Since the initial introduction of the Theater Manager Entertainer Quest on TC, I have been interested in the mechanics devised for NPC’s to ‘judge’ the performance of an entertainer player character, and in how such mechanics could develop into greater forms of “PvE” gameplay for entertainer content. The first of my ideas for adaptation of the Entertainer Quest mechanics into other forms of content intended for entertainer gameplay is found in my Fame system proposal.
Herein lie ideas for adaptation of the actual core mechanics used in coded appraisals of our aesthetic performances, in the interest of converting the existing set of mechanics into one form of true entertainer mini-games.
The Current Quest Mechanics
The current Quest mechanics can be summed up thusly: Player must talk to the NPC audience, who then, based on random roll, may or may not provide information regarding what songs/dances they’d prefer to see/hear during that performance, as well as which flourishes are preferred or not. The player then utilizes any information gained through that initial polling stage during the performance. If the player performs sufficient numbers of preferred flourishes on the preferred song(s) or dance(s), the Audience Satisfaction Rating (ASR) increases. If the player performs those songs, dances or flourishes flagged as undesirable to the audience, the ASR will drop. “Neutral” songs/dances and flourishes, those not specifically rolled as “good” or “bad” appear to have little to no bearing on the ASR.
I think that this is a very good starting point for addressing the challenge of how to ‘judge’, from a coded environment perspective, the quality of a performance which is normally something subjective. However, the current system has its’ flaws.
Assuming that the player is paying attention to the responses and understands that the preferred song/dance and flos should be used heavily during the performance, this effectively means that the entertainer gameplay involvement is over and done once the audience has been polled. The only real question is whether or not enough favorable rolls are achieved in getting the information out of the NPC audience members – tantamount to the initial table-roll of NPC responses being the actual ‘gameplay’ involved in the current state of the mechanics.
Additionally, many entertainer players feel that the concept of running around in the audience schmoozing for comments just before the performance starts is counter-immersive. We don’t see superstar rock bands running around in the audience just prior to show time, and this element of the current process feels artificial to many community members.
Evolution of the Quest Mechanics - Precedent
Perhaps if there was a way to more closely emulate ‘feeling out the crowd’ while performing, and adjusting a performance based on feedback given, we could involve the entertainer player more in these quest performance mechanics. A good example of this concept is found in the original Blues Brothers movie, when the band opens up a normal R&B set for the crowd at Bob’s Country Bunker. Following booing, thrown bottles and the stage lights being turned off, the band says, “We’d better figure out what these people like, and FAST!” Switching to Rawhide and Stand By Your Man, the Blues Brothers’ ASR begins to skyrocket.
(next up... Proposal Overview and Mechanics)
Deila Karlossi , Blue Glowie of Dancers, and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...
Evolution of the Quest Mechanics – Proposal Overview
I propose that the initial phase of the Entertainer Quest mechanics, that of polling the audience before the performance, be removed and replaced by a system by which the favored songs/dances and flourishes are discovered through performance and ASR feedback monitoring by the player. Additionally, this would require a change in the nature of preferred songs/dances and flos, the frequency (and ideally, delivery) of feedback regarding ASR, and perhaps the overall length of time permitted for completion of the performance portion of the quests themselves.
Rating System of Preferred Songs/Dances and Flourish Reform
Rather than a categorical system of “preferred”, “not-preferred” or “neutral”, I propose an expanded scale of audience preferences, based on a fuller range of preference value returns.
Note: before we look at this, remember that all of this would be invisible to the performer, and that entertainers would no longer poll the audience beforehand. Instead, players would be watching a rating rise or fall based on these numbers, and adjusting performances until discovering which combinations of dances and flourishes caused increases in ASR, and which combinations caused decreases in ASR.
Let’s look at one possible example. In the table below are columns for all pre-quest completion dances, the way that the current Quest system appears to treat those dances, and how the same rolled results might look in my new proposed system. Let’s assume that the standard NPC audience roll yielded “good” dances as Rhythmic 2, Popular, and Exotic 3, while Poplock 2 and Basic came up as “bad” dances. Additionally, flourishes 2, 3 and 7 were rolled as “good”, and 1 and 8 as “bad”:
Dance Current Sys. Status Proposed Sys. Status
Basic Negative ASR - 10
Rhythmic No Change + 2
Basic 2 No Change - 6
Rhythmic 2 Positive ASR + 8
Footloose No Change No Change
Formal * No Change + 2
Footloose 2 No Change - 4
Formal 2 * No Change No Change
Popular Positive ASR + 10
Poplock No Change - 2
Popular 2 No Change + 2
Poplock 2 Negative ASR - 8
Lyrical * No Change - 2
Exotic No Change - 2
Exotic 2 No Change No Change
Lyrical 2 * No Change + 4
Exotic 3 Positive ASR + 6
Exotic 4 No Change No Change
* Could be left out of consideration on the audience preference roll, due to drift and a wide area use in the base dance and flourishes that can take a performer out of the acceptable stage area. Alternately, could be left in for consideration, under the pretense that controlling those dances is a part of dancer player skill, and should therefore be judged as well.
Flourish # Current Sys. Status Proposed Sys. Status
1 Negative ASR - 5
2 Positive ASR + 3
3 Positive ASR + 5
4 No Change - 2
5 No Change + 1
6 No Change No Change
7 Positive ASR + 4
8 Negative ASR - 4
In this scenario, we see numerical values at the extremes of the positive and negative that correspond with the original “good” or “bad” values, but a sliding scale in the moderate ranges that were previously noted as “no change”, with values weighted slightly towards the neutral 0 (no change) or minimal change values of the +/- 2-4 range. Additionally, in this specific example we see an overall tip towards positive ASR rating changes, as we yielded more ‘good’ results than ‘bad’ in our initial scenario.
Additional Random Audience Events
In addition to the rating change as a direct result of the actions of the performer, random event rolls are made to reflect the whim of the audience. Again invisible, or perhaps accompanied by a system message stating the nature of the random event, +/- ASR rolls are made at 1/3 and 2/3 the way through the performance time. Sometimes an audience just gets into a performance, and goes with the flow, and sometimes they’re just a tough crowd.
(next up... Display and Monitoring, the all-new ASR "TI" System (tm), and Conclusion)
Message Edited by Xyrdre on 01-01-200507:09 PM
Message Edited by Xyrdre on 01-01-200507:09 PM
Deila Karlossi , Blue Glowie of Dancers, and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...
Audience Satisfaction Rating (ASR) Display and Monitoring
With a refined range of NPC audience preference to song, dance and flourish comes the need for the performer to be able to accurately gauge how their performance is being received on a flourish by flourish basis. I propose an ASR monitoring bar, much like a single HAM bar, to accomplish this.
One vertical bar, in a side-UI window akin to the enhancements window, shows the current ASR in graphical form. A slider marker beginning at the center of the bar (neutral ASR) is the beginning state. As ASR increases, the slider moves up the bar, and the bar turns green. Should the ASR decrease below neutral, the slider bar moves down, and the bar turns red.
The ASR “TI” (True Immersion™) System Add-On
Accompanying the graphical ASR bar display is NPC audience reaction to the performance. Utilizing the existing character animations and emote states, NPC audiences will give indications of the state of the ASR as the performance progresses.
NPC audiences begin in the neutral, standing around state. As the ASR rises towards the performance rating goal, more and more of the audience members begin to use the cheer animations. Should the ASR begin to drop below neutral, more and more of the audience takes on the /mood angry posture as the ASR drops.
Conclusion
The concept of this proposal is to shift the gameplay of the existing Entertainer Quest audience satisfaction rating mechanics away from the pre-performance audience polling, and get it into the actual performance where I feel it belongs. By removing the pre-show polling as the determining factor of success, and replacing it with a system by which approval is discovered as the entertainer performs, we create a more interactive gameplay environment for the player – a mini-game. Furthermore, the addition of the ASR “TI” idea adds immersion to the overall player experience.
With such a mini-game as the model core for a system by which the coded game environment (NPCs) can ‘judge’ the quality of an entertainer’s performance, a great number of other content concepts could be built, including but not limited to conversion of entertainer terminal missions into solid gameplay content, which is the subject of my next forthcoming proposal.
As always, I welcome comment, discussion and ideas for additions.
Message Edited by Xyrdre on 01-01-200507:12 PM
Deila Karlossi , Blue Glowie of Dancers, and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...
This sounds much more fun & immersive than the current quests, Deila! And it seems very managable from an engineering perspective. I can't help but wonder why such a system wasn't implemented to begin with.
I wonder why the NPCs don't just randomly cheer and have a text bubble that says something like, "Hey %NT can we see Popular2?" Or "Wonderful performance was that flourish 3? I love that one!"
I bet that was the original intent but they couldn't get it to work right. So they changed it to a system where you need to poll the audience.
Absolutely exciting, Deila I as well wish something more immersive would have been implemented when the quests were first designed. (I'm pleased that you addressed ASR monitoring at the end. Watching the audience from the stage simply could not work.) Lovely!
TIL KISMETA
lTlSlCl
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable,
I had this same basic idea that I was going to write up at some point, but it looks like you beat me to it, and wrote it with more detail. Even though I haven't done either the dance or music mission yet, I've been aware of how it worked, and thought that the basic idea was ok, but needed some tweaking. I was thinking it should move more toward an active feedback mechanism kind of like an "applause meter" that you can monitor while performing and adjust your dances and flourishes accordingly - it would be more like a dance or music "mission" where the goal is to try to figure out what will please the crowd while you're performing without knowing in advance what they may or may not like. I also wanted to take this concept and apply it to other areas as well such as maybe healing and defininitely buffing. What if to buff someone you have to actively monitor some kind of meter that tells you how they like the performance you're doing for them? If the meter starts going down, try a different flourish or a different dance to try to make the meter go back up, and then when you have them in a sufficiently high state for a long enough time, they receive the full buff. Such a mechanism would have to be randomly generated for the entertainer for each buff request, as the person receiving the buff probably couldn't contribute to this process in any meaningful way. They likely wouldn't want to do anything to make it harder for the entertainer to give a buff, and probably want to do as little as possible on their end to receive the buff. Thus this mechanic would likely all be on the entertainer's side. This would be yet another way to require active user interaction to give a mind buff.
If you want to still keep some concept of audience likes and dislikes that maybe you can still find out about, then they need to get away from the concept of referring to flourishes as flourish 1 or flourish 6, but instead say things like 'dance moves with kicks' or 'dance moves with spins' or 'graceful dance moves' something along that line that makes it feel more 'real' and less like a 'slash command' as Sirii would say. Anyway, good ideas Deila.
Note: I have never played an entertainer, but have watched several people play as them.
This idea looks very good. Here are some suggestions: - NPC actions. Other than cheering and becoming angry, how about some other indicators for NPC reaction? BAD - roll eyes, tap foot, check watch, snore, look bored, sit down, etc. GOOD - stand, cheer, dance, etc.
- Your clothes - should your attire fit the venue? I mean, if you're a woman and have an audience of xenophilic male perverts... On the other hand, if you're catering to some staunch old women, maybe something more conservative would be more appropriate.
- That being said, should there be different kinds of audiences? I don't recall seeing anything in the proposal that mentions it (and if it's already there, please excuse my ignorance). The audience composition should affect which dances and songs would be more favorable.
- The ASR "TI" System Add-On - Maybe on harder quests, the ASR display bar should be disabled, so that the entertainer must rely on the audience's responses?
Just the opinion of a lowly non-entertainer. Disregard or heed as you please.
= Andrew Chilastra.Palacek
Message Edited by Jagii on 01-03-200507:13 PM
"There's nothing to talk about, Becky. I'm ugly, boys don't like me, and that's it!!"
This would work if we didn't have to spam the flourishes but could do them at a reasonable rate and gauge the effects of each flourish/dance/song as we make the changes.
This would work if we didn't have to spam the flourishes but could do them at a reasonable rate and gauge the effects of each flourish/dance/song as we make the changes.
Good point. Actually, my proposal above seems pretty detailed at first, but does leave a lot of system-specifics yet to be determined. Which is a Good Thing (tm), as it allows for flexibility. One of those areas not detailed is in exactly how the system banks up positive or negative ASR. And I agree that it should not be dependent on spamming flos to rack up plusses as they're discovered.
In a perfect world, I'd like to see a system by which the timing of flourish transitions was the key to successful performance ratings. More akin to the way that some video golf games work, where you have to hit the command at a certain correct time for maximum effect. That 'certain correct time' in our case with dancing could be at the exact end of one flo animation to carry into another (solid flo stringing), or at the loop point of the base dance (smooth base - flourish transitions). The closer to that exact transfer point that the command was executed (smooth dance performance), the higher the score or effect. This, in my mind, would measure more of the skill of the Dancer player in using the tools we have at our disposal to create aesthetically pleasing performance, and therefore translate nicely into the purpose of the Quest mechanics - however they are utilized.
Yes... SWG has had twitch gaming all along, long before JTL, in the form of Dancers executing flourishes well.
Still, mechanics such as referenced in the above paragraph make great sense for Dancers, whose flos are of differing durations and do not queue, but have little meaning for Musicians, whose flos are mostly fixed duration and can be queued. Whereas it would be very interesting to have differing styles and approaches to completing anything using the Quest mechanics as a Dancer or a Musician, would we ever be lucky enough to have the development time dedicated to rewriting the code not only once, but twice? On the other hand, if music flos were altered so that they did not queue, it could once again become a valid test of skill, though I have no idea how the Musician community would feel about such a change.
But... all of that may be the stuff of yet another of my multi-page treatises on Dancer proposals.
Deila Karlossi , Blue Glowie of Dancers, and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine...
Still, mechanics such as referenced in the above paragraph make great sense for Dancers, whose flos are of differing durations and do not queue, but have little meaning for Musicians, whose flos are mostly fixed duration and can be queued. Whereas it would be very interesting to have differing styles and approaches to completing anything using the Quest mechanics as a Dancer or a Musician, would we ever be lucky enough to have the development time dedicated to rewriting the code not only once, but twice? On the other hand, if music flos were altered so that they did not queue, it could once again become a valid test of skill, though I have no idea how the Musician community would feel about such a change.
Noooooooooo. That's how I feel .
Scipionus Mentus Master Musician, Master Entertainer, Master Dancer - Tempest -I support ATK people and playstyles.
Still, mechanics such as referenced in the above paragraph make great sense for Dancers, whose flos are of differing durations and do not queue, but have little meaning for Musicians, whose flos are mostly fixed duration and can be queued. Whereas it would be very interesting to have differing styles and approaches to completing anything using the Quest mechanics as a Dancer or a Musician, would we ever be lucky enough to have the development time dedicated to rewriting the code not only once, but twice? On the other hand, if music flos were altered so that they did not queue, it could once again become a valid test of skill, though I have no idea how the Musician community would feel about such a change.
Noooooooooo. That's how I feel .
/agree Without the queue, musicians would sound awful..regardless of talent or twitch skill..we are going to be very limited in how much we can compensate for latency. While we can do a lot to cover latency problems in dances (to a degree), it is easier to fool the eye than the ear.
I would just as much hate a queue for dance flos..we'd lose all ability to utilize flos to transition between dances.
Still, mechanics such as referenced in the above paragraph make great sense for Dancers, whose flos are of differing durations and do not queue, but have little meaning for Musicians, whose flos are mostly fixed duration and can be queued. Whereas it would be very interesting to have differing styles and approaches to completing anything using the Quest mechanics as a Dancer or a Musician, would we ever be lucky enough to have the development time dedicated to rewriting the code not only once, but twice? On the other hand, if music flos were altered so that they did not queue, it could once again become a valid test of skill, though I have no idea how the Musician community would feel about such a change.
Noooooooooo. That's how I feel .
/agree Without the queue, musicians would sound awful..regardless of talent or twitch skill..we are going to be very limited in how much we can compensate for latency. While we can do a lot to cover latency problems in dances (to a degree), it is easier to fool the eye than the ear.
I would just as much hate a queue for dance flos..we'd lose all ability to utilize flos to transition between dances.
Not to mention that while it's not necessarily actually wrong to go from an arbitrary point in the dance base to a dance flourish, it's definitely *wrong* to go from an arbitrary point in the music base to the music flourish, due to the relation of measures and such and the way the music code is available to us (changing the music so that it wouldn't necessarily be wrong to interrupt the music base would just about be giving us total freedom with music creation also, which we know won't happen).
Scipionus Mentus Master Musician, Master Entertainer, Master Dancer - Tempest -I support ATK people and playstyles.
I think it would be totally awesome if every profession in SWG was center more like the pilot and force sensitive professions. A combination of both quests and grinding to gain levels.A more story driven system makes things more interesting. This in my opinion would be much more better as a dancer could join a traveling tour as a roadie and one day she gets lucky enough to fill-in for a gig. If she does well she gets xp and some credits and then in between gigs she is free to do whatever she wants (Duty Missions or just hang out in local cantinas) As the Dancer starts to get better they eventually are learning maybe each new dance that they are about to learn some sort of teaching is involved via one of your tourmates ( an npc) Then once you get to Master Dancer title It would be awesome if you could rentout a cantina and there would be an entry fee much like a merchants area that way players would actually have to pay to get their bf healed. Depending on the size of the group that is doing the gig and the amount of prestige or popularity points they have would decide what the door cost would be. Would be Awesome if Chefs could do Chef msisions where they cater to local cantinas too.
I would like to see more life in the static city cantinas...personally.
They already have a GCW and PvP Ranknig system. Would be cool if similar tools were used for entertainers. Maybe even like Faction Points you could Get Prestige Points and gain new titles and possibly unlock secret new goodies.
~~~ Signature Start~~~ Very Important NGE Thread Regarding Veteran Transitions.
They already have a GCW and PvP Ranknig system. Would be cool if similar tools were used for entertainers. Maybe even like Faction Points you could Get Prestige Points and gain new titles and possibly unlock secret new goodies.
Ah... from one of my novelette proposal ideas to the other....
I as well wish something more immersive would have been implemented when the quests were first designed. (I'm pleased that you addressed ASR monitoring at the end. Watching the audience from the stage simply could not work.) Lovely!
