Musician Archive
Thread: From your correspondent: Top issues for Musicians
Personally, I would like to miss notes more when not flourishing than when flourishing 
Maybe there could be a formula they use to determine how often missed notes happen in comparison to the length of a flourish sequence.
Howdy all,
Well about the off key notes, that may be a cool thing to throw into the mix for when you are raising in level, but I do not want to be hitting sour notes as a Master, and I think they need to remove the "fumble chance" from Master Dancers as well, IMHO its just silly that they can fall down on dances that have taken ( In a game sense) years and years to perfect. Sure Figure Skaters and Ice Dancers do tend to fall, but how many times have you seen a special on the tube where dancers were just falling. If it does happen, maybe they edit it out?
On another note, I sure would love to see our list of concerns answered by the devs soon. I have been trying to hold off listing new concerns until that list is published, but with the newest patches, we have more issues that we can address. I will still refrain for now, however.
Durney Kova - Master Entertainer / Master Musician - Lowca
I have only 2 issues for Musicians
1) I just want a dinstinct sound for each and every instrument. Not the same sound for several instruments.
2) To put a deny dervice option is ludicrous and Semi-unrealistic. I know this is a game, but most of the people who want a deny service option are the same people who complain about not getting enough tips.
Otherwise, Musicans have it pretty good compaired to other Professions. Just look at Droid Engineers and Bio-engineers.....eeek! I'm glad our job isn't broken.
Cudayn, I'm anxious to see the devs' responses too. Once theyrespond to our initial top-five list, I will start a new thread seeking input on our top issues. I suspect that their answers may affect our list of priorities.
Secksay, your first issue (distinct sounds) was the #1 issue on our initial top-five list. Watch this forum to see how the devs reply; we're hoping for a dev response soon. The other issue to which you refer, denial-of-service, is not cited often enough to make it into our top-five list (or even a top-ten list), so I wouldn't worry about it being adopted by the devs in the near future. My own view is that I can already deny service: I can stop playing. I have, unfortunately, had to resort to that approach more than once.
-NewJedi (a/k/a Ricky Starwalker, Master Musician/Master Entertainer, Chilastra)
Ill get right 2 it
1) We really Need something done with the Low Level V.S. High Level Songs. look Im at Music 3 and the Highest about of EXP I got was 5, I cant Work Like this 
.
2) Can You possibly see IF you can Make it Give a small amount more of XP. This will encourage more people to join.
3) I think The /band Tip is a good Idea Keep it!
If someone wants to give the individual credits then do a normal /TIP
4) More flourishes
5) More Instruments
6) More Songs
Thats all I can think of That I want for now ^_^
I will also agree with the addition of mess ups and cranky instruments. That was something I was thinking about as I moved up in skill. Something fairly easy to code is have the musicain stop when a bad note is detected. Have the musician look at the instrument, scratch his head...then restart losing a bit of potential xp.
Masters should not screw up or if they do it should be so infrequent so as not to really mess up a gig.
Issues that should be dealt with ...
A) More Songs ... I highly doubt that they will allow us to Compose our own ... The Coding and file space needed for that would be insane ... However there should definately be more choices of songs
B) Different Sounds for different Instruments : The fact that my Chindikalu sounds like a Fizz , is really dissappointing.
C) More Flourishes ... 8 Flourishes can get old , even if you change songs regularly .. I also really like the Idea of a Null type flourish
D) Some Way to Discourage AFK Macro'ers .... Nothing is worse than having to compete with someone who isn't even at the keys for exp.
E) The Ability to Move around some if playing a Horn or other Standing Instrument ... Not neccassarily alot of movement ... but some
F) Band Tip : Or Autosplit Tip or something
G) Fix Mission Terminals : Higher Paying , More Interesting Gigs for Higher Level musicians ...Make the Terminals Closer to Cantina (on Dearic,Talus you have to run to the Theatre to get missions) , this will make fewer interruptions if you actually have an audience and make for slightly smoother transitions between missions. Currently having to stop , run half way across town , run back and start , is not something that I enjoy ... Also make it so that /change doesn't reset the timer.
H) Make our Special effects actually do something worthwhile for the Group or the People Listening rather than Just give a second or two of extra , for alot of action.
I)Ceremonial : (Ya I know this part of a dead bantha probably) ... Master Musician should be able to play this ... ME can keep the Mand ... Master Muscian has the Narg ... but I think that a Master Musician , should at least know how to play all the songs ...
A few gripes and suggestions, I'm not sure if anyone posted these already, but here goes:
1. There should be a way to set a band leader, probably seperate from the group leader (sometimes dancers are the group leaders, and they shouldn't be band leaders, sorry dancers). The band leader should be the only person who can do band flourishes, band stop, band change music and band start. I'm starting to get very annoyed with the novice entertainers who love doing band flourishes all day and eating all my action health up.
2. Said band flourishes should give the entire band exp, perhaps more exp for band flourishes than normal flourishes (to give more incentive to being in a band). Also the other band commands, such as change band music and start band seem to be bugged. If I start my band, I look like I'm playing, but I'm not (this can be rememedied by /stopmusic /startmusic which gets me going with the band). Changebandmusic has the effect of making all the instruments sound exactly alike (I'm not sure what causes this, but when you switch back to sw1 for a novice, and everyone sounds like slitherhorns, you want to commit suicide)
3. Definetely more variety in instruments, its driving me batty that there are actually only 5 instruments, and 2 can only be attained at the master levels. Also as a note, the mandovial and ceremonial should be added to master musician, or perhaps in the master musician tree, its incredibly frustrating that I have to dance and to facial design for a song and instrument, also, does anyone else notice that dancing and facial design have nothing to do with music (unrealistic).
4. More songs would be nice, especially a new one for the novice entertainers.
5. Perhaps give a larger bonus to musicians who group with novice entertainers. I'm getting frustrated being a novice musician helping out all the novice entertainers and having a similar level novice musician walk into the cantina and refuse to group, as the current bonus does not outweigh having to listen to SW1 over and over and over and over...
5. Something has to be done about the macroing musicians, I know its hard to gain music exp, and I have no problem running a macro, but I go hide somewhere so I don't interfere with anyone else trying to get music exp or entertainment healing exp. The people in cantinas running macros simply cause problems, since they aren't there to group new musicians trying to get a start, or they won't join a group thats currently forming. Perhaps give an option for master musicians to eject afk musicians from a cantina (they can click on them and say eject, the person has 5 minutes to respond to the eject, if not, they are ejected from that cantina, this would obviously have some type of timer on how long it would be before someone could do it again, maybe a half hour?) This might also help in dealing with the unruly novice musicians that refuse to group when they enter a cantina and don't want to play sw1 (alot of problems with sw1 huh?)
6. The cost of fizzz's for novices on the market is fairly high, 700 creds, sometimes 1500 (cheapskate manufacterers). Perhaps the system could generate lower priced fizzz's on the bazaar? I find myself making these at a constant rate, and giving them away to novices at a great cost to myself, since I feel the price is unjustifiable for the beginners. The other instruments seem just fine for pricing, although sometime availability is lacking.
7. There definetely needs to be some type of instrument added to at least novice musician to give the music bass. Perhaps a drum kit, or a bass guitar of some sort. Until Music II, there is very little substance to band music, and its to the point of complete annoyance that the music has absolutely no bass unless a bandfill or higher is there.
8. Why in the name of Lucas are the most popular cantinas and pubs so tiny? Anchorhead's cantina just gets packed, and its insane. I play in the Fallen Star, since its nice and big, and it has a stage (why don't the other cantina's have a stage?).
9. Can we get an option to remove NPC chatter, and PC/NPC chats from the spatial window. I know people need to talk to them and get missions, but I don't need that cluttering up my spatial window. Also, NPC's just say random stuff sometimes, and it also clutters up my spatial window (especially if your in an NPC packed cantina like Mos Eisley).
10. For the love of all things sacred, please please give the novice entertainers two songs! The dancers get two dances, why not musicians? are we that neglected?
11. Can we have more places to play? besides the cantina's? maybe outdoor areas in the city we can play in? This goes back to the macroing musicians, they overcrowd the current cantinas sometimes, it'd be nice to have somewhere else to go.
12. Can we report other musicians that are disrupting the cantina's we play? I find myself having to compete with other novice musicians that refuse to group since I'm playing sw1 (for the new guys). There is a particular novice musician (who shall remain nameless), who thinks he's better than everyone elseand is incredibly rude to my dancers and band members, but not so rude as to allow me to report him (calling me a "tool" and such, I don't think that warrants calling a CSR, but it should).
13. I find as I'm playing I slowly move around the stage, instead of staying put, then I have to move back to my mic (yeah, I know it does nothing, but the effect is nice). Can we have this fixed?
14. Is it possible to have some sort of system protection that can be added against having pets in the cantina? The little mouse droids some musicians have that say "tip-me" are annoying, as well as the imperials that think its funny to walk intoa cantina with their AT-ST's.
Ok, thats it for now. Sorry if these have already been said.
I often play in a player made 'cantina' where the proprietor usually asks that pets be left in a "pet room". Maybe there can be an option in player run places where the owner can set a "no pets allowed' flag so pets can't be called or brought into the cantina.
I also think there is a command for buildingadministrators to boot and ban someone from their building. I don't think there should be a command to boot people from a public cantina. Makes going to and working in a player made one more desirable.
/tipband would be nice. (Has anyone mentioned that yet?)
How about being able to appoint a bouncer in a band. The bouncer would be able to PvP anyone in the cantina. It would make for a cool way to keep people from harrassing my dancers... I've noticed people ususally decline duels when they are harrasing bandmembers or customers. C'mon, how hard can a Wookiee with the title 'novice musician' really hit you?
As stated many times before, a song at every level would be nice.
The ability to heal BF in a non-basic scout camp as a Musician or Dancer would be nice. That way we could take our show on the road and be more useful. Maybe allow us to craft music'stim packs' that people could take when they go on the road. (I believe someonementioned something like this earlier.) At least that would add a little income. As a musician, I found that there are only a few people who tip a whole band. Usually the dancers get the tips from the majority of people and the musicians who are in the back get neglected. A mind stim pack would be a way for musicians to make a living.
Thanks for all the time you are putting into this, NewJedi.
djacktono: You're not the first one to ask that Master Musicians have access to Ceremonial and the mandoviol. By my count, though, people in this forum are pretty sharply divided on that issue. Lots of folks agree with you. But lots of otherpeople think it's good that Master Entertainer contains a really good musical reward. Me: I enjoyed doing some dance and ID to earnMaster Entertainer -- but I sure do miss those skill points.
IronFreeze:I too would love a way to filter out NPC chatter. It's worst in one of the places you mention in your post -- Anchorhead.I imagine other Musicians agree. (Do you all?)
On fizzzes: That's the first time I've heard anyone mention fizzz prices that high. I usually sell mine for 300 or so on my server (Chilastra). I have noticed, though, thatinstrument prices are risinggenerally. If my fellow Musicians are anything like me, they're spending less time crafting instruments and more timedoing other things these days. Thus more scarcity, and higher prices: the free market at work. I doubt the devs will change this design feature. One workaround for you: ask around in the band in which you play. If a fellow bandmember asks me -- even in a pickup band -- I usually give it to them cheap or free.
On other venues: remember, we don't have to perform in public cantinas. There are also hotels, which now have gambling to draw people in. There are a few outdoor venues that permit healing (e.g., ampitheater at Vreni Island). And the best performance venue is a theater.We just need to change the culture of the game a bit. I'd like to see "high-class" acts in theaters -- maybe cover charges in exchange for a guarantee of a Master-level show (and Master-speed healing).
RebelRabbitt: As you may know, a /bandtip command was #3 on our first top-five list for Musicians. No response from the devs on that one yet.
Register on Planetary Map does not work at the "Outpost" Cantinas (Dathomir, Dantooine, Endor, and I assume Yavin 4, but I haven't been there yet) or at Taverns. Perhaps it's intentional that those locations do not have anyway to register, but since I have never seen a Musician besides myself in any of them, I would think the demand for musicians, and therefore the utility of registering, would be high.
Gramon Blatt, Master Musician, Master Entertainer, Chilastra
I still think the number one thing broken with Entertainers (and Musicians) is our ability to heal. Yes we can heal BF and Mind wounds, but we cannot heal mind damage. In fact to my knowledge NOTHING in the game can. This is completely broken, imo, because both the other HAM bars can be healed but the mind cannot? Some profession in this game should be able to do that, I think it already fits with entertainer since we're responsible for the BF and mind wounds already. I would like to see the entertainer utilized more like a bard so we can get out of those cantinas. Hell, I don't care make us carry around a "cantina" bot like the other healers in the game have to.
Bloodfin, NDC entertainer lead and Master Musican - Dalak