Image Designer Archive

The Image Design community seems to be split on this, so I thought I would start anopinion thread. What I'm looking for here is whether or not you think the image design skill gain is too slow, too fast, or perfect how it is. Please explain the REASONS behind your opinion as well, including how long it took you, how many hours you spent each day, whether or not you used spices, etc.

My own personal opinion, is that skill gain is too fast right now. However, I'm not making a final judgement even on my own opinion, until I work on my second image designer character (on Shadowfire), doing everything I didn't do on Starsider (using spices, macros, etc).

My opinion is that yes, it is too fast. I know, I'm one of those master image designers you all love to hate, who says that the gain is too fast. But honestly. Who would know better than a master image designer?

Honestly, if people migrate their stats (or use the exploit) they can master in a matter of HOURS. What is wrong with this picture?

It took me a long time to master ID - much more than 3-4 hours. I would say... 20-30? I wasn't doing a solid grind, but there were a few weekend days where I would just grind all day. No spice, no macros (besides /im), no buffs. But I don't factor in the time I had to beg some victims. Mostly I worked on my fiance, who had no say in the matter - except when he went out to hunt and left me high and dry...

Looking back, I probably would have done it quicker if I wanted to force constant clicks on him, but instead I modified things like "cheeks" and did about 5 of them to clear my mana bar, and then let him go do something else... if you're considerate to your "victim" then it takes longer than if you're making him/her click accept one... MILLION... times.

With crafters, you can control the speed of grinding essentially by the difficulty and money involved in obtaining the sheer volume of materials it requires. With combat types, they must find things to kill, kill the things, heal up, heal battle fatigue - there are built-in breaks for them. Image designers, however, are not limited by materials or built-in-breaks.

These are our limitations:

• The experience per change. This is really the only limitation that we can't get around. Make designs grant less xp.




• To me this not a good solution, because it just requires more clicking. It also penalizes those starting out who have no access to muon, and little knowledge of macroing. It essentially is a response to the "grind" crowd and shuts out the casual player who is progressing up the tree as the devs intended.


• The human factor. Requiring the slow process of clicking instead of macroing will slow things down.




• I don't see how this is feasible. Someone will always find a way to macro. Or use a third party program *shudder*


• The clientele. Force the image designers to work on new clients, and have decreasing returns on using the same client.




• I think this would probably not work, and would be annoying to image designers because it's hard enough to get someone to let you practice on him/her.


• The Mind Pool. Force them to wait it out.




• I like this idea because it's the same amount of clicking but you're forced to go out, hunt, or dance, or something, but it breaks up the sessions

My suggestion for limiting experience gains via controlling the mind pool:

• Increase mind cost on low level designs to be proportionate to the xp cost. For example - lekku markings are roughly 375 xp but over 450 mind. Whereas eye color is around 50 xp, 37 mind. What if this were equalized so that mind cost was roughly equal to xp, so that the high level designs no longer have the mind-to-xp ratio penalty. I would even like to have the lower designs like eye color have 50 xp, and use 100 mind, while the higher designs were 375 xp and 350 mind, effectively creating a more favorable mind-to-xp ratio as the designs get more complex.




• This would prevent fast grinding because the mind could no longer keep up with the costs. There would be significant cost to each and every change.


• It would encourage people to experiment with the high-xp designs because they the mind to xp ratio would no longer be penalizing them


• It would create a ramp-up effect, as with most professions, where the better skill you have, the better items you can make/higher pets you can call/ bigger monsters you can kill - and the faster xp you can get.


• make muon or dancer/musician buffs inapplicable to image design. For example, while on muon an image design action might take 2x the normal mind. Not sure how this would work, honestly.

I don't feel that making ID harder to master is necessary or beneficial for the following reasons:

1. ID is one of those professions that is pretty much useless unless you are a master, so the quicker you are a master, the faster you can actually start doing ID. Anything done prior to that is pointless & in many cases has people running to masters to fix things that can't be undone by the novices who made the initial change.

2. The whole idea of making ID harder seems to be a response to people grinding it for FS, but these people will drop it as soon as the next holo tells them to master Merchant or Smuggler, so it's not like we're going to have this big influx of ID's taking our jobs away.

3. Another arguement is that people will just grind to master to do their own ID changes & we will lose business. 3-4 hours may seem a short time to master ID, but that's still a long time & a lot of clickingjust to geta tan. Not to mention whatever they drop to get it can't be gotten back in the same 3-4 hours, so I seriously doubt we have anything to worry about in this respect.

4. Any talk of making ID harder to master runs the risk of the dev'sdoing thatby making you have to be a master entertainer first. This would be a terrible thing to happen & would screw up many of the plans we have for our characters. So be careful what you ask for....because you may just get it.

5.Having the master tag does not make you any good at it. All of us who are good know this already. People tell their friends who's good & who isn't, & if you ARE good you will have tons of customers from word of mouth alone.

Lastly I would point out that we should have much less reason to be worried about others easily mastering ID than we should about our profession becoming less useful due to people finding their "look" & not needing our services anymore. Instead of making our existing job harder to master, we should be thinking of ways to expand our job to make it more integral to the game. We need new things to offer that are needed on an ongoing basis by all players. The Salon/Spa idea is a good one, as is making disguises or wigs/makeup etc.

First off, I am not a Holochaser

For awhile now I've toyed with the idea of being a Master ID. I thought it would be fun to alter how I look (most importantly ) & alter how others look as well. Well, I mastered today & you know what, it is fun. Lots of fun.

It took me8 hours to go from novice entertainer to Master Image Designer. I usedMuon Goldin conjunction with good food (Angerian Fishak & Glazed Glucose Pate) (no, I didn't migrate stats) & had a very willing partner. I used a grind macro, changing her eyebrows every second. We'd do this for an hour or so & then take a lil break & come back. I would gain about 17k xp before she finally clicked accept enough times to give me the out of mind message, we could get 2 sessions in on one muon gold.

I've never mastered any profession this easily (this is my 9th, again, no I'm not chasing a holocron). Everyone in my PA was truly shocked at how easy this was to master. So, in answer tothe question of whethr or not I feel this profession is too easy? A resounding YES is my reply. Mastering ID took nothing more than a macro & someone willing to be bored for some hours.

Love the profession, love changing how I look (done it 10 times today at least), love being able to help people look how they want. I just wish the journey to Master was a little more challenging.

I'm going to have to throw my weight in with the folks saying not to change the speed at which we level. At least, not until we have a whole lot of new content. As it is I almost have to pay people to let me work on them, since I can't do anything anyone wants. At least, not yet. So until we have fresh, new content that people actually want, at reasonable levels, there's no point in changing how fast we level—people will continue to burn through the tiers as quickly as possible just to have something marketable. Just my $0.02…

n'Jessi: with regard to your XP/mind idea, remember that mind cost varies from person to person. Let me give you a for-instance: for me the mind costs look like this for various ID changes

* lips_color / eyeshadow_color / eyeshadow / hair_color: 50 mind

* eye_color / tattoo_color: 101 mind

* freckles / horn_color: 151 mind

* cheeks / lips: 202 mind

For reference, my mind is 1000, focus 340, willpower 700. I did it that way because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this toon, so I made her as generic as possible in the stat category—I'm considering migrating now, but to be honest I don't ID enough to warrant it (again the whole nobody wants what I've got thing.) So unless you do the reverse of your suggestion, and tie XP to mind use, instead of mind use to XP (if that makes sense) there's no way to do it. And if you do tie XP to mind use, those of us with lower foci will get more XP for the same designs, and that simply isn't fair.

I vote to increase the difficulty to reach master image designer

1. Its not comparable in difficulty to any combat elite profession , nor is it even comparable to any other entertainer profession,,the simple truth: its the easiest elite profession to master,,

2.Too many because its too easy and has no cost for changes except minimal mind drain, provide free services which inturn further cheapens the profession.

The main problem is how to increase the difficulty without creating even more issues and problems and NJ62 deals with most of those issues.

*I think a better solution which will address my two main reasons is to add a resource requirement to each change. As an example, make each type of change require a specific tool,,ie,,for hair- a pair of scissors that is obtained in a quest, for tatoos- a paint/brush set, for body work -a tape measure- and for face-a cosmetic kit with scalpels. Then for each tree along with the tool, a specific resource/ schematic is required,,hair growth treatment, and etc that can be crafted by the chef tree.

This creates not only the interdependence that swg is so fond of ,,it also adds a cost factor that lots of other professions currently have. (I'd also add some sort of resource for dancers and musicians to have like a food item that has no effect on ham but is required to even start dancing and must be periodically eaten to continue dancing or playing.*

Then after becoming fully awake I realized my ideas are only a dream and has no real chance of ever occuring.

I have mastered image design twice, once before muon gold was readily obtainable, and entertainer missions and entertainer buffs were available at all, The second time I had access to muon gold and enough credits to buy skill when ever I needed training if free training wasnt available. Never once did I use a macro and can honestly say that I met some very nice players during those grind sessions sitting in the cantina and actualy enjoyed the experience. (met NJ62 in the coronet cantina on scylla just as one example)

I am against any afk macroing for any gain no matter the skill being trained and for the most part am against any macroing at all even if you are at the keyboard,

Okay, I know I gave my two cents already, but I've got a question for those of you that want to increase the difficulty of leveling. It's been said that mastering ID is too easy. So what? What do you hope to accomplish by increasing the difficulty? Do you think combat classes will respect us any more if it's harder to master? Dobutful. In general, if you can't use your skills to kill something, or heal them, they don't care what you can do. Do you think it'll stop the hologrinders? Again, doubtful. It'll just force them to do something they don't want to do—and we don't want them doing—for a longer period of time. So, I ask, why? We've had a problem stated, but we haven't had the reason it's a problem explained. And to be quite honest, this only furthers the view that some have of us as elitist snobs—something I'd rather not see happen.

I think its more than just a simple of doubling or some other multiple of exp required to gain master status that we who favor increasing difficulty want. What we want is a profession that has more options, more animation, more relevance to the population, more challenge, and in conclusion more everything. Holocrons sparked this discussion but it would be an issue with or without holocrons.

Doing the same changes since a few weeks after launch gets boring, and thats essentially what the problem is,,we havent gotten much in the way of meaningful new options. Snippets yes but nothing meaningful,,not one guy has specifically come to me and said,,,," Can you make my torso larger/" not one.

Repost your opinion in 6 months,,,I think you will change your mind if you are still a Master Imager and no changes have occurred,

And dont worry, you have weeks and weeks to achieve master status before any real change could be implemented. I'd guess by that time you wont even have ID as a skill, because what you are going to find out is that you need fan shot, and other specials along with some medic skills and possibly other weapon skill to survive on advanced planets and missions and the skill points devoted to id will be needed in other trees. However, if after 6 months as a master imager, you still have it,,I will commend you, just make sure to clone and insure,,hehe,,

A lot of great ideas for limiting theflying through of IDhave been listed and analyzed already.Ideally there would be a way to prevent the insanelyfast leveling methods (use of the accept text command, the broken no-mind-used command certainly, and possibly alsothe use ofspices) without impacting the casual player who does not use any of those methods. The way to not impact the casual player would of course be to leave the ID experience and skill box requirements untouched.

My reasons for feeling the ID exp granted and amount of exp needed for each skill box should be left as they are? SOE has repeatedly said that they aregearing this game at the casual player, and the typical casual player isunlikely to use partial/full macros (they would prob use/im of course), use spices,may not use food/spice enhancers, may have no desire to master something very quickly (I'm still not a Master Tailor because I'm taking it slowly to prolong the fun), and may not know about how stats work. Many casual players level up entirely by working on themselves. Either they don't know ID'ing others nets more exp, or they don't want to ask strangers to sit still and click for hours ofbored-out-of-my-mind-drool-pooling (I really wish they had put in ID'ing NPC missions, that would break up the monotony). Some people simply can't take it and even with a willing victim won't sit there for hours, or feel bad about torturing another person. And of course many casual players are not just casual in style but also in playing time, they may only play a few hours a week. ID has very little meat in it, I remember how frustrating it is not being amaster, and it would beunfair to casual players to slow down theirprogression.

Q-3PO recentlyposted that he felt those that masteredprofessionsby powergrinding/powermacroing were missing out on the gaming experience designed for them by the devs (paraphrase of course).Towards theend of beta Holocron posted alist showing how the professionscompared in time to master.The devs had a certain time frame in mind for how long it shouldtake a casual player, and ID was one of the ones faster than ideal.I never saw mention of textcommand macroing or spices on theentertainer forum, I doubt they were in widespread use. Nevertheless the devs decided to leave ID as it was. Why? Well probably three reasons.

1. Onlytwo or three weeks earlier ID exp was actually speeded up because ID'ers had been complaining that it tooktoo long.Master ID's were extremely rare birds who spentdayshyper clicking on willing victims.


2. ID doesn't impact other professions in any way.


3. The casual player still takesa good long time to get to Master. It took me two months and while my player style is casual, my playtime was about five hours a day in my high-addiction first few months of SWG. That time was also spent dancing, tailoring, and surveying, but I did devote a good amount of time to ID'ing friends or fellow ID'ers.

In conclusion, I understand the reasons for wanting to prevent extremely fast ID mastering, however I do not feel they are gripping enough to sacrifice casual ID'ers over. I would support any method that would up the minimum time taken to master ID to SOE'sdesired levelwithout slowing down a casual player's progression.

I really wish there was a fun way to level ID in a reasonable amount of time. Even the casual player is forced to powergrind. I can't imagine anyone would ever reach Master ID just by working on customers before SWG closed down it's last server haha. Tailor is taking me ages but I have always had a profitable product, a vast selection of options, hours of fun preparing clothing displays, the merchant/bazaar game content, and great potential for creativity (colors, mixing and matching). ID desperately needs some meaty content and alternate ways to get exp. I don't think the lack of respect for our profession has as much to do with how potentially fast it is to master, but with the fact that we do not affect gameplayin ANY way and barely have content beyond what is available to everyone in char creation. In the end though it is not important what others think of our profession, but that we enjoy it. More original art content and new and creative ways to affect gameplay and gain experience would of course kill two birds with one stone

Wow Kwee, you just said everything I was thinking, but more eloquently than I ever could. Thanks!

With only respect ,,Kwee,,I have to continue to disagree because:

1. Defining 'casual gamer" is very difficult,,is it someone who cant play much, doesnt play much, doesnt care about leveling very much, someone who plays 5 hours per week, or 10, or 15 , or 20 or is it someone who likes to chat, or run around and do things in game other than level. I see just defining casual gamer as a problem. Who is and what is??

2. I read posts on other forums by self proclaimed "casual gamers" saying that even they find the challenge somewhat low and are having trouble finding things to do in game,

3. I think by necessity in order for a particular game to last over a period of years the game must be made difficult but at the same time playable by ones less than master,,ie: the reason group is helpful. One of the single biggest complaints about AC2 was that there was nothing to do after level 50,,,and once even the casual gamers started to reach the 40's the issue became very clear, What SWG doesnt have is goals that are hard enough and as long as goals can be easily reached by 'grinders" and reached fairly easy by "casual gamers" there will be tons of complaints about content and things to do. In the early months of SWG not many had this complaint, and now its becoming far more frequent,,,I remember reading BETA comments about how the game was really cool and how neat it was but tacked on to the review was a warning that in 3-6 months the newness would be gone and boredom would set in. Thats exactly what is happening not only to our profession but all the professions,,and something should be done,,leaving it status quo wont solve the problem,,

PS For those of us that dont chase the Jedi slot,,there needs to be a higher goal and with higher goals there needs to be additional difficulty,,I suggest an elite box to change gender that requires not exp but subject exp,,similar to combat exp,,where you only get exp from a different subject rather than a change itself and then once you have that super elite skill ,,add a resource requirement like 100 milk to effect the change,,