Musician Archive
Thread: Thunderheart... this is why we need a better buff interface...
More importantly than whether some n00b didn't do a /listen and will get a poor buff, we need a way to prevent people from stealing buffs from us. I've stopped buffing strangers because I'm tired of the following scenario:
Let's do a little roleplaying, shall we?
TH: "can you musician buff me, Warryyr?"
Warryyr: "sure! 5k for a buff! It'll take about 8 minutes."
(TH tips Warryyr 5000 credits)
(TH listens, Warryyr /setperforms, and Warryyr plays for 8 minutes)
Warryyr: "/stoplisten for your buffs, check your buff windows and stat sheet to make sure it worked."
(TH sees his secondaries are buffed, and sees an icon in his buff window.)
TH: "It didn't work - and I have to run. Tip me my money back."
(Warryyr can't prove TH's Mind secondaries are buffed. There is no "proof" his buff worked. He can't see TH's mind secondary stats to prove TH was really buffed. He has no idea if TH is trying to scam a buff. He has no choice, he has to tip back or face the possibility of being griefed for being a thief, possibly affecting future clients.)
The above problem is no small matter. Dancers know that their buffs worked because the MIND BAR JUMPS when their buff applies - MUSICIANS SECONDARY BUFF. How do we prove that another player's secondary stats are actually buffed? How do they prove they're not? See? Musicians NEED to know that their buffs worked! I've had buffs "thieved" from me this way, I KNOW IT. A whole group did it to me once. They got their money back and free buffs - I played for literally 20 minutes for a group of 5 - and they all /listen, and i'm grouped with them. But, the claimed none of them got their buffs, and I didn't want to argue because a bunch of fighters had just run in, and they were needing buffs too. The group got free buffs. Can I prove it? Not without a BUFF INTERFACE for MUSICIANS. Every other buffing profession can SEE THEIR BUFFS TAKE EFFECT, unless a doctor only buffs a secondary - BUT THEN THEY GET THE SYSTEM MESSAGE "You enhance SOandSO's Quickness by 2140" or whatever. WE NEED THAT FOR MUSICIANS, FOR GOD'S SAKE.
LOL! Yeah, I forgot about "You direct your attention to %TT" To my knowledge, this has always been like this, oh well...
If a little dancermayspeak up in the musician forum . . . its ridiculous that musicans can't visually tell if their buff took. At least with dancers, we can see the blue line double so we know they got some sort of buff (though we can't tell the duration). Its an embarrassment as a "professional" and frustrating as a player to be ALLOWED to be broken like this. Doctors wouldn't put up with this, why should we have to?
Yep yep. I'm not sure they ever really understood why we Musicians (as opposed to Dancers) are so concerned about this. I tried to make them understand; really I did. 
The best that can be said about their answer is that it seems to leave room for a change in the future, but it sounds like we won't see it before the Jedi revamp and JTL.
kirah_ashlin wrote:
If a little dancermayspeak up in the musician forum . . . its ridiculous that musicans can't visually tell if their buff took. At least with dancers, we can see the blue line double so we know they got some sort of buff (though we can't tell the duration). Its an embarrassment as a "professional" and frustrating as a player to be ALLOWED to be broken like this. Doctors wouldn't put up with this, why should we have to?
Yep, when doctors buff they have a system message pop up on screen "You enhance <target>'s <stat> by <power>" Of course, doctors can't tell the length of their buffs unless they want to divide out the seconds from their packs stats, so usually in order to tell the duration, they BUFF THEMSELVES.
(Yes, I know the Devs' answer was "No, you can't buff yourselves or have a better interface...at least not until we want to think about maybe finding time to consider the possibility of looking at entertainers." I just wish they'd come right out and say that. Besides, just because I know their indecision doesn't mean I can't say that it's wrong.) 
Absolutely, we need a buff window. Something precicely along the lines of information that Roho was suggesting. I don't know if Thunderheart genuinely did not understand our question, but I doubt it. Afterall, I'm sure NewJedi went to great lengths to clarify our position. He may well want to put a buff window in our future, but it certainly wont be until after JTL.
The suits that beancount and develop business models at SOE want another expansion out the door for a cashgrab. Smedley pushes for it to keep making the profit roll in. Development on all fronts will slow to a crawl the closer we get to the JTL release date. This is the same sort of thing that has occuredwith EQ for years now. After JTL is released the dev cycle will be freed up as some resources come available to work on other things. I'll be the first guy to bring up our Buff UI needs at that time. Of course then what will be working against us is the need to work out whatever bugs are in JTL and the new bugs that will be introduced with the patch that enables JTL to go live.
Also, I saw this Zabrak on Bria yesterday named %TT Jones. His mind bar was so long and extended so far from his body due toevery Musician/Dancer buffing him near 24/7 that the end of it knocked over a lamp in the Cantina. 
Two notes here,
1. For those who do not know, medics and doctors have the ability to use /diagnose and they can see the numbers from the character sheet that deal with wounds and battle fatigue.
2. Even doctors cannot see whether or not buffs have been applied to attributes with /diagnose. The way doctors tell powers of buffs is because the number is displayed as a system message when they apply a buff. The way doctors know times on their buffs is by either dividing it out from the number of seconds displayed on their pack, or applying the buff to themselves.
I have often thought that it would be useful for entertainers to be ableto /diagnose patrons, and if buffs were displayed with the diagnose command, it would only compound the reasons why entertainers should have this command.
brentgueth wrote:
I wasn't aware you couldn't see the HAM changes after the buffs
Nope, we sure can't.
Easy Musician scam (it happens to me, anyone else?)
Musician buffs patron.
Patron says "Buff didn't work. I have to meet up with guild/i have to run to the shuttleport/I can't wait around any longer, give me my money back."
Musician has no idea if it worked or not. Either they:
a) tip back and lose the credits. free buff if the patron was lying.
b) don't tip back, and wait for griefing to begin.
Sucks pretty hardcore.
Warryyr