Image Designer Archive
Thread: Image Design Skill Gain Opinion Thread
Jaela: I completely agree with your note of the paucity of high-end content, however (and this is a big however) I don't see forcing players into a longer grind to be the answer to that problem. I'll be honest—now that my primary character has more or less reached the goals I set in terms of skill development there is little for me to do, which is, in part, my I started a second character and began to work on ID. So far I find ID to be richer in content than CM, but it suffers from a similar problem—as a non-master there's not much use to having the profession. Making it take longer to achieve mastery won't fix this.
What will fix this is what many, if not all, IDs have been requesting—more content. Put another way, make the trip as enjoyable as the destination—and certainly make the destination enjoyable—and the game will have a greatly improved lifespan. Make the trip a bore and people will try to move through it as fast as possible, only to find that the destination is no better. I personally greatly enjoy ID (and I expect to enjoy it even more once I start along the tailor track.) I find the artistic-for-the-sake-of-artistry aspects to be a great respite from the same-old-same-old of going out and killing things. My biggest complaint is that my options are so limited at lower levels that I feel forced to grind in order to not only gain more options, but to gain a willing clientelle. The sense that I get from reading these forums is that even as a master there will be a handfull of styles that will be requested, and rather than being able to fully imerse myself in the creation of a unique look to match a unique persona, I'll be grinding out look-alike toons with the same combination of features and clothing. This worries me, but I have faith that content will be added and I'll be given the opportunity to indulge myself in some true artistry. What I don't have faith in is that it will be anytime soon.
So, to recap this rather rambling post: grind bad. Content good. New content at each level, allow for the creation of unique, desirable toons. In this manner people will want to take their time and fully explore their options, rather than wanting to get the limited portions over and done with as quickly as possible.
Hope that made some kind of sense to someone… 
Well, I'm posting, aren't I? Worst comes to worst, I get thistoon to the template I want for her, then start another and try for…I dunno, commando/TKA or something. When more stuff gets added I move her into more frequent play rotation. There are all sorts of things I can do in the mean time to occupy myself.
Image design took *me* a long time.
Now last night, a perfectly nice armorcrafter, whom I've known for a while, announced to me "I gave up armorcrafting because it's no fun. I'm now dancer and image designer, much more fun..."
I asked her if she needed training.
"Oh no" she says "I mastered it in a few hours."
Oh great. It's not the holo grinders, it's everyone. They all can master our profession in a couple of hours. And I'm not sure as many people would do it if it were not so easy.
I don't know if there is a solution to the problem. I think with anyone who grinds, whether it takes 5 hours or 50 hours, you risk getting substandard product in the end. Yet, there is no incentive to go the slow way as the game intended.
Furthermore, for crafting or image design, there really is no way to "dabble". With combat classes, creature handler, medic, etc, you can go halfway and nobody will say "eeew get out of our group, 4-3-2-2 pistoleer!" Nobody will deal with a non-master crafter or image designer.
For crafting, this problem could probably be solved by granting no additional experimentation points at the master box. This means that crafters could make "fully functional" items that they qualified for, so long as they had experimentation 4. This would allow lower level crafters to make money, and perhaps halt the grind since a master armorsmith couldn't make ubese any better than an armorsmith with experimentation 4. The masters would still have a market for the schematics granted by the master box.
For image design, I think we need new "strange and unusual" things for the master box, so we can bump down mundane and popular changes such as chest and skin color. If we were "fully functional" in terms of character creation changes at the lower boxes, maybe people wouldn't rush so much to get master. Also, if the lower boxes were loaded with more goodies, requiring more xp would not be as much of a burden.
I don't want to penalize the casual player, but the 3 hour grind is ridiculous. I want to equalize the playing field so that it takes a reasonable amount of time. Step 1 is to get rid of exploits. Step 2, I believe, is to increase the mind cost for low level changes, so that grinding without losing mind is no longer possible, even with spice.
Without spice, macros, and exploits, the grind to image design took me a long time. I would say I worked on it for three weeks, as a casual player, but also at least 30 hours of actual clicking and resting. That is probably the time committment the devs intended. The question now is how can we obtain that 30 hour figure for the grinders, without increasing the casual player's time to 100 hours.
My opinion, stated simply, is: ID is too easy to grind through.
My reasoning is this: When I first decided to become an Image Designer, I had already undertaken the grind on another server and reached Master Weaponsmith and Master Tailor. These were difficult, tedious, but in the end I felt that what I got for it was worthwhile. So, I figured, how bad could it be? I can grind out Image Designer too and I'll feel justified after the grind is done.
I used no macros, but what I did use was a fellow Image Designer who was willing to help me, Muon Gold, and, back in the day, Dancer/Musician buffs. I started my character on Intrepid, got my stuff together, got with my friend and migrated a good deal of my stats into Mind/Will/Focus. A few days later we set to work. We went into the Theed Cantina and picked a Master Musician and Master Dancer to listen to/watch.
At the time, the buffs they gave didn't last as long as they do now, but they did provided a bonus enough so that, at one point, my Mind was 2000+ and my Will/Focus were 1000+ after the buffs and the muon. Needless to say, I was done with the grind in less than a day's work... and disappointed.
I had expected to actually EARN my keep, not have it given to me. Tons of people probably complain that they took their time, they never did a grind, etc... well, I hate to say it, but you are the minority when it comes to these type of MMORPGs... trust me... after 3 years of EQ, people grind like the wind to reach the top as fast as they can.
I felt like I had this class handed to me, but I *love* it. I will never give it up 
For all the holo-grinders, profession-changing grinders, etc... this is simply a joke. We are nothing compared to the other classes and we are not respected because of that. Everyone knows it takes about 3 hours to grind out ID from Novice Entertainer to Master ID, and we're considered lame because of it. I've had people refuse to pay me for the service because they could "just do it themselves" for less money, and, sadly, ITS TRUE!
When I was playing my Weaponsmith/Tailor more actively, people would complain about my prices, for sure, but the fact was: I could make what they wanted, and if they weren't willing to pay, they could go to the next person and try to get a better deal -- never once did anyone say they'd just do it themselves. I've had that thrown in my face several times after 200cr tips for 10-20 minutes of work.
Bring the respect back to our profession, disuade people from just grinding our profession so they can get a batch after the new patch, and bring back some dignity.
---,----`{<@
Harvest Rose
Master Image Designer of Deux Soleils
Beautifying Intrepid one Twi'lek at a time...
NJ62 wrote:
Image design took *me* a long time.
Without spice, macros, and exploits, the grind to image design took me a long time. I would say I worked on it for three weeks, as a casual player, but also at least 30 hours of actual clicking and resting. That is probably the time committment the devs intended. The question now is how can we obtain that 30 hour figure for the grinders, without increasing the casual player's time to 100 hours.
I'm still not done...
First, thanks for starting this thread Rilawyn. I'll apologize in advance for any bitterness...
1. IMO those who want to make the process of master Image Design more difficult in the hope that it will increase respect for the profession don't have a foundation for their hope. Using Bartle categories as a convenient shortcut, just who will develop respect; Killers, Explorers, Achievers, or Socializers?
Killers? LOL. Explorers? They get off on knowing the baldness workaround or the supersecret command for accepting an ID change why would an increase in difficulty make explorers respect us anymore? Achievers? Possibly. Make ID require the most time to master of any profession and some might do it for bragging rights especially if they find a way to do it more quickly than most. But respect? Socializers? Why?
2. Some seem to tie time/difficulty to content. I don't get it. What's the connection between the two? I'm all for more neat stuff; who isn't. Do we not deserve neat stuff as it is? For the people that suffer from a respect deficit I think content or lack thereof is an issue, but an independent issue.
3. "...how can we obtain that 30 hour figure for the grinders, without increasing the casual player's time to 100 hours." I don't think it is possible. Anything a casual player can do a powergame can do more quickly. But I'm certainly willing to consider proposals that people think will do it. Anyone have any ideas on how to do it?
I hope the developers don't do a major rework of the profession just to make it more time consuming to master. But I'm going on a major blitz this weekend just to make sure I'm one of the haves and not one of the have-nots. I've resisted playing like a holo-grinder but I'm not going to risk having the rules change on me in midstream....
TK-187 wrote:
My opinion, stated simply, is: ID is too easy to grind through.
I had expected to actually EARN my keep, not have it given to me. Tons of people probably complain that they took their time, they never did a grind, etc... well, I hate to say it, but you are the minority when it comes to these type of MMORPGs... trust me... after 3 years of EQ, people grind like the wind to reach the top as fast as they can.
I also played EQ for three years, and I saw a very different picture. It took me all three years to get my main character to 51, but then my bartle style is mostly explorer/socializer. Eventually as word got out of where to go and what mobs to kill to get fast exp more and more people began shooting up the levels (as fast as one can shoot in EQ). But the first year and into the second the vast majority of people I knewtook a good long time to reach lvl 50 (when that was the cap). In factthose of my friends that were roleplayers or had limited playing time never saw lvl 30 or 40 in the years I played. Even once it was widely known where to go to level quickly, I personally avoided such places. I was the annoying person that wanted to hit a different dungeon each day, "wasting" time each day in travel. My powergamer acquaintances (becuase we had not been able to group for so long) would see me and say, you STILL aren't lvl 50?? They thought it was weird, but from my perspective of hanging out with people who were leveling slowly and exploring a great deal, they were the oddities All that to say that there are a great variety of playing styles and while I agree that achievers deserve to feel they have accomplished something when mastering a profession, I am biased towards the casual player style and would not want to see their experience made any more torturous than it already is. Let's face it, there is probably no profession as mind-numbingly boring and repetitive to skill up.
*click*
*click*
*what is my accept person doing!!! why are they taking so long to just hit ACCEPT!!*
*click*
*drool*
With no buffs, no spice, I was able to master in 12-15 hours? I can't recall exactly. It was incredibly easy to do. However I find that the skill was useless to me until I reached master, so I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I am happily using it to alter actorsfor online comics based in the SWG universe.
I trained changing eye color on a master combat medic. The combat medic would heal my mind when I got low. A master musician with buffed action stats played non-stop, and both the combat medic and myself would listen to him; the combat medic for the resulting mind wounds of healing me, me for increased mind pool regen. That combination allowed me non-stop image designing. The only breaks I had to take was to head to the trainers.
I think is fair to say that this subject has two sides and there is validity to both points of view. I think the long run will be determined not by issues that players want but by the number of subcriptions that are being created vs the number being canceled.
We know that potentially new players read the reviews and other sites to help them make their decision,,,I doubt that many would decline to buy if the majority opinion was that the game required too many hours or was just too difficult to level. However I believe that many will decline to buy if the majority opinion is that the game is too easy and too boring too quickly. The star wars franchise is a powerful pull, but even with strength it will have difficulty overcoming the bad press.
So even though both sides are making valid points the real decision will be made based on dollars and cents. And I get the distinct impression that subscription numbers have sent out a wake-up call to the developers ,,based on the combat changes and other changes that are coming as fast as they can program them into the game. Even the end game Jedi seems to be turning out badly. I was reading a thread on the Jedi board about all the problems with being a Jedi, and was surprised to hear the level of discontent, especially coming from the members of the "end game" profession. So our problems are only a minor part of the whole and based on our impact and general numbers,,I doubt we will get much love until some of the more critical issues are not only in-game but also,,debugged afterwards,,
For those that last thru all the upcoming changes we might end up with fun ,,long lasting game,,but many aren't as patient. Only time will determine if the wait was worth it.
I have a second account with a master ID'r on it. It took 1 1/2 days of playing to master the profession, which I feel is to short. There are a couple possible solutions available to sort this problem out that the Devs have already worked with on the combat and artisan sides of the game.
- The first change prevented or discouraged people from spamming the same combat special over and over again by reducing the effectiveness of that special with each consecutive occurance. When applied to ID, you can give less experience for each change applied to a subject based on the amount of IDing you have done without taking a break.
- The next possibility is to throw the random mini dialouge box up similar to what theAFK surveyor crowd got. Maybesomething along the lines of telling you "Due to yourexceptional skill, this change will be applied at a lower mind cost: press OK to continue". This would help weed out some of the Macro masters.
- The last idea is what is currently in the works with the combat system which may be applied to other professions anyhow if it is deemed successful. This would actually "shrink" your Mind bar for any given change for a short period of time.The shrinkage would recover faster than the expendiure of mind does, but it would prevent people macroing a change to occur every second as they would shrink the pool very quickly.
Hopefully SOE will start paying the ID community a little more attention. If they don't, they are just simplycompounding the problem that ID'r have with the leet types that consider this profession useless or a waste of time--"if it was so important, the Devs would have actually spent some time on you! /eyeshot; /eyeshot; ...
To provide a little bit of insight, I want to give the approximate time line that was given to us during beta. I should have put this in the original post, but I didn't think of it at the time.
During Beta, the developers stated the time-frame they were hoping to achieve. They wanted the "casual gamer" to be able to master the skill in about 3 months time. A casual gamer is someone that only spends about 2-3 hours per night playing the game. Going by NJ62's post alone, we could assume she did it in ten days. That is much faster than the developers wanted during beta.
Whether this is still their goal or not, I'm not sure. I will check with them and see. But given this time line, we didn't catch it back then, because most of us beta players were HEAVY grinders and borderline SWGAA admitees(Star Wars Galaxies Addicts Anonymous). So we did everything faster than normal.
However, based on that timeline, would you consider the skill gain to be too fast for Image Design?
Patina wrote:
I have a second account with a master ID'r on it. It took 1 1/2 days of playing to master the profession, which I feel is to short. There are a couple possible solutions available to sort this problem out that the Devs have already worked with on the combat and artisan sides of the game.
- The first change prevented or discouraged people from spamming the same combat special over and over again by reducing the effectiveness of that special with each consecutive occurance. When applied to ID, you can give less experience for each change applied to a subject based on the amount of IDing you have done without taking a break.
I personally like this idea of diminishing returns.
PROS: It would make people pause and think if they were forced to "vary" the spam (i.e. first do an eye change, then a hair color change, then a cheekbone change) in order to get max benefits. It would force ID'ers to explore the various options available, or to at the very least take breaks. It may also cause ID'ers to find a new victim to "reset" the timer.
CONS: Like anything, it could be macroed around. I could see a macro set up as follows: /im; /imageDesignSetValue eye_color ##; /pause 4;/im; /imagedesignSetValue hair_color ##; /pause 4; /im; /imagedesignSetValue freckles ##... You get the idea... in order to cycle through all the commands to get the best value. They could also do the same command with longer pauses, and run afk.
I'm not entirely convinced, either, that it wouldn't be an undue burden on the casual player who 1) has maybe an hour to play and wants to do an uninterrupted grind session 2) doesn't know many people on the server, and is lucky to get one person to be a test subject and 3) isn't savvy enough to come up with a varying macro.
- The next possibility is to throw the random mini dialouge box up similar to what theAFK surveyor crowd got. Maybesomething along the lines of telling you "Due to yourexceptional skill, this change will be applied at a lower mind cost: press OK to continue". This would help weed out some of the Macro masters.
A really interesting idea, but it might get a little annoying for those of us not grinding(I know those popups annoy me LOTS). This sort of thing has also been suggested as a solution to afk-tainers (i.e. have to click in order to accept tips), and nothing like that has been implemented.
- The last idea is what is currently in the works with the combat system which may be applied to other professions anyhow if it is deemed successful. This would actually "shrink" your Mind bar for any given change for a short period of time.The shrinkage would recover faster than the expendiure of mind does, but it would prevent people macroing a change to occur every second as they would shrink the pool very quickly.
Hopefully SOE will start paying the ID community a little more attention. If they don't, they are just simplycompounding the problem that ID'r have with the leet types that consider this profession useless or a waste of time--"if it was so important, the Devs would have actually spent some time on you! /eyeshot; /eyeshot; ...
I'm not sure what you mean by "shrinking mind bar" - the way you describe it, it seems to regenerate faster than the current system, thereby allowing faster grinding...
I think we're on the right track here, and I love how we're getting creative on this topic. I think there is definitely a tension between the respect we want for our profession, and our desire not to make it horrendously difficult for the casual gamer. In addition, no matter what we do, there will be people who think our profession is "gay." Such is life.
Keep the good ideas coming!
True - this profession masters faster than any other one in the game, including starting professions. But there are already so few of us! I wish I had some competition to alleviate all of my business. Couple that with the lack of being useful before master, and, well... poopie.
The leveling speed is breakneck speed, but so what? It needs to be.
biwan:
Rilawyn wrote:
To provide a little bit of insight, I want to give the approximate time line that was given to us during beta. I should have put this in the original post, but I didn't think of it at the time.
During Beta, the developers stated the time-frame they were hoping to achieve. They wanted the "casual gamer" to be able to master the skill in about 3 months time. A casual gamer is someone that only spends about 2-3 hours per night playing the game. Going by NJ62's post alone, we could assume she did it in ten days. That is much faster than the developers wanted during beta.
Whether this is still their goal or not, I'm not sure. I will check with them and see. But given this time line, we didn't catch it back then, because most of us beta players were HEAVY grinders and borderline SWGAA admitees(Star Wars Galaxies Addicts Anonymous). So we did everything faster than normal.
However, based on that timeline, would you consider the skill gain to be too fast for Image Design?
It took me three weeks. My hour estimates are a little off. I was tailoring at the same time, so about two of those three weeks were spent focused on ID. (heh it was a while ago). In the beginning three weeks, I played 4-6 hours a night, and 16 hours each weekend. I honestly spread it out quite a bit, because every time I got a new hairdo, I would have lots of requests, which took up a lot of time, but very little xp. I usually did a little ID, did a little tailoring, then when my mind bar came back, did a little ID, dancing, etc. I think that's kind of how it was supposed to go. You're not supposed to be able to sit down and just grind, I think the devs "built in" to that three month figure time to find willing victims, or stop to make some actual changes. On one night i was maybe 4 boxes away, and I ground for at least 6 hours, and still had to finish up and get master the next day. I remember it being easier than tailor, but not a hell of a lot. Maybe I was doing it wrong.
Realistically, no professions take 3 months, not even for the casual gamer. I hit master tailor in a month and a half - and that was SLOW for most people. I think what we have to focus on is not the "three month" figure, but how long it takes to master other professions, and compare. But.. are we more like crafters or entertainers? Impossible to say. Is it "easier" to use a totally afk macro for a few days to get master dancer, or to grind heartily for a day and become master ID? Crafting professions can be macrod roughly as quickly as ID - provided you have tons of materials...
This is a multifaceted issue that's not solely based on the time committment, as the devs see it or otherwise. It is an issue of where ID fits into the scheme of SWG, and what we can do to give the profession the respect it deserves.
It should be noted, too, that few of us thought the grind was too short oreasy until the hologrinders came in - and the community did not think ID was "easy" until the hologrinders started yelling that it was. The recent pheonomenon of "I mastered ID in 4 hours" is an offshoot of the holos, even if peopleare not grinding ID for the sake of a holocron. I had no idea about using /imagedesignSetValue as a grind tool, rather than a freckle workaround, until the hologrinders. Macros were rarely, if ever, posted as advice on these boards before holos. But now, this is the world we live in, and we have to deal with it. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak.