Musician Archive
Thread: This isnt EQ(thank god)
Darniaq wrote:
No idea is a bad idea. Some people would like their chosen profession to have some combat effectiveness. Otherwise, those Master Dancer/Master Musician/Semi-Master Image Designers have nothing to do out in the field during battle. They get to watch.
You see, this is where I disagree with this entire topic. The master dancers/musicians/ID can do the same things in combat that everyone else can do. They can pick up a gun or a vibro-knuckle and they can lay down some smack. Heck, the masters already get +7 melee defense, even.
I don't see entertainers calling for some way for melee's to translate their melee skills into entertainment abilities. (Sword dancing, anyone?) Why do we keep seeing melee's asking for entertainers to translate their skills into combat? Very few full-time entertainers want to be out killing things. Those that do, get the skills and become a rifleman, pistoleer or teras kasi artist. That's the beauty of the game. Nobody is locked into one character conception. Turning entertainers into "bards" that magically buff the troops is just moving back into EQ territory.
Additionally, there does not appear to be any current role for an Entertainer to play in the Galactic Civil War. Except for performing for Rebel or Imperial NPCs, I don't think there's anything else we can choose. Can Covert Imps /watch a Covert Rebel Dancer? And even if a person doesn't want to partake in combat, they may still want some involvement in the GCW beyond delivery missions.
Every time I go out into the field, I come back with a rebel dance and/or music gig. With all the birthday parties they're throwing, it's no wonder the rebels are having a tough time in the GCW...
Gig Missions may help. I just sincerely hope they scale with skill or that poor guy lugging the Nal around is going to feel none too happy about making the same money as the Slitherhorn player who, oh by the way, is a Master CH/Near-Master BH
Gig missions already help. They've been there since day one of release. If entertainers don't know about them, that's their bad. There are a dozen FAQ's about them in the entertainer forum alone. Deliveries pay the same for entertainers as they do for everyone else. There are plenty of ways for us to make money. I make 3000+ a day on destroy missions and I could make loads more if I was inclined to run back and forth doing them. I'm a master entertainer. I'm also 2/3 of the way to being a master marskman should I ever want to be one.
What you melee's need to understand is that entertainers are in the cantina because they WANT to be there. I keep hearing about how "we need to save the poor entertainers from being stuck in the cantina". Please stop trying to rescue us from a fate we didn't ask to be rescued from. We like it just fine. If we didn't, we'd be doing something else.
All I really see is that the melees aren't happy with their food and drug buffs. They want to pile on even more of them, even if it means resorting to "magic" to get them. Hey, let's not leave the artisans out! We need combat artisans too! They could harvest mob parts like a scout and combine them into Potential Ionizations Bombs that debuff the mobs and snare them and stuff. We'll call them Combat Chemists and since no-one will want to spell out Potential Ionizations we'll just call them PotIons for short and hope that nobody notices that we just snuck fantasy alchemists into the game.
We're not bards, and very few of us want to become bards. If we want to fight, we'll do it just like you do,thanks. If we don't want to fight then all your lobbying is in vain anyway. There's more to the game than combat. Hard as it might be to believe, there are those of us in the game who DON'T believe that combat is the yardstick that all other activities in SWG should be measured by.
SlickRiptide wrote:
Gig missions already help. They've been there since day one of release. If entertainers don't know about them, that's their bad. There are a dozen FAQ's about them in the entertainer forum alone. Deliveries pay the same for entertainers as they do for everyone else. There are plenty of ways for us to make money. I make 3000+ a day on destroy missions and I could make loads more if I was inclined to run back and forth doing them. I'm a master entertainer. I'm also 2/3 of the way to being a master marskman should I ever want to be one.
What you melee's need to understand is that entertainers are in the cantina because they WANT to be there. I keep hearing about how "we need to save the poor entertainers from being stuck in the cantina". Please stop trying to rescue us from a fate we didn't ask to be rescued from. We like it just fine. If we didn't, we'd be doing something else
Slick, you missed my point (particularly by lumping me into the melee group). My last paragraph is my opinion on the topic. The preceding ones were all about the justification for the argument at all.
You raise excellent points, and I basically agree with all of them. I just wanted to point out that the ire was misdirected 
I am a Musician. I'll be Master Musician well before I hit Master in any Base profession, if I even bother doing so. Everything else about this game feels like something I've played in every other game. Not a bad thing necessarily, but just requires varying degrees of patience. Except music. I love the system, I love the cantinas, the people in them and jamming with folks who trully love the system used in their profession. That's the only reason I do it. Anyone can AFK to MM easy. Many who take that route may not stay there though, dropping an easily re-attainable skill in favor of something more combat centric. I've done plenty of Gigs already. There's places I've been I may never have otherwise gone 
All I was saying was that it's important to understand what the other side thinks. There is no black or white, just an infinite variety of gray. People make the wrong assumption that to gain music is to master it, when it doesn't need to be that way if you don't want it to. But the songs and instruments set up goals just as weapons, armor and schematics. So people argue about the "need" and the "grind" and "why can't I just have one more of this..."
I don't need musical combat effectiveness. In fact, I would argue against it loudly. SWG has enough of a strong base in combat to grow off of. They don't need to give more professions combat focus.
This discussion reminds me of a question I've raised before: anyone know why we get a bonus to Ranged Defense and Melee Defense when we make Master Musician? Maybe the theory is that we're just generally more dexterous once we master our trade. Anyway, we do get that slight combat benefit from our profession, for what it's worth.
As for combat, I'm content to be both a Master Musician and a marksman of some sort. I have dancer friends who are also TKAs -- a nice combo that fits their roles well.
NewJedi wrote:This discussion reminds me of a question I've raised before: anyone know why we get a bonus to Ranged Defense and Melee Defense when we make Master Musician? Maybe the theory is that we're just generally more dexterous once we master our trade. Anyway, we do get that slight combat benefit from our profession, for what it's worth.
As for combat, I'm content to be both a Master Musician and a marksman of some sort. I have dancer friends who are also TKAs -- a nice combo that fits their roles well.
Heheheh... I'm striving to become a master musican eventually. However right now I am almost a one hand sword master and almost to novice pistoleer. I think I'm going to ditch 1HS because no one makes good 1H weapons and go to the unarmed tree so I can get some smuggling skills and fight with my fizz.
That said, I want to be a MUSICIAN (in addition to being a foo fighter to defend my **edit** town), not a hairstylist or a dancer..
I just think you need to know what you REALLY want to do. There is more room in this game than i first realized. I got an aspiringsquad leaderon one server and my musician on another. But theres so many opportunities to cross train i dont see the need for something like a "Bard" in this game. This is a MMORPG. that means "role playing".When im my musician i "think" like my musician. he dosnt WANT to go out and get in some dirty ditch and try to kill anybody. I play my musician because its a different kind of game as a musician. I got my Stats but they're secondary to having fun with people in the game, roleplaying. For those who really want some kind of combat exp. Maby drumming. Drumming has been used in combat for along time. coordinating actions on the battle field. maby that could be worked into something....but just remember
Its PRETEND................PRETEND.................make it fun and have fun.
I think that if you fight with an instrument in hand you should get an attack bonus. Only like a stick-instrument. Wouldn't that be cool? Although, it would be cool to smash a bandfill over a Tusken's head...
Might satisfy "combat entertainment'...
If you play Starwars1 on a slitherhorn WITHOUT doing ANY flourishes near enemies, it melts their brains and gives them insane mind wounds!!!
Screw rifleman!
Also kindly remember this is a FANTASY role-playing game. Not everything is based on solid science or what-not.
I don't see a problem with adding an advantage to having an entertainer in your combat group, if that entertainer WANTS to be there.
Just like pure medics aren't in the group for direct combat, they are there in a support fashion to improve the quality of the experience for the combatants. I don't see why making entertainers have some benefit within a combat group would have a downside.
You don't HAVE to join the group... You can stay and socialize in the cantina, or socialize at a camp in the field, I don't see much difference.
Those entertainers who are asking for the ability to help during combat just want to help the combatants more directly than simply being statues in a cantina where people run in, get healed, and run out.
No idea is a bad idea. Some people would like their chosen profession to have some combat effectiveness. Otherwise, those Master Dancer/Master Musician/Semi-Master Image Designers have nothing to do out in the field during battle. They get to watch.
Additionally, there does not appear to be any current role for an Entertainer to play in the Galactic Civil War. Except for performing for Rebel or Imperial NPCs, I don't think there's anything else we can choose. Can Covert Imps /watch a Covert Rebel Dancer? And even if a person doesn't want to partake in combat, they may still want some involvement in the GCW beyond delivery missions.
Finally, there's money. Destroy Missions are the economy, with Artisans raking in the most revenue. Rightfully so, in my opinion, since Master Architect is a metric butt-ton more difficult than Master Musician, even without AFK macroing.
But that should mean Entertainers are the low income crowd either.
Gig Missions may help. I just sincerely hope they scale with skill or that poor guy lugging the Nal around is going to feel none too happy about making the same money as the Slitherhorn player who, oh by the way, is a Master CH/Near-Master BH
No, this isn't EQ. I also don't think many have actually played a Bard beyond 20, or maybe some have just ran into too many jerks. I've pretty much found my way to the music archetypes in every one of these games since UO. They're just too cool. But where that coolness derives from Provoke in UO or an Selos in EQ or Mezz/Stun in DAoC or the music in AC2 and SWG, it all leads to the same place:
You've got to enjoy being a musician first, worry about your ingame effectiveness/ usefulness/ appearing-on-FoH's-'requested'-list a far distant second. If that's the primary motivation, better to go play a tank or a healer.
From an SWG perspective, you guys talking about RPing are exactly right. What would a musician want to do out in the field?
That aside, I do believe theres a serious lack of professions that can do anything about Mind damage in the field. Considering it might be some of the hardest hit based on rifle damage in PvP or skills and healing for medics. There isnt anyone who can do lump mind damage healing during combat is there?
I'm sorry I got a little bit biligerant in my last post, MusicalPimp. I guess I just got offended when you called a game that I have enjoyed for over 2 years, total crap. I don't play EQ anymore because I do like SWG better, but EQ will always have a place in my heart and I have many, many fond memories there. So forgive me for being a little bothered by the "Evercrap" statement and sorry that you hated your stay there, so vehemently.
As for your comments,SlickRiptide, you seem to be under the impression that I want musicians to be exactly like bards in EQ. You are wrong... I do not want us musicians to have active fighting abilities built into the skill sets (or all those other skills I mentioned in my previous post). I would agree that if a musician wants to fight, they need to place points in some form of fighting skill (I have built the rifle side of marksman up, myself). I just want to see some more support abilities built into our profession, primarily when it comes to camps.
My suggestions are as follows:
Make it so that musicians and dancers can reduce Battle Fatigue (BF) in a camp site. Make this to be like 5pct (or less) of the speed it would take to recover in a cantina and base it on musician/dancer skill as well as the level of the camp site. Maybe have it take about 4 or 5 minutes for an Master Musician or Master Dancer to clear just 100-200 points of BF or something on players and take more time for the lesser skilled musicians and dancers.
Maybe also have a beast soothing modifier (in camp only) that would reduce an animal's aggro range (only animals... doesn't work with sentient creatures unless the sentient is a fairly stupid one that is).
This could also be possibly made a 'creature repel'... especially if you are playing SW1. Depending on how much agro a person has when they run into camp will be the deciding factor of whether or not a creature follows and attacks the person in camp (would work nice for player run Cantinas outside the city as well), while entering a camp with a musician playing. If it's initial aggro (where the person has not attacked an aggro'ing creature) then there is a chance that the creature will not follow into camp. If the person has attacked it, there is a great chance that the music will not repel the creature in this case, but still a slight chance. If the person attacks it while in camp defense, then all bets are off and the creature will attack.
Also, this area affect would last on the creature to such a degree as to actually allow someone to disband a camp and get the heckout of the area before the creature goes back intototal Kill-On-Sight (KOS) mode.
It might be nice to be able to 'buff' mind stats a little bit, while in camp, as well.
Anyways, that is the type of support skills I would like to see implemented. Maybe it's preposterous, unrealisticand unreasonable, I don't know. I'm still happy with being an Master Entertainer and Master Musician (just need more songs, instruments and flourishs 9-12...*chuckle* doesn't everyone), regardless if such measures are implemented or not.
Caspearious Shalerock
Master Entertainer and Master Musician
Coronet, Corellia (Tarquinas)
But I like the "creature soothing" idea...
MAYBE this could be used as a sucessful nerf to creature handlers. What if they had to get a musician ... to come and "sooth" the animal while they tame it. The better the instrument/song, the "calmer" it becomes, allowing it to be tamed faster...
Man that would really piss off creature handlers... but give musicians a use...
Anyway, to mind healing...
I think if you /watch or /listen to a dancer or a musician, with a low mind pool, it should just regen at a higher rate. Camps is where it starts, and the rate gets higher in the cantina/house, along with higher instruments/songs...
The recording idea was pretty cool too. Only musicians should be able to craft playback devices and recordings (bottled mind instaheal), and they could sell them. Note that the better instrument(s)/song used to make the recording, as well as more time/flourishes spent into making the recording, the better it heals the mind... although instantly. This would help musicians make a steady stream of money.. eh?
However, dancers would of course have to get something equal. Videos? Uhh...
MikeSty
"However, dancers would of course have to get something equal. Videos? Uhh..."
That's why it was suggested that the recordings be called holographic (like the R2D2's Leia hologram). This way Dancers can use the same setup.
Like MP3 for music, MP2 for video, both are MPEG just different uses