Hello everyone.  Well its finally gone live and you all are getting to play with these buffs I've been telling you about.  Instead of telling you what they do and what doesn't work I suppose I should tell you how to get these things to work right. (at least as right as they can work.)  So here's the rundown. 

Active Buffs - These are your buffs that you apply using the /setperform command.  They allow you to buff a single person that isn't in your group at a fast rate of speed.  At Master level they can last for 2 hours and buff the mind for 100% normally or 125% factional buff.

Passive Buffs -  These buffs allow you to buff multiple people at the same time as long as they are grouped with you.  Anyone in the same group with you mearly has to /watch you and after a while they can /stop watching to kick the buff into effect.  These buffs take longer to apply however.

    Well great Ravenmist, most of us know what the heck they are already.  Now tell us how to get these dumb things to work right! 

    Alright then, here's hopefully all the information you will need to turn you into the best little buffer you can be.

How to apply the Active Buffs -

 - In order to apply an active buff the very first thing is you need to target them and type /setperform.  This command will direct any future performing in the direction of that person targeted.  (This will last until you change targets)  You can actually issue this command even before you start dancing and can stop and rest without canceling it.

Applying the buff.  Now that you have them targeted its time to start working that buff to get it to max out.  Doing this isn't all that simple.  The dance your doing as well as the amount of flourishes both come into account when determining how fast this buff will max out. 

 - So for starters make sure your doing your Best dance if you want this to go as quickly as possible.  Once your dancing your best dance its time to start the flourishes!  And keep flourishing, and flourishing your little behind off.  You need to flourish non stop, back to back, as fast as you can if you want to try and hit that 5 minute mark.  (not sure if light shows help, don't think so) If your not out of action by the time the 5 minutes is up then you weren't flourishing hard enough. (or you had someone healing you) And if your a Master Dancer, guess what?   You're more then likely going to run out of action Before you get to 5 minutes.  (its not the end of the world however, you can rest and start dancing again and pick up where you left off)

Okay, I've been flourishing non stop for 5 minutes and I'm ready to collapse, can they /stopwatch yet?

    Well not necessarily.  You see, apparently these dances seem to assume the average flourish length to be 10 seconds or less, but wait... several dances have flourishes longer then 10 seconds dont they?  They sure do, so even if you've been flourishing non stop for 5 minutes you might not have done enough to make your buff max out!  Masters take special note as many of our flourishes are much longer then 10 seconds. 

   So what do you do about it?  Well you dance a little more to make sure is what you do.  Each dance is going to be different so its up to you to figure out the exact length.  Masters I can tell you from my experience the magic number seems to be about 8 minutes not 5.  So dancing the 8 minutes is not a bad idea if you want to be extra sure.

Well, I've had at least 8 minutes worth of flourishing now, can I finally stop??  My feet are going to fall off.

   Yes, go ahead and have them do a /stopwatch now.  Their mind will double and it should now last about 2 hours if all went well.  (for a Master Dancer of course)

   And there you have it, the active buff in a not so small nutshell.   Now for the next post.  The passive buff.

Message Edited by Ravenmist on 04-05-2004 05:11 PM

    So hopefully now you understand the active buffs well enough to do a good job applying them, but what about the passive buffs?  Well have no fear, the passive buffs are very very simple in comparison.

Applying the Passive Buff -

 - This is actually a pretty simple process.  The person or persons you want to buff need to be in the same group as you. 

 - In the same group?  Great, now start dancing and make sure their watching!

    Be aware this takes a good deal longer then the active dance to apply.  You still need to flourish like crazy but hopefully a group member will be so kind as to keep you healed.  If your flourishing a lot like you should be this buff seems to take about 10 - 15 minutes to apply at maximum strength.  Simple enough right?

 - Don't forget they all need to /stopwatch to make the buff kick in!

   Well thats it folks, I hope this guide answers all your questions about applying our mind buffs.  If you still have any questions feel free to post them here so I can answer them. 

  Good luck and happy buffing!

Thank you, Ravenmist.  I do have a couple of issues I want to bring up from a previous thread which is now considered locked *grin*

This does scale tho, lets say your a novice dancer with only Poplock1 and Popular1. Doing those dances you'll be able to apply your best buff at that level in that same 5-8 minute window. But of course the increase will only be 10% and the duration probably around 20 minutes at that level of skill.

The mind buff is not limited to the highest dance like healing seems to be, is it?  If I have Dancing Knowledge I and Dancing Technique IV, am I limited to only 20-30% (or whatever Technique I is at) instead of 75%? 

If that is the case, I propose changing that.  I also propose having the healing not be dependent on the dance you do either, but that's another thread. 

I do have a couple of concerns however though. I think that the dancers who arent masters yet are going to hurt the most from this. It seems the only true way to be most effective is if you are constantly in groups with those wanting buffs. Most of the time they are in their own groups and do not wish to leave so you would have to join theirs. I think this is going to cut down on the healing xp for dancers and musicians alike. The ppl are not going to want to wait an hour just to get the buff if there is 5 or so ppl ahead of them.

This is a good point, but I classify this as the eternal tips vs. experience conflict.  This is common in our field.  You can dance in Theed, where tips are split between various entertainers, or you can dance on Lok, where you probably are the sole benefactor of tips.  But of course, Theed gives you mad experience compared to Lok. 

Same thing here.  You can earn experience by staying in your group, or you can make money by joining someone else's group and buffing them.  Just be sure you get money from them since you are, in essence, taking a gig instead of rehearsing. 

I'd like to propose a minor change for the next update.  I'd love to see a message (or better yet see a little sparkly or hear a pop) letting us know that the buff is in place.  I would hate to buff someone and tell him to stop watching just to find out that it wasn't long enough.  I also don't want to keep track of the clock when I start buffing.  If I can buff in 5 minutes but feel the need to flourish for 8 minutes, then I can only get 10 customers in an 80-minute stretch instead of 16. 

A timer floating over the patron's head would be really nice too (over my own head for passive buffs). 

That's my wish list.

 Sorry about that Kuildeous, let me try and answer those questions.

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Kuildeous wrote:

The mind buff is not limited to the highest dance like healing seems to be, is it?  If I have Dancing Knowledge I and Dancing Technique IV, am I limited to only 20-30% (or whatever Technique I is at) instead of 75%? 

The Dance your doing directly effects how fast the buff is applied and maxed out.  Not its percentage so much, mostly just the duration it lasts.  So in this way the buff is limited if you want to apply it as fast as possible.  You can do it with lower dances but it will take longer for you to apply the buff.  So if you had knowledge 1 and dancing IV unfortuneatly its going to take you longer to apply the buff.  On the other hand, if it was the other way around you'd hit your max before 5 minutes.

If that is the case, I propose changing that.  I also propose having the healing not be dependent on the dance you do either, but that's another thread. 

I've been pushing to have this changed since the first day it went into test that way.  Just wish me luck okay?     

I'd like to propose a minor change for the next update.  I'd love to see a message (or better yet see a little sparkly or hear a pop) letting us know that the buff is in place.  I would hate to buff someone and tell him to stop watching just to find out that it wasn't long enough.  I also don't want to keep track of the clock when I start buffing.  If I can buff in 5 minutes but feel the need to flourish for 8 minutes, then I can only get 10 customers in an 80-minute stretch instead of 16. 

Well the buff is in place from the first second you start techniqually, but the idea of having a message tell us when its reached its max would be wonderful.  I think thats what you meant tho anyway.   I'll suggest just that.

A timer floating over the patron's head would be really nice too (over my own head for passive buffs). 

Sorta doubt this will happen, but ya never know.

That's my wish list.

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 I think this is going to cut down on the healing xp for dancers and musicians alike.

Well.... yes and no     The heal xp, of course, comes from healing mind wounds and BF, not buffing.  But maybe your point is that the heal xp is increased in large groups, which is true.

I'm anxious to hear some people's individual actual experiences with these to see how much the group thing interferes.  It's my guess that requests for buffs are going to be under one of two circumstances:  (1) A very busy cantina with a lot of (hopefully) non-AFK entertainers, in which case the individual /setperform is adequate;  or (2) You're the only dancer there, or the group is very small, in which case a large group of players could either be invited to your entertainment group or you could drop and join theirs without much hassle.

None of this, of course, replaces the ideal setup of being able to target and /setperform multiple players at once, but I'm wanting to hear some real experiences in the cantinas and experience it myself before I pass judgement.

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Esharra wrote:
Just tested it out. I danced Exotic 3 with constant flourishes for 10 minutes (had someone other than target healing me) after targetting with /setperform. After about 2 minutes the target noticed the number for her Mind doubled in the Character Sheet. The buff dropped completely about 3 minutes after I quit dancing. Haven't tried the "passive" buff yet. Think I'll go back in and see what we may have done wrong. (though it all seems pretty straightforward).

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   Please keep me up to date on how all are making out.  I was able to get this buff to work pretty reliably but something may of gotten screwed up going Live.  Also it might be possible that someone else targeting the person could screw things up..  I had a lot of wierdness happen with the music buffs with the buffs not taking or only lasting a minute or two but I could never figure out what the cause was.  Also I didnt' have any skill in the techniques line so I figured I'd just let Richie do his testing and he seemed to do okay with it.

    I will say this tho, if they had a buff already it won't override it.  I'm actually pretty afraid that other dancers might be able to screw things up tho.  If they target the person who your buffing then switch targets techniqually the buff will be applied and your buff won't override it, this is my fear at least.  Never had a chance to test it, please let me know what you find out.

   Oh bloody hell, my kingdom for an edit command.

They sure do, so even if you've been flourishing non stop for 5 minutes you might not have done enough to make your buff max out!  Masters take special note as many of our flourishes are much longer then 5 minutes. 

Thats suppose to say much longer then 10 seconds, not 5 minutes.

I had one person watch me when I did the /setperform on him and he said the buff lasted 5 minutes, not sure if he watched me long enough, he gets distracted easily.

Had a second person watch me for at least 6-7 minutes, after 20 minutes he still had the buff.  Not long after that the server crashed so I don't know how long it really lasted.  I plan to test it out more today, if the server stays stable enough.

As for the TEF people had questions about, as far as I know, I didn't get a TEF and I targeted and buffed at least 5 overts.

Like I said before, I will test it out more today, if the server lets me.

A question for you Ravenmist (or anyone else).  After doing /setperform, do you have to keep the client targetted the entire time?  Your original post sort of implies that.  If so, I'll have to change my habits with regards to how I greet people at the door.

Thank you in advance

oh one other thing, the 125% buff for faction members does not seem to be working.  I buffed my husband for over 10 minutes and he only got 100%, we are of the same faction.  Everyone I buffed yesterday were of the same faction also and they got only 100%.  Am I doing something wrong? or is it just not working?

Olvenskol, I'm not sure about the keeping them targeted the entire time, if we do then maybe that is where I am going wrong.  I would also like an answer to that

   Two questions to answer here.   Afraid my answers aren't going to be very helpful atm tho.

Q. - Do you have to keep them targeted?

A. - I don't know.   I might have kept them targeted the whole time when I did my tests, I'm not sure, they always worked for me tho (of course results varied until i figured out the timing) I know this isn't an answer but I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.  I'll hop on tonight and test this if nobody else can clear things up here until then.

Q. - How does this faction thing work?

A. - I'm not a member of a faction so again I don't know.  I'm working on changing that and joining a faction so I can test stuff like this out, I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner.  One thing I do know however is that you have to be in a building that your able to register with.  So I sort of assume you may need to be registered to get this to work.  Not sure if they or you needs to be overt for this to work.  Hopeing someone can answer this for me.

    I know these aren't the answers you where hoping for but I didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring them.  I appologize for my ignorance on these two subjects.  The targeting thing didn't occur to me and I overlooked joining a faction until two days ago and wasn't able to get that aspect tested before this went live.  (I'm honestly suprised it went live as soon as it did tho because there was sooo many bugs still on Test its not even funny, now the live servers are suffering because of it)  I honestly thought I'd have a few more days to test this stuff for you all.

i was grouped with a M dancer in a cantina

and after 1 minute tops i was already gone from 1000 to 2000 mana

Mana?  We get mana? 

Don't worry about testing the targetting thing Ravenmist.  That will become clear soon enough.  I just asked because your original post says:  "This command will direct any future performing in the direction of that person targeted.  (This will last until you change targets) ".  I'm just trying to clarify the comment in parenthesis.

I am a bit surprised this went live already too.  I've worked in software for over 20 years, so I am not unsympathetic to the difficulties SOE faces in maintaining this beast, but it does seem to me like they were just shooting themselves in the foot going live with so many known problems.  There are always unknown ones too, so its usually best to get all the known ones out of the way first!