Musician Archive
Thread: INSULTED BY TH'S ANSWER TO OUR QUESTION ABOUT A MUSICIAN BUFFING INTERFACE.
Will Musicians get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower? Also, can we get our buffs to last as long as Doctor buffs -- say, three hours? And would it be possible to improve the buff interface so that we can when we're buffing properly, how much time remains til the buff is done, and (most important) whether the buff actually worked?
Musicians will not get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower. As the system currently exists, if players could buff themselves, they would get experience points every time they buffed themselves and that is bad design. In the future, Keldarin wants to change the system and then it would be possible. As for extending buff durations? It is hard to say since much of this will be changing with the combat balance.
Whether or not a player is buffing properly or if it worked will be displayed in the buff icon window and the character sheet. If the icon appears and your stats change, then the buff worked. As for the displaying the buff duration information in the buff window, the answer is "not at this time". All the UI programmers are working on JTL."
TH, you didn't answer the question. The issue is not for the RECIPIENT of the buff to see a buff interface, it's the MUSICIAN who needs to know if it WORKED OR NOT - and needs to prove IT DID WORK WITH A SYSTEM MESSAGE.
Here, I'll make it really easy for you. Let's call the "buffee" TH, and the musician or "buffer" Warryyr:
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 at the heart of this question - I don't think you really read the question. Dancers know that their buffs worked because the MIND BAR JUMPS when their buff applies - MUSICIANS SECONDARY BUFF, TH. How do we prove that another player's secondary stats are actually buffed? How do they prove they're not? See? Understand, now? AHHHHHHH. Now please, answer the question - 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.
Please respond, this totally sucks with the current Musician buffing system.
Thank you for actually making an effort to address the concerns of all these professions. I really do appreciate that. But your "answer" to our question was nothing less than INSULT. WE KNOW HOW OUR CUSTOMERS TELL IF THEY'RE BUFFED - THE POINT IS, WE GET BUFFS THIEVED FROM US WITH NO EFFORT.
/bump
Still highly insulted. 
As if we don't know how our customers can tell if they got a buff.....total misunderstanding of an important question regarding our profession. Complete lack of understanding of our profession. No reason for this, that's why we have correspondents. NJ, please see to it that we get a real answer to the buffing interface question - having no recourse for someone stealing buffs is not cool, and it's totally turned me off from buffing the public anymore.
Want another reason why yet another Master Musician won't buff in Theed or Coronet or anywhere else "everyone" is, yet can't find a Master to buff them? Too many stolen Musician buffs, and no way to prove it. There ya go.
I seem to remember them saying that some of the answers to these questions were controversial and that's one reason they took SO long getting to us. I didn't see a single controversial thing in there...what was the argument about? Everything was answered: No, After the JTL,beaten around the bush and not answered.
-Lilo
Sounds like they cant be bothered to me.
If jedi could mind buff it would of been sorted months ago!
Tralmek wrote:
I seem to remember them saying that some of the answers to these questions were controversial and that's one reason they took SO long getting to us. I didn't see a single controversial thing in there...what was the argument about? -Lilo
There was plenty of discussion and argument, and the self-buff especially is plenty controversial. Our answers weren't the only reason for the holdup; other Correspondents had issues too. Also, E3 delayed the answers.
On the self-buff, the initial draft didn't give a reason, so I pushed the devs to add an explanation. Then I spent time going round-and-round with the devs and the other entertainer correspondents about the explanation: do we in fact get XP for buffing, or not? (I think we do, but not much.) We spent a lot of time discussing that.
On the buff interface, I really think the devs just misunderstood my question. I tried repeatedly to explain that we were asking about OUR interface, not the buff recipient's, but their answer remained kinda vague. I read "Not at this time" as "no improvements to Musician buff interfacenow, but maybe in the future." That's how I told the devs I interpreted it, and they didn't contradict me.
Sorry the answers are bad news. I did my best.
wyx1 wrote:
If jedi could mind buff it would of been sorted months ago!
NewJedi wrote:
Sorry the answers are bad news. I did my best.
NewJedi wrote:
There was plenty of discussion and argument, and the self-buff especially is plenty controversial. Our answers weren't the only reason for the holdup; other Correspondents had issues too. Also, E3 delayed the answers.
On the self-buff, the initial draft didn't give a reason, so I pushed the devs to add an explanation. Then I spent time going round-and-round with the devs and the other entertainer correspondents about the explanation: do we in fact get XP for buffing, or not? (I think we do, but not much.) We spent a lot of time discussing that.
On the buff interface, I really think the devs just misunderstood my question. I tried repeatedly to explain that we were asking about OUR interface, not the buff recipient's, but their answer remained kinda vague. I read "Not at this time" as "no improvements to Musician buff interfacenow, but maybe in the future." That's how I told the devs I interpreted it, and they didn't contradict me.
Sorry the answers are bad news. I did my best.
Thanks for explaining that, I just didn't understand what was so difficult about the questions that were asked. Without what you said up there, it looks like they just tried to beat around the bush on many ofthe questions they were asked, but I can see how there could have been a dev/correspondent communications breakdown on an answer or two.
I don't mind bad news, I just prefer for it to be given in a straightforward manner. As usual, we love and support you, NJ, we know you're doing the best that can be done.
Message Edited by Tralmek on 05-28-2004 11:24 AM
How would a Doctor like it if he/she tried to buff a patient, but didn't know if the buff stuck, or if it even worked in the first place (no testing on yourself). What if Doctor buff packs would be used, and someone would get "buffed" only to find out after 3 minutes of work, oops, do it again Doc, it didn't stick. 3 minutes later - do it again, it didn't work. 3 minutes later - do it again, it didn't work, i'll take off my armor this time. 3 minutes later - "ah, forget it - just gimme my money back" and the Doctor has no idea whether the person really got their buffs or not.
How would a Merchant like to havea customerbuy something off of a vendor, then claim the purchase didn't work, and they didn't get the item, and demand their money back - with no recourse for the merchant to prove the person actually in fact received the item in exchange for the money.
How would a Dancer like it if they buffed someone's mind and didn't see that Mind pool bar hovering over everyone's heads extend to indicate they're buffed? Wasn't too long ago (I believe) where this didn't happen actually. It was fixed by the Devs.
How would a Medic like it if they healed someone with 90%wounds, then the person said "You didn't heal me, I'm not paying" and the Medic had no way of proving any healing was actually done? What if they had no idea in the first place (the entire time they were "healing") that the healing was actually working, without total blind faith in their customer's word?
How would an Image Designer like it if their "interface" was non-existant. No indication of what you're doing. You just started the ID, and waited (with a stopwatch) for ohhh, maybe 3 minutes, maybe 5 minutes, maybe 8, maybe 10 minutes, and then told the person to "/stopID" and then, only then, the customer and only the customer would know if the changes worked, and what effect the changes had on their avatar. Maybe the stat migration would work, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe all the avatar changes would work, maybe it wouldn't.
Customer: "Oh, my hair and eyes changed, but notmy muscle mass."
ID: "You'll have to wait42 minutes now before we can try this all over again. Maybe it'll work then."
-OR-
Customer (lying): "Nothing changed, stats didn't migrate, give me my money back."
(ID has no proof the changes did or didn't work)
ID (grumbles): "OK, sorry."
Don't you think they'd be up in arms all to hell over this? Why does no one feel as impassioned as I do that we just lost our chance to have *some* control over our "Master" ability? The Devs are ignorant to this problem for us Musicians. We can't see a secondary stat!!!! How do we even know if our "Master" ability to mind secondary buff even works? Blind faith in the customer, are you kidding me?!? Here I was, all hoping to see this problem finally dealt with or at least addressed, and it finally got to the 19 questions post by Thunderheart. And what do we get?
"You can see if you're buffed by checking your stat sheet or looking in the buff window for the buff icon."
Yeah - the recipient of the buff can, but WE can't - the Musician that's doing thebuffing! We have no proof that we've done anything with our time that we're supposedly "buffing." How was this question so ignorantly misinterpreted? Seem pretty straightforward to me.