Entertainers post-NGE

britoca · May 2006

so I see people mentioning that now there is no battle fatigue or mind wounds...

What is the role of an entertainer nowadays? Do they even have a purpose in the game?

Obraik · May 2006

Well crafters rely quite a bit on entertainers. Ents can give crafter profession specific buffs, like Armoursmith, Weaponsmith, etc which gives I think around a 2-5% bonus to resource quality. Higher resource quality = higher stats. Also gives a bonus to experimentation outcomes (less critical failures, more Amazing Successes). For the grinding crafter, there's also a 15% bonus to XP.

For combatants, firstly there's the Inspiration buff that gives a 10% bonus to XP and FP's earned. Recently they introduced cloning sickness which you recieve upon cloning. One of the ways to cure it is by visiting an Ent and having them cure it or you can visit a droid and pay 5k to cure it. For urban battles, yeah, most tend to use the droid but only NPC cities have the medic droid so if you're battling in a player city it pays to have some ents in the cities cantina

britoca · May 2006

I see. The crafter's buff is completely new, never heard of it. Doesn' sound that bad actually. The cloning sickness is reminescent of the old battle fatigue in a way.

Well, that's good, for a moment there I thought they had made the entertainer profession just a curiosty in the game.

Thanks for clearing that up Obraik

Aikes1 · May 2006

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

War_Dancer · May 2006

Those crafter buffs were added preNGE and now the only ones they might be important to are armorsmiths. Tailoers and architects never really needed them, shipwrights got split into two of the new crafter professions and for making hulls the buffs made no differance and for ship parts only a few are worth using over REed ones anyway and weaponsmiths can easily max out all the weapons stats without the buffs now.

Cloning Sickness is cureible at the cloning center for a pretty minor fee, less then 1k credits was what I heard but that might be off or go up.

The NGE reduced the crafter buffs importance but that was only the final nail in in game benefits for being an entertainer, all the other nails were pre NGE. Now the main benefit just like before is owwwh exclusive emotes!

Chastity · May 2006

The CU and NGE pretty much killed entertaining with the removal of mind buffing and combat fatigue. What was so amazing to us who played entertainers was the fact that the SWG devs were so clueless that they didn't see this would be the result of what they did. Durrrrrrrrr! Take away a class's purpose and no one will want to play it anymore!

But Obraik's right--they are making belated attempts to fix the mess they created by bringing fatigue back in as "cloning sickness," although even then they're kowtowing to the combat classes by giving them an NPC option so they don't have to (gasp!) interact with another human being if they don't want to (aside from shooting them, which they do seem to enjoy). It kills me how class interdependence, which was initially one of the coolest things about SWG, has become such a dirty word in SWG land. And they're still hesitantly trying to decide if they have balls enough to be honest and admit that entertaining just isn't in the gameplan for the new SWG and just kill the profession, or make it a set of secondary skills. The devs have been hinting this might be what they want to do ("polling" the players on that option, etc.). They've also pretty much admitted that they have no intention of expanding or building on the original character of entertaining as a non combat playstyle. They're working on plans for giving entertainers combat skills, rather than working on non combat content for them.

All this isn't that huge of a deal, anyway. Entertaining had been dying well before the CU and NGE, because they were too cowardly to do anything about afk play, which was the real scourge of the profession. The proliferation of spamming bots cheapened the whole profession and drove most dedicated entertainers out of the cantinas, and eventually out of entertaining altogether. And in many cases (such as mine), out of the game.

The vital crafting and entertaining side to the original SWG was without a doubt its most original feature. And they just threw it away through a combination of incompetence and cowardice. It makes me want to cry just to think about it.

--Chastity Nightdancer

Athela · May 2006

Alot is revealed in this "discussion" thread from Helios :

This is part 2 of the discussion about how non-combat skills could be earned in SWG. Please read and fully consider every point made before responding.

Things we know:

Trader & Entertainer profession revamps are happening with all the other profession enhancements. Both play styles will have new content added for them. For crafting, this specifically means that the crafting game will be brought into harmony with the looting game. There are large percentage of players who would rather loot things, and there are a large percentage of people who would rather craft things. Both play styles will be supported. The two, however, are currently competing against one another. To bring the two systems into congruence, there will likely be some interaction between crafting and combat (looting). This interaction could either happen on one character, or between two characters (since everyone can have two characters, however, I expect some of this interaction to still be on one account i.e one player). More on this below in the "hypothetical" section of this post.
An expertise system is coming. This system will allow you specialize your character in various ways. Essentially, you will have the opportunity to choose from at least 3 "buckets" or "trees" of new skills/mods/abilities, etc. You'll be able to pick up about 1 full bucket of skills or so with the amount of points you'll earn through leveling to max level. Check out R5's comlink for more details: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=DevDiscussion&message.id=39891 .
All profession enhancements, including non-combat ones, are getting their enhancements through the expertise system. This means the "revamp" skills and gameplay will be in expertise trees, just like they are for every other profession. See the "hypothetical scenarios" section of this post for conjecture on who might have these expertise trees.
Non-combat professions are special case components of SWG. This is true not only of their playstyle but also how they are handled "under the hood". This makes it very difficult to add new content for these play styles because none of our standard tools or processes can be used. They are unmaintainable in their current state. This point will have to be considered when executing the revamps for these professions. This by no means explicitly dictates that combat will need to be a part of these professions, but we do want to be able to add new content and mechanics to these styles in the same manner as everything else.

Warning. You are crossing the hypothetical barrier. Everything beyond here is pure discussion and nothing has been decided or even written down anywhere aside from these forums. The list of hypothetical scenarios is by no means complete. It is simply meant to be a sampling of possibilities.

Hypothetical Scenario 1

Non-combat professions are their own individual professions close to how they are now. There will be one profession called "Trader".
Specific crafting skills will be distributed throughout the various crafting expertise trees. There will probably be about 4 trees. You'll be able to earn enough expertise points by leveling up to gain abilities from about 1 to 1.5 trees (just like all other professions). Entertaining will be similar.
Non-combat professions will have levels like everyone else. Level would then be called "Character Level" and no longer "Combat Level".
Non-combat profession game mechanics/content would no longer lend itself to macro-grinding, i.e this would not be a viable advancement mechanic.
Leveling for non-combat professions will take the same amount of time it takes for combat professions.
Because of the likely interaction between the crafting and looting games and by virtue of the fact that non-combat professions wouldn't have any combat skills, crafters would depend as much on combatants for crafting as combatants would depend on crafters for equipment.

Hypothetical Scenario 2

100% of Non-Combat profession skills would be distributed into expertise trees. There will be no concrete profession called "Entertainer" or "Trader". Entertainer and Smith/Engineer/etc will be titles you earn by picking up the respective expertises.
You would choose one of the X remaining combat professions as your starting profession.
You could level up either through combat related content and quests or you could level up through the various entertaining/crafting content and quests. We shall consider crafting in and of itself content in this regard.
Non-combat profession game mechanics/content would no longer lend itself to macro-grinding, i.e this would not be a viable advancement mechanic.
You would still have the same amount of expertise points to spend as anybody else under any other scenario. Enough for 1 to 1.5 trees. If you wanted to be able to craft the most desirable items you wouldn't have any points left to get any of the most desirable combat abilities. This would provide you with the same amount of crafting gameplay/abilities as Scenario #1, above.
Because of the likely interaction between the crafting and looting games and by virtue of the fact that everyone would have some basic amount of combat ability, crafters would be able to rely on themselves for moderate levels of crafting needs but would still need the help of pure combat characters for high-end crafting.

Discuss and be merry!

-Helios Titan
-Lead Designer, SWG
"We mortals are but shadows and dust." -Proximo

I made the pertinent stuff red and bigger. So..they finally reveal in hypothetical point 2 what their plan has been all along. You can see the mechanics of the change in everything they have done and *not* done since the NGE.

Crafters and Entertainers are just too different from the current blah set of professions. This is bad. This will be changed. What crafters and entertainers ask for is too time consuming and too different. If they are absorbed into the combat profs, then everyone is truly the same and easy to please and program for. The Borg have arrived.

As a fascinating kink in all of this, one of the most promising games to come along for crafters and maybe entertainers in a long time has just been assimilated into the SOE family. So...now all those crafters and entertainers can be merrily drop kicked over to Vanguard, and SOE doesn't lose subscriptions thanks to the all Borg Pass system. You do have to admire the icky brilliance of it.

xPaladin · May 2006

Originally posted by Athela

Non-combat professions are special case components of SWG. This is true not only of their playstyle but also how they are handled "under the hood". This makes it very difficult to add new content for these play styles because none of our standard tools or processes can be used. They are unmaintainable in their current state. This point will have to be considered when executing the revamps for these professions. This by no means explicitly dictates that combat will need to be a part of these professions, but we do want to be able to add new content and mechanics to these styles in the same manner as everything else.

I hadn't read this post by Helios, but wow. That's one hell of an admission. That's the equivalent of saying that they have a narrow-focused engine. Complete 180 from their statements at the game's launch, which lauded the versatility of the engine. I thought the engine was MOO (Mud Object Oriented) based, meaning modules could be stacked on to the core fairly easily and allow for extreme modification within a given ruleset (such as the entire Jump To Lightspeed expansion).

This is a very bad sign for anyone having dreams of SWG becoming much more than it currently is, and I sincerely hope this point is paid attention to. I'm not sure they can adjust core competencies easily anymore. They might just give up on elements that stray too far from the core. Instead, they'll merge the "extraneous modules" into the core modules since its the easiest way to keep those modules.

Ultimately, I fear Athela's assessment is correct. This means SWG might very well become a full combat-centric game, a la WoW, with crafting and entertainment options given to all players, if they choose to work on those skills. Weak.

bedolla3401 · May 2006

Originally posted by Chastity

The CU and NGE pretty much killed entertaining with the removal of mind buffing and combat fatigue. What was so amazing to us who played entertainers was the fact that the SWG devs were so clueless that they didn't see this would be the result of what they did. Durrrrrrrrr! Take away a class's purpose and no one will want to play it anymore!
But Obraik's right--they are making belated attempts to fix the mess they created by bringing fatigue back in as "cloning sickness," although even then they're kowtowing to the combat classes by giving them an NPC option so they don't have to (gasp!) interact with another human being if they don't want to (aside from shooting them, which they do seem to enjoy). It kills me how class interdependence, which was initially one of the coolest things about SWG, has become such a dirty word in SWG land. And they're still hesitantly trying to decide if they have balls enough to be honest and admit that entertaining just isn't in the gameplan for the new SWG and just kill the profession, or make it a set of secondary skills. The devs have been hinting this might be what they want to do ("polling" the players on that option, etc.). They've also pretty much admitted that they have no intention of expanding or building on the original character of entertaining as a non combat playstyle. They're working on plans for giving entertainers combat skills, rather than working on non combat content for them.
All this isn't that huge of a deal, anyway. Entertaining had been dying well before the CU and NGE, because they were too cowardly to do anything about afk play, which was the real scourge of the profession. The proliferation of spamming bots cheapened the whole profession and drove most dedicated entertainers out of the cantinas, and eventually out of entertaining altogether. And in many cases (such as mine), out of the game.
The vital crafting and entertaining side to the original SWG was without a doubt its most original feature. And they just threw it away through a combination of incompetence and cowardice. It makes me want to cry just to think about it.
--Chastity Nightdancer

i know one thing i will always go to an entertainer to get healed, gotta keep them in the game

Obraik · May 2006

Originally posted by Aikes

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

Most competitive crafters I know use them all the time. The buffs do actually work with all resources from craptacular to server best. Takes some of my initial assemblies from 27% to 28%.

Shipwrights are all in the one professions (Structures). RE'ing produces the absolute best ship components but very few budding pilots know this nor worry about this until they start getting into the PvP scene.

I know whenever I do go to a Cantina to pick up a buff, I'm never the only one there. Even late at night theres at least one other cueing up with me waiting for an Ent to arrive

Rekrul · May 2006

They tried adding combat skills to ents, but it failed, these people do not want to fight.
They added basic dance to all characters, but turns out these people don't really care.
They broke them intentionally to make people quit, but players stayed.
They ignore them to get people to switch, but they won't.

Entertainers have no purpose, and have no content. Nor they ever will. Just like crafters, they are kept in to keep that percentage of players (who knows how many, 5?, 10?%) still playing. Since it costs them nothing, they get a little extra variety.

Other than that, people need to wake up and smell the cofee or something stronger. Non-iconic professions are being removed. From different playstyle perspective, the following have future: Bounty Hunter and Jedi (duh), Commando (wizard nuker), Spy (rogue), Medic (priest). Smuggler and officer are remnants from the past, and I don't see any particular use for them. Crafter and ents have been written off.

Just like everything, most professions are dead weight from the past. Sooner or later (probably by console launch), they'll turn this into BF2, and it will be iconic 5. And that kinda makes sense, since that's what you usually get in RPGFPS games.

It would indeed be funny to see the profession distributions again.

Obraik · May 2006

Originally posted by Rekrul
They tried adding combat skills to ents, but it failed, these people do not want to fight.
They added basic dance to all characters, but turns out these people don't really care.
They broke them intentionally to make people quit, but players stayed.
They ignore them to get people to switch, but they won't.

Entertainers have no purpose, and have no content. Nor they ever will. Just like crafters, they are kept in to keep that percentage of players (who knows how many, 5?, 10?%) still playing. Since it costs them nothing, they get a little extra variety.

Other than that, people need to wake up and smell the cofee or something stronger. Non-iconic professions are being removed. From different playstyle perspective, the following have future: Bounty Hunter and Jedi (duh), Commando (wizard nuker), Spy (rogue), Medic (priest). Smuggler and officer are remnants from the past, and I don't see any particular use for them. Crafter and ents have been written off.

Just like everything, most professions are dead weight from the past. Sooner or later (probably by console launch), they'll turn this into BF2, and it will be iconic 5. And that kinda makes sense, since that's what you usually get in RPGFPS games.

It would indeed be funny to see the profession distributions again.

uh huh

xPaladin · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

uh huh

I'd like to agree with you and say "that's insane" but I don't think it's off base. Just look at CH's.

Rekrul · May 2006

Wait and see.

There are only two options. Either they'll stop (and I mean literally) working on SWG and let it run on fumes, or port it to PS3 with new gameplay.

It was only the two expansions that prolonged the life of SWG, and that was with the full fanbase support.
Where do you see the future now, post-E3? "A" player event? "A" battlefield (simply, same as bestine and AH, just on a different planet)? Specializations (how long does it take for the game to recover from skill changes)?

Name one thing (1), that has been added that is new. And I don't mean "an animation" or "a particle effect". But a new thing, that has been added to "gameplay" in last 2 years. And not re-introduced, but added, as a brand new feature. On the scope of vehicles, for example.

Xcathdra · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

Well crafters rely quite a bit on entertainers. Ents can give crafter profession specific buffs, like Armoursmith, Weaponsmith, etc which gives I think around a 2-5% bonus to resource quality. Higher resource quality = higher stats. Also gives a bonus to experimentation outcomes (less critical failures, more Amazing Successes). For the grinding crafter, there's also a 15% bonus to XP.
For combatants, firstly there's the Inspiration buff that gives a 10% bonus to XP and FP's earned. Recently they introduced cloning sickness which you recieve upon cloning. One of the ways to cure it is by visiting an Ent and having them cure it or you can visit a droid and pay 5k to cure it. For urban battles, yeah, most tend to use the droid but only NPC cities have the medic droid so if you're battling in a player city it pays to have some ents in the cities cantina
=
NO

/QFE

Athela · May 2006

Looking at what Helios wrote "none of our standard tools and processes can be used" on Entertainers and Crafters, why not?

Weren't they coded into the NGE at all? Are they a remnant of pre-cu or even CU coding? I could never understand why they kept saying they didn't know what they had planned for these professions. It never made sense that they did not have a role set out within the plan. It made me buggy they wouldn't just say what they were going to do down the line.

If they were never meant to be a part of the NGE, why not cut them when they cut Ranger/CH/BE? I think this is a bit of truth beginning to leak out. I'd still like to see the whole truth. They are still not being honest with a good portion of their playerbase.

This is why SOE has the reputation it has. This is why we continue to fight them from the periphery.

Obraik · May 2006

Originally posted by Xcathdra

Originally posted by Obraik

Well crafters rely quite a bit on entertainers. Ents can give crafter profession specific buffs, like Armoursmith, Weaponsmith, etc which gives I think around a 2-5% bonus to resource quality. Higher resource quality = higher stats. Also gives a bonus to experimentation outcomes (less critical failures, more Amazing Successes). For the grinding crafter, there's also a 15% bonus to XP.
For combatants, firstly there's the Inspiration buff that gives a 10% bonus to XP and FP's earned. Recently they introduced cloning sickness which you recieve upon cloning. One of the ways to cure it is by visiting an Ent and having them cure it or you can visit a droid and pay 5k to cure it. For urban battles, yeah, most tend to use the droid but only NPC cities have the medic droid so if you're battling in a player city it pays to have some ents in the cities cantina
=
NO

/QFE

What exactly are you disagreeing with? That's how it works...

Aikes1 · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Aikes

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

Most competitive crafters I know use them all the time. The buffs do actually work with all resources from craptacular to server best. Takes some of my initial assemblies from 27% to 28%.

Shipwrights are all in the one professions (Structures). RE'ing produces the absolute best ship components but very few budding pilots know this nor worry about this until they start getting into the PvP scene.

I know whenever I do go to a Cantina to pick up a buff, I'm never the only one there. Even late at night theres at least one other cueing up with me waiting for an Ent to arrive

Well let me let you in on a scoop then you can share with your crafter buddies.

After extensive trial on those buffs we found that if you DO NOT use the crafter buff you are MORE likely to get an "Amazing Success" roll. I spent days crafting sabers with the best resources and when I was buffed I got no amazing success rolls at all. When I was not buffed I got about 5% Amazing rolls.

There may be some change that I dont know about at this time but this was tested and vallidated by 4 other people on my server who were all great crafters.

If this information is still vallid, it will help those crafters who seek to create the very best schematics and dont care about the amount of resources it takes to do it.

Ironman2000 · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik
I know whenever I do go to a Cantina to pick up a buff, I'm never the only one there. Even late at night theres at least one other cueing up with me waiting for an Ent to arrive

Usually even if there are entertainers in the cantinas they are <AFK> and not doing a darned thing anyway.

/sarcasm <on>

They really made the cloning sickness helpful for entertainers to get some good content and use out of the game too, considering they put a droid right across from the cloning machines that only charges 5,000 credits to cure the cloning sickness anyway. They sure are making the non-combat side of the game work really really well.

/sarcasm <off>

Distopia · May 2006

Originally posted by Rekrul
Wait and see.

There are only two options. Either they'll stop (and I mean literally) working on SWG and let it run on fumes, or port it to PS3 with new gameplay.

It was only the two expansions that prolonged the life of SWG, and that was with the full fanbase support.
Where do you see the future now, post-E3? "A" player event? "A" battlefield (simply, same as bestine and AH, just on a different planet)? Specializations (how long does it take for the game to recover from skill changes)?

Name one thing (1), that has been added that is new. And I don't mean "an animation" or "a particle effect". But a new thing, that has been added to "gameplay" in last 2 years. And not re-introduced, but added, as a brand new feature. On the scope of vehicles, for example.

Twitch aiming ?

Obraik · May 2006

Originally posted by Aikes

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Aikes

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

Most competitive crafters I know use them all the time. The buffs do actually work with all resources from craptacular to server best. Takes some of my initial assemblies from 27% to 28%.

Shipwrights are all in the one professions (Structures). RE'ing produces the absolute best ship components but very few budding pilots know this nor worry about this until they start getting into the PvP scene.

I know whenever I do go to a Cantina to pick up a buff, I'm never the only one there. Even late at night theres at least one other cueing up with me waiting for an Ent to arrive

Well let me let you in on a scoop then you can share with your crafter buddies.

After extensive trial on those buffs we found that if you DO NOT use the crafter buff you are MORE likely to get an "Amazing Success" roll. I spent days crafting sabers with the best resources and when I was buffed I got no amazing success rolls at all. When I was not buffed I got about 5% Amazing rolls.

There may be some change that I dont know about at this time but this was tested and vallidated by 4 other people on my server who were all great crafters.

If this information is still vallid, it will help those crafters who seek to create the very best schematics and dont care about the amount of resources it takes to do it.

I dunno, I don't think until recently the crafter buffs actually did anything for LS crafting. One of the recent hotfixes made mention of some new LS crafting buff from ents. That may have been your problem.

I know with the AS buff I get more amazings and never a critical while using it. I could just be holding my tounge the right way though :P Either way, it definetly boosts the resources quality which is the main reason I get it for.

Rekrul · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

I dunno, I don't think until recently the crafter buffs actually did anything for LS crafting. One of the recent hotfixes made mention of some new LS crafting buff from ents. That may have been your problem.

I know with the AS buff I get more amazings and never a critical while using it. I could just be holding my tounge the right way though :P Either way, it definetly boosts the resources quality which is the main reason I get it for.

In other words, ents were completely useless until most recent patch (6 months+). Now they made them "useful", so that they add 1% to final stats when crafting certain equipment, and eventually these buffs might apply to LS crafting (which can be maxed with 10pt, no buffs, no food).

<zoidberg>I'm feeling useful</zoidberg>

Obraik · May 2006

Originally posted by Rekrul

Originally posted by Obraik

I dunno, I don't think until recently the crafter buffs actually did anything for LS crafting. One of the recent hotfixes made mention of some new LS crafting buff from ents. That may have been your problem.

I know with the AS buff I get more amazings and never a critical while using it. I could just be holding my tounge the right way though :P Either way, it definetly boosts the resources quality which is the main reason I get it for.

In other words, ents were completely useless until most recent patch (6 months+). Now they made them "useful", so that they add 1% to final stats when crafting certain equipment, and eventually these buffs might apply to LS crafting (which can be maxed with 10pt, no buffs, no food).

<zoidberg>I'm feeling useful</zoidberg>

Um...no, I suggest you re-read Buffs have worked fine with other crafting professions since they were introduced around this time last year. I just don't think they applied to LS crafting. Unless you were being smart and suggesting everyone's Jedi

The 2% resource buff applies to anything made by that crafting profession.

Ironman2000 · May 2006

Originally posted by Obraik

Originally posted by Rekrul

Originally posted by Obraik

I dunno, I don't think until recently the crafter buffs actually did anything for LS crafting. One of the recent hotfixes made mention of some new LS crafting buff from ents. That may have been your problem.

I know with the AS buff I get more amazings and never a critical while using it. I could just be holding my tounge the right way though :P Either way, it definetly boosts the resources quality which is the main reason I get it for.

In other words, ents were completely useless until most recent patch (6 months+). Now they made them "useful", so that they add 1% to final stats when crafting certain equipment, and eventually these buffs might apply to LS crafting (which can be maxed with 10pt, no buffs, no food).

<zoidberg>I'm feeling useful</zoidberg>

Um...no, I suggest you re-read Buffs have worked fine with other crafting professions since they were introduced around this time last year. I just don't think they applied to LS crafting. Unless you were being smart and suggesting everyone's Jedi

The 2% resource buff applies to anything made by that crafting profession.

None of this probabaly matters anyway, if Helios and Chris Cao have their way. They want to just do away with all crafting and non-combat classes anyway, they just want to distribute some of their skills and let people pick and choose over them like vultures on a fresh kill, as a secondary skill set anyway. I mean Chris Cao posted such a horrible post that was anti-entertainer and trader, they immediately removed his post once people started to take him to task on it. Then eventually they locked the thread and removed it from the forums, and honestly, thats the first time I ever recall a forum thread locked and remove because of a developers comment LOL. My main was an entertainer and believe me, I watched the stuff on entertainer closely. I also notice a lot, that when they fix one thing, they have a tendency to break two more in the process. Right now on the entertainer forums, as of last friday they started a new bug collection thread to get data on what was broken with the latest mini-publish.

azhrarn · May 2006

Originally posted by Aikes

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

We're not QUITE as useless as all that. Azhrarn Pellaeon is often found buffing 3+ gunbunnies at a time with the xp/fps and shipwrights, armorsmiths and jedi line up for my specific crafting buffs. I even gave a couple of chef buffs tonight.

This is NOT by any means a glowing reccommendation to take up becoming an entertainer though. In a lot of cases, my customers are more there for my performances, my company and my attention (silly boys think they can get into my e-pants when I am and will remain unattainable) than they are for any actual buff virtue.

The entertainer grind is mindnumbing and gruelling for anyone who isn't ferociously charismatic, and for many, it's a solitary, unfulfilling pursuit which drives most to afk grinding that ends in nothing useful (as after mastery, you are left performing the same tasks in the same places under the same conditions).

The active crafters tend to have a select group of entertainers they support, based almost exclusively on strength of personality and/or popularity/name recognition. This doesn't leave much room for a new entertainer that isn't a force of nature to find a niche. I'm doing well, but I really don't have anything positive to say about the state of entertainment in the game, since it really isn't friendly to new or casual players in the least.

I do agree that we're on our way out. This is patently another bound in the direction of pushing enough of us out of the game that they can send us the way of the creature handler, in much the same way. It's only a matter of time before I'm robbed of my first and favorite profession.

Clackamas · May 2006

Originally posted by azhrarn

Originally posted by Aikes

No one uses it because the buff only works if you have completely crap resources etc.... we tested it and you are better off using good resources and not getting the buffs for crafting.

Entertainers are a thing of the past really. If you dont see it in World of Warcraft, then SOE doesnt think it is good for gaming.

We're not QUITE as useless as all that. Azhrarn Pellaeon is often found buffing 3+ gunbunnies at a time with the xp/fps and shipwrights, armorsmiths and jedi line up for my specific crafting buffs. I even gave a couple of chef buffs tonight.

This is NOT by any means a glowing reccommendation to take up becoming an entertainer though. In a lot of cases, my customers are more there for my performances, my company and my attention (silly boys think they can get into my e-pants when I am and will remain unattainable) than they are for any actual buff virtue.

The entertainer grind is mindnumbing and gruelling for anyone who isn't ferociously charismatic, and for many, it's a solitary, unfulfilling pursuit which drives most to afk grinding that ends in nothing useful (as after mastery, you are left performing the same tasks in the same places under the same conditions).

The active crafters tend to have a select group of entertainers they support, based almost exclusively on strength of personality and/or popularity/name recognition. This doesn't leave much room for a new entertainer that isn't a force of nature to find a niche. I'm doing well, but I really don't have anything positive to say about the state of entertainment in the game, since it really isn't friendly to new or casual players in the least.

I do agree that we're on our way out. This is patently another bound in the direction of pushing enough of us out of the game that they can send us the way of the creature handler, in much the same way. It's only a matter of time before I'm robbed of my first and favorite profession.

I am disappointed that you slipped to the dark side and gave SOE money =( When will the pain end?

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