Musician Archive

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Electro wrote:
So, let me get this straight... in order to play all the songs with all the instruments (minus the master boxes) we now have to be Musician 0044? Pardon me for thinking that is a bad thing. (And yet another nerf to my template, what a surprise that is.)

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From what we've been told so far, this is correct.

And I'm prepared to fight to have this rethought, if necessary - we need MORE people playing with us, NOT less. Removing 1/2 easily of the instruments people could play before will most likely make folks just drop the 0040 line and maybe Entertainer alltogether. This is the last thing we need.

I'd rather see this:

Keep crafting in Techniques line. Add more customizations to instruments along with the new effects. More instruments, maybe? Perhaps exclusive to new songs, so there isn't the daunting task of incorporating them into existing songs, as this would probably be rather difficult.

Keep certs/songs in Knowledge to not penalize those with 0040 Musician.

The Battle Fatigue line gets Musician props added in, as well as Dancer props. Also, Musicians/Dancers get more cantina decoration items to make in this branch. Maybe mutli-level platforms to perform on in player cantinas, as just the stage is kind of boring. Cantinas are kind of tall, and could allow for some slightly raised platforms to play on.

Message Edited by Warryyr on 06-20-2005 12:26 PM

Hey, Scip -can you pitch that theylet us customize our instruments' colors or even customize their appearance slightly?

Having all instruments look the same is boring...can we change the color of them when crafting?

Also, can we get speakers and microphones to craft, also color-customizable? The speakers can be non-functional I guess, rather than ambient sound, but can we get to craft them in more colors than the beige loot ones we have? A nice set of brown or black or red speakers would be cool.

Also, if they didn't want the loot speakers to be outdone by crafted ones, make NEW speaker designs - the bottom "stands" for the loot speakers don't look as good when placed on walls...maybe some "monitor" looking speakers, or other speaker case designs?

Message Edited by Warryyr on 06-20-2005 12:28 PM

Now wait a minute?

You mean to say that I'm trying to grind Master Musician on my alt Mellissandria for what? so I can just stand there and look cute?

Let us keep the BF healing....ok, so we are to get profession specifice buffs? That's nice, but one of the reasons Entertainers (including musicans) are there to start with is to heal BF....not so I can stand there in my outfit of the day and deal with the sleemos.....And don't even let me get into combat levels and entertainers.

Going to keep an eye on this in the next weeks, and hang onto my token respec......SOE better *not* give me a reason to use it

Message Edited by Mellissandria on 06-20-2005 01:28 PM

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Mellissandria wrote:

Now wait a minute?

You mean to say that I'm trying to grind Master Musician on my alt Mellissandria for what? so I can just stand there and look cute?

Let us keep the BF healing....ok, so we are to get profession specifice buffs? That's nice, but one of the reasons Entertainers (including musicans) are there to start with is to heal BF....not so I can stand there in my outfit of the day and deal with the sleemos.....And don't even let me get into combat levels and entertainers.

Going to keep an eye on this in the next weeks, and hang onto my token respec......SOE better *not* give me a reason to use it

Message Edited by Mellissandria on 06-20-2005 01:28 PM

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Yeah, it's something be cautious about...but I doubt this is all we'll be getting, it doesn't seem like enough yet to justify removing BF.

Keep an eye out for "in development" threads, and voice any concerns in there to the Devs about what would make you feel rewarded for being a Musician. Right now, I think we should just be glad we've even heard this much. It's more than we usually get, but worthy of being cautious. Removing BF is a big step, and it's a big role for us right now - so we should feel compensated for losing it. If you don't voice the concerns ina Dev thread once it appears.

Over the past month, I have gained back the 4 boxes in knowledge to start playing some music again. My template is very stretched as it is. So, having to get 0044 in Musician to play all the songs and music is a huge concern to me as well. I think that if that were to happen, I'd be more likely to drop all of Musician than to get another branch. That sucks, because I was just getting into the music thing again. I'm hoping this is changed.

Beyond that, however, I like the rest of the changes.

My concern is that the little content we already have is being spread throughout the lines, rather than bolstering our content to justify skill point investment. I'm all for encouraging mastery of the entertainer professions, but I want mastery to be worth MORE than it already is.

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NJ62 wrote:
My concern is that the little content we already have is being spread throughout the lines, rather than bolstering our content to justify skill point investment. I'm all for encouraging mastery of the entertainer professions, but I want mastery to be worth MORE than it already is.

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So they are taking away even more and just spreading pretty useless stuff among the already useless trees to justify having to spend all the skillpoints for an almost useless profession???

Don't get me wrong, I am a musician for RP purposes as it is. I dropped everything except the knowledge line as I can give up just one song and instrument for RP purposes. Spreading a bunch of utility across those other trees gets me really pissed off actually. Why don't they get real here. If they want all this skill point cost, then they better damn well make it worth having. I have to have other skills to justify my musicians existance. RP is really nice but its not enough. I take exception at the high skill point cost with a mostly RP profession. And they can shove the inspiration thing too. This is now a RP profession, nothing more. They need to get the skill point costs in line or there are gonna be even less entertainers then there are now. This game is going to suffer without this RP element.

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Warryyr wrote:

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NJ62 wrote:
My concern is that the little content we already have is being spread throughout the lines, rather than bolstering our content to justify skill point investment. I'm all for encouraging mastery of the entertainer professions, but I want mastery to be worth MORE than it already is.

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Yeah, spreading out the content seems like a cop out.

We need more new stuff to fill in the BF lines, not what we've already had but in a new place.

Luckily, Esharra said in the Dancer forums that there is more to all of this, so we'll have to wait and see what's up.

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OK so I'm trying to keep positive about some things so I'll get that out of the way. Great sharing of knowledge and we really appreciate all you do.

Now for the gripe....

When the CU hit and we lost 2 MAJOR interdependancies that we had in this game (wound healing and Mind buffs) and only got the inspires to replace them we were told to "hold on...stuff will be coming". Now they are removing ANOTHER interdependency leaving only the inspires....for the moment. In every post I've seen the devs say that the other new buffs we will provide will NOT be coming out now, but later. That does us no good. We still haven't gotten the stuff promised to replace what we lost in the CU. In addition, making the SP requirement to attain the majority of performance and RP aspects incresed will destroy the casual musician. When these new inspires hit there will be noone left to provide them, thus starting a new wave of buffbots, or worse, there will be no difference between a novice and a master, other than application time, and/or they won't provide a very useful modification, meaning that they will be worthless for us as a profession like the current inspires.

They haven't even addressed some of the game issues created by the CU such as group sizes or that we lose EXTRA xp when spending it to get our new quest song. How bout fixing those things first????

I hate to say this as I have, to date, been a wait and see player, but the devs have described the next planned phazes for entertainers and they aren't giving us JACK and they are removing more of what we are. I have fought this in the past, but now I agree that if this is the devs plan for entertainers, skill points need to be reduced or Music and Dance need to be combined.

I really wish the devs would not expand the game by REMOVING stuff. I understand moving mind buffs to docs, but they could have let us do them also. There was nothing telling them they couldn't. If they wanted a more simple game then they could make SWG Lite(R) for those people who can't be bothered. Oh but the CU made many things equally complex but different or more complex. Now they'll have to redo the tutorials and help files...again...to adapt to these new changes.

These changes as listed are maybe the penultimate nail in our coffins. No one change will kill us, but eventually it will. At the last crawl we had a total of 18 musicians which is down from previous ones. Part of this is that of the 2 professions dance has no overhead for instruments, some feel better particle effects, both professions provide the same service, and with the XP bugs for tumble is easier to master. Another reason is that during the crawls and other events, people are not listening to the band, but tuning into streaming radio (in another application) or obtaining a jukebox (I've now lost gigs due to jukes) because either A) they don't want to listen to us or B) they are just sick and tired of our songs.

These changes will bring us to yet another low.


Fragpuppie Uber
Master Musician/Master Entertainer.....Since August 2003

Its nice that they are going to make the experience come a bit faster or reduce the exps required. That makes it easier to be an Entertainer/Musician/Dancer and is in keeping with the change they made to ID.

However, by taking away the BF from the game, they are taking away the audience, and thus the reason to be a performer. People don't come to see the show, they come because every once in a while they *have to* to heal their BF. As soon as the BF is gone - and sometimes when they have the buff - they skarker, because watching a performer is actually rather *boring* and always will be. If people are entertained by our performances its because we talk to them or interact in some manner. No one plays a game to be completely passive for all that long - if they do they go afk and macro and thats not really playing.

I don't see buffs as providing enough of an incentive to make people want to come - unless they stack over top of the current caps. Right now you can get buffs from a Doctor, buffs from food or drugs - but any one source will usually let you reach the cap or close enough and has kind of killed buffing from all three of these sources. Only if our buffs stack ON TOP of these caps and thus really help a player perform better can I see any possible incentive. Even then I doubt it will matter enough to most players.

If they do give us buffs, its important that we be required to select a target and apply the particular buff they want - not have it tied to a song or dance of some type. There are several reasons I can see for this:

1). It can't be AFK macroed and shouldn't ever be capable of being so macroed.

2). It might possibly do something to drive out the AFK macroers who are only there for a cheap buck from lazy people who can't distinguish (or don't care) between a macroer and a person who at the keys. ANything that kills the hordes of macrobots trying to scam a credit and standing in the entrance to the Coronet Cantina is a good thing IMHO. I don't mind macroing to get exps, but I hate it when it denies possible income to those who are willing to actually play their character.

3). It requires the player target to interact with us to get the buff they want, encouraging us to interact.

As for changes to the song lines, thats pathetic. Taking the already meagre content in Musician and spreading it out is not an improvement to the class, its covering up a weakness.

As with the CU upgrade effect on Doctors, I think Master Entertainer/Musician/Dancer needs to qualify in terms of CL calculations. There is no good reason for this logically (but then why do doctors qualify - knowing how to suture a wound doesn't make you better at shooting things), but it would make it more feasible for people to have an Performing profession as part of their spec. Right now you are effectively either a combat class and capable, or you are an entertainer and very weak. Most combos of combat/entertainer mix very poorly I think, given the double combat class requirements, yet Doctor/CombatClassX works just fine.Lots of people specced out of performing skills because they were forced to choose. Making it possible to be say a Rifleman/Musician and gain a decent CL - even if the benefit is provided at half rate, might make it more attractive to people. I don't think anyone is going to agree with me on this mind you

Instrument quality needs to be something that matters, along with experimentation on those instruments. Instrument assembly should require Novice Musician to start. These two things might make an instrument manufacturing industry possible - although unlikely.

We need some ability to *make* our own songs. They hinted at this with their "lego block" comment at one point. If we had the ability to produce basic chord patterns or something that would transform the music profession entirely and could probably still avoid copyright problems - although I am not sure on that of course. If I could compose my own chord patterns and then add in /say <lyrics> into a macro then I can become a real performer IMHO. It would provide a way for people to really be creative - you could even become a composer and sell macros to other performers that contained your song codes. RIght now this is done on the forums but it would be neat to have it in game.

If they are adding more songs to the list, they need to give each playback module the ability to record more than one song, or a playback droid is going to be relatively useless. As it stand now, even the best droid is limited. With another few songs its going to be rather painful to use one. Another option would be to let us store an *instrument* samplein the playback droid for each module installed, and let us choose which instrument we want playback on with the droid automatically knowing all songs we know. Thus an R3 with 6 playback modules installed could hold the data for playing back on 6 different instruments and would be able to provide back up using any one of those instruments at a time when we select it.

I am currently speccing back into some entertainer, I miss playing. I hope when I am done, that I come to an improved class not a newly dead one