Musician Archive

Fun, and better content? You cant combine those into 1 issue and get some real stuff fixed?

The biggest issue with musicians and dancers are buffs, they need to be fixed. If you die with a muscian buff on you cannot rebuff until the origional timer wears off.

There are times when a musician is bugged and cannot buff certain individuals.

There is no way to even tell if musician buff is working...

Clearly this was a porly coded part of the game and it NEEDS to be fixed, so how about instead of wasting chance to be heard on a porly thought out top 5... lets get some real stuff fixed.

I worked my way to master muscian so that I can constantly have to appologize to people for SOE not being able to write code? Fix buffs now!

Don't forget also the entertainers cannot self buff while docs can.

Someone mentioned once an interesting idea let entertainers make enhance packs ike docs do instead of medicine its a "dance video pack" or heck an "mp3 pack" to fit into the game a little better.

That way - buffs do not take 10 minutes active 20 minutes passive which turns a lot of people away (sure I can buff your group of 4 people it will take 20 minutes.. hey where ya goin? come back come back noooooo), and you can buff yourselves as well, and you can see the buffs kick in have them work like normal buffs.

As for the lights and dazzle and smoke effects would need a different use for them maybe make those like large flourishes that ONLY have an effect when u r getting healing xp that way people would not really want to work them into an afk macro since u dont get healing xp steadily and not at all at 4am.

Someone mentioned also entertainer droids. If a doc can get a droid to heal and buff anywhere why cant a dancer have a droid with pretty lights enabling them to dance heal anywhere and a musician get a droid with big speakers so they can play heal anywhere? I know the devs are stuck on the whole "BF only heals in cantinas otherwise entertainers would all be in the field and cantinas are all dead" but you know what? Most cantinas are dead anyway and if entertainers could heal BF as well as in the field, they would be invited into more groups. Even combat oriented groups do socialize.

- Broog

As it happens, I was just about to start a new poll, and buffs might well make it into the top-five now. (I've left December's top-five list up longer than usual because it contains dev responses -- the first responses we've had in months -- and I wanted to make sure people saw them.)

But I should emphasize that I've repeatedly pestered the devs about the issues you raise, most recently in an e-mail to Thunderheart two days ago. The devs have repeatedly told me that it's no easy matter to "fix" the buff along the lines you request. E.g., a "self-buff" is not as easy to code as the Doctor's self-buff, since aMusician self-buff can't be triggered by /stoplisten, which is the normal trigger for the buff. Likewise, a "buff in progress" graphic apparently isn't easy to code because the game doesn't really "know" the buff is in progress until the listener types /stoplisten. That is what triggers the buff code.

It doesn't surprise me that not every Musician shares your view of what's most important. My Musician, like yours, happens to moonlight in a Mind-intensive second profession (Carbineer). So I would love a self-buff. But a Musician who moonlights as a Dancer has little need for a Musician self-buff. Musicians who have been Master since August may well be more interested in new songs than someone who just became a Master this month. As for the buff interface, sure it stinks, but most Musicians seem to work around it. Yes, there's a bug with the buff timer; I reported it to the devs weeks ago. At most, adozen playershave posted about it -- but dozens more have posted about content-related issues. In fact, I was criticized for pursuing the death-timer bug too vigorously because I was catering to "power-gamers" rather than true Musicians. You can't win. <rolls eyes>

As for "poorly-thought-out" top five list: I think very hard about my top-five lists, but it's not my job to write my own "personal"top five. If I did so,it might look different (though not much, in this case).But Irepresent players, not me; and Ireport the wishes of the players, not me.Those wishes are evidenced by responses to my polls, frequency of posts on an issue in this forum, andfrequency of complaints on particular topics I receive via PM or tell or in-game e-mail.

Anyway, I'll start a new top-five poll, and you can lobby for your personal preferences there. Just try to remember that people have legitimate reasons for having other priorities.

Agreed!!!! Our buffs are a fiasco, asoldier would say a charlie-foxtrot. No self buffs, a million ways to fail, dont dare use that nalgo or omni to buff unless you really trust folk not to mess with them and use all text (/setperform name). Considering the percentage of players who are true musicians is well less than 10% i wont hold out much hope. Even if it becomes priority #1. Sigh.

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NewJedi wrote:

My Musician, like yours, happens to moonlight in a Mind-intensive second profession (Carbineer). So I would love a self-buff. But a Musician who moonlights as a Dancer has little need for a Musician self-buff. .

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Thanks for the support, guys. Yep, ID'ers love our Musician buff. So do medic types and most combatants.

If the initial responses to my new poll are any guide, buff-related issues have climbed well into the "top five" now.

I don't care about buffing myself, becauseI can always get a group-buff, right? The problem is, I don't seem to receive buffs from my bandmates unless I'm not playing any instrument myself. Just allow me to be buffed from a friendwhile jamming with them.

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JohnMarble wrote:

I don't care about buffing myself, becauseI can always get a group-buff, right? The problem is, I don't seem to receive buffs from my bandmates unless I'm not playing any instrument myself. Just allow me to be buffed from a friendwhile jamming with them.

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