Musician Archive
Thread: Musician Top Issues 5/23/2005
- Unattended play - Still our number one issue, but by less of a margin this time. The removal of mind buffs has for the most part done away with buffbots, but AFK entertainers still contribute to an unfun cantina environment.
- Elite profession missing unique benefits - Our two interdependent skills (battle fatigue and inspiration buffs) are granted at Novice Entertainer, with the elite'e benefit being only to do these faster. There is not nearly enough benefit for being a Musician vs. an Entertainer. Specifically, Musician grants increases to the Musical Mind Enhancement skill mod, which currently does nothing.
- New songs/instruments/sounds - We will always want more of these. They need not fit the standard pattern of our existing songs either: We would love to be able to play the songs that the jukebox plays, even if we couldn't customize it. We would also love things like sound effects, or the ability to modulate our existing songs. We have been feeling overshadowed by the uberness of the jukebox since it was introduced.
- The ability to form larger entertainer groups - Since group size has been lowered to 8 from 20, entertainers have trouble getting enough xp, forming the larger social groups they are used to, and coordinating performances that require synchronization among more than 8 people.
- Make /denyservice work more like /addignore - /denyservice should add a character to a permanent list that is viewable by the entertainer, just like /addignore works. Currently a person must be denied once per play session, and there is no way to view whether someone is denied or not.
- Explore options regarding entertainer skillpoint cost, which currently does not match the opportunity in the game given to an entertainer (access to content, loot, money, etc.).
- Musician-specific content, such as Musician quests.
- A vision statement regarding Musicians and entertainers - what is our intended design and role in the game?
- Fix the /changebandmusic bug that makes players unable to continue playing without moving their character and doing a /stopmusic. Suggested solution: when a /changebandmusic occurs, only do anything to a character if that character is already playing music.
- Fix the issues with the nalargon and ommni box, specifically that they can be moved by any other player, and that you have to keep them targetted at all times to play them.
- Fix the xp granted by the new songs (Western, Starwars4, Funk) to be consistent with the xp scheme of other songs. The songs do not grant double xp when you do 2+ flourishes per xp tick, and Starwars4 and Funk do not grant the amount of base xp expected based on their position in the Musician tree.
- Lower our xp requirements which are currently much too high to be considered enjoyable (and encourage us to treat the profession as an achiever profession) with our current opportunities for xp gain.
- Allow droids to group with us in space.
- Fix the issues with player theaters, specifically the fact that the stage is an outdoor area that does not allow healing/inspiration, and the z-axis problem with the nalargon/ommni box and droid effects that makes them appear on ground level (unusable) on all outdoor above-ground areas.
- Allow our flourish animations to be seen by anyone, not just someone who is listening to you and has their sound enabled.
- Allow for pure entertainers to survive better than they currently can as level 1 characters. Changing 'combat level' to 'player level' and allowing entertainers to get higher levels (perhaps half of those in combat professions) would go a long way to making us able to survive, and making hybrid players more worthwhile.
- Make instrument quality mean something.
- Make the microphones and speakers in the world work to allow us to make ambient music.
- Improve band sound synchronization; sometimes not all flourishes start at exactly the same time resulting in a harsh non-musical sound.
- Give us more/better control over who gets our benefits (The /covercharge feature helps give us some control)
- Increase battle fatigue accrual, as the current rates of bf gain do not provide enough impetus to find entertainers. Obviously it should not be so high as to become an excruciatingly frequent occurence to need to see an entertainer, but we feel the balance is now too far in the direction of *not* needing to visit us.
- Increase our interdependence with other professions.
- Give Musicians/entertainers access to general game content, specifically locations like Jabba's palace (an iconic entertainer location which we have no means of entering), and the Village.
- Improve entertainer missions to be more interesting/engaging, and more lucrative (specifically, the reward should scale with our entertainment skills).
- Give us a role in the GCW.
- Integrate Musicians somehow with jukeboxes (jukebox creation, track creation, etc.).
- Provide male-specific Musician/entertainer items (as opposed to the female-dancer-only leotard). Ideally every species, gender, and elite profession should have something available to it.
- Allow us to walk while playing music.
- Allow us to call droids in NPC cantinas.
- Make our flourish animations match the music more exactly (this is problematic, however, due to the animations sometimes being longer than the musical flourish).
- Give Musicians more creative tools; anything that approaches the copywright-forbidden realm of true music creation would be wonderful.
- Change the entertainer-specific mods in the Force Sensitive Enhanced Healing branch to be relevant and more useful.
- Consider giving Musicians access to ceremonial and the mandoviol, or equivalents, as they are currently granted in the Master Entertainer box. It should be noted that this is a controversial topic with several people for it and several against it.
- Fix the Ithorian animations so that they are not playing wind instruments through their throats.
- Allow players who aren't granted armor certifications to wear armor in some form for decorative purposes. With the addition of armor certifications, the costuming options of many performance-oriented players have been much reduced.
- Grant the xp from bandflourishes to all people in the group. Currently only the player who initiates the bandflourish gets the xp, which discourages levelling entertainers from joining in on synchronized (and socially pulling-together) performances.
- Provide an ability to cycle-target player characters.
- Provide a way to hide the floating musical notes effects that surround Musicians while performing.
- Introduce species-specific songs/instruments.
- Make the Music xp granted be skill-based instead of based on the instrument or song being used. This would allow levelling entertainers to feel free to perform any song on any instrument without worrying about not being efficient enough to level.
- Allow more droid playback track capacity then the current maximum of 6.
- Introduce gambling and give Musicians/entertainers some role/interaction with it.
- Allow us to customize instruments (e.g. colors).
- Make our special effects (e.g. /firejet) either do something useful in terms of game-mechanics, or remove their action cost if they are purely for show.
- Remove the 400k xp cost for the Western quest song. We were told the justification for the cost was that other professions would begin to see xp costs for their own post-master content, but this has not come to pass. As it is now, it seems like a punishment that is given after you are told by the theater manager that you have just had success in completing the quests.
Aleyo wrote:
- Remove the 400k xp cost for the Western quest song. We were told the justification for the cost was that other professions would begin to see xp costs for their own post-master content, but this has not come to pass. As it is now, it seems like a punishment that is given after you are told by the theater manager that you have just had success in completing the quests.
Yeah, I have to say, I'm really disgusted we were just fed a line regarding this. Since it's been MONTHS and not a single other elite profession (since these quests were put in)has had to pay xp to gain new content, I'd like a Dev to tell us why we were lied to and penalizedwith thisnew content.
I would also like to note that we are the only professions who must choose between post-Master content or Force Sensitive progression.
We were handed new songs and dances for FREE at a later date. Why the hell do these quests cost 400k xp? It defies all logic, and the line about other professions paying xp for new content is nothing but bull at this stage - never ONCE have I seen another professions get an xp penalty to get new content. They get their stuff handed to them for free, no effort, no quest, no nothing.
As a "today" example, I would encourage any Dev to tell us just exactly how much xp and what sort of quests are necessary for a Master Artisan (NOT an elite profession) to be able to craft the 3 new vehicles that will soon be in the game. Hmmm? You're just GIVING them the new content? Ohhhhhhh...okay...
Our 400k xp song/dance - no real benefit to the game community. Just kinda neat. No xp or buffing bonuses from the dance/song (actually, xp is LOWER with this new song...wonderful).
Master Artisans spend 0 xp, do no quests,for 3new vehicles - money maker, popular and long awaited addition to the game coupled with the ability to have multipassenger vehicles. Good for them.
I would say that the fact that we have/had to spend 400k xp for new content was a humongous disappointment, is completely unfair, and is without ANY basis whatsoever in the game, and should be corrected and removed immediately. We called their bluff.
I don't care what they said months ago, we're getting hosed for some unknown reason in this respect.Now, dear Devs,tell us why we're really paying 400k for a new song and dance. Being penalized in xp is not fun by any means. And for the Force Sensitive Entertainers, it can be a not so insignificant setback to getting more FS xp.
As for the rest of the issues, anytime any Dev wants to tackle these, feel free.I would also like to congratulate the Devs, they managed to CREATE two completely new top 5 Issues for us with the Combat Upgrade (#2 and #4). That's QUITE an achievement, and they should be like, proud or something. It's all okay, though - we weren't within the scope of the CU. So it was okay for them to negatively impact our profession in a couple new ways. *sigh*
And for the record, buffbots STILL exist. They are easier to run now, more than ever. Issue #1 is alive and well, totally passive, and will soon be MORE attractive because Live Entertainers will (shock) want to actually make some money in this game. Player checks live Ent, gets a covercharge. Barking/spamming/insulting buffbot sets no covercharge, gives it all away for free without that pesky "grouping" requirement, and we're back to pre-CU buffbot hell (with new and improved groupless buffs!), with them only investing 15 skill points. A truly sorry state of affairs.
I'm failing to see any benefit from the /covercharge junk. It will bring us back to pre-CU buffbot hell. I only hope I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure I'm not.
Expect "tips appreciated" to be replaced with "Listen to me/Watch me! No cover charge!" Coming soon to a cantina near you.
Ya Warryyr, its why it was on my list and I'm glad it made the overall list (even at the bottom).
I'll preface this with "I do not know the exact code, so this may not be easy" however changing the XP requirement to nothing (or to 1 xp if it needs to have a cost) should be just changing a variable number in the code. Changing the 100K that one has to dance theatrical 1 before you can learn theatrical 2 would be MUCH harder, but that's not what I'm asking for.
Just remove the XP costs for Western and Theatrical!!
Fragpuppie Uber
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-20-2005 08:14 AM
Steve_12_08 wrote:
The answer to the BuffBot syndrome seems pretty simple.
Make the inspiration an ability that must be activated, with an interface much like the image design interface. One that must be accepted by both parties, and a price negotiated and paid for. A greater variety of (USEFUL) inspiration types that requires a selection to be made (and randomize the list that pops up in the interface for the inspiration) would make it difficult for anyone that can set up a button-pushing mechanism on their keyboard.
Oh, and for spits and giggles, why not make it like a mini-game... maybe after the inspiration begins, the interface displays a random list of flourishes and the specific song/dance to perform for the buff. Once completed, in order, the buff is applied. If you screw up with the wrong flourish, the list is re-randomized and a new set displayed.
The only reason people would AFK at that point would be to get xp, but since BF is going away, no one would listen to them and it wouldn't matter for /covercharge if they have one or not. Now we just need a way to push them into the back of the cantina and out of the way...
I agree that making the buffs activated via an interface that can't be macroed is a good idea... and one that I have advocated for a long time. I see something similar to the selection of Holo-emotes on the ID Interface (since we have been told that we will be given profession specific buffs) where you select the particular buff your client wishes to get from the list.
Requiring a specific song/dance and/or flourishes on the other hand gets my veto. There are certain songs/dances that I love to perform and others (notably certain dances/dance flourishes) that I would not be caught dead doing. I am not the only one who feel this way either. We all have our favorites... and if the interface worked in the way I described, it would not be macroable anyway... or at least the specific buff that a given patron wanted would not be. At worst, a bot could set up a macro/button clicker that would do only one particular buff, which would make LIVE entertainers that much more desirable to the patrons.
Edited to correct typos.
Message Edited by Maisland on 06-21-2005 04:03 PM
Make the first 2 flourishes randomly define what buff is applied. You work your way through your flourishes until the profession's buff you want gets displayed, then you hit Flourish 8 to confirm it.
Let the Entertainer choose their song/dance to perform. I don't remember a single concert where I instructed the band as to what their setlist will be before performing, or a dance routine where I told the dancers what to dance and when.
Make flourishes 1-7 randomly assigned to profession-specific buffs. Flourish 8 confirms you're now beginning the buff you want to apply. Defeats AFK'ing a profession-specific buffs by randomly assigning the profession buff to various flourishes, all professions can be grouped according to a a certain flourish, and the performer gets to choose the song/dance they wish to perform.
Sometimes Musicians take requests - and this flourish-based buffing system would allow for that, rather than forcing them to play starwars1 to buff a Rifleman or something, though that person hates that song and so does the Musician.
Warryyr wrote:
Let the Entertainer choose their song/dance to perform. I don't remember a single concert where I instructed the band as to what their setlist will be before performing, or a dance routine where I told the dancers what to dance and when.
Warryyr wrote:
Make the first 2 flourishes randomly define what buff is applied. You work your way through your flourishes until the profession's buff you want gets displayed, then you hit Flourish 8 to confirm it.
Make flourishes 1-7 randomly assigned to profession-specific buffs. Flourish 8 confirms you're now beginning the buff you want to apply. Defeats AFK'ing a profession-specific buffs by randomly assigning the profession buff to various flourishes, all professions can be grouped according to a a certain flourish, and the performer gets to choose the song/dance they wish to perform.
) ... but we have to be careful to think through our suggestions to not just make our favorite profession better right now, but to make them better for the future. Lateral thinking is good thinking. Sorry if I sounded stand-offish! Probably easier to design a "song" with specific flourishes, as well. Randomize the list of inspirations to perform to eliminate AFKers buffbotting, and voila... happy performers. Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-22-2005 07:05 PM
Message Edited by Steve_12_08 on 06-22-2005 07:17 PM