Musician Archive
Thread: Musician top five issues, and dev responses
I put my responses in green.
Echinacea wrote:
1. New songs, new instruments, and new sounds for duplicate instruments. I'm sure the devs are aware that Musicians' patience is wearing thin. Six months is a long time to play the same nine or ten songs!
Dev response: A batch of new songs is in progress, but we don't have an ETA. Thunderheart adds: "I understand and I empathize. The best I can do is make a pest of myself on this issue."
Heh. As we have been. Go, us!
Absolutely. It's about time we got some recognition and new stuff.Our songseven got mentioned in the latest dev letter from Shug_Ninx!
2. Find fun ways to encourage at-the-keyboard play.
Dev response: We love this request. There is a “however” though. This is very difficult to do technologically. We did have a great solution for Surveyors though. For surveyors, every so often (a time delay based on when someone would be at their computer or not), a System Message will display. The system message tells surveyors that “hey, if you go survey at spot X” in a certain amount of time, they get resource reward. In essence, they get a reward for being at their machine and catching the message.
As someone who's done a lot of Surveying...this does absolutely nothing to encourage me to be at my keyboard while doing so. I can bypass it very easily. And the reward is not worth the outlay of Action pointsit costs, anyway. So doing anything similar to performers would be like teaching a pig to sing; it would annoy the performers who are at their keyboards, and do absolutely zero to inhibit those who aren't. So no, it wasn't a great solution for Surveyors, and it's not a great solution for Musicians or Dancers.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! I've been trying to tell the Anti-AFK crowd in this forum for a month now the exact same thing. The devs will NOT put something in that will *reward* you for being there, because that will "unbalance" the game. They only know how to nerf. It just seems people won't be happy though until the nerf bat swings...if the anti-afk'ers get it put in, then they deserve what it brings...
How would you suggest doing this for musicians, with the two qualifying factors being that it has to make sense and be fun?
Here are some suggestions, drawn largely from the Musician board,on content that might encourage at-the-keyboard play in ways that are "fun" and "make sense":
1. Epic quests for musicians, along the lines of the quest for RIS armor.
It would be nice to feel that special, but I'm sure as hell not going to hold my breath. I twould be really, really good, though, if that were the way to get some cool,non-craftableinstrument.
I'd really dig this. I wish they'd do it, even if it was the only way to get the best instruments.
5. Make instrument quality matter. Make it a factor in our buff or our healing rate or both. Add instrument-crafting missions.
This one would really, really grab me if it were instituted.
The unpredictability of crafting has always been a draw in other professions. I wish we could get the same kind of dynamic in our profession.
6. Require performers doing gig missions to respond to "requests" from NPCs. Again, this would encourage at-the-keyboard play.
This would work if it could not be routed around the same way sampling pop-ups are. And it would be good, if it didn't cost any more in Action than flourishing does normally.
Could work as long as the NPC just requests a flourish set, not a song change. Be aware that many people join up with groups when they arrive at their destinations. (or they used to before the Holo-craze emptied most cities).
Dev reply: We like a lot of these ideas, but most of them will take a lot of coding, and not all of them are feasible.We hope we will be able to implementseveral of them, though perhaps not in the precise form suggested above.
/sigh Just say right out that we're not important enough to devote that kind of time to. We'll understand. We may not like it, but we'll understand. At least, I think most will.
Pretty much my read on it as well.
3. Improve gig missions.
Dev response: In essence, anything that will come from a Terminal or an NPC will be go to location X, entertain for Y time and be done. We can increase mission payouts, but for activities, what would you suggest?
Similar to Scout missions:
- HealZ amount of Mind Wounds/Fatigue (no time limit)
- Play forY amount of time
- Play for Z number of NPCs for Y amount of time each (as in get the NPC clapping for 2 minutes)
- Play for Y amount of time in Z number of venues (hotels, cantinas, theaters & amphitheaters) either PC or NPC
And for goddess' sake, scale it to skill! How do mission terminals see the weapon/skill and scale destroy missions? Perhaps you could have it key in on whether a certain song or dance is known and have the reward scale off that? In the case of music, we can equip instruments, but that would leave Dancers out in the cold, and our two highest level instruments aren't anything we can actually 'equip.' (Though we could pull them out and target them while we're using the mission terminal. Tricky, but possible.)
Shoot, we've got it even easier than the combat classes! With us, you KNOW what song and instrument combo we have by our skill boxes! If I'm Musician 0030, the system knows EXACTLY what max song and instrument I should be able to play and could work on that.
With combat classes, you never know what weapon I've got equipped, how good it is, do I have REALLY good armor, can I heal myself, etc...lots more variables there that are NEVER taken into account when giving out destroy missions.
We'll just have to keep tooting our own horns until we get more lovin'...Just keep bangin' away on the devs until we get something substantial.
OH well...back to the grind.
HalfCracked wrote:
I know this probaly means recoding the omni & nalargon totaly but what if they made them "vehicles" that a entertainer got in. The main problemI see is the limitation of no "vehicles" indoors. However vehicles are things that are "placed" & yet you don't need to keep them targeted. I may be off base code wise but have they looked at the vehicle code to see if it is adaptable to this situation?
NewJedi wrote:
5. Bugs relating to the nalargon and ommni box.You must keep these two instruments targeted at all times in order to play them. (This has become more of a problem now that command-line emotes don't always work; if you've been on a mount or vehicle recently, you can't emote or be emoted at via the command-line.) In addition, other players can move these instrumentsaround, which is annoying. Moreover, neither works in a player theater. Finally, the most recent patch seems to have eliminated flourish animations on the ommni and possibly other instruments.
Dev response: We're aware ofthe issues with emotes, theaters, and flourish animations, and we're working on fixes. As for targeting of the nalargon and ommni box, these instruments work differently from the other instruments in the game because they are placed in the game world, muchlike harvesters and houses, and are thus subject to a different set of rules. Wewill look into that issue and see what, if anything, we can do. [P.S. - Thunderheart is also aware of this issue and will make sure the devs continue to focus on it.]
I think what you are looking for here isn't vehicles, but something akin to pets. Vehicles are just a variation of pets. This could be a variation of pets too.
Of course, this would mean you couldn't just put one in a cantina and let people wander in and play it. It would also prevent duets of two people on the same 'gon.
Tiaga wrote:
HalfCracked wrote:
I know this probaly means recoding the omni & nalargon totaly but what if they made them "vehicles" that a entertainer got in. The main problemI see is the limitation of no "vehicles" indoors. However vehicles are things that are "placed" & yet you don't need to keep them targeted. I may be off base code wise but have they looked at the vehicle code to see if it is adaptable to this situation?
NewJedi wrote:
5. Bugs relating to the nalargon and ommni box.You must keep these two instruments targeted at all times in order to play them. (This has become more of a problem now that command-line emotes don't always work; if you've been on a mount or vehicle recently, you can't emote or be emoted at via the command-line.) In addition, other players can move these instrumentsaround, which is annoying. Moreover, neither works in a player theater. Finally, the most recent patch seems to have eliminated flourish animations on the ommni and possibly other instruments.
Dev response: We're aware ofthe issues with emotes, theaters, and flourish animations, and we're working on fixes. As for targeting of the nalargon and ommni box, these instruments work differently from the other instruments in the game because they are placed in the game world, muchlike harvesters and houses, and are thus subject to a different set of rules. Wewill look into that issue and see what, if anything, we can do. [P.S. - Thunderheart is also aware of this issue and will make sure the devs continue to focus on it.]
I think what you are looking for here isn't vehicles, but something akin to pets. Vehicles are just a variation of pets. This could be a variation of pets too.
Of course, this would mean you couldn't just put one in a cantina and let people wander in and play it. It would also prevent duets of two people on the same 'gon.
well, I was thinking of vehicles & i imagine the vehicle code is fairly different from the pet code but closer to what we need than a piece of furniture - 
as to the duet thing.. good point but then I think the Landspeeder should seat 2 & that could work for the nal too.
NewJedi wrote:
How would you suggest doing this for musicians, with the two qualifying factors being that it has to make sense and be fun?
Here are some suggestions, drawn largely from the Musician board,on content that might encourage at-the-keyboard play in ways that are "fun" and "make sense":
1. Epic quests for musicians, along the lines of the quest for RIS armor.
2. Musical NPC "pets", and an accompanying "bandleader" skill for Master Musicians, allowing us to form our own "big bands" with NPCs who /bandflourish along with us.
3. Gig missions scaled not only to Musician skill but also to number of listeners, the amount of healing, or even "good reviews." A gig mission's payout might depend on the "reviews" a Musician gets while playing the gig. Listeners could "review" the show by radial-clicking on the Musician and "voting."
4. Add a "buff mission" to gig missions. Scale payout to size and duration of buff conferred. This would encourage use of our under-utilized buff, reward more highly-skilled Musicians, and encourage at-the-keyboard play (since it's hard to buff while AFK.)
5. Make instrument quality matter. Make it a factor in our buff or our healing rate or both. Add instrument-crafting missions.
6. Require performers doing gig missions to respond to "requests" from NPCs. Again, this would encourage at-the-keyboard play.
7. Allow player cantinas to contain gambling tables. Add more games, like craps. Let Musicians operate real casinos!
Dev reply: We like a lot of these ideas, but most of them will take a lot of coding, and not all of them are feasible.We hope we will be able to implementseveral of them, though perhaps not in the precise form suggested above.
#2 I love this!
#3 I fear that a "good reviews" system has too much potential for abuse. Even limiting reviews to one per person per mission, anybody with a few friends or a guild to back them up will be able to power through this kind of quest twice as fast. I would be especially warry of linking reviews to XP.
#4 You mean kind of like a private concert? Go to soandso NPC and play for them as if you were going to be buffing a player?
#5 I agree with everything except instrument crafting missions. I don't really think that's the point of entertainer. The only reason they were given the schematics to their own instruments is really so that as a novice profession they didn't have to depend on another profession in order to climb the skillbranch.
#6 This is a great idea and very, very possible. It would require a little bit of coding, true, but it's a great thought.
#7 We should get sabaac and dejarik as a mini-game. computer card games and board games are relatively easy to play. The only sticking part I can think of is a comfortable interface with the game devices (ideally a dejarik holochess board and a sabaac table). Look at the jubilee wheel and lugjack machine interfaces. I really like the idea of player-run casinos. Maybe gambling tables could be something that merchants could gain the ability to place (similar to vendors), as long as there's a non-merchant furniture variant for people who just want to play the game without gambling.
On a side note, I can never emphasize enough that a cantina is not a venue designed for entertainers, no matter what people maythink. If anything, it's designed for chefs. A cantina is a bar, and just like in real life, bars sometimes hire musical acts to attract customers.
Dustin: About your question on item 4, on "buff missions": Yes, I could see "buff missions" that amount to a "private concert" for an NPC -- but actually mostly I had in mind buff missions that require you to buff a live player. Your mission payout depends on how well you buff the player. This would help scale missions to musician skill, would require musicians to be at-the-keyboard (since, as we all know, buffing takes a degree in Electrical Engineering 
), and would get our buff to the great masses of SWG players who've never enjoyed the best blue-bar buff in the game.
I see a lot that I like in that response. I'd just like to point out one thing:
You said " 3. Gig missions scaled not only to Musician skill but also to number of listeners, the amount of healing, or even "good reviews." A gig mission's payout might depend on the "reviews" a Musician gets while playing the gig. Listeners could "review" the show by radial-clicking on the Musician and "voting." "
I doubt we'll ever see this one, because it would be highly exploitable. Think about the advantage an entertainer in a large guild would have if the guild could have 50 people reviewing his every performance as "excellent".
Just a nit, I know, but I wanted to pick it.
-Got'nee
Sunrunner
NewJedi, since all of the other missions are fully NPC based, if you do get "buff" mission private concerts, it almosy definitely will be from a NPC, mainly because it's easier to code that way.
Speaking of which, when I said computer card games and boad games are relatively easy to play, I meant relatively easy to code. But I was running on next to no sleep at the time.
1. New songs, new instruments, and new sounds for duplicate instruments. I'm sure the devs are aware that Musicians' patience is wearing thin. Six months is a long time to play the same nine or ten songs!
Dev response: A batch of new songs is in progress, but we don't have an ETA. Thunderheart adds: "I understand and I empathize. The best I can do is make a pest of myself on this issue."
Sounds Good, I hope they make sure to make them "Different" from the rest!
2. Find fun ways to encourage at-the-keyboard play.
Dev response: We love this request. There is a “however” though. This is very difficult to do technologically. We did have a great solution for Surveyors though. For surveyors, every so often (a time delay based on when someone would be at their computer or not), a System Message will display. The system message tells surveyors that “hey, if you go survey at spot X” in a certain amount of time, they get resource reward. In essence, they get a reward for being at their machine and catching the message.
How would you suggest doing this for musicians, with the two qualifying factors being that it has to make sense and be fun?
Here are some suggestions, drawn largely from the Musician board,on content that might encourage at-the-keyboard play in ways that are "fun" and "make sense":
1. Epic quests for musicians, along the lines of the quest for RIS armor.
2. Musical NPC "pets", and an accompanying "bandleader" skill for Master Musicians, allowing us to form our own "big bands" with NPCs who /bandflourish along with us.
3. Gig missions scaled not only to Musician skill but also to number of listeners, the amount of healing, or even "good reviews." A gig mission's payout might depend on the "reviews" a Musician gets while playing the gig. Listeners could "review" the show by radial-clicking on the Musician and "voting."
4. Add a "buff mission" to gig missions. Scale payout to size and duration of buff conferred. This would encourage use of our under-utilized buff, reward more highly-skilled Musicians, and encourage at-the-keyboard play (since it's hard to buff while AFK.)
5. Make instrument quality matter. Make it a factor in our buff or our healing rate or both. Add instrument-crafting missions.
6. Require performers doing gig missions to respond to "requests" from NPCs. Again, this would encourage at-the-keyboard play.
7. Allow player cantinas to contain gambling tables. Add more games, like craps. Let Musicians operate real casinos!
Dev reply: We like a lot of these ideas, but most of them will take a lot of coding, and not all of them are feasible.We hope we will be able to implementseveral of them, though perhaps not in the precise form suggested above.
Most of those would be "Content" that you suggested, that would not stop the AFK Grinding, that people do for holo's. Any other profession that doesnt do with entertainter. You have to stay at keyboard to get XP. I would like to see something that has been suggested alot, make little pop ups, like they did with sampling, and until you press something you dont get ANY xp, and after a while you quit playing. It would be something like... A listener says that your music is great and would like to tip you, would you like to accept - That would also give entertainers a solid income for performing at the cantina!
3. Improve gig missions.
Dev response: In essence, anything that will come from a Terminal or an NPC will be go to location X, entertain for Y time and be done. We can increase mission payouts, but for activities, what would you suggest?
My reply: see the suggestions in response to #2 above.
I dont participate in Ent. Missions so I have no comment.
4. Better content generally.
Dev response: We think so too. See #2 & #3 above.
I like all of the content in 2 and 3.. and would definently like to see the ablility to add gambling terminals in cantinas. That would help bring in more people to player cities. and add only player city cantina games that hotels dont have. Also I would like to see them re-do theatres, I would gladly give up 8-10!! lots to have one just a tad bit like a big city theater!!
5. Bugs relating to the nalargon and ommni box.You must keep these two instruments targeted at all times in order to play them. (This has become more of a problem now that command-line emotes don't always work; if you've been on a mount or vehicle recently, you can't emote or be emoted at via the command-line.) In addition, other players can move these instrumentsaround, which is annoying. Moreover, neither works in a player theater. Finally, the most recent patch seems to have eliminated flourish animations on the ommni and possibly other instruments.
Dev response: We're aware ofthe issues with emotes, theaters, and flourish animations, and we're working on fixes. As for targeting of the nalargon and ommni box, these instruments work differently from the other instruments in the game because they are placed in the game world, muchlike harvesters and houses, and are thus subject to a different set of rules. Wewill look into that issue and see what, if anything, we can do. [P.S. - Thunderheart is also aware of this issue and will make sure the devs continue to focus on it.]
Im glad they know about the problem, it is very annoying.
Musicians should have to target the people who require healing, much like the focus command for buffing. This would result in a whole lot less afk macroing - you don't get better at music by just playing the same notes over and over again.
standard answers to on going problems....figures. its been what? a month or two since musicians have had any kind of upgrade (music/dancer buff) and 6 months since game started and still no new songs or instruments.
i am especially disappointed with the responce in regards to omnis n nagys, these two are the bigest problem for musicians. you cannot buff people with them as you have to keep these instruments targeted yet to buff a person you need to target them but if you target a person you stop playing and buffing....in laymens terms thats called a catch-22 folks.
enough is enough, i am starting to get sick of seeing all these fixes for other classes yet musicians and dancers get put on the back burner.
NewJedi wrote:
Dear Musicians,
The devs have responded to the "top-five issues" list I submitted to them a little while ago -- a list I developed by polling you for ideas in various threads on this forum. This e-mail lists my top five in yellow, sets forth the dev response, and in some case sets forth further dialogue between me and the devs.
1. New songs, new instruments, and new sounds for duplicate instruments.
Dev response: A batch of new songs is in progress, but we don't have an ETA. Thunderheart adds: "I understand and I empathize. The best I can do is make a pest of myself on this issue." Typical lip service.. I honestly don't see any NEW songs or instruments comming in the next 6 months, or even a year.. We might see then in the space expansion, but you'll have to pay for that.
2. Find fun ways to encourage at-the-keyboard play.
Dev response: We love this request. There is a “however” though. This is very difficult to do technologically. We did have a great solution for Surveyors though. For surveyors, every so often (a time delay based on when someone would be at their computer or not), a System Message will display. The system message tells surveyors that “hey, if you go survey at spot X” in a certain amount of time, they get resource reward. In essence, they get a reward for being at their machine and catching the message. Lets see what I can come up with in 5 seconds.. Maybe a "special" flourish box option that ask you if you wish to proceed, or defaults to "/stopmusic"?
How would you suggest doing this for musicians, with the two qualifying factors being that it has to make sense and be fun?
Here are some suggestions, drawn largely from the Musician board,on content that might encourage at-the-keyboard play in ways that are "fun" and "make sense":
1. Epic quests for musicians, along the lines of the quest for RIS armor. /agreed
2. Musical NPC "pets", and an accompanying "bandleader" skill for Master Musicians, allowing us to form our own "big bands" with NPCs who /bandflourish along with us. /agreed.. I always thought it would be a nice perk for Master Musicians to have "pets" in the form of NPC musicians to group with and make out own bands, and possible give the MM cantina/theater own the option of adding a "musician" like a vendor onstage that ONE can click and heal for a SOE set price.. This basically becomes a moneysink for SOE, but an alternative in player cities where an entertainer can't always be available
3. Gig missions scaled not only to Musician skill but also to number of listeners, the amount of healing, or even "good reviews." A gig mission's payout might depend on the "reviews" a Musician gets while playing the gig. Listeners could "review" the show by radial-clicking on the Musician and "voting." This could be exploited and abused.. Plus it promotes people to once again be in central hubs and ignores the outlining remote areas.. I actually would prefer that this gig be done on lacation and LACK of listeners..
4. Add a "buff mission" to gig missions. Scale payout to size and duration of buff conferred. This would encourage use of our under-utilized buff, reward more highly-skilled Musicians, and encourage at-the-keyboard play (since it's hard to buff while AFK.) /agreed.. having buff missions would be good.. if it's set up right
5. Make instrument quality matter. Make it a factor in our buff or our healing rate or both. Add instrument-crafting missions. /agree
6. Require performers doing gig missions to respond to "requests" from NPCs. Again, this would encourage at-the-keyboard play. /agree
7. Allow player cantinas to contain gambling tables. Add more games, like craps. Let Musicians operate real casinos! /agreed.. We covered this before in another thread and still wish the graphics on gambling would change so it's more then just "text" reading.. but allow gambling tables to be opened up like crafting tools, and click the graphic boxes
Dev reply: We like a lot of these ideas, but most of them will take a lot of coding, and not all of them are feasible.We hope we will be able to implementseveral of them, though perhaps not in the precise form suggested above. /lip service.. NONE of these ideas would take long to fix if it had priority.. Lets be honest here devs,, Musicians are on the back burner and you have no plans anytime soon to add content for us..
3. Improve gig missions.
Dev response: In essence, anything that will come from a Terminal or an NPC will be go to location X, entertain for Y time and be done. We can increase mission payouts, but for activities, what would you suggest? /lip service...... How hard is it to open up the data code for entertainer missions and change it..... My estimate would be a few weeks at most,, AGAIN if it was a priority of yours..
My reply: see the suggestions in response to #2 above.
4. Better content generally.
Dev response: We think so too. See #2 & #3 above. /lip service.. agreeing with us, but not taking action means nothing.. Ever hear of the saying.. "walk the walk, and talk the talk".. Well all I see is talking, but NO walking from the devs..
5. Bugs relating to the nalargon and ommni box.
Dev response: We're aware ofthe issues with emotes, theaters, and flourish animations, and we're working on fixes. As for targeting of the nalargon and ommni box, these instruments work differently from the other instruments in the game because they are placed in the game world, muchlike harvesters and houses, and are thus subject to a different set of rules. Wewill look into that issue and see what, if anything, we can do. [P.S. - Thunderheart is also aware of this issue and will make sure the devs continue to focus on it.] Yes there is problems with targeting when using these.. I can live with the fact that I can't /smile and target a individual.. but when it comes to buffing, it prohibits us in doing so.. How about this idea.. Make it so that when the Omni box is played it becomes a 50% area buff for anything that listens.. and the Nalargon can be a 100% area buff... That will eliminate the problem of buffing and targeting, which is the biggest problem.. Coding this would take a day or two....