Musician Archive

/tugs Nos' sleeve before she goes too far back to lurking

Oh no, Missy, we've missed you around here! I would love to see some discussion of the Pros and Cons of reducing our SP costs. What do you guys think about it?

hehe....

Didn't they reduce Master ID by 14 in the elite boxes? I think they could do the same thing for Musicians and Dancers. I don't know how that would benefit a trifecta entertainer.....wait..they'd have another 28 pts to play with...could get some light combat if they wanted to do some exploring...(Jabba's palace so they can jam with Max Reebo and Oola)

I think it's a shame that we're still faced with the AFK menace after all of this time.

I think it'sa shamewe have to spend so many skillpoints for professions with NO elite profession skill bonuses whatsoever, except some sparkly effects that do nothing but sparkle, and some faster Inspiration buffs - that's hardly worth the massive skillpoint expenditure. Different songs/dances have absolutely ZERO affect on the application of our benefits, so basically we could all be dancing Basic and playing Starwars1 at Master and have no problems at all. I've always found that sad.

I think all Entertainer professions got shafted out of some badly needed content so that an NPC named "an Event Coordinator" could be a money sink while they sit in a Hotel. Who would logically coordinate events? Entertainers. What is an in-game event if not something happening purely for entertainment's sake? Who better to fulfill the role of event coordinator than we who love to have fun and set up fun environments in this game?

I think we're well beyond the time for the Devs to say that they are COMMITTED to making these iconic parts of the Star Wars sage what they deserve to be in this game, and in a timely manner - because the trickle of stuff has done little to encourage me to remain an Ent these past 2 years. Either they tell us what justifies thelong grind and the massive skill point expenditure, or we accept that skill point requirement reduction may mean that people just AFK us for laughs, to annoy us, whatever in their free time. If you thought botting was bad, wait until we're a skillpoint-free profession. The only thing that has kept me an Ent is the company, and I appreciate fully each and every one of you who makes theseprofessions fun. Because it's you fellow players who make it fun, not the game's content necessarily. It's neat to watch your toon perform, it's fun to help people have a good time in an MMORPG, but it's the Devs' responsibility to facilitate this - and they've done little of the sort, really.

I've completely lost any sense of direction from our Dev team. I question what their true intent is with us. If they remove or reduce our skill points, they could establis away for bots to overtake us. Either they tell us how they intend to justify our skill point cost, or they throw us to the wolves and thrust our professions forever into PC NPC AFK zombie mediocrity.

I question why I'm forced to miss out on SO MUCH content in this game because I have Entertainer skills. There is no reason why anyone who can dance or play a musical instrument can't also do other things. I don't feel like I have a place in this game as an Entertainer anymore, I really don't. I was made useless by buffbots pre-CU, and I was made nearly useless by the CU itself, withobsolete elite profession skills to this day. Even with profession-specific buffs, I have no place outside of a cantina or hotel, where I can't apply my buffs. I'm tired of missing out on loot kits, new loot, Kashyyyk content because I get one-shot killed by everything, and having no role in the GCW whatsoever (an Empire Divided?).

I'm am SICK and TIRED of "You stop listening/watching (insert name here) because it is too far away." I am purposeless in this game when people can't even watch or listen to me, my BASIC SKILL of /startmusic and /startdance isbroken if nobody can use it reliably. If a combat player couldn't /attack, how do you think THEY'D feel?

So, when faced with all these things that remain messed up, do we now surrender skill points to "make up" for what our professions are still lacking? No, I want our professions to be what they should be. If they cost less in skill points, I'm afraid we'll mean less when new content is requested.

You want to know what I think about it, Esh? Well, there you go.

Edited: Because I got a little on a rant, but for the most part my points remain the same.

Message Edited by Warryyr on 06-14-2005 04:44 PM

*sigh*

Time for lunch.

Glad to see you back around, Nos Stop lurking, you dirty lurker!

---

Esharra wrote:

/givesUp

---

Don't give up, if you do then we're truly in trouble!

Fine...I'll be good...

Removing/reducing SP costs:

Current skills do not justify SP costs, so more balance is achieved in that regard.

Entertainers can pursue other content in the game, whether combat-oriented or whatever. There's a world of content pure Entertainers can't explore without excessive danger and risk involved.

Cons:

Opportunity for troublemakers to create Entertainer alts at less cost to them template-wise. This would be compounded if skill points were completely removed. Bitterness towards Ents still exists, and some may create bots just to hassle live Entertainers.

Fear that removing skill points means we're less of a priority to fix or some may feel we're "less" of a profession (Politicians went through this not long ago).

With no skillpoint requirement, or less requirement, new content might be even less common.

Sorry for all the Wookiee roaring. I have been very frustrated with the state of my pure Entertainer character lately. I feel like it's lost it's place in the game, and that makes me really upset. I've been waiting for things to get better for so long, it's disappointing. I see nothing that's encourage ATK play, in fact I see only new things that make it easier to AFK. I am feeling very discouraged lately. Sorry for the trouble.

don't give up Esh, you kinda have to expect warryyr to cut loose with both barrels, topic be damned huh?

Back to the point, I looked at some templates in my character builder. I don't know what Clevel would come out to, my proggie doesn't figure that out.

To simulate a reduced cost musician/dancer, I mastered ID, then picked a Combat profession (swordsman) and made sure whatever I got would have at least 14pts left over (to simulate the added cost of the Healing line, which would remain even if Elite costs were lowered).

The bonus points let me get 2 full trees of fencer, with one point left over. With master Entertainer, someone would be limited to Novice of another elite combat profession OR the ability to grab 2 boxes in another novice profession like scout or medic.

I'm not sure what the Clvl bump would be for either option, but I'm sure you'd be at least a little better than 54, or have some useful added skills (mask scent and some terrain negotiation, anyone?)

I wish we had a clearer idea of what we might be getting in a possible revamp, but I'm not sure I will ever see us as being "worth the points" ever again. The economic and community damage has been done, some things its too late to fix.

Again, I apologize, but the very fact that our skills are so messed up that we discuss the possibility of reducing the skillpoints for our professionsdistresses me.

We never should have ended up in this position, but nevertheless, here we are.

And for the record, as rant-worthy as my post was, it was very much on topic.

We were passed over for content (which would have helped justify skillpoint expenditure) for the sake of an NPC money sink.

Our elite professions skills remain useless.

Our content in the game is seriously lacking - we spend skillpoints to learn new songs and dances, but these new abilities don't provide any specific benefit whatsoever.

We are forced to sacrifice enjoying the new stuff other people get to explore, to a significant degree, because our Combat Level is so low.

We have had minimal assurance that our investment in skillpoints will really be worthwhile once all is said and done. The Smugglers got a high-level overview of some of their possible upcoming changes awhile ago. Where's ours? They at least got the chance to know if their profession was heading in any direction they wanted to go.

Our most basic functionality is negated by some bug that keeps people from watching us or listening to us, and this has perpetuated for weeks now.

Now, given all of this, we're now going to start discussing the pros and cons of reducing our skillpoints, so that our gimpiness isn't as costly to our templates? I'm just very disappointed this is what we've come to, but given all of the above, I can see no reason why we shouldn't be discussing this, because perhaps it is time to give up and just reduce the skill point cost to accomodate what remains seriously lacking and wrong with our professions.

Anyhoo, cut me some slack. I haven't ragedmuch around here forawhile.

Message Edited by Warryyr on 06-14-2005 01:36 PM