Image Designer Archive

I would hate to see the number of changes to anything restricted. That's going in the wrong direction I think, Kwee.

I tend to agree with those who say whoever is going to grind a skill is going to grind it one way or another. It took me a couple of months to hit Master ID and I felt like I was grinding even at that pace. It's unfortunate that a way has been found to macro ID. It's even more unfortunate, for those who are serious about this profession,that people whoaren't really interested in it at allare going to be involved in it while they persue becoming Jedi. But I personally don't think that skill gains are a real issue for us. Certainly not an issue that's high on a priority list in my mind anyway.

Well, I don't think those pursuing the profession because a Holocron told them to do are much of a threat or even an issue. They've already dropped their profession (at least) once before, and only picked up the ID skills to eventually unlock their force sensitive slot. These folks may take away some business for a few weeks, but I am certain that the vast majority of them will drop the image designer profession again as soon as they've mastered it and gotten another Holocron, to go back to whatever profession they first had, or, once they have unlocked their slot, in order to play their FS secondary.

I'm fairly new to the game (on Lowca server), having only started about three and a half weeks ago. I'm just now approaching Master Image Designer, with only one more box to go. I admit that I've done a lot of grinding,almost entirely on myself,and my discovery of spice in the last couple of days has helped a lot as well. I felt a little guilty about it at first, as I wouldn't want people to think I was being too impatient or only wanted the profession as an accessory to something else. I knew even before starting the game that I probably wanted to play an Image Designer, and though I've waffled over what else I might do, I've never wavered in my dedication to playing an ID.

Finally finding this forum has made me feel a lot better. I don't think there's anything wrong with my grinding now, because I know that I want to stick with this profession. Grinding is boring, but what I really enjoy is being able to work with other people and helping them find the customization they want. I really and truly enjoy being an ID, and I only took up dancing as an excuse to hang out in cantinas. So I think what really matters in the end is not the amount of time it took to gain Master (although the NEED to gain master is stilla problem), but whether or not that's what you really enjoy doing once you get there.

Going back to the other possible ID additions - I very much like all of the suggestions. The requests I get most often are for unnatural hair colors and body tattoos, so I would place those pretty high on the priority list, as well as new hair styles since everyone seems to just want the same handful of styles that are actually decent. The preview window would also be wonderful - so many people don't know what the options are and can't open another window to visit Warcry, so I just have to progress through them until they see something they like.

I also read somewhere about the possibility of making IDs able to change overt faction supporters to covert for a certain time period, depending on how drastic the changes were. I think that would be a wonderful way to make us useful beyond just relying on the vanity of gamers, not to mention drumming up more return visits.

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FOO007 wrote:

Here I go sticking my nose into other people's business.

Your idea is workable in my mind with a single change: you shouldn't limit the number of changes you can make a day, but rather the XP you get from those changes.

If you got x10 (or 20 or 100 or whatever) the XP on the first time you did someone's hair, and then the rest was at the level you get doing it to yourself now, it would slow the gain and encourage people to actually go out there and sell their skill.

That said, it seems to me that the ID profession needs a lot more body to it than it has already so that it's more viable to be a novice. Even then, most people are fairly happy with what they built themselves at character creation. It's only hairstyles and makeup that really seem to be changed with any frequency. Bring on the tattoos, craftable hair-dye, cosmetics, and crazy piercings!

Oh, and thanks for the de-Vampiring, Kwee!

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This is a far better solution to the slowing of xp than limiting the number of changes. I change my entire appearance every time I change my outfit: marking color, eyecolor, skin color. And I have A LOT of clothes! If they ever implemented limiting ID changes to one timea day, I'm fairly sure I would have to tell SOE where they could stick those 63 skill points and find another game to play. I really likeTHIS idea, though. It's a smart, workable solution to slowing down xp gain in the ID profession.

That being said, I find it silly that they're considering doing that at all. I agree, this is a profession that can be mastered REALLY fast. I did it in two days... but that was WITHOUT doing anything else. And I mean ANYTHING. I sat in the cantina for two straight days and hit up anyone who wasn't AFK. The ID profession doesn't need to be nerfed; it needs to have more incentive to make master, while giving those who aren't master a purpose. We need more content SO badly; I finally got so tired of people asking me for body tattoos and weird haircolors that I posted in my bio a list of things I can and cannot do.

My opinion: fix what's WRONG with ID first (bugs, etc.) Then, add more content. Then, and ONLY then, should the devs consider altering the xp gain on ID.

Avadiha Lona - Master ID, Tarquinas

At this point in the game, you can grind out just about any profession rather quickly. There are "tricks" to everything. The key at this point is not whether you can advance quickly enough, but whether you can spare the skill points to get what you want.

So why weren't we asked to give input on state of the IDer profession? You know... like every other forum??

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FOO007 wrote:

Your idea is workable in my mind with a single change: you shouldn't limit the number of changes you can make a day, but rather the XP you get from those changes.

If you got x10 (or 20 or 100 or whatever) the XP on the first time you did someone's hair, and then the rest was at the level you get doing it to yourself now, it would slow the gain and encourage people to actually go out there and sell their skill.

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I loveyour idea as it wouldaffect the extreme powergrinder, butunfortunatelythe casual player would also be greatlyaffected. Even casual players have no choice but to grind ID, they just do so at a more casual pace. They wouldhave diminished returns on a practice partner or willing victim, should they find one

While I certainly agree that our profession needs some revamping ,,after reading the Gary Gattis announcement, I am convinced any significant revamping like we are discussing is simply overly optimistic,,,

I for one would like our correspondent to determine what might even be possible time wise to devote to some minor ,,ie not much time,, changes that would provide us the most with the least effort,,,and then using that information consolidate our wish list to one -three wants and hope like crazy they can fit them in,,,and build from there month by month ,,,patch by patch,,

So many professions are of higher priority ,,and there are so many issues I think even the developers are confused about what to do first,,

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Kwee wrote:

Do you guys think the general gist ofit is something that could bemodified to work? Something to discourage ID'ing the same person or couple of people over and overand over again.

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I honestly don't think thatfinding a buddy and sitting together for clicking sessionsshould be discouraged. The reason being, besides the fact thatitusually creates a chance to make friends,it's still going to be the casual gamer that's most hurt by these sorts of restrictions. And those that want to grind, macro, find work arounds are still going to do that the best they can.

Putting restrictions in that would disallow finding a friend to work on conjures up visions of players wandering around spaceports begging to change people's appearance so that they'll be able to gain skill in this profession. That would awful. lol A lot of folks don't want to trust newb IDers now. I really don't think a wandering IDer, "Please, mister! Can I change your appearance?", is gonna have much luck.

I loathed, I mean really loathed having to keep pushing myself at friends at the cantina. Feeling like a begger asking them to sit for me and click a bunch of boxes. I ended up with a small handful of folks who Ireally and truly felt didn't mind the inconvenience of clicking the boxes that I threw at them. And even with them I never went as fast as I could, but would pace myself just so I'd be less of a pain in the butt for them.

I think you're looking at it taking a lifetime to master this profession if you're limited to how many changes you can perform on a single person. Unlesshuge amounts of skill are offered for each change.Plus you're messing around with just having fun with experimenting and changing looks.

Honestly? I would leave this alone.And perhaps, asFishWan and a couple others have said, approach it all from another angle. Bring in content that makes IDers who are less than masters still of value. Although I don't see even that slowing down someone who really wants to grind. The end game for a lot of folks is always going to be when they've reached master. Regardless of what they're able to do while at lower branches of the tree.

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RubyTuesday wrote:

The reason being, besides the fact thatitusually creates a chance to make friends,it's still going to be the casual gamer that's most hurt by these sorts of restrictions. And those that want to grind, macro, find work arounds are still going to do that the best they can.

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Very good points I agree with you thatsuch achange would just slow the powergrinders down a little bit while torturing everyone involved. And while the inevitable grind can be mind-numbing and boring, there doesn't seem to be a way to get around that without making life TOO easy for powergrinders.Another point against myhopelessly flawed suggestion is that it would be really toughto find customers while you still had onlya few skills. Pretty much justhair color and makeup at first.

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Putting restrictions in that would disallow finding a friend to work on conjures up visions of players wandering around spaceports begging to change people's appearance so that they'll be able to gain skill in this profession. That would awful. lol A lot of folks don't want to trust newb IDers now. I really don't think a wandering IDer, "Please, mister! Can I change your appearance?", is gonna have much luck.

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Hehe

Whatever is done, I hope it is not in the lines of limiting the time between make-overs or how many you can do, nor do i want to see macros go away. I am in the middle of organizing a theater production, and we use an image designer to quickly change the looks of my dancers so they can play more then one part. It would be horrible if she had to wait 30 second in between, or could only change that person once! So, that's just one of my concerns.

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MoonLilly wrote:

Perhaps what you were looking for was forour correspondent to offer us a rough draft of the State of Image Design letter she's going to present to the dev's and then ask for feedback from the ID community here before she presents a final draft? Like all the other correspondents did? Maybe even ask folks here to vote on what our top five concerns are for our profession? Like the other correspondents did?Maybeyou'd like for our correspondent to understand that the wholeconcept behind this State of Profession deal was meant to encourage playerdiscussions in these professionsforums? Discussions that she would then draw information from in a fair and concise manner, acting as liaisonfor us?

Whoops! I think it's a little late forthat.

Here's to hoping we have better luck next time.

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The entire purpose of posting a State of the Profession thread, was to encourage discussion, before the list was sent to the developers. That is how Thunderheart explained it on the correspondant forums.

Writing up a rough draft, to be approved by the image designers, to be approved by the developers, to AGAIN be approved by the image designers, just to go BACK to the developers for the final bug fix is a bit... excessive.

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Jaela wrote:

I for one would like our correspondent to determine what might even be possible time wise to devote to some minor ,,ie not much time,, changes that would provide us the most with the least effort,,,and then using that information consolidate our wish list to one -three wants and hope like crazy they can fit them in,,,and build from there month by month ,,,patch by patch,,

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I agree with this. The original plan for the correspondants was to post the top five issues each month, plus a personal pet peeve. With the very recent addition of Thunderheart to these forums, the correspondant program is pretty much undergoing a new revamp. The first step, was to post a list of all known issues, and wishlists. That was the purpose of the state of the profession post.

From here, I'm not sure where it's going to go. But I would definitely like to hear what everyone's top concern is, and it would also make things easier on Thunderheart and the other developers,to know what needs to be fixed first.