Image Designer Archive
Thread: Image Design Skill Gain Opinion Thread
Despite my feelings that IDXP gain is just fine at the moment, let me point out that the idea of making ID changes take a percentage of the mind pool, rather than a fixed amount, wouldn't make a difference. The reason is pretty simple, actually—sure, mind is nice, but it's really focus and willpower that are important. I could have a mind of 200, but if my focus and willpower are over 2000 each it won't make any difference. So if you're trying to slow down skill gain—which again, I don't think should be done until we get some serious new content, and maybe not even then—this isn't the way to do it.
It really has nothing to do with who is master already and who is not. I personally enjoyed the time I spent leveling and met quite a few good friends. What we are attempting to do is to get the image design profession to a level where it is a viable , non-exploitable profession and certain choices need to be made.
Perhaps after you have been a Master for 6 months you will see the situation differently,,after you watch your early id friends surrender their skill out of boredom and frustration, after you watch your friends leave the game and after you yourself are expected to provide services for free no matter how much time it takes for the changes. Until then, dont assume that there is desire to penalize anyone,,its a desire to enrich our profession and adapt it to the changes in the overall playstyles and game changes.
One last comment, its very obvious that we have different opinions on this issue in our forum,,and our correspondent should be allowed a personal opinion and as long as she reports the consensus opinion to the proper individuals. And if they increase exp for current masters I would think that would be ok as long as every other profession was treated the exact same way,,but unfortunately or fortunately that is not the precedent that has been already established in SWG.
I think we have identified a few alternatives:
- Make image design harder for everyone
- Specifically target how the hologrinders get master in 3 hours, and slow *their* progress down (while leaving the rest of the system intact for the causal gamer)
- both 1 and 2 (both making it take longer in general for all players AND targeting holocron grinding techniques)
- Leave the system as it is
Personally I vote for option 2, if it is feasible.
A long time ago, I read something from one of the devs saying something along the lines of how people using macros to grind out xp help identify where the non-fun area lies. NONE of the entertainer profession grinds are fun. I've done entertainer, dancer, and image designer, and they were all incredibly boring in terms of gaining experience. Entertainer was actually the least boring, however, because you had to do 3 different types of things to level in it. You had to dance, you had to ID, and you had to play music. Even combat grinds get annoying, but at least you have the option of going new places and killing harder things as you work your way up. In Entertainment professions, for the most part, you are chained to a crowded cantina, which means Anchorhead, Bestine, Coronet, or Theed.
If you want to change the way image design works, and you don't like the fact that people can power level through it, then you have to look at why they do so. Mostly because (1) they can, and (2) because being an image designer just isn't that fun for most people until you are master level, because there is virtually no call for your skills.
Hologrinders shouldn't even be discussed here. People who are grinding for holos just want to get in and out of the profession (any profession) as quickly as they can, and should not dictate the terms of that profession. They have little or no impact on the profession as a whole.
Increasing the length and time of the ID grind will not improve this profession one iota. Varying the type of experience needed, so that it's not just an "accept" click fest might. Finding ways to make lower level image designing beneficial certainly would. Tying ID in with another profession, such as Bio-Engineer, to open up new options for players,probably would, and would increaseinteractions betweenprofessions besides.
It might be a shame that people can grind through the profession in 3 or 4 hours. But until levels lower than master actually mean something, until that grind is actually varied and fun, then making it harder will only hurt the profession in the long run. All of this is just my opinion, but there it is.
Jaela wrote:
It really has nothing to do with who is master already and who is not. I personally enjoyed the time I spent leveling and met quite a few good friends. What we are attempting to do is to get the image design profession to a level where it is a viable , non-exploitable profession and certain choices need to be made.
Perhaps after you have been a Master for 6 months you will see the situation differently,,after you watch your early id friends surrender their skill out of boredom and frustration, after you watch your friends leave the game and after you yourself are expected to provide services for free no matter how much time it takes for the changes. Until then, dont assume that there is desire to penalize anyone,,its a desire to enrich our profession and adapt it to the changes in the overall playstyles and game changes.
One last comment, its very obvious that we have different opinions on this issue in our forum,,and our correspondent should be allowed a personal opinion and as long as she reports the consensus opinion to the proper individuals. And if they increase exp for current masters I would think that would be ok as long as every other profession was treated the exact same way,,but unfortunately or fortunately that is not the precedent that has been already established in SWG.
Perhaps. But I went on a blitz to make sure I had mastery before the rug was jerked from beneath my feet.
1) I've seen friends leave the game entirely and I've seen lots of people abandon one profession for another. It happens elsewhere, it's not unique to ID. As for the expectation of free services, my Master Doctor had to deal with this before he went into 'private practice'. As a matter of fact I think its MUCH worse for medical types. I haven't been a master ID for 6 months [only 2 days now] but I've been an ID for 6 months. That may be why I think jacking up the difficulty in the vain hope of getting respect from pixel-killers is a bad idea.
2) There may not be a desire to penalize anyone but it seems clear to me that current masters are more willing to improve the profession in ways that hurt non-masters; especuially more 'casual' players. I'm not sure what enriching the profession has to do with the 'speed of mastering' to begin with. Some of you seem to think that it does, I certainly don't.
3) I agree. I've been very harsh towards Rilawyn in this regard and I must admit to being in the wrong.
/emote apologizes to Rilawyn
Again, the quick path to master is not just something ID has a claim to. The tricks on how to master ALL professions faster are out & being used heavily now due to "The Great FS Grind".I see posts all the time on this like: "master medic in 5 hours", "master merchant in one night", "master TKA in 6 hours", etc.
Making ID harder to master will change nothing. We need changes that will allow us to be more useful outside of editing ones looks. Things that offer other players a service they will need on a repeated basis, as do the other professions in the entertainer line.
/agree
ToppDog wrote:
Again, the quick path to master is not just something ID has a claim to. The tricks on how to master ALL professions faster are out & being used heavily now due to "The Great FS Grind".I see posts all the time on this like: "master medic in 5 hours", "master merchant in one night", "master TKA in 6 hours", etc.
Making ID harder to master will change nothing. We need changes that will allow us to be more useful outside of editing ones looks. Things that offer other players a service they will need on a repeated basis, as do the other professions in the entertainer line.
Tricky.
I agree with the general tone of the arguments here: specifically, that no matter how many hours our profession takes to master,there is no hope of gaining respect from the 14-year-old testosterone-poisoned mouse-thumping power-tripping bounty-hunters or the ego-maddened ravening drool-soaked commandos, or whatever the latest flavor of Uberdood happens to be. Forget it; they don't care about respecting anyone (including themselves) so we need not bother trying to gain their respect. Piffle. Who needs it?
If you would like to increase the perception of an ID's value, however, then perhaps we should consume resources in some way. No, no, I do not want this to become a crafting profession, because I hate the crafting grind as much as anyone; but if we consumed a manufactured item made from game resources we would have a higher perceived value. We could justify the cost of our services. We could have four simple items that we could manufacture in large quantities: Universal Dye Treatment, Biometric Accelerant, Maxillofacial Surgical Kit, and a Catabolic Biofixative. When we use our abilities, we consume charges of these generic resources: let's say a haircut and a dye jobmight use some biofixative (to rearrange and embed the style) and some universal dye (to change the color) and some biometric accelerant (to grow more hair).
I also agree with the argument that making ID XP even more of a chore to achieve would not significantly benefit anyone the way the profession is structured now. We have very little business as novices; only the masters get the real pull. As we progress up the ID lines, we find ourselves mastering nothing more than the Character Creator, and who the heck would pay for that? We try to get master as soon as we can because that's where the business is; until we achieve mastery we're only a vestigal profession.
So the solution here is to add more interesting things for players to achieve as they progress, so that a non-master does have some viable business he can conduct. After we get more actual content we can talk about how to rearrange the ID XP progression.
Ah, but I also agree that the macro IDing isn't a tremendous benefit to our profession, either; people don't value us because it's so very easy to simply do it yourself. (Even if it might not be easy to re-take your old profession; you certainly can't give up Pistoleer in 3 hours, master ID, then re-take Pistoleer.)
So here's how I would change ID XP.
1. Rearrange the skill trees so the new content (when we get some) is in the 3 and 4 boxes, and the character creation stuff kicks in as soon as possible.
2. Make 4 different kinds of ID XP, not just "Image Design experience." Facial XP should be different from body XP, different from hair XP, and so on.
3. Semi-permanent ID changes now require the consumable resources, as above. An ID change done in this way grants a decent amount ofXP. The change will last proportionately as long as the ID expends resources; if someone wants a 10-day change, they pay for 10 days, which uses 10 times the resources, gives a nice, robust amount of XP,and after the ten days,the image wears off. The client's new 10-day image goes into his datapad as "Current Image Design" with a decay timer. (There would have to be an XP cap, or diminishing returns somehow -- if the client already has a recent "Current Image Design" in his datapad, that client won't be worth much XP to anybody for a while.)
4. Temporary one-day ID changes can be done without resources but they vanish as soon as the person logs out and back in. They do not grant much XP and can easily be used to grind out XP cheaply and efficiently. Make it amazingly clear in the client's "accept/reject" window that they areagreeing toa temporary change.
5. Because real-life beauticians practice on each other (and volunteers) in beauty school, I think if you're working on another IDer, you should get a 25% XP bonus or something.
6. Increase the overall amount of XP from 100,000 per line to about 250,000 per line. Make the 'practice ID' experience worth about half what it is now. Make the 'semi-permanent ID with resources' experience worth about8 or10 times what it is now. Grinding would take 5 times as long -- a mere 15 hours -- but actually helping clients would actually make things go up to five timesfaster. And that's what an ID should be doing -- helping clients.
These changes will make it possible for someone to cheaply grind out the profession to mastery if they want, without using resources, but it will take some time to accomplish. However, it also rewards the player proportionately if he wishes to actually help real clients in a professional capacity; the rewards are greater and the XP is better.
I have never wanted the IDs to be crafters, or gain crafting XP for our work, but I wouldn't mind if we had to craft bottles of dye and such that we used internally -- much like slicers using Weapon Upgrade Kits.
True, under this system a holocron-designer would still be able to macro-grind his way through if he wished; he would also be able to give out free changes to his friends or interfere with the clients of real professional IDs -- but he'd be consuming resources and so he'd be far less likely to hand those changes out for free. Very desperate holocron-grinders might run around with a ton of the necessary resources and shout, "I will change you and I will pay you 1K credits!" but somehow I'm not sure how much trust they'll encounter. The casual player would still be able to play long enough to help a few clients and grind a bit to make it to ID, but overall, I think we'd have a higher value for the work we do and the time it took us to get there.
Escia
I'm a bit more likely to agree to major experience changes to the profession now that it appears it's happening to CH (again
).Pretty much, I'd like to see ID slower to grind through, but the 'casual' pace is great.
Percentage hits wouldn't be a good solution in my opinion, as mentioned, it effectively alienates the Image Designer further from the base-line of the other professions.
Hinder spice/buff benefits to ImageDesigners and it has a good chance of being resolved, possibly go as far as to introduce a Cap on how much your secondary stats can reduce your costs (and make said cap based on base/unbuffed attributes) so that you don't get to the point where it's not possibly to gain 75 ID xp / sec or 2.
Guess I should add this post here too instead of on the other thread that probably wont get read. As for making the class harder to master:
Dont. Any lack of respect for the class has nothing to do with its difficulty in achieving. The true *cost* of being a master image designer is the skill point cost. Not the xp or time sink. There is enough of a time sink involved so that people don't pick it up to do their own changes, and that's all that is necessary.
Any lack of respect you guys thinkpeople show the class is truly centered around the same problems dancers/musicians and tailors had. But to a little higher degree.
1. No decay. ID specific changes dont wear off. People can get their "look" and never have to visit the ID again. This is goofy. The whole basis around the class is the real life relation. For "hair stylists" well the only reason hair stylists make money is because hair grows and loses its form =P.
You ***need*** your changes to wear off after time. Maybe a month, given the number of IDs, for changes to hold. Then since synthasizing growing hair would be near impossible just have the changes fade back to the starting char.
2. Practical use. There is absolutely no practical in game abilities given to the class. There is room for some, though. The ability to go covert with a "disguise" would be great. Put it on per person timer to avoid abuse, and someone could do some good rping, and also useful tactical things with it. This would erase TEF too.
When wearing a disguise someone could not be re-disguised, and they would have to look that way for an hour to make sure they did not blow their cover. Creation of another tef/going covert would blow the cover and the 1 hour timer would remain, but the person would be stuck without a way to get rid of tef/covert anymore. Disguises could be *detected* by another image designer. Being masters of doing it you would not be fooled.
Concentrate on changes like that **instead** of spending time trying to make the class harder to master. Dont make the class harder to master or gain skills in. The only thing that would accomplish is to make ID more rare. It would not raise the value of the class in the least.
Neclonmite, why is it that when people think of a "practical value" for the Image Designer, it always involves removing someone's TEF?
This suggestion comes up more often than a dinner of Chicken McNuggets and Wild Turkey. Once every two weeks, someone has the brainstorm that IDs should make TEFs go away.
What is wrong with a TEF? It was invented for a reason: so childish, griefing players couldn't play the "I shot you! Oops, I'm covert, you can't get me now! Hey, I shot you again! Oops, I'm covert again, nyah nyah" game. You can't switch back to Covert if you're busily attacking people: that's the whole point. Your actions against the enemy in battle come back to haunt you. Why should any player have the ability to circumvent an anti-griefing mechanism? How could that ability possibly be structured so it could be useful without being griefable?
Nobody has yet answered this question, no matter how many times this suggestion comes up: what's so bad about a TEF that you feel you need to hide from it? You brought the TEF upon yourself, after all. If you didn't want it, you shouldn't have earned it. Why should an ID make your TEF go away?
Escia