The only way to avoid that would be to make it requisite to master Entertainment to get to Musician or Dancer, and that would reallyhurt a lot of folks who perform because they enjoy it, but have 'day jobs' in combat to pay the maintenance on the house.

Honestly, I don't think getting to Novice Dancer or Musician is all that difficult. It's the climb from Novice Dancer or Musician to Master that's brutal and mind-numbing.

---

Echinacea wrote:

It's the climb from Novice Dancer or Musician to Master that's brutal and mind-numbing.

---

My character is not quite a master dancer yet (4-2-3-4), but she is close, and I have most definitely NOT found the "climb" to be mind-numbing. But then, I love dancing and it's my favorite part of the game.

Maybe the real problem here is that too many people view musicians and dancers in a utilitarian sense (as healers) rather than as entertainers. If all you are after is skill boxes and healing ability, then yeah, I'm sure the profession is a bore. I was never after just those things (they are nice perks, but they were not my goal). I was interested in playing a social profession to maximize my RP, and I don't need to be a Master to do that. So the climb has not been a problem for me, because basically I have enjoyed every minute of playing my character.

It's kind of sad that so few other entertainers seem to equally enjoy the profession. It's hard for me to say what to do about it since, from my end, the profession itself is fine.

C

Point taken. Topic a) really should be be broken up into 2 different points.

a) To provide healing for those people that huntnear deserted cities.

c) To provide healing for those that don't play at peak hours like the 4:00 am friends.

Discussion:

a) This is a tough situation because there isn't any incentive to go to these areas for hunters so there definately wouldn't be a reason for entertainers to go. The fundamental purpose of entertainers is to allow people a way to socialize.How do you socialize in a cantina when there is no one around to talk to? Thats a fundamental flaw.

Off on a tangent here so bear with me:

How does an entertainer make money?Say you have an entertainer do a mission to go to a cantina that is desertedto dance/play for 10 minutes. What really does this accomplish when the purpose is to socialize in the first place.The only reason to do these missions would be in hopes ofa financial payoff. But in doing so you're fighting theintention of the profession. To solve thefinancial problems entertainers have to be able to charge the people they entertain, I feel this isonly true methodI've heard to eliminate thecashflow problems entertainers face.There is alsothe option of collecting money from entrance fees into a cantinaand then beingpayedby thecantinaowner by the hour. I know,I know, this would lead to farming cantinas for credits by AFKers which would only drive the numbers out of control.

A possible solution:

1) If we used the current experiance is king approach.One entertainercould begiven a large experiance bonus for being the only entertainer registered in a cantina, lets say a 10:1 experiancebonus.5 entertainersregistered =5:1 bonus,10 ents = 1:1 again. Or some kind of similar set up. This still wouldn't be fun for the socializer thoughbecause it would still be a deserted cantina. But it would spread out the AFKers.

2) If experiance wasn't an issues, then it would take creating a need for the hunters to be in those areas for you to heal them. Untila city ispopulated there really isn't going to be any socializing. To compound the problem,the outcropping of player cities have made individual city populationsdrop even more.Everycity is starting to feel like a ghost town.

c) I don't really know if there is a solution to this problem, there just aren't enough people around at those hours to give everyone the healing they need.

To be honest, if a city rarely has hunters in it, and someone does need healing, let them go somewhere they can find it. I mean, you don't expect a weaponsmith or a slicer to be at every city, nor a doctor. The only problem I see is places where there are hunters but no entertainers, like advanced planets.

I enjoy the range of what I can do when I acheive sufficient skill, and playing with all the possibilities when I've gotten a nice variation of tools to use. Especially now that the focus/willpower buff exists. (It didn't the first time I was a Musician.) That gives me purpose, and something concrete to offer others. Well...maybe not concrete, but you know what I mean. Enjoyment of the very limited variety of our repertoire, even at Master level, can only be taken so far without having a purpose.

I enjoy role-playing. But if that and socialization wereall I wanted to do, I'd still be playing The Sims Online. I also want content and the enjoyment I get from feeling needed by others. Okay, so I'm co-dependant. /shrug But that's what I find enjoyable, and excuse the hell out of me for wanting both role-playing and a game mechanics purpose.