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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
What I Expect From EachAndEvery Class
Hexcat
Member
Hi sons and daughters of Verra, today i have some free time and i decided to take a look (again) on the classes on AOC Wiki so as I was reading the available information, it just come to me the idea of creating a post about the "fantasy" of this classes, what i expect, how do they look and maybe even some lore behind them, so here it is, Im going to be uploading every class eventually, this is just for FUN and not in any way what IS is going to put in the MMORPG, hope you enjoy, I will start with the eight archetypes
The Bard
What Wiki Says:
"Truly a force multiplier, the bard weaves songs of glory and conquest, inspiring his comrades to ever greater heights. The bard knows secret and powerful words, is able to speak into being terrible nightmares, or convince foes to become friends."
"Bards are intended to amplify a party or raid's ability to perform within their own class. That amplification isn't just intended for DPS, but also for support, for healing, for taking damage, for movement. Bards have often been portrayed as a musical class and while they can be that, many Bard applications may exist in just telling a story. Telling a story is going to be the thematic component of how the Bard interacts with the party. And that story is going to enhance player's abilities to perform. Very similar in a way to buffing up a party, but you are not going to see him as a "buff bot" that you might have experienced in previous games, where they are only good for their buffs and then you kick them out of party and they sit in a corner and come back in 30 minutes. Those buffs are going to be related to how they perform. – Steven Sharif"
Bit of lore
The first thing that comes to the minds of the common folk when they hear the word "bard" is this whimsical character that tells stories and performs in little or enormous stages with the single purpose of entertainment, but adventurers, warriors and soldiers know that having one of them in the company, the guild or the group must not been taken lightly, because anyone in this line of work knows that to be able to sing, perform or even tell a story with such passion about the brutality of a battle, the mysteries of a dungeon, the glory of a conquest or the fire of love, one must have lived each and one of them...
What I Expect:
For me the bards are one of the most difficult classes to include in anything, D&D, Pathfinder, Videogames, etc etc etc, mostly because they are a jak-of-all-trades "support" that does not excels in anything, with this in mind and taking in consideration what the wiki says, I expect the bard to be a difficult support role to accomplish, one that needs time and a lost of concentration and practice to make it do a very good work with it, but once achieved a pro bard players would become an MVP in a party.
The Bard
What Wiki Says:
"Truly a force multiplier, the bard weaves songs of glory and conquest, inspiring his comrades to ever greater heights. The bard knows secret and powerful words, is able to speak into being terrible nightmares, or convince foes to become friends."
"Bards are intended to amplify a party or raid's ability to perform within their own class. That amplification isn't just intended for DPS, but also for support, for healing, for taking damage, for movement. Bards have often been portrayed as a musical class and while they can be that, many Bard applications may exist in just telling a story. Telling a story is going to be the thematic component of how the Bard interacts with the party. And that story is going to enhance player's abilities to perform. Very similar in a way to buffing up a party, but you are not going to see him as a "buff bot" that you might have experienced in previous games, where they are only good for their buffs and then you kick them out of party and they sit in a corner and come back in 30 minutes. Those buffs are going to be related to how they perform. – Steven Sharif"
Bit of lore
The first thing that comes to the minds of the common folk when they hear the word "bard" is this whimsical character that tells stories and performs in little or enormous stages with the single purpose of entertainment, but adventurers, warriors and soldiers know that having one of them in the company, the guild or the group must not been taken lightly, because anyone in this line of work knows that to be able to sing, perform or even tell a story with such passion about the brutality of a battle, the mysteries of a dungeon, the glory of a conquest or the fire of love, one must have lived each and one of them...
What I Expect:
For me the bards are one of the most difficult classes to include in anything, D&D, Pathfinder, Videogames, etc etc etc, mostly because they are a jak-of-all-trades "support" that does not excels in anything, with this in mind and taking in consideration what the wiki says, I expect the bard to be a difficult support role to accomplish, one that needs time and a lost of concentration and practice to make it do a very good work with it, but once achieved a pro bard players would become an MVP in a party.
0
Comments
I want to see "Songs" in the game and not just a "wizard" with music themed "Spells".. I want instruments to play a role; meaning you can not "equip" an instrument and a weapon at the same time. Will they need weapons? Sure, when soloing and the like.. In groups I want the instruments to play a greater role... I want to inspire those around my character, sing battle hymns... and the like.. To enhance those that can hear it (prob a radius)..
Last thing I want the class to be.. join a group.. "cast 12 buffs", then equip a sword and be a pretend fighter or rogue.. We can do better then that as a class, and be something far more unique..
I think that a bard should be in the classification of a "magic skill class" with very little hand to hand combat abilities, because it will be very unbalanced to have one class to be able to do unique thing AND copy the abilities of other classes, in therms of uniqueness what grabs my attention was the part where they say, it's not going to be music only spells, IS is taking the whole spectrum of "a performance and applying it to the bard concept, even playing with the idea of "word crafting" this is the parts that sounds more unique to me, and something I want to see
I want it to be more then a Jack-of-all-trades. I want the bard to be able to specialize in certain buffs.
Example:
Minstrel(Bard/Bard) is a Jack-of-all-trades (mainly for those that still have to find their favoured playstile and a "noob" combo)
Siren(Bard/Tank) should focus on buffing health, resistances and shield.
Tellsword(Bard/Fighter) is a frontline and asssault specialist, buffing flat physical damage, crit chance and movement speed.
Trickster(Bard/Rogue) should focus on resistance debuff on the enemy, short illusions and obscuring enemy vision (giving allies a window of opportunity).
Song Warden(Bard/Ranger) is a ranged specialist, shielding against ranged projectiles (because it has WARDEN in its name) and buffing health regen maybe.
Magician(Bard/Mage) should focus on buffing magical defense, enhancing allied magic damage and debuffing enemy magical defense, a true magician could maybe conjure physical objects like a wall.
Songcaller(Bard/Summoner), the Songcaller would focus on summoning minions that debuff enemies and buff allies, if you know Azir from LoL then you know what i mean.(If not: The mechanic here is to summon stationary things that attack enemies in reach and in this case buff allies)
Soul Weaver(Bard/Cleric) is a AoE healing machine. The purpose is to buff allies with HP regen and defense buffs.
1. Steven already said that Musical Instruments for/replacing weapons wont be a thing.
2. Bards will be able to use other means to inspire their allies, like poetry or a really cool combat move that inspires other melees.
3. I dont want "songs" or "magic music" to do shit for me. I want my bard to represent what i did with my bard in D&D. A mean killing machine, that helps his allies. Knowing tons of spells to enhance my party allies and distract my enemies.
(Spell examples: Knock, Silence, Blur, Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Modify Memory, Pyrotechnics, Feather Fall, Light and Mage Hand for example)
4. A bard should always be able to run as fast as a hare, but be as relaxed as a mid day wave. (Be prepared for everything and try to keep your allies alive, while having your own safety as your main concern)
(I really love my D&D Bard. I will never forget Al Lergon LvL10 Bard/LvL10 Rogue, he has a +17 in 4 different skills)
"fun"
There is a raid going on but the Bards are having a "rave" and techno-stomping on the back lines... heh.. (joking)
I just used instruments above as an example, any of the performing arts would do.
I just really do not want to see "Everquest 2" styled bards; specially coming from how nice bards in EQ1 were.. Though they were not 'everyone's thing", they shouldn't be. They had uniqueness going for them. it was mentioned a bit back, when i asked EQ1 bards or EQ2 bards? and the reply from Bacon was they could think of something more creative... I was happy to hear that... But I am very curious how Bard mechanics will end up working.. Out of all the classes they could/can be the most unique of them all..
Ah yes, that simple word that can mean literally anything in the right context.
I'm sorry, I just always find it amusing whenever someone say things like "just make the game fun". Fun is entirely subjective and relative so saying it needs to be "fun" is pretty pointless in my opinion.
You forgot the part of your post that has a point.
The "my opinion trumps your opinion" is bush league.
My point is that just saying "it should be fun" is meaningless without context. For example, what do YOU consider to be fun? What if what is fun for you isn't fun for me?
It's got nothing to do with "my opinion is more valid than yours", I was just making an observation.
You should be more fun.
Formerly T-Elf